His lips found hers dead on target, as if he could see in the dark. She lay still from shock—one, two, three—then her brain registered that she was being kissed as if she were his last hope of ever being kissed again, that his lips were warm and firm and that they matched hers absolutely perfectly.
She made a tiny whimpering sound of surrender that surprised her. Her arms came up and around his neck and she hung on as if she’d otherwise drown.
The man could kiss.
But it wasn’t just his technique, the kissing was…different, somehow. Nothing like she’d experienced in recent memory. It was.
It was.
It was as if he loved her.
Stoner was kissing her as if she was the greatest thing that had ever happened or that ever could happen to him. And she was kissing him back that way because within a very short time it seemed that had become entirely true.
He lifted off her; she protested with an inarticulate sound, feeling the loss keenly…until those magic lips began exploring, circling her breasts in a slow inward spiral, making her nearly weep with gratitude when they finally found her nipple.
His hands had started a journey of their own, covering her thighs with warm sweeps that made her lift her hips from the bed, going closer and closer to her thighs’ juncture, then retreating, closer, then retreating.
She was crazy hot already for the release of his touch between her legs, and they’d barely even begun. He was nothing like she expected, not selfish, not impatient, not insensitive, absolutely the opposite of all those things.
Stoner.
Her heart started a pointless yearning; she told it to stop immediately, as she had told it so many times. This was sex with a stranger, no different than all the other sex she’d had with all the other strangers.
His fingers reached the starved place between her legs; breath hissed between her teeth. Touched, withdrew, probed farther, withdrew.
It was totally different.
She moaned as he dipped again, circled slowly, retreated, circled again, then his torso moved down and he replaced his fingers with his mouth.
Melanie lay helplessly, not sure what had happened, how she’d lost control of the show to this extent. She struggled to sit up. “You should let me… I want to…”
His turn to shush her. His strong hand planted on her sternum pushed her back down. His lips closed over her clitoris and his tongue began to play in earnest.
She gasped, lifted her head, let it drop, eyes squeezed tight, fighting the pleasure. “No. Too soon.”
He showed no mercy, thrust two fingers inside her and shoved her over the edge within seconds, a deep, satisfying orgasm that went on and on until she was nearly in tears, racked by the contractions and the emotion. Too soon. She only dimly understood the certainty she felt that when they joined bodies, they would also join something much more profound. Now she wouldn’t get the chance anytime soon to see if that level of intimacy could happen between them. It took her hours to recharge for orgasm number two.
“I wanted to come with you.”
“You will, Melanie,” he whispered. Again she had the feeling something wasn’t right. An odd instinct. Disconcerting. She shouldn’t have had that last drink, so she could analyze her reaction more clearly.
He stretched beside her on his side, a dark shape in the darkened room, no longer serving her but an equal partner. She slid her hand down his lean abdomen; he was hard, which pleased her. It meant the work of making her come hadn’t been work.
A sweep down his granite length with an open palm, a light caress of his compacted balls and she fisted his erection, stroked up and down, then paused, thumbing his penis head’s magical softness, encountering moisture she gently spread.
He was perfect.
She bent to take him in her mouth, but he chuckled faintly and she found herself again on her back, wrists pinned over her head.
“I won’t last, Mel—”
“Shh.” She brought his head down to kiss her. She didn’t want him to talk. Every time he did she got that funny feeling, and since everything else about this night had far exceeded her expectations, hell, it had exceeded even her fantasies, she couldn’t bear for anything to be less than ideal.
Luckily, she had a surefire way to stop him wanting to talk. She retrieved the condom from under his pillow and managed to close his hand around it. She wasn’t sure even with all her experience that she could manage in the dark, and she didn’t want to spoil anything by fumbling.
She lay back, listening to the tearing foil, smiling, relaxed, ready. This was all deliciously familiar now. She loved sex. Even when she couldn’t come, she loved the sensations, the joining, the broad expanse of a man’s back above her, the working of his butt muscles as he pushed inside her. She loved doggy style, missionary, her on top, or both of them in—
He would want to see her again, wouldn’t he?
Melanie blew out a silent breath of frustration. Not now. Plenty of time later for doubts and worries and—
He was back, hands exploring her more firmly this time, more insistently. His mouth on her breasts involved teeth as well as tongue. He was rougher in his touch, though patient, seeming to read her reactions and needs as if they were a map in front of him.
Incredibly, she responded, desire building again, breath stuttering, hands wandering over his broad masculine shape.
His thighs nudged hers farther apart; she felt the hard head of his erection at her opening and inhaled sharply. Did she say the moment before the first kiss was her favorite? She was changing her mind. This was her favorite, when the real fun was about to begin.
He breathed her name once more, with reverence that cut through her carnal anticipation and made her again uneasy. Only briefly, because he pushed inside her, dug his arms under and around her, and began to make love to her in a way that showed her the phrase wasn’t just a euphemism but a literal description, an experience she hadn’t known was possible.
Making love.
Afterward—yes, she could come twice within an hour—she lay in his arms, listening to their breathing return to normal, savoring the contact between them, the delicious skin-on-skin, muscle-pressed-to-muscle afterglow, his hands caressing her hair, her cheek, her shoulder.
“Melanie.”
“Not now.” She put a finger in the general vicinity of his lips, repositioned it when she hit his chin instead. She was so enveloped in the glow of this moment, so vulnerable to this man and what they’d just shared, that she couldn’t handle hearing anything discussed. Not that the sex was good, not that it was bad, not that she should leave now, not what he’d had for dinner, nothing. Because every second spent in conversation would bring them closer to the world of reality, and each word would bring them one word closer to when he let her know it was over. “Later. We’ll talk later. Please.”
“Okay,” he whispered, squeezing her tight,
