Merry and Bright(44)

Eyes on her, his fingers tightened on her hand, sliding it down his chest to the zipper of his pants. Behind it, he was hard as steel. “Is that adrenaline from the bear, too?”

“Huh.” Her voice wasn’t too steady. “Probably not.” She let her fingers play over him, loving the way that had the breath rushing from his lungs. “Some people react to adrenaline in . . . interesting ways,” she said.

“No doubt. And while that bear was beautiful, my tastes in females tend toward the furless, not to mention of the human variety.”

When she snorted, his hands slid beneath her coat and up her back. “Are we going to wrestle some more, Hope? Or—”

“Or,” she said definitively, and fisting her hands in the front of his jacket, she covered his mouth with hers. And right there, on the hard wooden floor, with Danny on his back and the snow blowing in behind her, she straddled him.

No slouch, he slid one hand into her hair to hold her mouth to his while the other gripped her thighs, pulling her tighter against him, and when that apparently wasn’t enough, he cupped her bottom and urged her to rock against him. With a helpless moan at the feel of a most impressive bulge between her legs, she had to admit—he was no lightweight. As his mouth worked its feverish way over her jaw to her ear, she pressed her face to the crook of his neck and let her eyes cross with lust. “Danny—”

“Yeah. Right.” A low breath escaped her, and he let his hands fall from her to the floor at his sides. “You’ve come to your senses.”

His pragmatic words uttered in such a desire-roughened voice only made her want him more, and she stared down into his face, into those light, warm eyes that always drew her in, and absorbed his easy acceptance of her. Her. For exactly who she was. “Yes,” she said softly. “I’ve come to my senses.” And still holding his gaze in hers, she pushed him farther into the shed to protect them from the show and any prying eyes, and then went for the button on his pants.

He closed his eyes and groaned when she lowered his zipper and stroked a finger down the length of him. His hips rocked up and her name tumbled from his throat in a low, rough, strangled voice.

Her knees were digging into the hard floor and she didn’t care. Her own hands were rough as she shoved up his shirt to reveal a rather impressive set of abs, and with a low, muttered “thank God,” his were just as rough as he wrestled with her jacket.

She tore her gloves off with her teeth because she had to touch skin to skin, then waved her arms like a bat trying to throw off the jacket—“Holy shit,” she wheezed out when his icy fingers slid up her shirt.

“Sorry.” But instead of stopping, he unhooked her bra and pushed it up, along with her shirt and her half-removed jacket, then with a hand spread on the small of her back, nudged her down over him.

“Danny—” His name backed up in her throat as his mouth found a breast. God. God. It was like the opening of a dam, as their hands fought for purchase.

“Hope—I don’t have a condom.”

She stared at him as reality hit, and then she remembered. “I have four!” She pulled them out of her pocket and held them up like a trophy. “The benefit of having a horny best friend who thinks I need more sex.”

“God bless horny best friends,” he said fervently.

Feeling the same way, she got his pants down to his thighs and he got hers open, but then they got tangled as he tried to tug the jeans off. He wrestled with the clothes for a minute, swearing when he found she also had on long underwear. “Christ, it’s just like my high school dreams, where I can’t get the girl naked.”

“Here.” Laughing, she helped kick off her pants, and then the long underwear, which caught on one of her boots. “Leave it,” she gasped as his hands pulled her back over him so that once again she was straddling him, where together they got the condom on.

“God, Hope, look at you.” He stroked his hand up her inner thigh, letting his thumb stroke over her very center, carefully spreading her open. “You’re wet.” He played in that wetness, making her cry out and rock against him. “Is that adrenaline from the bear?” he asked, teasing her with the words she’d given him. “Or for me?”

“Ha,” she managed, then choked out a needy little whimper when he pushed up inside her, the sound meshing with the low, sexy rumble that came from deep in his throat.

His fingers held her still when she would have rocked, not letting her move. “Not yet,” he whispered thickly, and stroked his thumb over her again, and then again, slowly increasing in rhythm and pressure, taking his cues from her reactions, which were shockingly earthy and base. “If you move,” he managed in a low growl that she found sexy as hell, “I’m done.”

She didn’t care; in that moment she only cared about the way his fingers were moving on her, taking her places she hadn’t been in so damn long, and then there was how he felt, thick and hot and big, God so big, inside of her. His hands were gentle and tender but there was something so raw about his every movement, so uncalculated, as if it had been as long for him as it had been for her. It had her nerves on high alert, leaving her so pleasure-taut, so unbearably sensitive, she was already on the very edge. She heard the whimper escape her throat, a horrifyingly embarrassing sound, but she couldn’t stop or control herself.