But she wasn’t any less hot for him or any less curious about what he was packing. Letting her hand slip lower on his belly, she felt him tense again. Farther, farther…until her questing fingers left the fabric of his T-shirt and found the denim encasing his very impressive erection. Apparently having her pressed up against him was having much the same effect on him as his nearness was having on her.
Oh my. Thoroughly satisfied with what she’d found, she chuckled and nibbled his shoulder, letting the vibrations of the engine stoke the heat building between her legs. He shook his head, and the quick movement of his shoulders suggested he laughed in return.
The journey wasn’t a long one. He turned into the parking lot of the very apartment complex Brian and Candace lived in. “Good thing we didn’t bring my car,” she said as he braked to a stop in an empty parking space. “Brian would’ve recognized it.”
“Yeah,” was his only comment.
While she’d joked about how he didn’t need to worry about her little brother, she respected the fact that he did. Just not enough to let him use that as an excuse to get away from her tonight.
She got off the Harley first and watched appreciatively as he did the same. By now, his white T-shirt clung damply to his skin and defined all those dips and planes and bulges she couldn’t wait to explore. With her tongue.
Mark hadn’t been out of shape by any means, but with his schedule, he had little time for anything other than an occasional jog. He took care of himself and his body had been good, but not the object of wonder standing before her now.
“Like what you see?” Ian asked, and her gaze jerked to his face. Yeah, so she’d been standing here ogling him for a good twenty seconds.
“Do you?” she returned.
“Do you really need to ask?”
Grinning to herself, she followed him as he went to unlock his door, and a moment later, she stood in his pitch-dark living room, waiting for him to flip on a light.
The light never came. She couldn’t see her hand before her face—he must have some heavy-duty drapes to keep the security lights out—and dead silence surrounded her. What the hell was he doing?
“Does anyone pay the electric bill around here?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said, startling her with how near to her he stood. Then…warm breath fanned her cheek. A gentle hand found and stroked down her bare arm, raising gooseflesh from her still-damp skin. Lips skated along her jawline. Her breath escaped in a rush.
Kiss me, she thought but refused to turn her face toward his. He liked control. She knew, somehow, somewhere, in the depths of her soul—maybe from the way he wouldn’t let her see him right now. Or simply the way his presence loomed even in the absolute darkness.
She knew all about needing control. All her life, she’d tried to control everything around her. Dear God, she wanted to give it up for a while… Sometimes it was exhausting.
Against her wet clothes, her skin flamed. Her nipples hardened, and it was all she could do to stay in her spot and not flatten herself against him. Assuage the ache building in all the places that cried out to be touched.
“So,” he said, and she shivered as his breath grazed her ear. “Why me?”
Did conversation really have to be a part of this? She slid her hands over his chest, up over his shoulders, delighting in the firmness of his body. How hard and raw he was. “Why not?” was the only thing that slipped from her lips.
“You had a bar full of guys who would’ve killed to be in my spot right now.”
You were nice to me sounded way too freaking lame, and that wasn’t it, at least not entirely. Plenty of men had been nice to her. She hadn’t wanted to fuck them all. “Maybe if any one of them had done my tattoo, and looked like you, and talked like you, and made me feel better…he’d be in your spot right now.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So I was in the right place at the right time?” he murmured, moving closer. His hard chest—oh God, yes!—pressed against her, and she rubbed against him, getting the friction her aching breasts had been craving.
“Isn’t that how so many things in life work out? I saw you. I wanted you.”
“Do you always get what you want?”
She paused, the pain of a thousand memories swamping her. “You know I don’t.”
The breath and the touch she had been so enjoying against her skin stilled for a moment. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to dredge anything up there.”
Gabby wound her arms around his neck, pulling him close. Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could just make out his features. “Ian, stop talking and fuck me. All will be forgiven.”
And that was the only command, the only control, she wanted for the rest of the night. She wanted to give herself over. She didn’t want to think about anything except him and what he was doing to her.
His kiss pulled the breath from her lungs. His tongue quested for entrance, and she gave it. Just beneath the seductive flavor that was uniquely his, she tasted alcohol, and it intoxicated her as much as if she’d drunk it herself. But that was him, she knew, making her body feel light, making her feel as if she floated in the darkness.
And then she was floating in the darkness, because he picked her up with his hands under her ass as easily as if she weighed nothing. Instinctively, her legs went around his hips. She ground against his erection in a slow, primal drag that ripped a groan from his throat.
Then they were moving, and she only hoped he knew the layout of his apartment well enough that she wasn’t about to slam into anything. A moment later, she lurched dizzily forward, giving a little shriek into his mouth. They landed on what was obviously his bed, and he chuckled. His strong fingers kneaded her ass as she lay atop him, and…oh damn, that felt good. Especially when those fingers crept down under her skirt, into the crease of her body, feathering over her swollen clit separated from his touch by only her panties.
