Ah, yes. He had mentioned that he’d been purposefully celibate. Seemed a waste given how glorious his body was beneath those sensible desk-monkey clothes. “Why?” She shouldn’t have asked but she wanted to know just the same. “You seem like a man with a healthy appetite. Were you punishing yourself for something?”
Jeremiah’s easy smile faded and she sensed that she’d hit a nerve. He glanced away. “Not exactly. Life seems less complicated without entanglements, sexual or otherwise.”
She did understand that. “Life is complicated enough, right?”
“Yeah.”
“But sometimes the body needs a little release, though. Nothing personal, just biology.”
“I guess I just learned to shut it down,” he said. “Besides, I had plenty of work to keep me occupied. Made it difficult to date and I don’t troll for one-night stands. Not my style.”
“What was I, then?”
“You were different.”
“How?”
“You just were.”
As she gazed down at him, propped on her elbow while he remained on his back, she caught something vulnerable about him. There was something hidden deep, something that he protected from prying eyes. The mystery drove her crazy.
* * *
HE REGARDED HER with solemn eyes, pushing a lock of hair away from her gaze. “You have beautiful eyes,” he murmured.
“You have a beautiful mouth,” she countered softly.
She felt a pull toward him and she slowly lowered her mouth to his. Seconds before their lips met, a voice in her head reminded her why she shouldn’t. She had good reasons to pull away, to stop. But none of her solid, logical reasons were stronger than her desire to touch and feel Jeremiah again. He was like a drug in her system and she was aching for a fix.
Miranda allowed Jeremiah to roll her to her back, never breaking the kiss as their tongues danced and tangled between them. She allowed herself to sink into the sensation of being protected and cherished as Jeremiah’s touch ignited a firestorm of need and desire she hadn’t known was smoldering beneath the surface.
Within moments they were tearing off their clothes, eager to feel skin on skin, heedless of how reckless they were both being. Jeremiah nuzzled her bare breasts, taking his time as he slipped a nipple into his hot and greedy mouth. She gasped and arched against him, clutching his head to her breast, desperate for more. Their bodies created their own heat as snow fell outside the tiny window, blanketing the world in blinding white. As the storm continued to rage, Jeremiah and Miranda allowed their pent-up need to overrun their good sense, openly delighting in the ways their bodies complemented one another.
“So perfect,” Jeremiah groaned, sweat beading his brow as he moved above her, sliding inside her tight heat with one fluid push. He shuddered as he buried himself, taking a full fifteen seconds to enjoy the friction of that first thrust before flexing his hips as she met him, clasping her legs around him, driving him deeper. He gasped her name and she thrilled at the sound of it. She didn’t remember the last time she’d lost herself with such abandon. Jeremiah brought out an animal in her that would not be tamed and she left scratch marks on his back, which he bore without complaint.
They rode the edge together until both arrived, crashing into oblivion and taking no prisoners as they fell back to earth. Miranda could barely speak, could hardly breathe, she was too buffeted by the pleasurable contractions squeezing every last moment of pure happiness from her body. When she finally dropped back into awareness of her surroundings and the man breathing heavily beside her, she knew with a certainty that so much more had changed between them this time.
And he knew it, too.
She swallowed, her throat dry from crying out, and he responded by reaching down on the floor to retrieve a water bottle she’d placed there before they’d gone to bed. She sat up and accepted the bottle without comment and simply drank deeply. She needed time to think. Time to process. She checked the storm outside and she could see that the snow hadn’t let up, which meant they weren’t leaving anytime soon. She’d give anything for a rescue.
A rescue from the pending moment.
Jeremiah looked fairly adorable with his mussed hair and his arm across his eyes as he tried to recover. The chill in the room pebbled his nipples and she was tempted to bend down and tease the hardened tips with her teeth just as he had done to her earlier. She shook her head to clear her thoughts but she was seduced by the scent and sight of the man lying beside her who was likely freaking out inside his head.
“We won’t tell anyone.”
“That might’ve worked the first time, not a second.”