Hero (Hero 1)

“Caine,” I pleaded, my fingers digging into his back. “Undress.”

He looked up, his gaze dark. “Not yet.”

And that was when he shifted lower. His lips traveled down my belly to between my legs. I melted into the mattress in anticipation as he nuzzled his mouth against my sex. He licked my clit, pressed his tongue down on it, and sensation blew through me. “Oh God!” I arched back on the bed, my inner thighs trembling.

That coil inside my belly was unfurling, pulling apart until the tension within me grew tauter, more electric, screaming for release—

“Yes!” I cried loudly as the tension reached its apex. Lights sparked behind my eyes as I came in overwhelming, hard pulses.

While I lay panting, warmth rushed through my limbs to the tips of my fingers and toes. I vaguely felt the bed move. When I could finally pry my eyes open, I saw Caine undressing quickly.

There was a fierceness, a harsh quality of craving in him that thrilled me. I stared at him in awe.

The men who had come before him had always made me feel attractive … but not one of them had ever made me feel necessary. Vital. Not like Caine. Like if he didn’t have me this very second the world would come crashing down around him.

He put a knee on the bed, his cock thick and throbbing between his legs. His hands curled behind my knees and I let out a little mewl of surprise as he pulled me roughly to him. Angling my hips, gripping tight to my thighs, he held my legs open as he kneeled between them and gazed down at me.

My breath stuttered at the heat of him nudging against me. Eased by my arousal, he pushed inside me, his lashes fluttering as my inner muscles clamped around his length.

With a tenderness that made the air whoosh out of my lungs, Caine caught his rhythm. He watched himself sliding inside me and his chest moved up and down in shallow breaths as his excitement increased. His grip on my legs suddenly tightened and he braced on his knees. Caine began to power in and out of me with harder, deeper thrusts that dragged across my clit and stirred me all over again.

“Come for me, Lexie,” he demanded, fucking me harder now, his teeth gritted together as he held his own climax at bay. “Come around me. Fuck, you feel so good …” His words trailed off as the climax started to take him, and seeing the need in his face was the last jarring smash against the growing pressure inside me.

I split apart, and my inner muscles rippled around him.

“Jesus.” His eyes widened at the deep, hard tug of my orgasm on his, and he froze for a second before his hips jerked against me in a long release.

My legs flopped to the bed as he let go of them to collapse over me. Somehow I found the strength to wrap my arms around him and hold him close. The throb of his cock pulsed inside me and an aftershock of arousal moved through me. “Wow,” I whispered, still picturing the look on his face when he came.

It was the hardest he’d ever come with me, and it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

I smiled languorously, feeling smug.

“Yeah.” He exhaled slowly, easing up off me but holding on to me so that when he rolled onto his back I was pressed against his side and my head rested on his chest.

“So, that was pretty intense,” I whispered.

Caine drew circles on my arm with his fingertips. “Yeah,” he repeated, sounding staggered.

I laughed softly. “We were both pretty worked up.”

“Yeah,” he repeated again.

“I don’t think this is a night I’ll forget anytime soon.”

A second later I was on my back. Caine leaned over me and gazed down at me with determination. “No, it’s fucking not,” he said thickly. “And it’s not over yet.”

My eyes widened. “I don’t know if I can take much more.”

He kissed me gently, the gesture at odds with his rough vow. “I’m not stopping until we’ve had each other in every way we can.”

CHAPTER 20

Light pricked at my eyelids in an unwelcome sensation as I stirred to wakefulness. I groaned, turning my head on the squishy pillow that was much softer than my own.

Where was I?

The night before suddenly hit me in image after image, memory after memory, and my eyes popped open. The fog cleared from them as I took in Caine’s bedroom. My hair rustled on his pillow as I looked at him.

He lay on his stomach, facing toward me in sleep.

A little sigh of happiness escaped me at the sight of his face. He looked so peaceful and relaxed.

A smile tugged at my lips.

More like he was exhausted.

True to his vow, Caine had kept us up practically all night and had given me a record-breaking six orgasms.

I was spent.

I was—I looked past him to the clock radio—up way too early.

We’d only fallen asleep a few hours ago.

My instinct was to roll into Caine and fall back asleep curled up next to him. However, I wasn’t sure it was wise—Caine and I didn’t wake up together often. If we did Caine got us up out of bed quickly because he had work to do. Mostly, though, I woke up and Caine was gone. It would be so easy to let all my fears plague me up out of that bed and his apartment. But then we’d be back where were before, and after all the ups and downs we’d taken to get to this point, it would be a crying shame to let a little fear fuck it all up.

So instead of creeping out of Caine’s bed and treating him to his own medicine, I shimmied into him. I slid my arm over his back, rested my head on his shoulder, and closed my eyes.

“Lexie.”