She worked her lips over his in a silent, demanding plea he couldn't miss, hopefully couldn't resist. Opening, urging, she traced her tongue along his mouth, then nipped at his bottom lip. Again, harder.
His lips parted with a hungry growl. Bold, strong hands clamped along her back, one on her waist, the other between her shoulder blades, both firm and insistent.
Forget about deluding herself into thinking that sleep muddled her reactions. She knew exactly what she was doing and simply couldn't stop.
The past year slid away as their tongues tangled, tasted, tempted. Her hands remembered he liked the brush of her thumbs just below his jaw, along his collarbone, over his small, flat nipples. Gray traced a tantalizing touch down her spine, one vertebra at a time until she was ready to scream with the need for more, had done so often before. He had to remember, too, and that stirred her to a near frenzy as she thought of what would come next.
If only they didn't stop.
Gray rolled her to her back, anchoring her to the mattress and the moment as she stared up into his glittering eyes. Her shirt scrunched up. His followed. Gray's bristly chest rasped her br**sts to agonizing tightness. Her fingers crawled down his back, found their way into his shorts and gripped his taut buttocks.
His shorts inched low on his hips, hers following as Lori rocked against Gray. With frightening ease, they recaptured their familiar rhythm. Together, but frustratingly incomplete as two layers of cotton separated them.
He was such a great kisser, and Lori loved to kiss. Loved to kiss him, loved to look at him. Her leg hooked around Gray's hip, and he grabbed the back of her knee. Their boxers inched lower, his as well as hers, with Lori's every restless, needy wriggle. The hard, hot length of him pressed to her, so close, so intimate. No longer feeling cotton, just Gray, she savored that moment of delicious realization just before…
He slid in.
Full, thick pressure filled her, stretched her. The pleasure of it, after so long without, shimmered to an almost painful intensity, and she screamed her release into his mouth.
Gray's shoulders tensed beneath her palms. His eyes opened wide.
She stared back for at least ten racing heartbeats, joined, connected, throbbing, neither of them moving.
Deep within her, she felt him, wanted more of him. Her hands trembled on his back. Had he meant to be here, inside her? "Gray?"
He tore himself from her, growling as he flung himself onto his back. Air washed over her body, nearly freezing her, disappointment finishing the job. Just when she thought she would die from the loss, the hurt, he reached for her. Gray gathered her to his side with hands far from steady, reassuring her that all was not lost.
Her fingers skipped a determined path down his chest. "Come on, flyboy. Don't crash and burn on me now."
His chest pumping, he turned to her. A pained smile stretched his face. One of his shaking hands swept back Lori's hair from her face. "Hold on while I regain control of the jet. She's quite a handful today."
Her fingers walked lower. "I'll say."
Gray's eyes slid closed as he groaned, his fist knotting in her hair. "Lori, slow down, hon. You're killing me here. I need to think."
Forget slowing and thinking. Reason could well land their feet back on the floor. "Wanna play wounded Allied pilot and saucy French nurse?"
"Only if I get to be the pilot this time."
Laughing, Lori rolled on top of him, enjoying the lazy trek of his fingers down her spine. "I'm willing to negotiate."
Sex with Gray had always been fun, and she'd missed it. More than she could have imagined. "Please don't say you like me too much to finish this time. I might well have to hurt you."
"No intentions of stopping, hon. I believe we're both way past that right now." He cupped her hips in his hands, keeping her a safe distance above him. "Just taking care of details first."
"Details?"
"Birth control."
"Birth control?" Old arguments stampeded over her. His refusal to consider marriage. Her need for children to love. Her decision to go on the pill to buy them both time to think and explore their feelings.
"Are you still on the pill?" he asked, a desperate edge darkening his words as his grip tightened on her hips.
She'd begun taking them just before their breakup, and had promptly thrown them in the trash after. Eating an entire bowl of raw cookie dough hadn't come close to making her feel better as she'd stared across the room at the wastebasket where she'd pitched her pills and dreams.
Lori flipped onto her back. "I'm not on the pill."
"O-kay." He slung an arm over his forehead as he rushed on, "Condoms, then. Or a diaphragm's fine. No diseases here."