All for You (Paris Nights #1)(49)

Her mouth trembled all of a sudden. “Do you?” she whispered. Because it was hard to live up to a fantasy a man had been building for five years without any contact with the real woman.

“Yeah. Nothing compares to this.”

“This?”

His eyes burned down over her body, his fists flexing by his thighs as he held himself in. “This moment. Right here. This.”

The room felt too hot, too tight. She twisted away from him suddenly, around the bed, to open the casement window. Street noise invaded immediately, echoing up between stone buildings from the cars and voices six floors below.

She turned back.


Joss still stood where she had left him, still holding himself in. Energy came off his body like a force of nature barely contained. He tilted his head just a little … and then held out a hand, fingers curling to coax her back.

She came because she couldn’t say no. She wanted to touch him so much. Be pulled in against that hard chest. Be held.

Know he was alive.

Somewhere inside her flared the panicked sense of rolling down a mountainside, of going too fast, flailing for holds and unable to stop herself. They weren’t ready for this. They hadn’t made that transition from her brother’s patient friend to this, this fire and storm of hunger.

But as soon as her hand touched his chest, he pulled her in with a groan, hands pressing into her back and butt hard as he lifted her into him, kissing her.

He kissed her so hungrily, so intensely, his hands running so hard all over her body, fingers digging into her, gripping her. He kissed her until he’d toppled them on the bed behind her with the force of the kiss. And still he didn’t stop, pushing his hand up her ribs, squeezing her breasts.

She’d imagined making love to Joss, too, and it hadn’t been anything like this. It had been quiet and protective and strong. Sweet.

Vague.

This was all-out hunger, as if an intense maleness packed too tight for too long had burst through the first hairline crack in the dam that it found and was buffeting her in its force. This wasn’t protection. This was utter greed.

“I’ve got to slow down,” he said hoarsely into her hair, against her ear, against her throat, as his mouth slid over her, his hands gripped her everywhere, moving and squeezing and rubbing as if he had to touch all of her right now, all at once, now. “Please tell me to slow down.”

“I’ve never—” She broke off. Made love like this, she couldn’t say. He didn’t want to hear comparisons to other men right now. But she hadn’t ever made love like this. As if she was being consumed in an inferno of need. Her own need, too. She fought his to make space for herself, scrubbing her hands down his arms to feel all his muscles, gripping him through his T-shirt to make sure all of him was really there. “I’m so glad you’re home.” So glad you’re alive and here.

“Anything I get right—just stop me and tell me. Grab my hand and hold it there. Whatever. And I’ll keep doing it.”

“You, too,” she whispered. She had to live up to five years of a soldier’s fantasies, after all. And everything about him was overwhelming her—bigger, more urgent, so much more real and male than she had ever imagined him in her head. “You tell me, too.”

A groan that held something between despair and humor. “Célie, I’m way easier than you. As long as I can get inside you, everything is right for me.”

It was kind of infuriatingly unfeminist how tempting it was to just yield to that need, to say, Oh, if that’s what you need so much then you can have it. To just give up her own body to his demands. She caught herself. This was for her, too.

“I like this,” she said, and felt shy to tell him. The man who had once been her friend, once been her hero. The man who had once been so infuriatingly trustworthy that she could test out all her fresh, teenage flirting skills on him, and he would never take advantage of her. She had to whisper what she wanted to that man, looking up at him. “I like it when you touch me all over a little rough like that, as if you’re so hungry for me you can’t stand it.”

“I can’t stand it.” He kissed up her arm, this scrape of twenty-four hours without a shave and this stern silk of firm lips. “Sweetheart, if I screw this up, please be kind and let me try again. Please. I want you so damn bad.”

“Okay.”

He lifted his head, a little confused by the word even though he had made the request. “Okay?”

“Joss. You don’t have to be perfect for me.” She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into that chest that had a scent. Dreams never had scents, but the reality smelled of heat and a hint of sweat, of pine and strength and him. “I’ve always loved you just the way you were,” she whispered into his chest.

A shudder ran through him. “Célie.” He braced on his arms to look down at her. “Célie, you’re so damn—God.” His hips thrust against hers, through denim and leather.

Her body softened at the pressure, in the desire to yield to it and let him in. She ran her hands over his chest again, flexing fingers into his muscles.

He stroked a hand over her stomach, down to her leather, bracing himself enough off her so that he could watch the path of his own hand. The warmth of it settled heavily over the waist of her pants. Her breathing deepened as she went very still, gazing up at him, suspended in desire for that hand to do anything it wanted. Slide a little farther down. Cup. Press. Open. Slip in—