He grabbed the remote and switched off the TV. The only light in the cabin came from the fire and the silvery glow of moonlight reflecting off snow.
Looking into those blue eyes, her tummy flipped and tumbled. She saw heat. Intent. And something else she didn’t recognize. Nerves fluttered low in her belly along with other sensations more intense than anything she’d felt before. They danced across her skin and melted into her, pouring through her veins and weakening her limbs until she was relieved to be lying down.
Should she warn him again that she was no good at this?
What exactly were his expectations?
But he made his expectations perfectly clear as he eased away from her and kissed his way down her body, his tongue tracing a sensual line that made her shiver in delicious anticipation. He slid his hand under one of her thighs, bending her knee and giving himself access. Her naked body was warmed by firelight and lit by moonlight, but she had no time to think about being self-conscious because already he was parting her, his mouth on her slick heat, his tongue tracing sensitive flesh with knowing skill.
Kayla moaned and tried to move, but he held her fast, one strong hand locked on her hip to prevent the restless shift of her body, the other filling her with delicious pressure as he took what he wanted. And what he wanted was her and he used his warm clever mouth until she felt the first flickers of response. So did he because he withdrew immediately, eyes glittering as he eased away from her.
“Jackson—”
“I want to be inside you. When you come, I want to feel it. All of it. All of you.”
The intensity of it, the desperation, was alien to her. Dimly, through the haze of almost-painful arousal, she felt a flicker of panic.
“This is just sex, Jackson.” She struggled to form a coherent sentence. “Tell me you know it’s just sex.”
“Stop talking—” He cupped her face in his hands and took her mouth in a hot, hungry kiss, the skilled slide of his tongue an erotic prelude of things to come. And she kissed him back, felt her thoughts fade to the edges of her mind but held herself together long enough to plant her hand firmly on his chest. He paused, eased his mouth away from hers with obvious difficulty.
“Are you— Is that no?”
“No.” Her voice was as husky as his. “I mean—it’s not no.” She could see he was fighting for control. The muscles in his shoulders were pumped up and hard, his jaw tense as they struggled to have a lucid conversation when all both of them wanted to do was finish what they’d started.
“Kayla—”
“I may not believe in Santa, but I believe in safe sex.”
Silence pressed between them.
His gaze held hers for a moment and then he cursed softly under his breath. “Yeah— I—” Shaking his head to clear it, he pulled away from her and reached for the clothes he’d discarded.
The sense of loss shocked her.
She felt a sick thud of disappointment, followed by a desperate desire to drag him back to her. And then she realized he wasn’t getting dressed. Instead he was digging something out of the pocket of his jeans.
Seeing the condom in his hand, Kayla gave a laugh that was a mixture of nerves and relief. “Did that come with the pizza?”
“It came with me.”
“You—why?”
“I thought if you got fed up eating pizza and talking about work, we could cement Anglo-U.S. relations.” His mouth was back on her neck, his tongue on her skin, tasting. “How do you think we’re doing?”
She didn’t know whether to be shocked or laugh with relief. “I think this is going to be a hell of an alliance.”
“I agree.” He came down on top of her, all sleek male muscle and coiled strength. She dug her fingers in his shoulders, felt the hard thrust of him against her and wrapped her legs around him, drawing him closer. She should have been cold, naked in the middle of this wintery scene, but she was hot, hotter than she’d ever been in her life as she lay in front of the warmth of the fire pressed against the heat of his skin. The need simmered inside her, strong, powerful and right, and she raised her hips as he surged into her, matching his low growl with a soft cry of pleasure as each hard, velvet thrust took him deeper. Her body tightened around him and for a moment it felt like too much—the pressure, the intimacy—and she wondered if he guessed because he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her, slowly and deeply, until she felt nothing except the need for this, for him.
Perhaps he’d intended it to be slow, but it didn’t end up that way. They were both too desperate, the hunger too ferocious. His hand was locked in her hair, his mouth on hers as they moved together in a rhythm that was both wild and primitive. She felt flushed, feverish, bathed in a heat that had nothing to do with the flickering flames
of the log fire, and with each thrust of his body she climbed higher and higher until everything inside her tightened and she balanced on that dangerous edge, held there by his skill and her own desperate need not to lose control. But she did, of course, because he drove her right over that edge, and she fell, tumbling, the contractions of her body gripping the length of his shaft, taking him with her. He groaned deep in his throat, a thickened sound, and then he was kissing her again, and he kept kissing her right through it so that they didn’t just feel it, they breathed it and tasted it.
And as the storm faded, reality seeped back into her brain.
Her surroundings, which had faded from her consciousness, came back into view, and for the first time she registered that they were both naked and surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass.
But outside there was nothing but the white silence of the watching forest, the trees the only witness to their uncontrolled passion. It was like lying in a glade on the forest floor, bathed in wintery silvery light with just the red glow of the flickering fire to warm them.