A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1)(151)

Bright lights blinded him, while his body twitched and shuddered beneath her. He held tightly, praying she would secure him to the earth and keep his heart from stopping altogether. She squeezed around him, milking him. He threw back his head with a cry of almost painful pleasure. “Sweet Jesus!”

“Wes,” she screamed out, coming apart, bucking, and writhing in his lap. “Wes. Oh God. Oh God. I love you!”

With a giant flash of lightning and a deafening clap of thunder, the room was plunged into darkness.





27


[page]As they came to a gradual stop, still wrapped around each other, their heavy, labored breaths filled the living room, illuminated only by the still roaring log fire. Carter’s eyes opened slowly as Kat’s words rang around them.

Like a statue, Kat remained on his lap. Her knotted arms stayed around his neck with her face pressed against his. Carter’s brain moved at a thousand miles a minute, and he was damn sure he could feel her heart pounding in time with his.

He moved his thumb minutely, touching the delightful dimples at the bottom of her back, and took a deep breath. “Peach—”

“Shhh,” she interrupted in a quiet, anxious voice. He could feel her shaking her head next to his. “Just. Shhh. Don’t say anything.” He made to move his head so he could look at her, but she held him fast. “Don’t move. Please.”

Confused, he continued to hold her in the same position, cocooned in her warmth. He exhaled raggedly in aggravation when she kept silent and still. Why the hell was she so quiet? Did she regret saying those words to him? Maybe it was a simple impulsive thing inspired by the amazing sex they’d just had.

Maybe she didn’t mean it.

Astonishingly, Carter’s heart paused at that particular thought.

“Kat,” he whispered. “Please.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice shook.

Carter swallowed hard. He heard her sniff and tried to move his head to look at her, but she was too damned strong.

“Kat,” he admonished. “Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I—I can’t. I shouldn’t have …”

At the sound of the words, he gripped her wrists from around his neck and pulled them away, keeping her body close to him with his hand on her cheek. His gaze wandered over her face in question. He saw she was crying, her face pained, and immediately a huge rock of discomfort lodged in his gut.

He smoothed her damp hair from her face. “What shouldn’t you have done?”

If it was a slip of the tongue—so to speak—then he wanted to hear her say it. As masochistic as it sounded, if Kat had said those words and not meant them, he had to know. He wanted to believe her, truly, but so many things in his mind made him doubt her words. He hated that there was any doubt at all, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been programmed that way: to be suspicious and untrusting. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying his damnedest to rid himself of the uncertainty coursing through him.

Kat stared down at where they were still connected. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Carter slumped and watched her wipe at her tears. He let his hands drop to his sides in defeat. The warm postcoital sensation inside him turned cold.

“It’s all right,” he said in a rough voice. “It happens.”

He had no idea if that was true, but he wanted to make her feel better.

“What happens?” Kat pressed her palm tenderly in the center of his chest, tracing the cursive black ink with her fingertips.