Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(147)

She gulped. He took the hand that held the ring box, and gave it a slow, reverent kiss. “I want to make love to you,” he said softly.

“I know,” she whispered.

“But I don’t want to be kicked out on my ass afterwards,” he said. “Can I tell you how I want it to be? My wildest, craziest fantasy?”

She shrugged. “Nobody’s stopping you,” she muttered.

His eyes gleamed. “I want to slip that ring on your finger,” he began. “I want to crawl up on that couch on top of you, and very slowly, push my cock into that tight, red hot *. I want to stare deep into your eyes and kiss you while I make sweet, slow love to you. For hours. Make you come til you’re just glowing. Beaming. Shining.”

She looked away, pink. “That much, I could have guessed.”

“Oh, am I too predictable for you? I’m not done yet. When we’re exhausted, we’ll go home. Your place, since it’s closer. I want to take a bath with you. Uncork some wine. Cook some dinner. Snoop around, check out the books on your shelves, your DVDs, your photographs. Get in bed with you. Make love again, if we have the strength.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “You would, I bet. Knowing you.”

“Probably,” he admitted. “I want to wake up in the morning, and feel how right it is, to have your sweet, warm, naked, silky, womanly body wrapped up in my arms. We’ll make love again. Take a long, sexy shower together. I’ll lick the drops of water off you with my tongue. Comb your hair. Make you coffee. Cook you some bacon and eggs.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You mean, you’re not going to make love to me again between coffee and the bacon and eggs?”

His grin turned brilliant. “That part’s implied. Then I’ll take you to work, and spend the rest of the day bouncing off the walls because I’m so f*cking happy, I just don’t even know what to do with myself.”

She dissolved again. She clapped both hands over her face.

Sean tugged them gently away. “I want to spend all my days and all my nights with you.” His voice vibrated with emotion. “I want to protect you, stand by you, honor and comfort you. Have children with you. Grow old with you. As many years we get.” He kissed both her hands. “I want your company, Liv. Forever.”

His voice broke, but she couldn’t tell if he was crying too, because her eyes swam with tears. She reached for him, blindly, grabbing him with arms, legs, everything she had, in a tight, shaking embrace.

She couldn’t fight it anymore. She wanted to wrap her hair around him, tie him to herself with it. She never wanted to let him go.

But he pried her arm from his shoulder, and pulled her hand between them. The fire flashing in the diamond, the rich colors of the stones, swirled into a pool of shimmering rainbows in her tear drenched eyes. “May I?” he asked softly.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Nodded. He slid the ring on.

It was a perfect, exquisite fit. It felt so comfortable, so incredibly right on her hand, she could feel it all the way up her arm. He cupped her face and kissed her tears away with passionate gentleness, as if she were a flower. Or some delicate little thing made out of fine china.

She couldn’t open her eyes. She pressed trembling lips together. Her body vibrated with feelings. Oh, God. She was going to burst.

She couldn’t bear it any longer. She made a sharp little growling noise and shoved his face away. “Enough of this!”

He stiffened with alarm. “Huh? What?”

“I am not some goddamn fragile china doll!” she snarled.

His eyes widened. “Uh, never said you were, babe.”

“So?” She held up her ringed hand, brandished it at him. It sparkled and flashed gorgeously in the harsh fluorescent overhead light. “I kept my part of the bargain. Now you keep yours, damn it.”

“My part of, uh, which bargain?” he ventured, his face wary. “Not that I’m not willing, I just want to be dead sure I’ve got the right—”

“All that stuff you said? All that gooey, super-romantic hooey about making love to me for hours? The wine, the shower, the bacon and eggs, the forever? Remember that? Is that just more of your jive talking clown act, or are you actually planning to follow through?”

Sean let out a big, shuddering sigh as his worried look relaxed into a big, goofy smile. “God, yes. You bet, baby. I just thought that the restrained, gentlemanly, refined, sensitive act would be more—”

“The drawings were great. I’m going to have them framed. But don’t get too sensitive. And don’t think.” She wrenched at his belt buckle, pulled it loose, fumbled for the buttons of his jeans. “You’ve got a job of work to do. So get to it.”

He let out a sharp, gasping moan when she shoved his jeans down and seized his hot, thick shaft, stroking it greedily. She slid down sideways, onto the couch, and pulled him down on top of herself.

“Oh, yeah.” He rose up between her spread thighs with a groan of need. “I have condoms in the pocket of my coat. I could—”

“Don’t you dare make me wait one more goddamn instant!”

The whipcrack of her voice made his muscles jerk. His cock twitched and throbbed in her hand. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered.

She wiggled with frantic eagerness until she felt the blunt tip of him nudge inside. Finally entering her. They let out the same keening moan of agonized pleasure at the slow, delicious push of his thick shaft into her body. They stared into each others’ eyes. Fused into one taut, throbbing whole. Poised in breathless stillness.