Sinclair Justice (Texas Rangers #2)(45)

With a husky chuckle, he lifted her chin and swooped toward her mouth, giving her the gift of laughter and himself.

But there was one more thing . . . She covered his mouth with her hand and looked up at him, her eyes so dilated they were more black than blue. “Just sex.”

“Texas friendly, ma’am. So I won’t bite . . . much,” Ross replied, his deep voice still tinged with laughter, like a promise on her mouth.

With the first touch of male to female, all the controlled stillness that had kept him leashed erupted into fluid movement. He yanked her to him at the same time, lowering his head to encourage her tentative fingers to explore all she wanted. She was pleased that even this first time, when usually men had to feel their way in pleasing her, Ross had read and encouraged her wish to bury her fingers in his thick hair and learn the perfect shape of his skull. But in giving her that leave, he took his own. At the same time, his knee nudged her legs apart so he could tilt her lower body into the hard vee of his. He broke the kiss for a second, only to slant his head at the perfect angle to hers.

This time, his lips took her. There was no other word for that complete possession.

He’d been tender and patient in his kiss before, letting her learn him. Not this time. This time, he kissed her open mouthed, his tongue urging her mouth to open for him and accept the demanding thrust of what was to come. Simultaneously, he rubbed his hips against her, tilting her so far over the arms clasped around her waist that she would have fallen if he wasn’t supporting her. The tingling that had begun in her hands forked through her body, centering between her legs in an almost painful throb. Helplessly, she opened to his explorations, submissive in a way totally foreign to her. Her mouth opened wider still, and her tongue began to duel with his, presaging what was to come in a way almost as arousing.

Still, it wasn’t enough . . . She wriggled, her hips moving in tandem with his, trying to press every molecule in her body to its counterpart in him. As if she belonged to him, as if all the primal rights between men and women since time began ruled them in this twenty-first-century hotel room. He didn’t quite wear a bear skin and carry a club, but he was all Texas arrogant male by way of wealthy New York Yalie, and the complexity of who he was fit her own duality perfectly.

She’d intended to take some control—it was her invitation and her hotel room after all—but her knees were so weak she could barely stand. Laughing even more throatily against her mouth, he lifted his head and picked her up in his arms. She expected to feel the soft mattress against her back, but he surprised her again by instead whirling her around in a circle three times, holding her carefully, exulting in the weight of her and the joy to come.

And she laughed back, body, mind, and, though she feared to admit it, soul. This was the joy she was made for, but only he had ever called forth such total intimacy. The room spun, and his face became the center of her world. He was gloriously, righteously male, luxuriating in his possession of her. And again, in this wordless way, she realized how much he’d wanted her, that he’d feared never seeing her again, too, so he was extending the moment of possession like the precious thing it was to him, setting their intimate world symbolically spinning even before the sex act.

His boyish joy was infectious. Any semblance of shyness or hesitation was left scattered on their private whirlwind.

Her feet knocked the bedside lamp.

The papers on the small table fluttered in the whoosh of air to the floor.

His boot caught the chenille spread, which fell in a heap to the carpet. It also upset his balance enough to make him stumble, but like a good Texas Ranger captain, he had a great sense of direction—straight onto the bed.

He was even in control enough to land on the bottom so he didn’t crush her. And so it was that Mercy Magdalena Rothschild, for one stolen afternoon, learned at almost forty what it truly meant to be a woman for the first time, in the arms of a man who fit her perfectly in every way. She looked down at his laughing face, totally unaware of how dark her own eyes had gone. Her smile faded. She straddled him, scrabbling at her blouse.

His laugh broke off abruptly. She pulled at the fabric, her fingers too shaky to manage the small buttons, so he gallantly offered his help by ripping off her shirt. She reached behind her back to unlatch her bra. It fell, and she tossed it across the room, sighing as she finally felt free, in every way. She’d expected to be shy this first time, but instead she sat very still and let him look.

Wanted him to look.

He cupped her full breasts in his tough rancher hands, learning texture and weight. “I knew you’d look like this, peaches and cream, my favorite. How do you taste?” He put one hand behind her waist and lowered her down to his mouth, his free hand cupping the opposite breast, stroking her nipple with one delicate finger while his mouth learned the hardness of the other. Her heart felt like it exploded in her chest, but it only pounded beneath the suckling, as if even it knew this man was meant for her. Her nipples had always been very sensitive, and she had to pull most of her lovers back from being too harsh, but Ross, the first time, seemed to read her well. He suckled softly, releasing her just as pleasure became pain, only to cover her breast again with kisses and once, shockingly, the gentlest scrape of his teeth, heightening the sensations of the moment and the pleasure to come.

Then she was squirming, trying to reach for his pants while still leaving her breasts hanging free to his mesmerizing touch. His golden laughter was muffled against her bosom. “Need some help?”