Captured(48)
His hand cradles the back of my head, his fingertips massaging my scalp. “You want to feel. To get lost.”
“Yes,” I sigh.
“I think I can do that.”
“But what about—” I’m cut off by his lips. He steals my breath, eats my words, and leaves me dizzy.
The kiss goes on, and on. It doesn’t deepen, only continues. Lips scouring, moving, tasting, demanding, giving and receiving. I breathe into him, accept his breath. I slide my hands onto his shoulders, explore the hard muscles there. I wonder how long you can kiss and let it remain only a kiss?
He flicks his tongue into my mouth, and I gasp at the sudden intrusion. My gasp breaks the kiss. Instead of crushing his mouth to mine to continue it, he shifts downward, touches his mouth to my jaw. My head tilts back, baring my throat. Another kiss, lower, near the hollow at the base. I hold onto his shoulders, my eyes closed. Birds chirp, trees rustle. The late afternoon sun bathes us.
His palms brush my T-shirt up, baring my stomach, my ribs. Bra. Then my shirt is off, and it’s broad daylight and I’m self-conscious, nervous. What if he doesn’t like the way I look when he sees all of me, bare in the light? What if—
My thoughts are scattered by his mouth on my ribcage, his palm on my side, warm and callused and strong. I feather my fingers through his hair and remember to breathe, but I can’t because his lips stutter across my skin to the opposite side of my torso, sliding and kissing down to my waist. He kisses my belly. Above my navel.
Worry returns.
“Not there, Derek, don’t—” He pauses, looks up at me. Then back down to my waist, my belly. I slide my hands over the stretch marks. “I’m sorry. I’m just weird about them. They’re not sexy.”
He narrows his eyes at me, glances down at my crossed hands. He shifts back on his elbow, withdraws his hand from beneath my head. I watch him, worried I’ve turned him off. So much for an hour of forgetting. But then his fingers close around my wrists, both of them. His grip on my wrists is gentle but implacable iron. Slowly, deliberately, he moves my hands above my head, ignoring easily my attempts to fight him. When my arms are stretched out, held in place by his strong hand, he adjusts his position beside me. I cling with both hands to his thick wrist and palm, squeezing with all my strength, insecurity and fear and exhilaration warring within me. I don’t know what’s he’s going to do. I’m bared to him now. But not totally. The waistline of my jeans hides the worst of my pregnancy scars.
And yes, his free hand smooths over my stomach, finds the button of my jeans. Unsnaps. Lowers the zipper. I can’t swallow, can’t breathe. He pinches the denim over one thigh and tugs down. My hip is bared, the elastic of my underwear pulled with it. He repeats the process on the other side and lowers my jeans down over my hips.
“Kick ’em off.” He touches a kiss to my rib, just below the underwire of my bra.
“Derek, I’m—no, I—”
“Do it, Reagan. Please.”
Slowly, hesitantly, eyes squeezed tight, I hook my big toe in the cuff of one leg, lift my knee to draw my leg out. But then I chicken out and start fighting him, tugging at his grip on my hands, trying to cover my stomach by curling my thigh up, twist away. He’s too strong. Gentle, but strong.
“Reagan.” His voice is whip-sharp, cutting through my struggles. I open my eyes and look at him. “You’re beautiful.”
Before I can protest or agree or whatever would have come out of my mouth, he’s kissing me. Jesus, the man can kiss. His lips are soft and skillful, moving against mine so my breath catches and my heart swells and my body heats, and then his tongue delves into my mouth and slides across my tongue, sweeps over my teeth, and he pulls away, draws his tongue over my upper lip, my lower lip, and I’m left breathless.
I’m still partly twisted away from him, my jeans half on, half off. His palm slides over my stretched buttock, sweeping over the curve, cupping my thigh and grazing downward. I register it only as pleasure. He does it again, and I moan at the heat of his palm on my flesh, and then he moves his hand to the other side of my butt, where my jeans are still half on. He slides the denim off me, and his kiss steals away my breath, my protest, and I don’t even think to be nervous because his hand is caressing my skin, moving over my thigh, up my back. I’m twisted awkwardly, turned away from him, but he’s kissing me, and I’m locked into the kiss so my neck is twisted back.
I want more of his touch. His touch I like. It’s the scrutiny that unnerves me.
I roll into him, and he takes my weight on top of him, still gripping my wrists so I can’t escape, kissing me and deepening it, turning it heated and needy. I moan and struggle against his grip, wanting to touch him. He doesn’t relent; instead, he tugs me fully onto his chest. I can feel his heartbeat under me and his hard-on at my core. His mouth is demanding and relentless and insistent on mine, and I’m powerless to do anything but give in, give him all he’s demanding of me and beg for more with whimpers in the back of my throat. Oh, god, his hand. On my spine between my shoulder blades, nails scraping down my flesh. Pausing at my bra strap. Unhooking it in one deft move. Brushing the straps from my shoulders. Guiding my arms out, and I willingly cooperate, not knowing why or how, but only that he’s eliciting desperate compliance from me. Lift up my torso enough for him to slide the undergarment out and set it aside. Now I’m lying completely on top of him clad in only my panties, and he’s still kissing the ever-loving life out of me.