CHAPTER 23
She looked like some sort of avenging angel, glowing orange backlit by the fire, and radiating such fierce conviction it constricted his throat. Wielding absolution with one hand and terror with the other. Her voice shook when she spoke. “You’re nothing like Johnny, Sterling. Nothing.”
Her words laid him bare. Sliced through his armor and exposed his vulnerable underbelly. She could see his deepest fears. His darkest secrets. Rising to his feet, he stumbled toward her, catching her in a tight embrace, holding on for dear life. “I need you, Emma.” He needed all of her. Her softness to absorb his hardness. Her fierce strength. Her sweetness that tasted like forever.
Bending, he swept her legs up and turned, carrying her into the house. Kicking shut the back door, he swiftly carried her through the house, setting her down when he reached his bedroom. Her hand reached out for the light switch, but he caught it, shaking his head. “I want to see you,” he said roughly as he toed off his boots, not caring where he flung them.
He registered the thud of her boots joining his somewhere on the floor. He tilted her chin and claimed her mouth with bruising intensity, tongue sweeping into her sweet mouth faintly tasting of wine, and plundering her recesses. She seemed to recognize this deep, primal need to possess her entirely and she moaned as he deepened the kiss, melting into him and kissing him back with equal passion.
Her hands were everywhere. Alternately clutching his shoulders, then spearing through his hair, pulling him closer. She grabbed at the buttons on his shirt, and mouth still on hers, he covered her hands and jerked, popping the buttons all the way down. Lust pounded in his veins as he sought the edge of her sweater and yanked it up, only stopping his assault on her mouth to pull the sweater over his head.
They came at each other again. So quickly they bumped noses, teeth. She came alive at his touch, skin heating under his fingers, moaning in the back of her throat. He palmed her breast, seeking her nipple through the fabric of her bra. With a noise, she reached behind herself and released the clasp, shrugging her shoulders to fling it across the room. “Touch me,” she said with a sigh. “Make me yours.”
He cupped her breasts, heavy and full, teasing her nipples into tight peaks, his cock jerking against his zipper with each sigh, each cry. Rolling them between his fingers, he gave a little tug and she arched, exposing the creamy column of her neck. He tongued the corded length, laying a nip at her collarbone. Her arousal rose from her, mingling with her perfume. A heady drug that had his head spinning as he tasted her skin. “Yessss,” she hissed. “Do it again.”
He walked her back until they hit the edge of the bed, and she sat, hands moving to his waistband, but he moved out of reach, dropping to his knees, fingers working the clasp of her jeans. As soon as the zipper was down she arched her hips and hooking his fingers through the lace of her panties, dragged everything off, exposing her completely.
His breath caught in his chest. “So beautiful,” he murmured as he slowly inspected her. “So perfect.” From the red mark where he’d nipped her collarbone, to her dusky puckered nipples, to the pale expanse of her torso, and the soft swell of her belly. She was everything he’d dreamed. He drew a finger from the base of her throat, down the valley between her breasts, across her silken skin, stopping at her mound. With a mewling cry, she flexed her hips, pushing her pubic bone into him, a silent pleading for more.
His heart raced, pounding against his ribs, as he forced himself to slow down. His breath came in harsh rasps. Adrenaline surged through him, sharpening his focus. A pale fuzz barely covered her pussy. And he stroked over the soft thatch, touching lightly as her hips rolled. He groaned as he slipped a finger between her swollen pussy lips into her slick heat. She cried out at his touch, a shiver running through her body. With his thumb, he found her clit and worked it in a circle, as he pumped a second finger into her channel.
She clutched the bed, writhing.
“Come for me, baby.”
Her eyes flew open. “On your cock,” she ground out. “I want to come with you.”
Fuck.
Her gaze was wild, untamed. As lust-crazed as he was, and it burned straight through to his soul. He slipped his hand from her, keeping her gaze while he slowly licked his fingers, lapping up her sweetness like she was water in the desert. In one swift move, he dropped his pants, freeing his cock. She scrambled back, making room for him, and he braced his hands on either side of her head, looming over her.
“You want my cock?” he rasped. “Tell me again how much you want my cock.”
Lust flamed in her eyes and she nodded. “I want all of you.”
But there was so much more in her gaze than lust.
His heart cracked open. This was too much. It felt too big. Like he was being turned inside out and shoved through a pinhole all at once. He made a choked sound as she moved under him, and then he slid home. Buried himself balls deep in her sweetness.
Her hand cupped his cheek. “Sterling,” she breathed out on the softest sigh. He answered her with a thrust of his hips, and she arched to meet him. “I’m right here,” she murmured as she captured his gaze. “I’m right here.”
He wanted to hide, but she’d broken through every last defense and he was bare before her as they rocked together. The fire in her eyes captured him like a tractor beam, and he couldn’t look away. It kept his soul from shattering into a million pieces. Heat raced up the back of his legs in a shower of sparks. His balls tightened with a heavy ache as she moved with him in a primitive dance that he was powerless to stop. The only thing he could do was ride the wave between them. “Emma,” he choked out as hot emotion ran like lava through his veins. “Oh God, Emma,” he cried out as his orgasm ripped through him, spotting his vision.
She spasmed around him as she followed him over the edge, crying out. “I’m right here, Sterling. Not going anywhere.” Her eyes were wet with tears.
He kissed her, continuing to move. First her temples, salty and wet. Then her cheeks, and at last, coming home to her soft lips. He couldn’t speak. Words weren’t big enough or adequate enough. He lifted his head, staring down at her, memorizing the pale freckles across her nose, the creases at the corner of her eyes, the flush of her cheek, rosy from their lovemaking.
Her eyes flicked to his, warm and shining, and she parted her lips to speak. He kissed her again, stopping her. If either of them spoke, the spell would be broken, and he wanted this perfect moment to go on and on. To hold everything else at bay. Because he couldn’t handle the shitstorm of feelings about to crash over him. He rolled them onto their sides, and buried his face in her neck, breathing her in.
“Sterling?” her voice was muffled in his shoulder.
He tightened his embrace. “Shh. Let me just hold you.”