All the while, he feasted at her lips, asserting his dominance even in a submissive position. His hand tangled in her long hair, pulling it tight at her scalp, and she loved it. Loved it. Needed it. Needed him rough in a way she’d never known from anyone else. His kiss drove her from her senses, but she was no longer content with it. Sitting up, she found the hem of his T-shirt and slid her hands under it, finding all that smooth, rock-hard muscle. He groaned, driving his hips upward and lifting her higher. Jesus Christ, but this was gonna be a ride. He made her feel tiny.
Grasping his shirt, she wrenched it upward. He sat up to help her strip it off, both of them sharing a chuckle when it became momentarily tangled up in his arms. Then his lips found hers again, softer, sweeter, but fleeting. He took the hem of her dress and lifted it gently, careful not to scrape her back as he drew it upward and over her head.
That, maybe more than anything else tonight, made her heart squeeze up in her chest. But she didn’t have long to fawn over it, because his big hands slid up her waist and found her breasts, easily encasing them. She’d never thought herself inadequate in that department, but again, he made her feel almost insubstantial. And the tightness of her nipples against his palms…
…had nothing on the feel of his mouth on them, which came next with a swiftness that shocked the breath from her.
He went from one to the other, making her dizzy, making her crazy. She raked her fingernails up his back, and in return he drew her right nipple deep into his mouth and sucked. In the depths of her body where he had yet to touch her, she throbbed. Her pussy clenched. She undulated against him, trying to make him feel how much she needed him, needed him now. He didn’t care. He was content to suck her and drive her insane. Just when she thought she couldn’t take any more, he moved to the other nipple and started all over again.
“Ian!” she cried, shoving both hands into his hair. To push him away, to draw him closer… She didn’t fucking know, didn’t fucking care. She did both in equal measure, mussing his thick hair just the way she’d imagined, and it was in every wa
y as delicious as she’d hoped it would be.
His mouth released her with an audible pop. Gabby nearly collapsed, relief and disappointment swooping through her. Relief because she didn’t think she could take any more, disappointment because she probably would have come if she had.
He pulled her down beside him so that she lay facing him, wearing nothing now but her panties.
Ian still wore his jeans and his boots. Imagining him leaving them on while she freed his cock and rode him spiked her heart rate even further. There was little time for imagining anything, though, because his hand slipped between them, his knuckle tracing a light path down her belly until it reached the lace of her panties. Her hips surged instinctively toward that touch.
He cupped her through her underwear, drawing a long sigh from her and an answering groan from him. Gabby spread her legs as much as she could in her position.
“So wet,” he murmured, the first words he’d uttered since she’d told him to stop talking. And it was okay. She didn’t mind if he talked like that. And the way he rubbed her…yeah, she didn’t mind if he kept doing that either. Especially when he moved the panel aside and…
Ohhhh. She said it as she thought it. His blunt fingers trailed through her wetness with excruciating gentleness, caressing, circling, avoiding all the places she needed him most but building that need with an evasive precision that had her writhing. “Ian.”
“Gabriella,” he returned, and he almost sounded amused. “I think your name is beautiful.”
“It’s too long,” she breathed, the last word broken as one of his fingers penetrated her. The sensation was so acute she reached down and grabbed his wrist. Her muscles constricted around him, trying to draw him deeper even when he had nothing more to give. She moved her hand from his wrist to his bulging cock, rubbing through his jeans. That would give her every inch she needed. And then some.
Trying not to disrupt the wonderful things he was doing between her legs, she set about releasing him from the confines of his jeans. He shuddered as she worked, and once his heavy length was in her hand—good God!—he blew out a breath as she gave him one long stroke after another. He began moving his finger in her rhythm, adding another and stretching her wider when she hooked her leg over his hips.
“Oh God,” she gasped, giving him a squeeze that drew a similar comment from him. Gently, he withdrew his fingers from her and pulled her over him again, positioning her so that her clit was nestled against his thick cock through the damp cotton panel of her underwear. She rubbed against him, leaning down to kiss him. Showing him the rhythm she would want when he was inside her. Wonderfully, gloriously inside her.
Until his hands caught her hips and showed her a thing or two about rhythm. Short bursts of energetic thrusting, then long, slow drags she could already practically feel igniting all the right spots inside her. “Yes,” she whispered, and nibbled his bottom lip. It would be so easy, so easy, to just pull her panties to the side and slide over him. “Ian, I’m so ready. Please.”
His hands slid to her ass and pulled her up the length of his body so fast she almost toppled over him. What was he…? Oh. Oh. Even through her underwear, his hot breath branded her, and she grabbed on to the headboard to keep her balance. His lips closed over her clit, keeping the fabric between them. From behind where he held her, his fingers dipped in to rub at her entrance, and she really didn’t think she could get any wetter for him. He pushed shallowly inside her again as his teeth closed over her panties and pulled at them.
God, but she was about to erupt. Her knuckles had to be whitening with the force of hanging on. When the wet warmth of his tongue hit her right where all the sensations centered, she jerked back. “I don’t want to come yet,” she groaned.
“Then don’t,” he said, pulling her back to him. “Don’t come, Gabriella. Don’t.”
How could she not? His tongue found her again. Slow, wet, circling licks. She sobbed with pleasure, her arousal hitting peaks she didn’t think she’d ever known. He growled his unknowing victory at getting her there. One of his hands left her hips to cradle her breast, thumbing the aching nipple as she licked her lips and tried to stave off an orgasm she wanted more than anything in the world.
