She cupped his face with her hands, let her fingers explore the hard edges of his jaw, enjoy the cut of his cheekbones, rove into the softness of his hair.
Elan.
Elan!
What on earth was she doing?
She yanked her head back and forced her eyes open, her body literally shuddering with desire as she struggled to regain control.
His eyes opened slowly and the flickering firelight danced in their black depths.
“I want you, Sara. And I know our need for each other is mutual.” The low rumble of his voice was a distant earthquake that shook her and crumbled any remnants of reason.
“Yes.”
She pulled him closer, settling her mouth over his as she surrendered to forces far stronger than good sense. Crackling bursts of electrical energy shot through her as their tongues touched.
She showered his face with kisses. His closed eyelids flickered under her lips as she dusted his skin with their caress. Her lips tingled as she relished the roughness of his cheeks.
Elan’s hands were not idle while she tasted the salt of his skin and grazed the hard line of his jaw with her teeth. He tugged down the zipper on her skirt, sucked in a sharp breath as she gently bit his earlobe.
Her breasts quivered under her blouse as he pushed her gently away from him and undid the buttons of her jacket. He eased it off over her shoulders then tackled the buttons of her blouse with the same careful concentration.
The pause gave Sara time to think about what she was doing. Or what she wasn’t doing. Shouldn’t she be clutching her blouse, leaping to her feet and running for the sanctuary of the car? What good could come of sleeping with my boss?
But at that moment she could no longer see Elan as the boss. The long, powerful fingers carefully tugging at her tiny pearl buttons were those of a man—just a man—who wanted to hold her as much as she wanted to be held by him, and who wasn’t afraid to say it.
The moon emerged from behind a bank of clouds, and anticipation shone in his dark eyes, reflecting her own.
His breathing hitched as he parted her silk shirt to reveal her breasts. Her cream lace bra lifted and offered them like fruits ripe for plucking.
She watched as he slowly raised his hands to touch them. The soft curves of flesh thrilled as his fingertips neared them. Her nipples tickled under the scratchy lace, begging to be touched. As if her tortured flesh communicated directly with him, Elan softly tugged at the lace edging the cups until her breasts spilled into his hands.
Sara released a sigh as those broad hands settled over her breasts, kneading them gently as he claimed her mouth with a kiss.
Heat flooded her limbs and she pressed herself against him, rubbed her hips against his hard belly, enjoyed the strength of his arousal through his clothes.
She wanted him inside her.
The ache of loneliness that followed her everywhere had transformed into a raging inferno of longing to connect with this man. Knowing that he, too, felt alone, needing someone—needing her—she knew they would fit together like two parts of a broken whole.
She fumbled with his belt, struggling to free the stiff leather from its loops, as his muted groans filled her ear. His tongue teased her earlobe and sent shivers of sensation sizzling up and down her neck as she tugged at the zipper on his pants and pushed them down over his hips. She pulled at the buttons on his shirt in her urgency to bare his chest. His skin shone dark bronze in the flickering firelight, but unlike hard metal it felt hot and responsive to her touch.
She trailed her fingers over the ridges of muscle as she pushed his shirt back over his shoulders and he shrugged it off.
“I must get protection,” he whispered.
Her eyes widened. The idea of protection had not even crossed her mind.
She gasped as he pulled back. It literally hurt to part from him even for a few seconds. He stepped out of his remaining clothes before he headed back to the car. Naked.
His body was magnificent. The full moon bathed the land in pale silver light. Elan looked like a god walking the earth as he strolled barefoot, dusted with moonbeams, over the rough desert soil.
He opened the passenger door and reached into the glove compartment, then slammed the door and strolled back to her. His easy, rolling gait belied his massive build. Every part of him was big. Big hands, strong arms, thickly muscled torso and powerful legs that carried him back to her in a few long strides.
His arousal was undiminished and hers only intensified by the agonizing separation from his blood-heating presence. She welcomed him back into her arms, gripped him too hard, not wanting to be parted from him again.
She lay back on the blanket and pulled him over her almost roughly. She craved his strength, his steadiness, the raw masculinity of him. Sandwiched between the hard ground of the desert and Elan’s hard body, she writhed at the blissful torture. And she wanted to feel his hardness inside her.
He rolled back to rip open the packet and sheath himself. With careful fingers he touched and probed her moist folds and parted them. He eased himself into position over her, teased her painfully aroused flesh with the tip of his penis. Then he entered her.
He sank in, but so slowly she thought she’d go out of her mind with the agonizing pleasure of it. He lowered his body into hers and their skin met as they came together, inside and out, circling each other with arms and legs, mouths meeting and breath mingling in the moment of glorious unity.
Elan sighed softly in her ear as his body settled into hers. A perfect fit.
She could feel him quickening inside her. The sensation made her gasp and laugh and her eyes sprang open and met his steady gaze. His eyes sparkled with joy and a smile teased at the corners of his mouth. His lips parted as if to speak or shout or moan, but he lowered his head and buried his face in her neck, clutching her with his hands.
“I’ve never felt such desire for a woman,” he breathed hot in her ear. She gasped as again she felt him move inside her. “I’ve never wanted…never needed…” His words were lost in a grunt of pleasure as he moved and shifted, deepening and strengthening the bond between them.
They worked together, hips lifting, bellies rolling over each other, legs and arms hugging and gripping as they moved together toward the ecstasy they craved.
They writhed on the blanket, the solid earth supporting them as she gave herself over to an intensity of sensation, a sheer, wringing pleasure she could never have imagined.
Elan’s lovemaking was exquisite. Tender and loving, harsh and demanding, he rode her and fought her, caressed and comforted her, kissed and licked and teased and tormented her. Every inch of her skin, every cell in her body, sang with the clear, mad beauty of love.
Love?
Yes. Surely only love could upend the universe and shake it until stars rained down on them. And that love filled her now until
