No, he wasn’t tired. He was…relaxed. There were times, after a mission, he’d felt like a coiled spring. Times? Always. He’d come back tightly wound, mind and muscles tense. Over the years, he’d learned how to deal with it. A shower hot enough, long enough to scrub away whatever had happened. Whisky. Sex. Well, at the beginning, sex. More and more, the last couple of years, he’d just wanted to be alone.
Tonight, he’d had it all.
A long, hot shower. Whisky. And sex.
Somehow, it felt different. The sex felt different. Jaimie had been wild in his arms—just thinking about it sent a rush of blood to his loins—but there’d been an innocence to her, as well.
Maybe innocence was the wrong word.
He’d had the sense that she’d never given herself to a man the way she’d given herself to him. Fully. Totally. Nothing held back, not her cries, her pleas, her pleasure.
Foolish, of course.
She just enjoyed sex, and there was nothing wrong with that. Why shouldn’t a woman get pleasure from it? Why shouldn’t she have a talent for making a man feel as if he’d brought her to new peaks?
Zach bit back a groan.
Dammit, he was hard again. So hard that he ached.
He wanted to take her again. Hear her moans again. Feel her legs wrap around his hips. Taste her nipples. Her clitoris.
He shifted his weight. Just a little. Like, yes, like that. He was on his side. She was on her back. He’d kiss her. Nothing more. He wouldn’t wake her, wouldn’t try to make love to her; he’d just kiss her. Lightly. His lips on her hair. Her closed eyelids. Her mouth.
Jesus, her mouth.
“Mmm.”
It was the softest of whispers. He brushed his lips over hers again. This time, her lips parted.
She tasted like honey.
No wonder he’d taken to calling her Honey. The nickname suited her.
Gently, carefully, he fitted his mouth to hers. Kissed her. Stroked the tip of his tongue across the tender flesh on the inside of her bottom lip.
She sighed again, stirred, draped her arms lazily around his neck.
“Zacharias?”
Amazing, what she could do with his name.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered.
Liar.
Certainly, he’d meant to wake her. This was what he’d wanted. Needed. Her hands, in his hair. Her body, moving as he came over her and gathered her into his arms. Her legs, wrapping around him.
“Oh,” she sighed, “oh, oh, ohhh…”
Sliding into her was like going home.
She was ready for him. Wet. Hot. Satin. Little sighs whispering into the black night. The stroke of her foot down his leg, then back up. The moan of pleasure as he began to move within her.
“Zacharias.” Her voice broke. “Zacharias. I’ve never—nothing has ever—ohhh. Ohhh…”
The sob tore from her throat. He felt her muscles tighten around him and he slid his hands lower, cupped her bottom, lifted her into the power of his thrusts.
“Never,” she said, “oh, God, never before…”