"Yes, ma'am, you are."
His weight braced on his forearms, he loomed over her with sexy restraint, his dog tags dangling to tease between her breasts. Levering on one arm, he swept off the chain and pitched it onto the floor.
Without closing his beautiful eyes, he moved inside her, a long and slow withdrawal that pulled an even longer sigh from her until his thrust shifted her sigh to a moan. Her hands slid over his back, down to grip and learn the feel of him along with discovering a matching rhythm that soon slicked them with sweat.
Whispered urgings grew louder in a rambling litany of need they both responded to even if she couldn't remember what either of them said. Maybe she was too busy relishing the unmistakable heat and want in his expression.
Then she couldn't tell if he closed his eyes or not because her own wouldn't stay open.
Her legs glided up of their own will and instinct to hook around his hips, heels hooking together to clamp their bodies closer as she writhed for release. Already? Yes.
"Not going to last much longer if we don't slow down." His words shooshed against her ear in a hot hiss of air.
A year of abstinence. For both of them. Somehow she knew right then it really was true for him, but couldn't wrap her brain around rational thought long enough to figure out why that might be important. "Neither am I."
"Thank heavens."
Each rhythmic glide stroked her higher, pulled nerves into a taut twist until her fingers clenched against the hard planes of his shoulder blades for anchor. Her arms strained from trying to hold him closer, arch and rock her body in time to his in a frantic dance to find completion while somehow extending the pleasure as... long... as...
Her year of abstinence ended with a final crack of thunder and lightning, bathing her in a downpour of sensation that momentarily washed away worries.
He was in a crapload of trouble.
Parked in front of his piano with warm Paige beside him and the scent of sex all around them both, he played through every mellow love song classic he could remember, to offer Paige the romance he should have earlier.
Before he'd pounced on her like an untried horny teenager.
Even now he stifled the urge to tip them both to the floor for round three, and consoled himself with the heat of her thigh pressed to his. Thank goodness his boxers offered a modicum of coverage, because the sight of her in his shirt and nothing more... How about some extra air in this room?
A year without wasn't any excuse for this raging need for more of her. He should have shown some restraint. In the past he'd gone through dry stretches, and afterward had still been in control. Chalk it up to male ego, but he always planned how to ensure the woman walked away fully satisfied.
Any planning with Paige had gone out the window seconds after his telephones.
He also considered himself more of a pragmatist than a romantic on this subject. He figured he would get his big finish regardless, and his chances of being invited back for more "big finishes" were higher if she finished, too. Sure Paige had cl**axed...an incredibly beautiful sight he would carry in his mind until the day he died.
But he couldn't remember how the whole process evolved, because he sure as hell hadn't been in control and neither, it seemed, had she. He'd just been...there...with her, in her, touching, caught up in the mind-numbing pleasure and excitement from hearing her gasps, sighs, moans build until they were both so freaking out of control...
He'd told himself he would regain balance for the second go round. Not. And now here he sat at the keyboard looking for order as he'd always done through his music...with no luck.
His fingers stopped along the keys as the last notes faded in the humming piano strings.
Paige's hand fluttered to rest on top of his left. "That was beautiful. Thank you. I can't remember ever having a better concert." She stroked along his hand, the fingers on his left puffy and red, aggravated from hours of guitar playing, followed by his twenty minutes of corny love tunes that somehow didn't feel so sappy with Paige around.
She traced each scar with her lightest of healer touches as if she could somehow erase them. "Should you ice your hand?"
"Probably." Later, when he wouldn't feel like a wuss for admitting he'd pushed too far.
Paige started to swing her legs to the side on the piano bench. "I'll get it for you."
He looped his arm back around her waist and anchored her to his side. "In a minute. I currently have another appendage that's paining me more."
She leaned into his kiss, her fingers still linked with his. Their eyes met and held, her thumb stroking along the ridge of a scar and silently questioning.
As much as he wanted to dodge anyone rooting around in his head, he owed her something in return for all she'd told him. Might as well go for broke since he suspected there was no getting out of this relationship unscathed. "I hurt my hands when things went to crap during a mission overseas in Rubistan."
Horror widened her eyes. "You were injured during a crash?"
"Not exactly. Yes, we were shot down." His brain echoed with the shattering thump, the shriek of warning alarms, the bark of the aircraft commander's voice, Scorch, instructing them all to strap down tight. "You may have heard some of the news reports about terrorists using shoulder-held missile launchers. They popped some planes in Iraq that way, too."