Make Me Forget - Page 124

His harsh breathing entered his awareness. Slowly, the haze began to recede. He looked down at the bed. Harper lay there, panting, her dress shoved down below her breasts and up to her waist. He fisted his cock hard. A stream of ejaculate still clung between the damp head and Harper’s thigh. He noticed something black clinging to the top of her leg. It was wet with his come. He realized it was Harper’s thong. He hadn’t ripped her panties all the way off her, but just tore through the fabric at one hip before shoving it partially down the opposite thigh. Once the heaven of her had been revealed, nothing had mattered but being deep inside her.

His lungs burning, he dared to look at her face. Her eyes were damp, and her cheeks and lips were flushed. She looked thoroughly debauched . . . and incredibly beautiful. She looked like a woman who had just survived a brutal storm.

He inhaled raggedly at the thought. He’d been that storm.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded. She appeared to be holding her breath.

“Jacob . . . what is it?” A single tear trickled out of one eye. “What’s haunting you? Please tell me.”

Her pressured whisper cut straight through him. He felt completely transparent. He came off the bed. His pants and underwear were bunched above his knees. He flinched. He hadn’t even taken off his suit jacket or tie, for Christ’s sake. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Let me get something to clean you up,” he muttered, hitching his pants and underwear up before he walked away.

• • •

Harper had never been so shaken. She watched him walk toward his bathroom. How could he be feeling so much, and yet keep it locked deep inside the impenetrable shell of his everyday persona? It’d been like he was exorcising his demons when he’d made love to her just now. Harper had been only too glad to be the target of his angst. Even in the midst of his anguish, he hadn’t failed to excite her. Pleasure her. In fact, her arousal had been sharp and urgent. She’d looked the true Jacob Latimer in the face there for several pleasure-infused minutes, and witnessed the full extent of his power . . . of his pain.

But she’d seen the way the shutters came down over his eyes as he stood by the bed just now.

No. He wasn’t going to be making any more revelations anytime soon, she realized with a sinking feeling.

If ever.

But he had told her he cared, hadn’t he? Wasn’t his volatility a result of him admitting that to her, and to himself?

When he returned to the bed, she saw that he’d changed into dark blue pajama bottoms. Otherwise, he was nude. He didn’t speak as he sat on the edge of the bed. He removed her dress over her head and carefully drew the thong he’d torn off her leg. He took off her pumps, his touch on her achingly tender. She watched him as he solemnly washed away his essence from her skin with a warm, damp cloth and then dried her with a towel. Emotion swelled in her chest cavity. Such a beautiful, haunted man.

There was nothing she could think of to say. Everything seemed trite and without substance in comparison to what she experienced on the inside. Even her doubts were washed away by an onslaught of raw feeling.

When he’d finished and set aside the towel and cloth, she shifted on the bed, crawling under the covers. She put her arms up to him, and he came on the bed with her. He held her tight against him, stroking her hair. She felt that inexplicable bond between them surge and quiver, almost like it was a living thing.

He smoothed back her hair with his hand and pressed his lips to her temple.

“I hate wearing a condom with you,” he said in a hoarse voice next to her skin. “I hate even that coming between us.”

She made a sound of anguished longing and pressed closer to him.

“Harper?” He nudged her cheek and she lifted her head to look at him. “Are you on birth control?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“When we get back to Tahoe, let’s have a doctor examine us both. If we get clean bills of health, I want to be inside you. No more barriers.”

“Okay,” she agreed shakily, unable there, in his arms, to say anything different.

He opened his hand along the side of her head, holding her stare.

“And I want you to spend the nights with me when we return, too.”

“Every one?” she asked, stunned.

He nodded. “For as many as possible. For as many nights as we need, I want you with me. And I want you to know that I’m there. I don’t want you wondering—or doubting—because we’re separated.”

“You mean wondering if you’re with another woman?” she asked, the image of the beautiful, troubled Regina leaping into her mind’s eye against her will.

“I don’t want you doubting or worrying about anything. I don’t want to worry about you.”

Tags: Beth Kery Erotic
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