Dead After Dark (Companion #6.5)(40)

He cleared his throat and she was damn sure he was blushing. “In the shower.”

“Just now?” she asked with surprise.

“It was hours ago. Or at least it feels that way.” He coughed a little. “After I came to you—well, during the time that I came to you, I became . . . needful. To resist, I had to leave you and that is why I didn’t finish you properly. I was afraid I would . . . touch you.”

“What if I wanted that?”

“I will not have sex with you.”

She sat up on her elbow. “Light a candle. I need to see your face while we talk like this.”

Candles flared on both sides of the bed.

He was on his back, his lids closed, his red and black hair a great sea of waves over the white pillows.

“Why won’t you look at me?” she asked. “Damn it, Michael. Look at me.”

“I look at you all the time. When the lights are off, I watch you. I stare at you.”

“So meet me in the eye now.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?”

“It hurts.”

Claire ran her hand up his arm. The muscles underneath strained, his biceps thick and well defined, his triceps cut.

“It shouldn’t hurt to look at a person,” she said.

“It is too close for me.”

She stayed silent for a moment. “Michael, I’m going to kiss you. Now.” When she heard the demand in her voice she throttled back a little. She didn’t want to force him. “That is, if it’s okay with you? You can absolutely say no.”

She could feel his body tremble, the subtle quakes transmitted through the mattress. “I want you to. Until I think I will suffocate from the wanting. But then you know that, don’t you. You know that’s why I came to you.”

“Yes, I do.”

He laughed a little. “That is why I am as needful of you as I am. You see everything about me and you are unafraid. And you are the only one who has ever thought of getting me out.”

She moved over to him and those burning blue eyes shifted to hers.

“Raise your head,” she told him. When he did, she reached out and freed his hair from the leather tie. Splaying it out fully, she marveled at the glory and the weight and the incredible colors. Then she made eye contact and started to lower her mouth to his.

His lids pulled back, his stare bursting.

She stopped.

“Why are you frightened?” she asked, smoothing his widow’s peak.

He shook his head impatiently. “Just kiss me.”

“Tell me why.”

“What if you don’t like me?”

“I will. I do.” To reassure him, she dipped her head down and pressed her lips to his softly; then she stroked over his mouth. God, he was velvet. And warmth. And anxious heat.

Especially as he groaned. The sound was all male and all about sex and her body responded by going loose between her legs.

To get his mouth parted, she licked at him, becoming lost in the sensation of soft on soft, breath on breath. When he opened up, she pressed inside, meeting the hard polish of his front teeth, then sinking in. She stroked his tongue and felt his chest rise sharply.

Worried that she’d gone too far, too fast, she pulled back. “Do you want to stop—”

The growl came out of nowhere. And he moved so fast, she couldn’t track him.

The room spun as he flipped her over onto her back and then straddled her, a huge male animal who didn’t frighten her in the slightest. He leaned down, the weight of his chest compressing hers, his legs bracketing her hips. He was breathing hard as he put their faces together, his eyes positively glowing.

“I need more,” he demanded. “Do that more. Harder. Now.”

Claire recovered quickly and lifted her head off the pillow, fusing their mouths. He pushed back, forcing her down, deepening the contact. And he learned fast. In a slick penetration, his tongue shot into her mouth and she surged under him.

With his legs straddling her, she couldn’t feel his erection. And she wanted that, needed that.

She yanked her mouth away from his. “Put yourself between my legs. Lie between my thighs.”

He lifted up and looked down at their bodies; then he used his knee to part her and fused them together.

“Oh, God,” Claire moaned as he gasped. His arousal was hot and hard through the thin layers of silk they wore. And he was massive.

“Tell me what to do,” he said. “Tell me . . .”

She raised her knees up and tilted her pelvis, cradling him into her sex. “Rub yourself against me. Your hips. Move them.”

He did until they were both panting and groaning and his head was buried in her neck. The silk was a conductor, an enhancement, hardly any barrier at all. And maybe because of their circumstances, because this was like a fantasy, Claire let herself go, giving herself permission for once just to feel. She didn’t think of anything but the contours of his body against her own and the way his surging motion was absorbed by her core and the incredible smell of him and the heat of the sex.

When he pulled back, she was ready to have him inside. Especially as he said, “I want to see you.”

“Then take off my robe.”

As he reared up, he took her breath away. His hair spilled all around him in glorious waves that caught and magnified the candlelight. His face was too beautiful to be real. And at his hips, a hungry, proud length was straining behind red silk.