Moonlight Over Manhattan(77)
He had no idea what would happen tomorrow but right now, today, she was all he wanted.
“Bedroom,” he groaned, and she pushed at his chest, gesturing vaguely with her hand.
Drunk with desire, they stumbled across the apartment to her bed and tumbled, crushing her beneath him. Heat and desire escalated to alarming levels. He kissed his way down her body, his tongue slowly tracing the rosy pink tips of her breasts. It was like being plunged straight into summer. Strawberries and cream. Sunshine and warmth. Her breathing grew choppy. Soft gasps turned to low moans, sweet sounds as he found all her sensitive places, leaving no part of her untouched or unexplored.
“Ethan, Ethan,” she murmured his name, shifting against the sheets, as he took liberties, shifting their relationship from one of friendship to deep intimacy.
And then he realized his wallet, with the one essential item he needed, was on the floor of the living room in his pocket.
In that one, brief moment he finally understood why people occasionally chose to be reckless.
It took all his willpower to drag himself away from her, especially as she protested.
“Don’t move,” he muttered, glancing at her splayed body the way a starving man might view his first home-cooked meal in a year.
He moved with the swift efficiency and focus honed and sharpened by years in the ER, and was back before she’d even had a chance to lift her head.
She stared at him, her gaze unfocused.
“Ethan—”
“I know—I know, baby.” He pushed her thighs apart and slid his hand under her bottom, lifting her. She moved with him, her body a graceful arch, and he was about to thrust deep when he remembered what she’d said about not enjoying sex very much. However desperate he was feeling, he was determined she was going to enjoy this. More than enjoy it, so he forced himself to back off and instead of entering her, he pushed her legs wider and kissed his way down to the golden shadows of her thighs, using his tongue to taste and tease, licking into her until she was crying his name and couldn’t stay still unless he held her. Finally, after he’d driven her half-mad, he eased himself over her, taking his time, holding back. He entered her slowly, by degrees, keeping his rhythm gentle and careful. He drew her arms above her head and locked his fingers with hers, holding her hands and her gaze as each thrust took him deeper. He felt her close around him, felt her flesh ripple against the sensual invasion, and even though it half killed him to do it, he forced himself to pause.
“Are you okay?” Somehow he asked the question and she nodded, cheeks flushed, eyes fixed on his as if he was the only stable thing in a shifting universe.
He eased deeper, keeping the same steady rhythm, and he felt the change in her, felt her body open to his and then close around him in silken intimacy. He paused, dropped his head to her shoulder, trying to delay his own release, but she was moving her hips, urging him on and whatever control he had slipped away from him. It was wild and crazy, so all-consuming that everything else faded into the background.
He heard her cry out and felt her nails dig hard into his shoulders. Then she tightened around him, her body ensuring that any attempt on his part to hold back would be fruitless. She called out his name as her climax tipped him over the edge and sent him into a free fall of pleasure.
SHE LAY SECURELY wrapped in the circle of his arms, feeling weak and sated. Her heart was still hammering and her skin was warm and damp against his. If there had ever been a more perfect moment she couldn’t remember it. She couldn’t believe that he was here, in her bed, solid, strong and real.
She hadn’t planned to end the evening in bed with him, but nothing had ever felt more natural. Maybe she was better at stepping out of her comfort zone than she’d first thought.
Maybe she really could be bad-girl Harriet.
Or maybe not.
She’d promised herself she wasn’t going to read anything into this but it turned out it wasn’t as easy to control her mind as she’d thought.
“So—” She was out of breath. “If that was lesson one of your dating master class, what happens in lesson two?”
His eyes were closed. “Give me a minute, and I’ll show you. Lesson two might be about to run into lesson one.”
She snuggled closer, making the most of the fact that he was here in her bed. “So—sex after a first date. Does that qualify me for bad-girl status?”
“I don’t know, but if it didn’t I have a few ideas of what I could do to you to help you earn that badge. Happy to help you live out your bad-girl fantasy.”
“You’re all heart.”
He opened his eyes. “Definitely not that.”
“You really think you don’t have a heart?”
She didn’t know how he could possibly think that given what she knew about him.
He had more heart than any man she’d ever met.
He brushed her cheek with his fingers. “I don’t seem to find it easy to feel anymore. Early in my career I struggled with feeling too much. Every damn day I’d come home emotionally drained and I learned to manage it, but the price I paid is that now I don’t seem to be able to switch it on again easily.”
“But you did when you were married?”
“No. That was part of the problem. And Alison was the same. She was a news reporter. Some of the things she saw in the newsroom, raw footage, were probably almost as bad as the stuff I was seeing. And it has an effect on you. You learn to detach. You have to. It’s how you continue to function and do the job you’re supposed to do. But the downside is that you can’t just switch it on and off again. You don’t just flick a switch and become a normal human being again.”