His eyes flashed with unmistakable fury as he visibly strained to get himself under control. Mortified, Paige sat up, folding her legs to her chest. “I’m ugly.”
“No, baby, no!”
Reacting fast, he firmly urged her back down and slid a gentling palm up her thigh, around her hip, and stroked the scar running side to side with his thumb.
“You’re not . . . not ugly. Never.”
She might have been hesitant to believe his words, but he’d ducked his head and was eating at her neck with his mouth, sounding so aroused, sliding his fingers across her waist as he brought his whisper to her ear. “The thought of you in pain makes me want to kill.” He made a fist over her stomach, then loosened his hand. “Sweetheart, you’re lovely. Look at me. Look at me, Paige.”
When she did, his stare felt like a bonfire in her chest.
“You’re lovely.”
The denim of his jeans chafed parts of her legs as he pressed into her side. His hands began roaming, igniting the skin they touched.
And now she wanted to weep not because he didn’t touch, but because he did. And he touched her as though his whole life he’d been waiting to touch her. Whispering over and over again that she was lovely, felt amazing . . . that she was his.
His words rendered her even more vulnerable than her nakedness. She had an urge to brace herself, felt her body set protectively against how fragile she felt.
“Shh. Relax.” Zach cradled the underside of one breast with his hand and kneaded out the tip. “God.” He nuzzled her with his nose. Gave a lick. “Delicious.”
Her nerves jumped when his hand slid downward. With skillful ease, his middle finger traced the elastic of her panties. They were both making sounds, half-starved pants that echoed in the room. The ones he made— long, drawn-out immersed sounds— made her shake on the inside.
“Let’s see”— he caressed through the soaked fabric, using three fingers to expertly stroke the tenderized flesh lying desperately in wait under panties—“if I remember what to do.”
He shifted slightly above her, and, gasping as he whisked the pad of his thumb across that little sensitive place, she clutched his shoulders with ironclad hands. “Zachary.” A ray of a memory played in the depths of her mind. Of crying out his name.
She closed her eyes, helplessly rotating her head when he drowned the peak of one exposed breast with his mouth. His groan, a low and famished sound, vibrated against her flesh. His mouth was a scorching vortex. His tongue swiped. Over and over. Lapping, circling, licking. Suckling.
Her head tossed, her hips circled instinctively, and she gasped in pleasure.
“That’s it.” He suckled. “That’s it, enjoy it.”
His finger. Oh God. It was sliding down her pan ties. Down down down. He tugged the cotton aside and drew back to watch as he revealed the curls at the apex of her thighs, glistening with moisture.
“Wet for me,” he rumbled.
Holding the fabric aside with his middle finger, he stroked the pad of his thumb across the slickened entry. Up and down. Teasing her clit. Rolling it under his thumb. Then he pushed into her sheath. ?
??Hot for me.”
Screaming, she wadded handfuls of the comforter into knots. She opened her mouth to beg, to say “please, goddammit, take me!” when he came up.
He nipped her lower lip, feeling his way across her mouth with gentle bites and strokes and nibbles. “Do you want more here?” He exchanged his thumb with his longest finger and plunged into her depths, that one stroke so delicious she spread her thighs wider, curving her body to take it all in. “Do you?”
Wildly she groped between their bodies to hook two fingers into the waistband of his jeans. “Please hurry!” Sitting up for best maneuvering, she fumbled with his snap, making a frustrated noise.
Chuckling, he said, “Shh, I’ll get it,” and leisurely went up on his knees to work off his jeans.
She pulled off her pan ties, watching his biceps bulge as he unbuttoned and unzipped. He too was laboring to breathe, the air soughing in and out of his muscled chest as he undressed.
The sight of his erection popping out made Paige’s stomach grip. Zach’s body was all taut, long muscles and smooth, tanned, lickable skin. A path of silky hairs started at his navel, leading down to his jutting cock. He was thick and long, the balls high and firm, the stalk flushed with wanting.
Wanting to be in her.
Blushing, Paige glanced at the far wall, then briskly at him when he said, “Don’t turn away.”
He wanted acknowledgment. He wanted her eyes. And God, they wanted him. Her inner muscles rippled at his visual, clenching lustily as a stream of moisture trickled down her thigh.