"Justin." She slid down his body, no longer afraid to give free rein to her sensuality. Not with him. "You don't need to treat me like porcelain." She followed up her words with a rough tug at his shirt, pulling it out of his jeans and over his head. "I don't want you to hold anything back," she urged as she deftly undid his belt and zipper. "I want you to show me how much you want me."
"So damned much." He growled the words against her lips as he captured her jaw in his hands and held her captive with his kiss. And yet, when he lifted his mouth from hers, she saw the same concern in his eyes that she felt in his hands on her hips. "But I need to be careful with you."
She understood why he felt that way. After all, the shadow of fear had underlain nearly every moment of every day since she'd collapsed at the town hall. Until last night, when Justin had swept away everything but pleasure for a few precious hours.
There were going to be countless big battles to fight during the day, but she refused to let those battles steal their nights too. Nothing, she vowed, was going to darken the beauty she and Justin had found together in each other's arms.
"Trust me to know my limits. I promise you I won't push past them."
He gazed into her eyes for several long moments. Weighing. Assessing. Fighting with himself--with his desires and his worries. Finally, he nodded. "Wherever you take me, I'll follow."
She wanted to grab, to devour, to greedily gobble him up. But she needed him to trust her, to truly believe that she wouldn't put herself in harm's way during their lovemaking.
Still, just because she was going to go slow, didn't mean she wanted him to keep his clothes on. Last night, she'd let him strip her while he remained clothed. Tonight, things were going to go in the opposite direction.
With his zipper already down, she needed only to give his jeans a tug for them to fall. His boxers went too, which meant that his gorgeous, tanned, muscular body was now fully at her disposal.
Joy--and a huge rush of sensual anticipation--bubbled up inside of her as she ran her hands over his chest. Muscles and tendons jumped beneath her fingertips, prompting her to press kisses all over his delicious skin. "You're the yummiest thing I've ever tasted." She couldn't wait to take another taste, this time with her tongue in all the places she'd kissed.
His hands, which had slid into her hair, tightened. Though he was still gentle, she liked feeling his control slipping. Little by little, she intended to keep drawing away his self-control until he forgot everything but desire.
Moving slowly enough that he'd have no reason for alarm, she went to her knees in front of him, letting her nails drag lightly over his skin as she made her way down his body.
Oh my. He was beautiful.
Beyond beautiful.
Pleasure hummed in her throat as her lips made contact with his hot skin. And when her tongue shot out of its own volition to run a wet path up his flesh, he was so wonderfully, deliciously hard that her hum of pleasure turned into a full-on moan.
"Taylor." His fingers gripped her even more tightly as he tried to hold on to his control. But she could feel his hips wanting to move. Knew how badly he wanted to take what she so desperately wanted to give.
As far as she was concerned, there was no choice to make. She needed him--all of him--and wouldn't accept anything less.
His groans of pleasure reverberated through her small cottage. It was her favorite sound ever, one she'd never get tired of hearing. Heat coursed through her veins, pulsing hottest at her breasts and between her thighs. She wanted to rub herself all over him, wanted to drive herself high and then tease them both by lingering at the edge before they tumbled over together.
But first, she wanted Justin to let himself be wholly lost in her, the way she was utterly lost in him.
Wrapping one hand around the base of his shaft, she reached up to thread the fingers of her free hand with his. Her intimate kisses were no longer soft now, her pace no longer slow. Not when she could feel him pulsing with need and knew how close he was to ecstasy.
There were so many things she wanted, but none more in that moment than being the one to take him so high that he forgot about ever coming down.
And as she poured every ounce of her love into him, he finally let himself go, with her name falling from his lips again and again, as he told her how beautiful, how perfect she was, how much he loved her, that he'd never stop loving her.
Just the way she'd never stop loving him.
*
This was heaven. It had to be.
