A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(28)

This.

Ah, this.

She tastes so much better right here. Her mouth is an appetizer, her nipples a garnish.

This is a main course.

“Drew, I -- ” Lindsay sucks in a huge breath and tightens as I seek warmth, one of my fingers inside her, the sound of appreciation that she makes all I need. I want to make her feel good. I want to make her let go. I want to be the one person in the entire world who gives her what she deserves.

Permission to be herself.

Every breath I take as she falls deeper and deeper into a place no one – not even I – can touch, makes me love her more. My hands and mouth can perform magic on her skin, but can they work to mend the years of hurt?

All I can do is try.

And try.

And never, ever stop trying.

She pulls away, but I tighten my hold, determined to make her lose herself so she can find herself again, bigger and better than before. There is nothing in the world more honorable than having someone choose to be raw and vulnerable with you. Nothing. Having Lindsay trust me enough to shatter and buck, to writhe and groan, is a gift.

“I want you, Drew. Deep inside me -- ” She gasps, her throat closed by the spasm that wraps my fingers in a tight clench, her sweet flesh swelling under my lips and tongue, her body swaying above me.

She folds. I follow. I chase her down, down, down to the ground where she quietly burns as climax after climax bring her to ecstasy, my singular goal to keep her in that place where all she knows is sensation and goodness, where her fine bones and supple flesh are the entire world, and where she can only say my name as if it were the singular lifeline she has to keep her tied to reality.

I’m doing this for her.

Me.

But she lets me.

Emotion pours through me, combined with arousal, catching my throat off-guard, making my eyes pinprick, my heart slamming in my chest like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I spiral inward as Lindsay’s hands cover mine, her thigh against my mouth as she twists, her voice a pale hush that says, “Oh, God, I need you.”

She sits up and pulls me to her, the taste of her willing surrender now on her lips, too, as we say so much with anything but words. Soon, I’m over her, the bed next to us, looming like a sentry, the floor more than enough for our connection, our linking, our reunion.

I’ve never been inside her before.

She has to ask. I won’t come uninvited.

“Please,” she whispers, the vibration low and soft. I feel it against my abs, her request diffusing out from her skin as well as in words. “Please, Drew. Make love to me. I want you in me. I want you everywhere.”

Stage fright isn’t my thing. Unlike other guys in my unit, I never froze when the pressure was on. And that’s not happening right now. It’s not.

Really.

But I lean down on one elbow and take my other hand, cupping her jaw. We look at each other without walls. Without pretense. But the past is there, hovering, watching.

It needs to see us together.

The past cannot be put to rest, put in its place, until it knows we’ve healed.

Our kiss lingers, the seconds chasing away all the fears, the worries, the condemnation and the insecurities. As we kiss, she moves under me, widening her legs.

“I’m on the pill,” she whispers, removing that concern. The comment brings me back to reality, and I suddenly am hyperaware of every aspect of my body. The cold push of air as she breathes against my sweat-soaked skin. How the moonlight curls into the grooves of muscle in my forearm. The way the curtains billow and make Lindsay’s eyes look like wet lace. The view of my hip against her ass cheek, resting together like two old friends.

How her perfect breasts settle against her chest when she’s flat on her back, her nipples tight like little crowns.

“You’re my queen,” I blurt out. Her eyes dance with amusement, the arousal still there.

“That’s one of the weirdest things I’ve ever heard you say,” she replies, her fingertips giving me butterfly strokes up and down my side, halting at my hip, then moving with a bold perfection until she has me wrapped in her palm, all fire and rigid need.

“But you are,” I groan as she strokes me.

“Make love to me, Drew,” she says, taking me in. The tip is at her entrance, waiting, holding back as I move over her, knees on either side of her nude body, our fervent eagerness making us both shake. She is ready.

I’ve been ready forever.

And now it’s time.

Second by second, with aching slowness, I enter her. Lindsay looks at me the entire time, our eyes locked, and as I move into her, it is like finding holy ground without knowing it. I’ve stumbled across a portal into a place where nothing else matters. Just her. Just me.

Just us.

Just this.

“Oh,” she moans, the tiny hairs on her legs going to gooseflesh, the bumps shimmying up her leg from shin to hip, rippling. I feel it against my own hair-covered legs and I cannot describe it. The sensation is excruciatingly unique. It’s chilly and exciting, in contrast to the warm, wet glory of being inside her. I sink down, deep, and she widens for me.

“Come into me, Drew,” she says in my ear, licking my neck. “Come as deep as you can, until you touch the part of me I’ve kept from everyone else.”

For a split second, I freeze, a single image from that night hitting me full force. No. No. I am not going to let it contaminate this homecoming.