Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(36)

Just hot sex. After all this drama, she was entitled to that much.

He traced the edge of her ear, swirling in tenderly to circle the inner whorl, sending shudders of pleasure through her startled nerves.

He smoothed a clinging lock of hair away. She licked her lips, her breath coming sharply. He touched her lips, his hand moving with majestic slowness in the breathless silence, the way a tangle of clasped hands moves over a ouija board, searching for mysteries and magic.

He trailed his fingertip over her chin and below, moving with delicate precision over her throat. He paused over her racing pulse, dipped into the hollow of her collarbone. His touch was reverent; so soft, she could barely feel it—and yet, she could feel nothing else. As if his fingertip left an incandescent thread of glowing light in its wake. He continued his relentless journey downward, pausing over her heart. It thudded against her ribs. Her breath was ragged. He was walking a fine line through a minefield of anger and doubt, with such sure steps. He didn’t try to open her robe, he didn’t grope or grab. He just stayed the course. Sure that she would open for him.

Like a flower blooming open to the sun.

His hand ventured lower, circling around her navel. He dragged in a sharp breath, and his hand dipped lower still, hesitating for an agonizing moment before it brushed across the very ends of her pubic hair. The faint, teasing contact jolted excitement through her body.

His hand stopped moving. And he waited, muscles trembling, his erection pressed against her bottom. Waiting for a signal.

She moaned, her thighs unlocking with a shudder of surrender.

He let out a low, triumphant sound, like a growl that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. His finger traced the damp slit of her vulva and delicately parted her, sliding into her slippery hot center.

The sensation was unbearably intense. Her knees buckled, her muscles gave. Sean caught her across the waist, pulling her back against himself to steady her. “I’ve got you. Let go. I’ll hold you.”

Her wiggling and heaving had opened her robe, and he could see it all, her heavy breasts, her plump belly, her rounded hips. His teeth sank into her neck, the growling sound vibrated against her neck. God, he was good, and she was so excited. So hot and soft, swollen and throbbing. The tiny muscles of her groin clenched around his hand, fluttering in frantic excitement, and her thighs clenched and released, and he was swirling his fingers around her clitoris, fluttering, pressing, and she tipped forward right into that terrible, wonderful moment of no return. A breathless free fall through space, and then…oh God.

It went on and on, the cresting wave that broke and pulsed like sea foam surging and frothing over gleaming sand. Pleasure that throbbed through every limb, to her fingers and toes. Leaving her drenched, gasping, dangling in his arms like a puppet with cut strings.

When her eyes finally fluttered open, she hardly recognized herself in the mirror. Her flushed face, heavy-lidded eyes. Sean’s golden, muscular forearm clamped across her middle, her hair draped across it, breasts spilling over it. His hand still clamped between her thighs.

She usually had to try so hard to guide her lovers down the long, twisty path toward making her come, but it was an arduous journey with no guarantees, and normal men didn’t have that kind of patience.

No biggie. She’d gotten over it. Sex was about cuddling and company, not about orgasms. She had better luck when she flew solo anyway. Accompanied by her vibrator and her Sean fantasies, of course.

This was a whole new universe of dazzling sensations. Emotions.

“Can you stand up?” he asked, still nuzzling her neck.

His erection prodded her back. His arm clamped across her ribs so hard, she couldn’t expand her lungs, just make choked, shallow gasps. She locked her knees. There was a desperate urgency in his shaking grip.

“My God.” He pulled his fingers out of her and held them up to his face. He licked them greedily. “You taste amazing. I’m starving for it.”

“Good.” She twisted around, and grabbed the buckle of his belt. She had to do this quick, before she lost her nerve. “So let’s eat, then.”

He stood there, oddly passive and uncertain, while she struggled with his belt. When she got it open, he seized her arms, stopping her. “Wait. Before we do this we need to, uh, clear some things up. I wanted to tell you why I said what I said in the jail. I can explain—”

“No,” she cut him off. “Don’t. Please. I don’t want to know.”

She gave his belt buckle such a hard, angry wrench, he stumbled towards her with a low exclamation. “But it’s important.”

“No, it’s not. I’m not interested,” she said. “I don’t care. Don’t spoil this for me, please. Give me this much. Let me play out my fantasy.”

He scowled. “This is not a fantasy, Liv.”

“It is for me,” she told him. “And that’s all you are. I don’t want to hear any bullshit. I don’t want to be lied to or made a fool of, by anyone, ever again, you hear me? I’ve got real problems, Sean. My life is screwed. My business is wrecked. There’s a guy out there who wants to kill me. What was going on in your mind fifteen years ago is no longer relevant or even interesting to me.”

“But it’s not what you think,” he protested. “I didn’t—”

“I don’t want to know why you thought it necessary to hurt me like that. I cannot imagine anything that could justify it. I won’t give you a chance to do that to me again. All I want is…” She trailed off.