Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(99)
"You can't leave me alone tonight."
Clay opened his mouth to refuse, I could see it in his eyes, and I blurted the first lie that came to my lips. "I need to be woken up every hour. Concussion."
His mouth closed with an audible snap of his teeth. "Of course."
Guilt swamped me, but I shoved it away. I was going to seduce him—a first for me, but hey, so was getting shot at and kidnapped and any number of things that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. My life was one adventure after the next these days. I'd have a spectacular story to write just as soon as I could find a pen and some paper.
Would the ending be happy? I stared at Clay over the rim of my champagne glass. It would if I had anything to say about it.
An hour later I was squeaky clean from a shower and pleasantly tipsy from the champagne. I sat in a big, plush chair in the first suite I'd ever set foot in, writing down everything that had happened to me before I forgot it. As if.
Clay was using the shower, and the thought of slipping in behind him and letting the water seduce us both pulled me out of my story.
The bathroom door opened, and a soapy-scented mist poured out. Clay appeared through the fog, a towel looped around his hips, his skin moist, shiny, hot.
My pen and paper dropped to the floor. His head jerked up and his gaze shifted to my shadowed corner. "You should be in bed."
"I know."
I walked toward him until I was close enough to feel the warmth of the steam. He stepped back, and I caught him by the towel, then yanked.
"Maya—"
My hand closed around him. He was already hard. I drew him closer.
"We can't," he protested.
I pumped my fist several quick strokes, and he leaped in my palm. "I think we can."
"Not can't." He groaned as I continued to work his skin back and forth against the shaft. "Should. I mean shouldn't. I'm not thinking straight."
"Good. When you think straight, you think stupid."
"It's not stupid to stay away from you. I'm a dead man. It's only a matter of time."
"I won't let you die."
"You don't have anything to say about it."
"I love you."
Shock flashed across his face. "You can't love me. You just met me."
"Are you saying you don't love me?"
I held my breath. I'd been taking a chance to put my heart in the open so he could crush it. But I believed Clay cared about me, otherwise he wouldn't be trying so hard to leave me behind.
"If you can look me in eye, right now, and tell me you don't want me I'll—"
"Obviously I want you, Maya. You can feel that in the palm of your hand."
I could, and it was unbelievably erotic to be talking about both love and death as he pulsed and grew at my touch. What had happened to safety girl? I'd left her in the desert with the snakes.
The thought should have made me panic, instead it intrigued me. My life, until now, had been staid and predictable. What if I took a chance, faced the world, courted death instead of fearing it?
I guess we'd find out.
I kissed his neck, his jaw, ran my tongue up to his ear, and sucked the lobe between my teeth. The pulse at the base of his throat throbbed. I put my lips there, and his blood beat in time with mine.
I stroked him again. He showed me what he liked—how hard, how soft, how fast.
I wanted to taste him as he'd once tasted me. Sliding down his body, I took him in my mouth.
"Maya—" he murmured.
Protest or encouragement? I didn't know, didn't care. He was warm and alive. He filled me, and I no longer felt alone.
He tasted like a desert night. Hot, salty, dangerous. You could die in the desert. We almost had.
But we'd survived together and that had to count for something. Together we could do anything, face anyone.
His hands cupped my head, urging me on. He wasn't thinking of the past now, but then, neither was I.
Suddenly he reached down and grabbed my arms, yanking me to my feet and kissing me, long and deep, with a hint of desperation that only made me want him more.
Past, present, future? Whatever.
My robe slid from my shoulders. I wore nothing underneath. I had nothing anymore but him.
My skin tingled at his touch. His fingers fluttered everywhere. He soul-kissed me as he backed me toward the bed. My legs hit the mattress, and we tumbled onto the sheets.
His palm smoothed the skin of my thigh, my rear, my spine. Lifting his head, he stared into my face. Only when his gaze darkened, and he started to inch away did I remember what I looked like.
Scrapes, bruises, black eye, stitches. He believed I'd been hurt because of him. He was wrong. Without him I'd be dead. I had to make him understand that I needed him. Forever. I knew only one way to do that.
Lacing my fingers behind his neck, I drew him closer and made him kiss me again. The hand/blow job had excited me as much as him. I arched, and he slid along the part of me that cried out for a man—this man.
"Now," I whispered into his mouth. "Please."
He didn't hesitate, just lifted his hips and plunged all the way home. I was wet, tight, excited. Only a few deep strokes, and I shattered, squeezing and contracting around him. The pulse in his neck jumped as he came, and I latched on to his skin, tasting him as we both shuddered with a release that went on and on.