When he was done massaging my shoulders, he worked my neck and then brought his face down so his thick, wavy hair caressed my neck and my cheek.
“I don’t think I can explain to you how much you mean to me, blue eyes,” he said softly into my hair. “Sometimes I wake up, and I can’t believe there’s someone like you in the world. It gives me hope, you know?”
I had no idea how to respond to that. I was an ordinary girl—an ordinary girl that was a dime a dozen. There was nothing special about me.
As if reading my mind, he continued, “You are special, blue eyes. You’ve changed me. You’ve made me see things differently. You’ve made me want to be a better man. You’ve made me want to live.”
Live? Had he not wanted to live? Iraq… He had wanted to get killed in Iraq…
All these thoughts were jumbled in my head, a mass of cogitation that I couldn’t make sense of, especially not while he had calmed my body into a state of blissful relaxation.
“I’m going to be the man you deserve, Jade. I promise you.” He brushed his lips softly against my neck. “I promise you that.”
I turned over then and met his gaze. “I’ve never asked you to be anything other than who you are, Talon. You are everything to me.” And I spoke the truth.
“I want to make love to you, baby. I want to make love to you out here, in the beautiful outdoors. I want us to make love under the sunset, against the Rocky Mountains. And then, when the sky darkens, and we can see the stars, I need to talk to you.”
“I—” I clamped my lips shut.
“What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I had been about to say he could talk to me now. But this had to go at his pace. He needed to be comfortable. Perhaps he needed to be with me, perhaps he needed to release, perhaps he just needed to feel the love the two of us shared. Whatever it was that he needed, I wasn’t going to stand in his way. I looked into his blazing brown eyes. “Please. Please, Talon. Make love to me.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Talon
She was so beautiful, lying there, her steely blue eyes so trusting. I would turn her world upside down later, but first, I wanted to make slow, sweet love to her, love like we normally didn’t make but love that had its own merits. I liked to dominate her in the bedroom, and she liked submitting to my desires. But this wasn’t going to be about that. This would be the two of us as equals, joining our bodies, surrendering to the love between us.
She watched me with those silver-blue eyes as I undressed slowly. She sucked in a breath when I tossed my shirt on the soft grass. I smiled. I loved that she was attracted to me, that my body pleased her.
“You’re so gorgeous, Talon,” she said.
Her words no longer embarrassed me. They only gave me pleasure, to know that I was making her happy. I took off my boots and socks and then unbuckled my jeans and slid them and my boxers over my hips. When I was naked, I sat down on the bed. She lay on her back, her legs spread slightly, her pink lips glistening, the musk of her sex wafting toward me. I inhaled. God, better than peach pie.
She was wet. I could tell by looking at her hard little nipples, the glassy look in her light-blue eyes. She was wet, and she was ready for me.
So I climbed atop her and slowly slid into her.
That soft sigh escaped her throat, and I closed my eyes, savoring it.
We hadn’t kissed. I hadn’t sucked or pinched her nipples. She hadn’t sucked and licked my cock. All I had done was massage her body, yet we were both ready.
For a moment, I held myself, seated to the hilt inside her warmth, the place where I felt most at home, most right. She completed me. I’d always known I was incomplete because of my past. Never thought I’d be whole. But Jade made me whole. Made me want to be whole.
I pulled out slowly and plunged back in. She sighed beneath me.
“Good, baby?”
“God, yes,” she sighed. “So good. You feel so good inside me.”
I pulled in and out again slowly, our bodies joining, our love—not our passion and desire—the driving force between us. I used soft strokes, and we looked into each other’s eyes, her gaze never wavering. When she curled her lips into a smile, I closed my eyes for just a minute, the most profound sense of love filling every pore in my body.
I reveled in the deep feeling of finally being whole, unbroken. And then I opened my eyes and thrust once more, coming home.
She climaxed around me as I released, both of us panting, moaning, loving each other.
When my climax finally subsided, I rolled off her onto my back. She curled up beside me, snuggling into my arms.