Unbeloved (Undeniable #4)(56)

Tears burned behind my eyes. To hell with being a strong and sure woman. This was the man I loved. I didn’t need to be strong or sure; I just needed to be with him.

“I missed you too,” I whispered. It was a seemingly silly thing to say to a man I saw on a regular basis, but it was the truth. I’d missed him terribly, in the way of a person who has loved and lost someone who’d remained a part of their life—close, yet never close enough.

Death would have been a much easier loss than to have to live every day with the guilt of a mistake, a misstep that you couldn’t fathom how to ever again make right.

But none of that mattered anymore.

And maybe there was really was something to what Eva was saying about fate.

Maybe there was . . .

Hawk squeezed my hip lightly, abruptly ending my train of thought. Slowly, as if I were made of glass, he began to slide his hand across my stomach. His touch was so unbelievably light, a barely there fluttering sensation that caused my eyelids to grow heavy. The sensation only grew as he traveled higher, his fingertips drawing invisible lines on their upward journey between my breasts. Dancing over the top of them, he paused, hovering over one breast, his calloused palm causing the nipple to tighten beneath it, and a shiver to slither down my spine.

“Hawk . . .” I breathed his name, nothing more than a puff of air slipping from my lips. At my sides my fingers began to twitch restlessly, my body aching for more.

And he gave me more.

His hand closed around my breast, squeezing and kneading the soft flesh, leaving me breathing harder.

It was a beautifully tortuous game he was playing with me, and one I wouldn’t have any other way. I might have walked into this room with the silly notion that I would take control of the situation, when in reality I needed him to go as slow as he was, to be as careful as he was being, working me up to the point where he knew I’d be comfortable and ready for more.

His hand dropped from my breast, traveling slowly down the same path back to my stomach and then lower, running his fingertips between my legs, but just barely touching the sensitive skin. I swallowed back a threatening whimper. It had been so long since I’d been touched like this and my body was a veritable volcano, threatening to erupt from the simplest of touches.

He saw this, my response to him, and his pupils began to dilate; his breaths grew louder, and more pronounced. All his reactions told me I wasn’t the only one so affected, and that knowledge—knowing he was feeling every bit of what I was—was so incredibly intoxicating,

My moans came out in staccato breaths as his fingers began to play, his touch still so astoundingly gentle that I was beginning to have trouble concentrating on anything other than the feel of him and the deeply buried sensations he brought to life, to light, within my body.

My name was a low rumble past his lips and then he slid a finger up inside me. I cried out, biting down on my bottom lip as heat roared through my trembling body, filling it with the sort of heart-pounding adrenaline that made me weak in the knees, leaving my body a mass of quivering muscle and skin. I didn’t know where I was, who I was, and didn’t care to ever know. All I wanted, all I needed, was this.

Him.

“Come here,” he said, his voice a throaty growl as he removed his hand from my body.

It took me a moment to regain my bearings, but only a moment as I was more than desperate to touch him now, desperate to have him inside me again.

Quaking knees aside, I managed to climb up over him without hurting him. It helped that I was so much smaller than him, so as I settled myself over his hips, he didn’t as much as flinch.

“Is this okay?” I whispered.

“This is more than okay,” he said, and through his boxers, I felt him jerk beneath me, hard and ready. The movement caused my body to clench, to fill with a rush of eager need.

Leaning forward, I placed both my hands on his chest and pressed my mouth to his lips, and just celebrated in the act of touching him again.

His body, like his mouth, was warm, and as I stroked his chest, his tattooed skin twitched beneath my palms. I took my time with him, kissing him slowly while tracing every line on his body—his thickly defined pectorals, the indented muscles over his abdomen, the dipping grooves of his hips . . . Until finally, I couldn’t take another second of waiting, and lifted off him just enough to slip my hand inside his boxers.

My shaking hands fumbled a bit as I tried to align our bodies.

Unused to the act of sex, unused to having a man inside me, I could only slowly move up and down, easing him gently inside me with unsteady and unsure maneuvers until finally, I felt my body give way and allow him full entry.

“Dorothy . . .” Hawk more groaned than spoke my name.

Breathing hard, I raised my head to look at him.

“You’re so crazy tight,” he whispered, his eyes unusually wide, surprise tingeing his tone.

I blushed, partly because Hawk was inside me and instead of making love we were having a conversation, but mostly because I was so incredibly tight. I could feel everything—every ridge, every pulse, the way my body was throbbing around his, absolutely everything. And although it was slightly uncomfortable, it was beautifully filling.

“It’s . . . been a while,” I whispered.

“How long?” he whispered back.

I looked down at his chest, feeling silly, and even more embarrassed that all our foreplay had led to this. Talking about how tight I was. Good God.