His eyes darkened dangerously as he watched her face, the play of sensations and light, the helpless trembling of lashes and lips. Then the utter surrender to self and to him when the orgasm rippled through her.
Wanting more as wildly as she, he closed his mouth over her breast and built her relentle
ssly toward peak again.
"I can't." Nearly terrified at what he'd pulled out of her, of what he seemed to create inside her, she dragged at his hair. "I'm not—"
"Sure you can." He gasped out the words before his mouth fused with hers. Heat was pouring out of her, all but pumping out of her pores. He'd never known a woman to be so responsive and so resistant at once. The need, the drive to show her he was the one, the only one who could bring that response and break that resistance made him hold off that final pleasure for the tortured maze of sensations between.
It seemed he owned her body. She had no control, and had lost the will to find any. His hands, his lips were everywhere, and each time she thought he would rush to finish it, he would cause her to erupt again, then move patiently on.
She was painfully aware of her body, and his, the melding and the contrasts, the race of pulses. Candlelight flickered over his face, those sleek, slick muscles, making it all almost too beautiful to bear. The taste of him was potent, like some dark, slow-acting drug that had already seeped into her blood to addict her.
He braced himself over her, waiting for her eyes to open and focus on his. "I didn't want you," he said in a voice strained to the edge of control. "Then I wanted nothing else. Understand that."
"For God's sake, Byron. Now!"
"Now," he echoed and plunged into her. "But not just now."
The warm red haze over her mind cooled slowly. She became aware of the world outside of her own body. The candlelight continued to flicker against her closed lids in soft, surreal patterns. The night wind had risen, causing the curtains at the windows to whisper. She could hear the music again, the low throb of bass from the stereo downstairs, the answering wail of a tenor sax. The smell of hot, pooling wax, and sweat, and sex.
She had the taste of him in her mouth, and the good, solid feel of him beneath her. He'd rolled her over so that she lay sprawled across him. Concerned, she supposed, that he would crush her. Always the gentleman.
Just how did she play this? she wondered. How did she handle the aftermath of such wild, spectacular sex? Initiating it was one thing, participating was clearly, and fabulously, another. But she felt certain that these first few moments of the after would set the precedent for how they would go on.
"I can actually hear your mind clicking back in gear," he murmured. There was a hint of amusement in his voice as he smoothed down her messy cap of hair. "It's fascinating. I don't know that I've ever been quite so attracted to a woman's brain before." When she started to shift, he ran his hands down her back, gave her butt a friendly squeeze. "No, don't move yet. Your head's ahead of me."
She took a chance, raised her head to look at him. Those gorgeous green eyes of his were at half-mast. The mouth that had so recently sent her system into overdrive was softened with a faint smile. He was, she decided, the perfect picture of the fully satisfied male animal.
"Is this going to be awkward?" she wondered aloud.
"Doesn't have to be. It seems to me that we've been heading here since the first minute we met. Whether we knew it or not."
"Which poses the next question."
Ah, that tidy, practical, ordered mind, he thought. "Which is, what direction do we take from here? We'll have to talk about that." He rolled her over and, before she could speak again, took her mouth in a long, deep, mind-hazing kiss. "But first, the practicalities."
He scooped her off the bed, into his arms. Her system gave a fresh jerk. It was so odd, being carried this way, experiencing the arousing vulnerability of being physically outmatched. "I'm not sure I like the way you do this."
"Let me know when you make up your mind. Meanwhile, I vote for a shower and dinner. I'm starving."
No, it wasn't going to be awkward, she concluded. In fact, it was amazingly pleasant to be wearing one of his faded T-shirts, listening to Bob Seger's sandpaper vocals grinding out rock. Byron had trusted her to put a salad together while he grilled the steaks. She was finding the process enjoyable—the colors and textures of the vegetables he'd set out for her. The summer-garden scent of them. She couldn't remember being quite so aware of food before. She liked to eat, Kate thought, but taste had always been the main stimulus. Now she decided there was more to it than that. There was the feel of the food, the way different ingredients played off each other, harmonized or clashed.
The moist, feathery layers of an artichoke heart, the firm snap of a carrot, the subtle bite of cucumber, the delicacy of salad greens.
She set down the chef's knife and blinked. What the hell was she doing? Romanticizing a salad? Good God. Carefully, she poured herself half a glass of the wine he'd set on the counter to breathe. Though she hadn't had any recent flareups, she was still leery of alcohol. She sipped the wine gingerly.
She could see him through the glass doors, talking to the dogs as he turned the steaks. Flame and smoke billowed.
They were cooking together, she thought. She was wearing his shirt. Dogs were begging for scraps, and music was playing.
It was all so quietly domestic. Terrifying.
"Honey—" Byron slid open the doors. "You want to pour me a glass of that? These steaks are about done."
"Sure." Easy, girl, she warned herself. This was just a nice, pleasant evening between two consenting adults. Nothing to get jittery over.
"Thanks." Byron took the glass she brought to him, swirled the wine before drinking. "You want to eat out here? It's a nice night."