Her muscles jellied. “I can’t…” she rasped, and he stopped, pulling her down his body to kiss her. Letting her taste herself on his lips. From head to toe, she shook with weakness, putty in his hands. Those hands went down the back of panties and shoved them lower—and somehow he divested her of them. She was too frenzied with lust to care how. For all she knew, he might have ripped them. Gabby only had the sense about her to mutter, “Condom,” and after a few agonizing moments, he was dragging her back in place on top of him, keeping her off the bed so the friction of the mattress wouldn’t murder her raw skin.
He reached down, and she felt him positioning himself at her entrance. “Yes,” she said, distantly hearing her own voice and the excitement in it. Her body reacted on its own, pushing down on him, but he caught her and held her and made her take his brutally slow ascent. “Ian, oh God, Ian…”
His harsh breath in her ear was the only response he gave her. Was he as carried away by this as she was? He had to be. Had to be. His cock stretched her so perfectly, so, so flawlessly, almost as if he had been made for her. Her body was alive in a way she’d never known.
Again, she felt small in the face of this, in the sheer power of their fusion, in the pleasure threatening to swamp her at any moment and carry her out like a riptide. Just when she thought he couldn’t go any deeper, he did. Just when she thought he wouldn’t make her wait any longer for the full power of his thrusts, he would. She was draped over him and at his mercy, the exact way she’d wanted to be. She tried to move, tried to show him how much she needed him to move, but her attempts were futile and pathetic.
All it took was her final, defeated utterance of his name.
His hands tightened on her; his hips drew back. She groaned into his neck as his cock nearly slid from her wasted body. When she had but an inch or so left of him, he gave it all back. All of it. And she awakened. She rose up on her arms, staring down at him, full of him, consumed by him. There was pleasure to be had in his glorious body, and by God, she was going to take it and make it hers.
Dropping her mouth to his in a furious kiss, she lifted and dropped, lifted and dropped, taking him in, pushing him out. Tightening her muscles and stealing his breath. He joined in her rhythm, this time not fighting it, not showing her his own. His hands fisted in her hair, his body jerked and shuddered as she rode him.
“So good,” she whispered against his lips. “You feel so good, baby.”
“Fuck,” he groaned. “You’re gonna make me come.”
She didn’t care; watching him find his release would be almost as satisfying as finding her own. Almost. She rubbed her entire body against him, and even with him thick and pumping hard inside her, she couldn’t seem to get close enough.
Still, in the throes of mindless passion, he was careful about where his hands ventured. Never to her back. Only her hips and her breasts and shoulders. Down her arms. She lowered herself to him and reached for his hands, twining her fingers with his and pinning him down. A fine sheen of sweat slicked her skin, and she tasted the salt of his when she kissed his jaw.
Close, she was so close… Angling her hips so that her clit could grind into him, she tossed her head back and gasped as two separate sensations fused and pitched her higher. Before she could gasp his name, that riptide swept her out. Every muscle locked down on him, and the intensity of her climax nearly rent her in two. Her body carried on an erratic rhythm of its own volition, demanding more of this from him and getting it, milking it, taking all he had to give.
Whatever words tumbled from her mouth, she wouldn’t remember them later, but she would remember his face as he joined her. The way his brow furrowed, the way his mouth opened—it was all shown to her through a dim shaft of light from the single window, and he was gorgeous.
br /> Silent, though. As he shook and pulled her closer, he scarcely uttered a sound. She only knew he came from the throb of him deep inside, the pleasure drawn on his shadowed face.
Damn, what she wouldn’t give to make this man roar. But there wouldn’t be any more opportunities for that, would there? He certainly wouldn’t be up for it. She might, though. Oh, holy hell, after that? He might have to beat her away with a stick.
As passion’s grip released them both, she eased down over his body and struggled to catch her breath. His arms—still minding her sensitive skin—wound around her shoulders and the small of her back. At least he gave her that much. She snuggled her face into the crook between his neck and shoulder and breathed deeply, feeling her heart rate slow. His still beat strong against her.
He smelled so good. Hell, they smelled good together…his spice and her musk and their sex blending into an intoxicating perfume. No wonder she’d felt so drunk, so drugged.
She chuckled lazily at the sappy, romantic direction her thoughts were taking. God knew she was aware of what this was all about. She’d needed to get laid; she’d needed to be desired. He’d seemed like a good candidate—and damn, had he ever lived up to her expectations.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, and despite the grounding nature of her feelings now, she could appreciate the huskiness of his voice and how satiated he sounded. She’d done that for him, and it was a kick.
“Just thinking about how we smell.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. “How we smell? Are you trying to tell me something?”
“No, idiot. You smell magnificent. And so do I, if I do say so myself. But together we smell…amazing.” Exasperated, she gave him a little pinch. “Don’t you agree?”
He sniffed the air, then sniffed at her while she laughed. “You smell like…hmm…I don’t know. You’d smell better, though, if you smelled like bacon.”