Room at the Inn

“Shh.”

“You feel good.”

She put her hands on his chest and rode him, teasing him with a shallow thrust, another, another, then sinking all the way down so he was buried to the hilt inside her. He gripped her hips hard and pulled her down harder, searching for the mastery he wanted.

She wouldn’t let him have it. She dragged his hands away, pulling them up to her nipples. “Here,” she said. “Touch me here.”

The moonlight turned her hair white and slanted across her side, across her scar, and she rode him and took the pleasure she wanted, pushing his hand down between her legs when she needed more sensation. “Now here.”

Her mouth went slack, and her hips got more frantic. It was too dark to see her eyes clearly, but he could imagine what they looked like. All pupils, hazy and unfocused. She turned inward as her climax approached, went inside her head somewhere where he couldn’t get to her.

He took his hand away.

“Please,” she said. “Please, Carson.”

“Not like this.”

He withdrew and slapped her hip. “On your back.”

“You tyrant.”

“Damn straight.”

When he moved inside her again, her back arched up off the mattress. He cupped her head in his hands, dulling the impact of his weight and force.

This was how he loved to have her best, spread out beneath him, her legs a cage, her mouth wet and open. Her eyes on him.

This was how he got to her.

He took her slow. So slow that her breathing settled, and her pupils dilated, and then her hands came up off his back and began to stroke him, light and languid.

His chest. His sides. He took her faster, harder. Her hands clutched at his back, and she kissed him, openmouthed and messy, until she couldn’t take it anymore. She turned her face away and came hard and long, tightening until he thought he would die from the pleasurable agony of it.

When she finally relaxed, she went back to stroking him. His shoulders. His arms. She touched his face, staring up at him with pleasure and trust and love in her eyes and in the set of her mouth.

Some essential bit of mental machinery blew a fuse then, and all the sensations of skin on skin, the soft sheets beneath his knees, the slick, pounding pulse of his cock inside her body, the deep, abiding, endless affection in her eyes—all of it hit him at once. Everything. He sucked in a breath, but it didn’t help, so he thrust, clumsy and hard.

Julie brought up her knees and stroked his arms.

He thrust again, finding a rhythm, speeding toward the inevitable conclusion because he couldn’t find his control anymore.

He had no control.

He gripped her shoulders tight, alarmed because he was wide open—too open—and she touched him everywhere she could reach, and whispered, “It’s okay.”

Carson shuddered when he came. More than an orgasm. A terrifying emptying out. A collapse of resistance.

It took him a long time to pull himself together again.

Julie didn’t say anything. She ran her fingertips over his back, held him with one leg slung over his hip, and let him breathe.

Chapter Ten

Julie popped her head into the pantry to replace the brown-sugar container on the lazy Susan. She gave it a spin, just for kicks. She had a batch of sweet rolls in the oven, muffins and scones to get out of the freezer and warm up just before breakfast, and omelets to cook to order.

It was like playing, if playing could be your job.

When the house was full, breakfast became a grand affair, which meant she had to get up at 4:00 A.M. Not a problem normally, but then normally she wasn’t awake until all hours, messing around with Carson under the covers. For reasons known only to him, he’d come to bed last night with a tiny Maglite and proceeded to shine it in all sorts of places, which gave her the giggles.