After Taylor had rocked his world to the core, Justin carried her into her bedroom and stripped her bare. She'd just driven him over the edge with her mouth, and he should be sated, but he wasn't. Not even close. Fortunately, given the way she pushed him back onto the bed and prowled up his body, her hands, her mouth roaming with abandon over him, she was nowhere near sated either.
And yet, at the same time, he was terrified that he'd forget to be careful with her, that the force of his desire would accidentally hurt her.
"I love you." She straddled him as she spoke, her hips restlessly moving over his, making him ache with wanting her again mere minutes after release. She took his face in her hands. "I've always loved you."
For so many years, he'd loved her from afar, even when he was sitting right next to her, because he thought she loved her boyfriend. At long last, he knew that just because she'd been physically faithful to her ex, that didn't mean her heart hadn't been Justin's all along.
"From the first moment we met," he told her as he stroked her bare curves, "I wanted you. Craved you. Loved you." He wanted her to understand that no one else had ever touched his heart. "Only you." Regret over their lost years seized him again. "I should have fought for you. I shouldn't have stood on the sidelines and let you be with anyone else."
"Can't you see?" Her voice was gentle. Passionate. "That's one of the reasons I love you. Because you let me make mistakes. You let me go down the wrong path--lots of wrong paths--and then figure out for myself what the right path might be. Everyone else in my life has always kept me inside a safe little box, but you never have." She brought her hands over his at her hips and threaded their fingers together. "Even now, you're trusting me to know my own limits, instead of telling me what my limitations are."
He understood why her family wanted to protect her, why they would never want any harm to come to their bright and utterly beautiful daughter, especially after losing a child. When they added in her diagnosis, that urge to insulate, to shelter, would be nearly irrepressible.
But no one thrived inside a cage, even one built with the best intentions. He couldn't do that to her, couldn't say he was only looking out for her while locking her up in a bubble where nothing could ever touch her. So he needed to start now, by trusting her to know her own body, her passion, her physical limits. He couldn't make those decisions for her by holding back.
Tugging her hands, he pulled her up his body, swiftly enough that he heard
air rush from her lungs. "Justin?" Her hips were over his chest now, and she was looking down at him with an expression of surprise...and what looked like heady anticipation.
"A little higher," he said. "That's where I need you." He scooted down the bed beneath her, and then he did what he knew they both wanted: He lifted his mouth to her core, covering her hot, slick flesh and letting himself take a long, delicious taste of her.
Her hands tightened over his. "Justin." His name was a moan instead of a question this time as he used their linked hands on her hips to rock her over his mouth as he alternately teased her arousal with the tip of his tongue, then went deep. Again and again, he brought her to the edge, then forced himself to slow down and draw out her pleasure.
He could have played like that all night, her spicy-sweet taste on his tongue, her lithe body molten over him, but soon, she was dictating the pace, her gasps coming faster and faster until she finally broke apart in a trembling climax.
Rational thought was nearly out of reach when he slid her back down his body a short while later. All he knew was that he needed to be inside of her more than he needed to breathe. Only at the last second did he remember protection, and thank God, tonight the little packet was waiting in the night table beside the bed.
Moments later, Taylor was lowering herself onto him. If he'd been in heaven earlier, now he was in a nirvana that only one woman on earth could show him.
Together, they moved in a fluid dance of love and mind-blowing pleasure. Her eyes were closed, her head flung back as she used his hands, his arms, for leverage while she rode him with sweet abandon, chasing her pleasure, and his too.
He'd never seen anything so breathtaking in his entire life as Taylor giving herself to him, and when she finally crested her second peak, he had to kiss her as her release spun out into his.
For long moments afterward, they lay panting in each other's arms. She was sprawled over him, and he'd never felt so content. So happy. Or so amazed.
His soft laughter had her lifting her head from his chest. "Let me in on the joke."
"No joke," he said as he kissed her again. "It's just that I can hardly believe so many of the fantasies I've had about you are actually coming true."