kisses grew harder and more biting—a warning, in the same way his bucking up against her, unseating her, was a warning.
‘Rowan,’ he growled, and strained at the ties that bound him. ‘Don’t you make me come like this. I won’t forgive you.’
‘Relax.’ She slid off him, taking away the heat and the warmth of skin on skin, her eyes assessing. ‘What do you want next?’ Her fingers teased him and he bucked again. ‘Ask.’
‘Want your mouth on me,’ he rasped. ‘Want my tongue buried inside you.’ He wanted his sex dirty, filthy and glorious, and he wanted Rowan as unhinged as he was.
She did it with a whimper—swivelled around and settled over him—and he’d never felt the lack of hands more as she held herself above him, barely letting him lick at her, let alone feast.
‘More.’
She gave it, little by little, and he tried to be delicate with her even as his hunger roared, and then she lapped at him, and flicked her tongue over his crown, and that was the end of any restraint he might have conjured.
There. Right there. Flicking and sucking. And there was nothing else in his world but the taste of her as he feasted. Rowan’s scent, Rowan’s taste, Rowan’s whimpers. Ro … Her name was a litany inside his head, and when her mouth came off him with a gasp, and she rested her face against the crease of his pelvis and started swearing, he knew she was close to orgasm.
She came on his tongue, and every muscle in his body was strung so tight he could hardly breathe. He needed his own release the same way he needed air, but not yet … He was nowhere near ready to end this yet.
And then she was turning around again, lining him up and taking him in in tiny increments, and that was exactly the way he wanted her—he wanted to feel everything. The burn in his shoulders, the tug of her teeth scraping against the underside of his jaw, his breath leaving his body on a groan as he thrust up into her.
He’d have had her on her back by now if he hadn’t been restrained. He’d have been out of control, too hard for her to handle, too far gone to hold back. But this …
This was exquisite.
She sat up, hands to his chest, and with her eyes never leaving his face steadied herself and used what little weight she had to push his body back against the bed. She scraped her nails across his nipple, paused with one of them between the nails of her finger and thumb, and then pinched it hard. The stab of pain hit his brain like an aphrodisiac.
‘So full of you,’ she whispered. ‘You’re everywhere. And I’m almost there again.’
He snapped up into her and was rewarded by another bolt of pain, courtesy of her fingertips digging into his ribs.
This time it did nothing but drag him further out of himself and into that place where only sensation existed.
‘You still with me?’
He had to concentrate in order to understand her words.
‘Yes.’
‘You still want this?’
‘Don’t you stop now. Don’t.’
‘Do you want to come now? Like this? Tied up and on your back? So you can only take what I’m willing to give? Is this the kind of sex you need tonight?’
Heaven help him, it was.
‘Yes.’
The sounds she made as she started to move mirrored his own … pleasure and pain and utterly intoxicating. And then she leaned back a little more, set up a little roll of her hips on each downward stroke, closed her eyes and went to town.
And that was the end of him.
ROWAN WOKE BEFORE DAWN. Her body knew her routine as well as her brain did. The hard and heavy weight against her side was Jared West, and his eyes opened to slits when she began to extricate herself from him.
At some point not long after his second orgasm she’d untied him. It had come as no surprise at all to her that he’d immediately gathered her to him and slid into her again, his mouth on hers, slow and coaxing, his hands everywhere, reverent and gentle. Still all about skin on skin … He hadn’t seemed to be able to get enough, but his gaze had been sated and slumberous as he’d brought her to orgasm this time with nothing more than his fingers and the feel of him. And he had followed moments later, cursing and shuddering and making her feel more cherished and wanted than she’d ever been.
He was quite something.
Rowan pressed a kiss to the curve of his shoulder in a silent thank you and he smiled just a little bit, his eyes drifting closed again.
‘Time for me to get gone,’ she murmured. She still needed to shower and drop by her place for another set of clothes before she went to work. ‘Go back to sleep.’
‘I’ll take you home,’ he mumbled, still all sleep-mussed and relaxed.
‘Stay. I’ll grab a taxi.’
‘I’m taking you wherever you want to go. Don’t argue.’
It was hard to argue with a sleep-sweet man. ‘Stubborn.’
‘I like to call it determined.’
She trailed her fingers over his outstretched arm and watched his body respond as if he’d been made for her touch. Heady stuff, but it wasn’t real. The state he was in at the moment he’d respond that way to anyone with half a clue about the kind of release he needed. She shouldn’t read anything into it.
‘May I shower here?’ she asked him.
‘You don’t need to ask.’ His eyes had opened to slits again. ‘Did you read anywhere that I’m not a morning person?’
‘No, but I’m observant.’
‘Coffee, Ro. Coffee’s the solution.’
‘Or you could go back to sleep?’
She patted his hand and slipped from the bed.
The bathroom was full of the kind of expensive shower gels and moisturisers that Ro adored. The shower rose was as big as a dinner plate and delivered enough pressure to make her groan. She felt well used this morning, a little tender in places as she sluiced up and washed away the remnants of last night’s lovemaking.
She looked in the mirror once she’d finished and saw a slight woman with small breasts, slender hips, and a funny face that had always been unique rather than beautiful. She leaned closer and looked into her eyes and felt every single one of her forty years. No make-up, just pale porcelain skin and lines of responsibility etched around her eyes and between her brows.
Too old for him, a nagging voice whispered, and she couldn’t silence it.
