“That really is romantic.”
“I thought it sounded a bit funny.” He coughed, pretending disgust.
“Shut up. You are a romantic at heart, aren’t you? Underneath all that leather and the bad boy image.”
“Don’t make fun of me, Flipp. I’m putting my life on the line here.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m not knocking you. I think it’s…amazing. I can’t believe you’d do this for me. I’m not worth it.”
Finally Flipp was able to put aside her fearful flippancy and show a chink of vulnerability. It was incredible to her that this man was prepared to go to such lengths to protect her. It was incredible to her that she was capable of provoking unselfish love rather than possessive obsession. And that she was capable of feeling it in return.
“Not worth it? Yes, you are. Unless you’re calling me an idiot.”
“Perhaps I am. I’ve never been loved before. Not properly. Not by someone who understands what it means.”
“You think I do? This is a first for me, you know. Well, other than stupid crushes when I was a teenager.”
“I’ve always been a bit afraid of falling in love.”
Rocky looked at her in surprise and wonder. “Me too,” he said. “Always seemed to end up in trouble for everyone around me. Always told myself I’d steer clear. But here I am.”
“Here you are.” Flipp reached out and touched his face, as if she needed convincing that his presence was physical. “And you’re not even a dream.”
She looked up at him, her neck resting against his shoulder, feeling his heat and solidity through the black cotton. He looked back, taking her hand from his face and kissing the tips of her fingers, slowly and consideringly. It was as if she saw him for the first time, saw the awkward boy that he had been, saw the years of angst and repression and misery, saw through it all to the one thing that could save him—his love for her. She was going to have to take care of him. She was going to have to be worth it.
She loosened her hand from his gentle hold, slipped it around the back of his neck and pulled him down for the kiss that would seal their intentions. It was hungry, thirsty and almost angry with need, swallowing them both in its explicit demands. Be mine, it said, as the lips crushed; love me, as the teeth clashed; save me, as the tongues fought. Flipp slipped her hands beneath his T-shirt, impressing their shapes on his hard, broad body. His sturdy build beneath her softness never failed to delight her, and she shuffled into his lap, wanting to be closer than it was possible to be, wanting to melt into his strength and add to it.
He understood and rose to his feet, keeping her in his arms, carrying her to the bedroom with mouths still conjoined. The kiss’s hunger would not be assuaged. It seemed that it could go on forever without filling its reserves of sensual need.
They were two animals in the dark, feeding on each other. Their limbs thrashed and hooked together, they rolled and tossed, gasping and wrenching at clothes. Flipp was overpowered quickly and was naked first, though she made short work of Rocky’s T-shirt and immediately pressed her bare breasts to his chest, purring at the luscious feel of his skin on hers.
Entwined and still sighing into each other’s throats, they moved swiftly and seamlessly into the shallow waters of sex, moving deeper and deeper, using hands, using fingers, using hips and knees and stomachs to get to where the waters would cover them and plunge them down into that dark world of the senses. Flipp let Rocky lay her on her back and she waited in luxurious anticipation while he scrabbled on the nightstand for his pack of condoms, ready and willing for him to make their two bodies one. He didn’t even break the kiss to skin it onto his hard cock, and he grunted into her mouth as the first thrust slid sweetly and easily inside her wetness.
She wanted to swallow him up, take him inside her and keep him there, but she contented herself by lifting her legs high, giving him the deepest penetration possible while she raked her hands through his dampening hair, stroking him in time with the rhythmic thrusts of his cock and his tongue. If
we are two wrongs, do we make a right? It certainly felt so; the connection electrified her and she felt the stirrings of her climax with the very first sweep of his lightning rod along her nerve endings. Can our combined darkness make light? He felt so heavy upon her, and she loved the heaviness, relished it, gave herself up to it. At the moment of orgasm, he pressed her wrists down into the pillow, above her head, and she writhed and twisted, revelling in the feeling of judicious restraint coupled with lascivious freedom. If he is a prison, I want to be in it. This is the captivity I choose. He emptied into her, finally breaking the kiss to arch his spine above her and cry out to some unknown god. Flipp felt as if there had been some kind of touching of souls and she lay back, gazing at him, humbled by the enormity of it all. Love. It’s scary. It scares me.
“Sometimes, when we’re doing it, I really wish our minds could merge, d’you know what I mean?” she said softly, lying in his arms afterwards, trying to focus again on the dark shapes in the room.
“You want to know what I’m thinking?”
“More wanting us to really be one person. Does that sound strange?”
“No. I know what you mean.” He rubbed a finger behind her earlobe, having learned that it would make her sigh blissfully. “Can you imagine the kind of mess our two minds would make, though?”
Flipp laughed exhaustedly. “Almost as much mess as this room.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never had any incentive to look after myself. Until now. And we won’t be waking up here again.”
“I suppose not.” She caught her breath, her heart hammering briefly. They were leaving. Really leaving. Running away together.
“Best get some sleep, sweetheart. Tomorrow is going to be a long one.”
Chapter Eight
“This had better be urgent.” Laura smiled tightly down at the beauty therapist and wiggled the toe whose cuticles were being pushed back with an orange stick. “Very urgent, darling, or you’ll pay for it later.”
“Oh, I do hope so. Listen. I’ve found something out. Something you will be very interested to know.”