“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He looked at her across the pillow. “You’re very pretty.”
“You’ve never told me that before.”
“I’m not usually complimentary.”
She touched his hair, removing wayward strands from his forehead. “You don’t get close to too many people, do you, Linc?”
“No.” He saw the wounded expression in her eyes and hated himself for putting it there with his harsh, abrupt answer. He tried to soften it now by laying his hand against her cheek and rubbing his thumb over her lips. “I’m close to you tonight. I’m as close to you as I ever get to anybody. We’re close to each other. Let’s not spoil it by getting too analytical.”
There was so much she wanted to say. Her heart was filled to capacity with love for this man. It demanded to be vocalized. But she knew that saying anything more would drive him farther away, not draw him nearer. So she held her silence.
To lighten the mood, she levered herself up and kissed his forehead. Her hair dusted his shoulder.
“That feels good.”
“What?”
“Your hair against my skin.”
Inspired then to demonstrate her unspoken love, Kerry began kissing his shoulders, taking careful love bites that faintly nipped his skin. He made a grunting sound that showed his approval. She folded her legs beneath her hips and leaned across his back, dropping kisses randomly.
She sipped her way down his spine to the shallow dip just below his waist. Her hair followed the motions of her head. It draped his back, shifting and sliding over his smooth flesh as whimsically as the ever-changing surf upon the shore.
She ran her hand over his buttock, and with a gentle squeeze appreciated its firmness. He cast her a sly look over his shoulder and she giggled. “I couldn’t help but notice.” He grinned smugly, but the expression relaxed and softened into one of sublimity when her hair brushed across his bottom and upper thighs.
“Kerry?”
“Hmm?” She leaned back. He turned over. Her heart stopped.
He repeated her name. There was an unspoken please behind it. And a breathless anticipation he couldn’t disguise.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Kerry smiled at him lovingly, then lowered her head.
She kissed both his knees and worked her way up his thighs, trailing her hair behind her. She took his breath where next she kissed him. He closed his eyes and sighed her name as the love play of her lips and tongue went on and on. Without inhibition. With love. Then, as a refrain, she daintily dipped her tongue into his navel. Her hair swirled around his stiff manhood. The sight was beautiful and erotic and a stunning catalyst.
He lifted her atop him. Kerry gazed down at him with wide-eyed astonishment, but, acting on instinct, impaled herself on him. He sank his fingers into the fleshy part of her hips.
“Do I—”
“Oh, God, yes,” he moaned. “Just like that.”
She began to roll her hips in a grinding motion. He covered her breasts with his hands, brought the nipples to ripe peaks with plucking fingers, then levered himself up to love them with his mouth.
Closing her eyes, Kerry let her own sensations instruct her on what to do. With each tug of his mouth on her breast, she felt a corresponding contraction in her womb. Inside her he was strong and unyielding, and her only thought was to draw him deeper, make him an intrinsic part of herself. Again that marvelous pressure began to build to insurmountable heights, and she was helpless to stop the avalanche of emotions that overwhelmed her.
Moments later, they lay in a tangled heap of twisted bedsheets and naked limbs. Linc was the first to regain his senses. He could have moved away. He could have left her. But he wrapped his arms around Kerry and held her tightly.
“Kerry, K
erry.” There were varying elements in his voice. Yearning. Pleasure. Affection. Mostly sadness.
But Kerry, listening only to the synchronized beating of their hearts, didn’t hear that.