Catching her hand, he planted a kiss in the palm. “Oh, yeah.”
The fervency of his reply made her smile. “Why don’t you tell me what you need?”
He slid his hands down her sides, gripped her hips and pulled her closer. “Why don’t I show you, instead?”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she murmured into his mouth, “That would work.”
He didn’t carry her to bed this time. They walked side by side, their bodies close together, their steps slow. They both knew there was no reason to hurry.
They left the overhead light off, turning on the small, dim lamp beside the bed for illumination. Sharon pushed Mac’s shirt off his shoulders and then reached for the snap of his jeans. She intended to take a much more active role this time.
Because she was looking, she found the white scar low on his back, just above his left hip. Her fingertips brushed the puckered flesh. “This is where you were shot?”
“It wasn’t that bad. My injuries were never life-threatening.”
Kneeling beside him, she pressed her lips to the scar. “It must have been very painful.”
The way he flinched when her lips touched him, she’d have thought he was in pain now. And perhaps he was, she mused with a secret smile. But it was a good pain this time—an ache only she could soothe.
Standing unselfconsciously nude in front of her, he lifted her up and reached for the first tiny pearlized button on her white summer top. “I wanted to do this all afternoon.”
“I know.” She smiled wickedly at him, remembering Jamie’s comment about how good it felt to have a man “walking into walls.” “I could tell by the way you looked at me.”
Brushing his lips across her forehead, he murmured, “Sometimes I worry that you see too much when you look at me.”
She didn’t know how to answer that, so she didn’t try. Instead, she placed a hand on either side of his face and brought his mouth to hers.
By the time the kiss ended, her blouse and bra were on the floor and her shorts were puddled around her feet. Mac lifted her out of them and fell to the bed with her. “You are so perfect,
” he half groaned, running his hands over her.
“Not perfect. I have a scar, too.”
“Where?”
Feeling deliciously mischievous, she smiled and ran a finger across his lower lip. “Why don’t you try to find it?”
It was a challenge he accepted with enthusiasm. There wasn’t an inch of her he missed in his search—not an inch he didn’t touch or kiss. Even after he found the small scar from her childhood appendectomy, he kept looking—just in case, he informed her gravely, there was a flaw he had missed. Not until he’d kissed his way to her toes did he pronounce her as perfect as he had believed her to be.
By then, she could hardly think clearly enough to remember what he’d been looking for.
He was doing it again, she thought weakly. Clouding her mind with passion and pleasure, keeping her so dazed and befuddled she could only lie against the pillows and gasp. Calling on all her strength, she pushed herself off the pillows and pressed him onto his back. “My turn,” she said firmly.
He spread his arms. “Knock yourself out.”
Her breath catching on a giggle, she bent over him. It wasn’t the most romantic invitation she’d ever had, but it was sincerely offered, and that was what mattered. By the time this night ended, she promised herself, she would know his body as well as he knew hers.
It wasn’t easy keeping him still while she explored him. He kept wanting to roll her beneath him. Sharon had to hold him in place with a firm hand. He could easily have overpowered her, of course. He wouldn’t even have had to put much effort into flipping her onto her back and pinning her there with his own body. But he let her set the pace, even though he almost quivered with impatience.
He jerked violently when she took him into her hand. Groaned deep in his chest when she placed her mouth on him. And a few long, emotion-filled moments later, he did something she hadn’t expected from this strong, hard man. He begged. “Sharon—please…”
The request affected her in a way no amount of machismo could have. She melted. “Mac—”
They moved together, a fluid, silent duet of desire. It took only a heartbeat for him to don protection, and then another for him to bury himself so deeply inside her she felt as if he had become a part of her.
She couldn’t have begun to guess how much time passed—minutes…hours…days. There were no words, no coherent thoughts. Only ragged breathing and broken cries. And so much raw, honest emotion that her heart seemed to swell almost to bursting with it.
She was so desperately in love with this man. It didn’t seem to matter that they’d known each other such a short time, or that there were still secrets between them, at least on his part. She loved him. Whether that love would lead to a happy ending—well, that remained to be seen.