A Facade to Shatter(54)

She knew better, she really did. But when you’d believed something your entire life, it was difficult to suddenly stop in a moment where every gesture, every touch, every look, set off firestorms inside. You’d do anything to keep the storm happening, anything to keep feeling the sweet heat. You would not take a risk.

He took a step toward her, his big body menacing—but in a good way. In a hard, protective, thoroughly delicious way.

“Do you want to touch me?” he asked.

She could only nod her head.

“Do it, then,” he told her. “Touch me wherever you want. However you want.”

“You have too many clothes on,” she said, and blushed.

His laugh was deep, sexy, sinful. “Take them off, then.”

She moved toward him, her fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt until she could finally push it free. It fell off his shoulders and landed in a pile at his feet. The shorts he’d changed into hung low on his body, revealing ridges of hard muscle and the perfect slash of hip bones.

She wanted to run her tongue along those bones. Wanted to dip it into the hollow of his abdomen, and then slide it down to the thick, hard length of his penis. But she didn’t. She just stood and gaped like a kid in a candy store.

Zach swore, and then he was unbuttoning his shorts and shoving them down. His underwear went with them until he stood before her gloriously naked. His penis jutted out proudly, and his warrior’s body made her mouth water.

She forgot herself. She reached for him.

But he reached for her, too, and soon they were lost in each other, kissing and touching and feeling what they’d missed for the past few weeks.

Lia wrapped herself around him until he put his hands on her bottom and lifted her. Her legs scissored around his waist as he carried her the few steps to the bed and tumbled her backward onto it.

“I wanted to seduce you slowly. But I can’t wait, Lia,” he managed finally, the hard ridge of his erection riding against the silk of her panties.

“Me, neither,” she said—panted, really.

He rose up above her, jerked her panties down her legs and discarded them—and then he was back, pushing inside her until they were joined completely.

This, she thought, eyes closed, back arched, this utter perfection of his body so deeply within hers. This was what she wanted. What she needed.

His mouth fused to hers as he began to move. He wound his fingers into hers, pushed her arms above her head and proceeded to devastate her utterly with his lovemaking.

Days passed. Glorious sex- and sun-drenched days. They didn’t talk about the military again, didn’t talk about Zach’s dreams. He slept with her at night, though she hadn’t believed he would. The first night, when they’d made love and she was so thoroughly languid that she couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it, he’d alarmed her by climbing from the bed and gathering his clothes.

When she’d asked him where he was going, he’d informed her he was going to his room. She’d sat up, the sheet tucked around her still-naked and glowing body, and wanted to cry. He’d told her it was best for them both, and that it wasn’t her. It was him. She knew what he meant, but it still hurt to see him willing to walk away when she would have gladly walked across a room of broken glass just to be by his side.

He’d left her alone, and she’d turned to stare out at the ocean glowing beneath a full moon. The waves crashed against the shore, broke against the jagged rock cliffs that dotted the shoreline, and she felt as if her heart was broken and jagged, too.

Fifteen minutes later, Zach had returned. When he’d slipped into bed with her, she’d been unable to contain the small cry that erupted from her. He’d pulled her close, his mouth at her throat, and told her he wanted to try to stay with her.

She’d put her arms around him, threaded her fingers into that silky hair and nearly wept with relief and fierce joy.

They had not slept. Not at first. No, within minutes, Zach was inside her again, his body taking hers to heights that made the peak of Mount Everest look like an afternoon trek up a tiny foothill.

Finally, they crashed to the bottom again and fell asleep, entangled in each other’s arms.

The days began to pass, each one as perfect and heartbreaking as the last. They spent hours making love, hours in the sunshine—floating in the pool, lying on the beach—and didn’t leave the house to go anywhere. A service did the shopping and cleaning for them, so all they had to worry about was fixing their meals.