But as much as she arched her back, pressing herself into his palms in a silent plea, he seemed intent on torturing her. The sweetest torment she had ever known but a torment all the same, when all she really wanted was to feel his bare skin on hers, his hot, wet mouth closing over her aching nipple.
Again and again he teased her until she thought she would go out of her mind. Then, when she thought she couldn’t take any more, he hauled the tee over her head, undoing and removing her bra in one slick movement. And then his mouth was closing over her, and Bridget thought she could burst with pleasure.
Need punched through her, hollowing right into her core. She slipped her hand into his hair, cupping the back of his head, her body arched into him. This was what she’d been missing. This. Right now. Wild sensations, and primitive.
And she wanted more.
Reaching for his clothing, the buttons, the zips, Bridget fumbled a little in her haste, and the curve of his mouth against her sensitive skin practically seared through her.
‘We have time, Birdie,’ he muttered, though she didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
All the same, he let her push the jacket off his shoulders and then tug his T-shirt over his head until they were finally, gloriously, skin to skin. The hard planes of his chest feeling all the more muscular under the softness of her breasts, abrading her nipples and making her almost mad with desire.
All this time she’d been telling herself she’d built up that night with Hayden to be more than it had been. Now it was clear to her that she’d been downplaying it in her mind. So this time—on the basis that this was all there could ever really be between them—she was determined to preserve every perfect moment of it in her memory forever.
She dipped her head forward to kiss his chest. To taste him. To smell him. Sandalwood and musk, and something that was all Hayden. She moved slowly, thoroughly, determined not to miss a single inch of bare, solid, chest as she blazed a trail over him. His low murmurs of approval spurred her on. Making her drop to her knees in front of him as her chest tightened in anticipation, her breath coming in short starts just as his was. Particularly when she reached for his trousers and unbuttoned them.
‘Bridget...’
It was a caution, but she didn’t want to hear it. She couldn’t quite understand what it was inside her that wanted, so badly, to do this. But it drove her on, making her curl her hand around him and draw him out.
‘Shh...’ she managed, her voice thick with expectancy as she felt a deep shudder course through his body.
And it was strange, wasn’t it, the unexpected sense of power that instilled in her. How, even though she might be the one on her knees in front of him, she felt as though she held him in the palm of her hand. And not just literally. She smiled to herself, her lips curving along his hot, velvety length.
Then, lifting her eyes to his to make contact and hold it, she ran her tongue all around him and took him deep into her mouth.
* * *
Hayden had no idea how he managed to stay standing upright. He’d been pleasured before by women far more practised than his former virgin Birdie, yet never before had he experienced such a primal reaction as he did at that moment. His legs actually shook as though they might give out underneath him at any moment.
Her mouth was hot and perfect around him, but it was the shots of pure lust that jolted through him that pulled at him the most. Threatening to unravel him in an embarrassingly short time.
Desire and something far, far more dangerous coursed through his veins. And he couldn’t bring himself to care. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything but focus on her. Birdie. She was making him feel hotter, and greedier, than he’d ever felt in his life.
It was like he’d tied himself up in an inaccessible parcel all these years, but she was freeing him with every sweep of her tongue and each graze of his teeth. Teasing him one moment and worshipping him the next. Driving him closer and closer to the edge...until he feared he was going to topple off.
Hayden would never know how he managed to rein himself in, pulling himself out of her willing mouth and catching her off guard. Even when she rocked back on her heels, her wide eyes staring up at his in surprise, he feared he would still fall.
Before she could speak he was lifting her up, shucking off the rest of their clothing and carrying her to the single cot bed that surely couldn’t take their combined weight. It didn’t even look as though it could take a man of half of his stature.
But he couldn’t let that stop him. Them.
Hayden had no idea what it was about Bridget that made it impossible for him to control himself when he was around her. But, then, he wasn’t sure he even cared, just as long as he could taste her plump lips. Hold that incredible body against his. And slide inside her like he had over and over that night in the hotel.
Wordlessly, he pulled the mattress onto the floor and laid her down, almost reverently, on the clean white sheet he’d only put on it moments before she’d walked in and he’d proceeded to lose himself in every perfect inch of her.
Propping himself on one arm, he cradled her cheek with the other hand.
‘That wasn’t...good?’ She blushed prettily.
‘That was perfect,’ he growled. ‘But if I hadn’t stopped you when I did, I don’t know that I’d have been able to any later.’
‘I didn’t want you to stop me.’ She glowered at him from under those long, thick lashes of hers. ‘I didn’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to...do.’
Insanely adorable, but he wasn’t about to apologise.