CHAPTER TWELVE
MAL WANTED TO GROAN with relief. Instead, he threaded his fingers through Sabrina’s damp hair and tilted her mouth up to his. When their lips met, his heart pounded harder. She tasted so sweet, so perfect, and he had to have her. If he didn’t join his body with hers, he’d regret it forever.
Mal didn’t do emotions, but he’d been on edge all week and this was the exact release he needed. With this woman. Instinctively, he knew that no other woman would do right now. It had to be Sabrina.
He didn’t quite know why that was true. The unusual circumstances, no doubt. They’d shared some pretty heavy emotional baggage over the past day. This wasn’t a forever kind of thing—he’d never felt compelled to do forever—but it was a closeness he couldn’t imagine experiencing again anytime soon.
Sabrina’s hands ran down his biceps, over his sides, back up to his shoulder blades. She arched her body into his, giving herself over to the kiss. She threw her entire being into that kiss, and he couldn’t help but drown in it.
Mal wanted to lick her again, to bury his tongue in her sweet pussy and listen to her cry out her pleasure. He wanted to be inside her even more. It was that drumbeat he marched to right now.
He ripped the condom open and rolled it over his aching cock without breaking the kiss. And then he stopped. Just stopped and looked down at the woman lying beneath him, her sweet body open to his, her warm brown eyes watching him. Waiting for him.
“It’s not too late,” he told her, his voice choked and hoarse. “We can stop this here.”
She reached up and dragged her hand across his cheek. Gently. Softly. And then she smiled that smile that twisted his insides into a knot.
“Stopping would hurt too much.”
He let out a harsh breath. Yeah, stopping would hurt. Continuing would hurt too, but at this point he didn’t care so long as he got to be inside her. So long as he got to taste her.
“What have you done to me, Sabrina?” He hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but her eyes widened and he knew that he had.
Her smile faded. “I need you, Mal. I need you now…”
Mal shifted until his cock started to slide into her wetness, until his heart leapt into his throat and sweat beaded on his skin. He had to take it easy, no matter that he wanted to sink into her again and again, that he wanted to lose himself and not come back to reality for days. The urge was to drive into her. He wouldn’t give in to it.
He was going to take his time, do this right. Make her remember him.
Sabrina’s lashes fell over her eyes and her head tilted back. A soft moan escaped her as he pushed his way into her body. Her legs went around his waist, her knees gripping his hips. Her hands were like brands as they glided down his sides and back up again. Everywhere she touched, she set him on fire.
Mal put a hand under her ass, lifted her to him—and found heaven.
* * *
Sabrina gasped at the fullness of Mal’s possession. He’d been entering her so gently, and then he’d shifted her, and everything changed. He’d slid home in the space of a breath, his body joined with hers so deeply that she could feel his pulse beat inside her.
Their gazes met, locked, but there were no words. How could anyone speak at a time like this?
Beyond the intimate enclosure of the lanai, the gulf beat against the shore and seagulls called out on the breeze. It was as if the world had been made for her and Mal, as if they were the only two in it. His eyes glittered, hot and dangerous, and his body was rigid with the control he wielded over his urges.
She thought she could love him in that moment.
In the next moment, she thought she was insane. There was no love here. No tenderness or emotion. This was raw passion between two people who’d been thrown together in extraordinary circumstances and wanted comfort.
She’d made the mistake before of thinking there was more to sex with a man than simply a biological craving, and she wasn’t doing that again.
This was sex. Sex with a hot, handsome football player who’d certainly fucked his share of women before now and would fuck more after she’d gone. She was another hookup in a long line of them.
Mal’s hands on her body were magic. They skimmed down her sides, up and over her breasts, down between their bodies where he found her clit and teased it until she gasped.
Then he hooked his arm behind her knee and opened her wide.
“You’re beautiful, Sabrina. A man would sell his soul for a night with you.”
She wanted to blush. She also wanted to drag his head down and thrust her tongue into his mouth. He made her feel powerful, beautiful, alive. Didn’t matter if any of it was true. He knew the right things to say to a woman.
He started to move then, a slow dragging of his body from hers, his cock easing backward and then thrusting forward again with a power that made her gasp.
“Too much?”
Sabrina shook her head, the power of speech beyond her at the moment. She lifted her arms over her head and grasped the edge of the chaise, certain she needed to hold on to something or else spin off the edge of the universe.
Mal gripped her chin in his fingers, held her for his kiss. It was a hot kiss, the kind of kiss that devoured thoughts of anything besides the man between her thighs. There was no room for anything except him, no room for anything but the way he made her feel.
Heat flared in her belly, her core, snaking out along her nerve endings. She stopped thinking entirely, turned into a creature of sensation and pleasure, her body rising and falling in time with his as he drove into her again and again. Harder, faster, harder still, until the tiny bundle of nerves in her center caught fire, flared bright and hot, sweeping over her with breathtaking speed, igniting an orgasm so powerful that blackness swam across her vision as she gasped his name.
He followed her into the void, stiffening for a moment before pouring himself into her. His head went back, the muscles in his neck tightening as he pressed her hard onto the chaise, his hips jerking into hers. He collapsed slowly, coming down on top of her before rolling to the side and lying faceup, his hand across his chest, his breathing a little faster than it had been before.
Tears gathered behind Sabrina’s eyes, though she didn’t know why. Her body shuddered with little aftershocks, the sensual tremors zinging through her and making her crave more of the same.
As if she had the energy. As if she would ever be able to move again.
Mal didn’t say a word as he levered up off the chaise. She was too spent to wonder about where he might be going, though her heart pounded a danger signal. He scooped her up against his naked chest and walked into the house. Sabrina clung to him, her cheek against his chest, listening to the quick beat of his heart. It wasn’t as fast as hers, but it was faster than she imagined was normal for him.
He kicked open a door and carried her to a bed. An unmade bed that wasn’t the one she’d left this morning. She snuggled against the pillows, feeling lazy, while Mal disappeared into the bathroom. He was back a few seconds later, still utterly naked, still hard, his green eyes focused on her.
A little shiver skipped over her skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake. He was beautiful, and she was completely out of her depth.
“You okay?”
Sabrina lifted her chin. “Yes. You?”
He laughed as he sank onto the bed beside her. “Hell, no. I ran this morning, swam, and had sex. I think I’m worn out…” He tugged her beneath him and she wrapped her arms around him as he dropped his gaze down her body. “I want to do it again. Slower this time…”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”