Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(95)

It was the last place she wanted to feel his mouth, against the ugliest of her scars. Turning cold, Aline protested and tried to roll away from him. McKenna caught her easily, grasping her h*ps in his hands. He pinned her to the mattress, while his mouth wandered back to her knee. “You don’t have to do that,” Aline said, cringing. “I would rather you didn’t…really, there’s no need to prove—”

“Shut up,” McKenna said tenderly, continuing to kiss her legs, accepting her scars as she had never been able to do for herself. He touched her everywhere, his hands stroking and caressing her shrinking flesh. “It’s all right,” he murmured, reaching up to rub her taut stomach in soothing circles. “I love you. All of you.” His thumb traced the small circle of her navel, and he nibbled at the delicate skin high inside her thigh. “Open for me,” he whispered, and she colored violently. “Open,” he urged, the velvety kisses venturing higher.

Moaning, she parted her legs, feeling the desire rise again. McKenna’s mouth delved into the exposed cleft, his tongue tracing the swelling bud of her sex, then slipping lower to probe the salt-scented entrance of her body. Aline felt her body turning heavy, her senses unlocking, all awareness focused on the delicate, excruciatingly light stroking between her legs. McKenna drew back to blow lightly on her wet flesh, then worried the peak of her sex with the tip of his tongue. She clenched her fists and dug her head back, pressing herself upward, making pleading sounds in her throat. Just as she thought she could take no more of the artful torture, he slid three fingers inside her, the hard knobs of his knuckles plunging into the slick channel. She couldn’t think, couldn’t move, her body immersed with pleasure. His mouth tugged at her, while his entwined fingers twisted and thrust until she cried out sharply, convulsing in ecstasy.

While she lay gasping on the bed, McKenna stood and shrugged out of his coat, his gaze locked on her supine form. He undressed before her, dropping his shirt to reveal a tautly muscled torso and a chest covered with black hair. His big-framed body was clearly built for power rather than elegance. Yet there was something innately graceful about the long lines of muscle and sinew, and the heavy breadth of his shoulders. He was a man who made a woman feel safe, and at the same time, deliciously overpowered.

Joining her on the bed, McKenna slid a large hand behind her neck and settled over her, nudging her legs apart. Aline’s breath caught as she absorbed the sensation of his na**d body pressed all along hers…the hard, hair-roughened limbs, the stunning breadth of his chest, and the places where satin skin stretched over rippling muscle. McKenna grasped her right thigh, carefully adjusting her knee to keep the contracture scar from pulling.

Wonderingly she lifted a hand to the side of his face, caressing the close-shaven surface of his cheek. The moment was so tender, so sweet, that tears spilled from her eyes. “McKenna…I never dared to dream about this.”

His thick lashes swept downward, and he pressed his forehead against hers. “I did,” he said gruffly. “For thousands of nights I dreamed of making love to you. No man on earth has ever hated sunrise as much as I do.” He bent to kiss her lips, her throat, the rosy tips of her br**sts. Drawing on her lightly, he stroked her nipple with his tongue, and as she quivered in response, he reached down to guide himself inside her. He entered her, filling her until they were matched hip to hip. They both gasped at the moment of joining, hard flesh immersed in softness, the deep, unbearably sweet fusion of their bodies.

Aline drew her hands over McKenna’s flexing back, while he slid his hands beneath her bottom, pulling her neatly into his savoring thrusts. “Don’t ever doubt my love,” he said raggedly.

She shuddered hungrily with each wet, hard lunge, and whispered obediently through kiss-swollen lips. “Never.”

McKenna’s features gleamed from mingled exertion and emotion. “Nothing in my life has ever compared to what I feel for you. You’re all I want…all I need…and that will never change.” He groaned harshly as the headlong rush of release began. “God…tell me that you know that…tell me…”

“I do,” Aline whispered. “I love you.” The ultimate pleasure rippled through her once more, silencing her with its power and acuity, causing her flesh to enclose his with pulsing heat.

Afterward, Aline was barely conscious as McKenna tenderly used a corner of the sheet to wipe the film of sweat and tears from her face. Cuddling against his bare shoulder, she closed her eyes. She was replete, and exhausted, and filled with wholesale relief. “I’m so tired, McKenna…”

“Sleep, my love,” he whispered, smoothing her long hair, lifting the damp locks away from the back of her neck. “I’ll be here to watch over you.”

“You sleep too,” she said groggily, her hand creeping to the center of his chest.

“No.” McKenna smiled and pressed a soft kiss against her temple. His voice was husky with wonder. “Not when staying awake is better than anything I could find in a dream.”

It was late afternoon by the time Gideon returned to his rooms at the Rutledge. He was tired, gray-faced, and irritable, wanting a drink so badly that he could hardly see straight. Instead he had downed enough coffee to float a timber barge. He had smoked too, until the smell of a cigar had started to make him nauseated. It was a novel experience, this pairing of exhaustion and over-stimulation. Considering the alternative, however, he supposed he had better get used to the feeling.