the lightning began to subside, even though the rain continued to pour. With the thunder drawing farther and farther away, he could feel Maura began to relax in his arms.
And then everything suddenly began to change. Her hands started to move against his back, her head tilted backward, her lips parted. Something deep and hot and primitive began to beat inside him, and with a needy groan he dropped his head and covered her mouth with his.
Quint didn’t know if the storm had charged the air around them, or if the desire between them was setting off sparks. Either way, the fire inside him had already ignited and he wasn’t about to try to extinguish it.
The kiss he gave her was long and hungry and by the time their mouths finally parted, they were both breathing heavily and staring at each other in shocked wonder.
Finally, Maura lifted her hand to cup the side of his face. “Oh, Quint,” she murmured. “Being with you—like this—is.special. So special.”
Feeling raw and naked and unexpectedly emotional, Quint thrust his fingers into her hair and against her scalp. Then holding her head motionless, he lowered his lips back to hers.
This time he gentled his searching mouth and took his lazy time drinking in her sweet taste, while an ebb and flow of desire rushed through him like a high tide threatening to drown everything in its path.
When he finally broke the kiss and lifted his head, his insides were shaking with a need like he’d never felt before. “I want to make love to you, Maura.”
Apparently his kiss had already told her what he wanted, because there wasn’t so much as a flicker of surprise to be found on her face. Instead, her green eyes were dark and smoldering, telling him that she needed him just as badly. The notion left him drunk with anticipation.
“I want that, too, Quint.”
He didn’t question her a second time. He didn’t want to give her the chance to change her mind, to turn away from him and the consequences this might bring upon them tomorrow. Loving her. Being inside her was all he could think about. It was all that mattered.
Groaning with need, he swept her up into his arms and carried her the few steps over to the cot. After lying her gently atop the blanket, he immediately joined her on the narrow mattress, then reached for her.
With a sigh that was lost in the sound of the rain, she moved into his arms and their lips united over and over in a swarm of kisses that grew deeper and bolder with each passing minute.
Eventually their clothing became an annoying barrier and Quint reached for the buttons on Maura’s shirt. Once it was out of the way, he quickly followed it with her jeans and boots, then stood to deal with his own clothing.
Peeled down to nothing but two lacy scraps of lingerie, Maura sat on the side of the cot and as she watched Quint fumble with the buttons on his shirt, there was only one thing on her mind. And that thought had nothing to do with the right or wrong about making love to this man. Instead, she was wondering what he was thinking as he looked at her.
No doubt he was accustomed to having far younger women than her in his bed. And even though her body was firm and curved in all the right places, she felt self-conscious as his blue eyes slid slowly over her.
She swallowed as his jeans dropped to the floor, then tried to speak as he shoved them and his boots out of the way. He was all long, lean muscle, a man in the prime of his young life.
“I—” Heat bloomed pink on her cheeks as she unwittingly touched a hand to her messed hair. “I must look horrible,” she said huskily. “I’m sorry.”
Groaning, he knelt before her and drew her into his arms. “Oh, hell, Maura. You’re the most sexy and gorgeous woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Her head twisted back and forth against his bare shoulder. “There’s no need for you to go overboard.”
A low chuckle rumbled from deep in his throat. “I went overboard that first night I kissed you. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since. I’ve been wondering, imagining how it would be to make love to you. And now—”
Cupping her face with both his hands, he looked into her eyes and Maura felt her heart swell with a longing that had nothing to do with physical desire and everything to do with an emotional bond.
“I don’t want to make love to an athletic body, Maura. I want a flesh-and-blood woman, who’s all soft and lovely and feels just right in my arms. I want you.”
By the time he uttered the last word, his lips were against hers and Maura’s doubts had flown through the cracks in the wall.
Quint wanted her. Really wanted her. And that in itself was enough to send her senses spinning, to make her forget everything, including the storm outside.
With his lips fastened hungrily to hers, he eased her back onto the cot, then stretched out beside her. Tiny shivers of pleasure raced down her spine as their bared skin touched, the heat of their bodies melded together and his hard arousal burgeoned between them.
Whirling in a foggy haze, the kiss continued until she was completely starving for air. Yet when he did finally tear his lips from hers, she wanted to cry at the loss. But her disappointment was short-lived as he quickly began to nibble at the sensitive spot beneath her ear, then followed that with a trail of moist kisses down the side of her neck.
By the time he reached the valley between her breasts, her fingers clenched against her palms and her body arched toward his, toward the mindless magic his mouth was playing across her skin.
One by one, he slipped the straps of her bra down her shoulders, unfastened the hooks, then tossed the garment to the floor.
She sucked in ragged breaths, while beneath a veil of lashes, she watched his gaze settle hungrily on her breasts. The desire raging in the pit of her belly twisted into a fiery ache and with a low groan, she clutched his shoulders and urged him down to her. Amidst the sound of the storm, she heard the sharp intake of his breath and then his mouth was against one nipple as he took the tight bud between his teeth and laved it with his tongue.
Inside Maura, something snapped like a twig and all the pent-up hunger she’d been trying to contain flooded through her like the downpour outside. Suddenly she couldn’t touch him enough, taste him enough. Her hands raced over his hot skin, exploring the hard muscles of his arms and back while her lips scattered broken kisses along his collarbone and up the side of his neck where her mouth tasted the wild beat of his heart.
She was barely aware of him removing her panties and his shorts. A sea of sensation was washing over her, tugging, smothering, begging, wiping away all sense of perception. And when he positioned himself above her, she reached for him with a fierceness that frightened her.
“I hope you’re protected,” he mouthed against her ear, “because I have nothing with me.”
Closing her eyes, she turned her lips into the side of his face. “I am,” she whispered, then with a choked groan, added, “I want to feel you inside me, Quint. I want to feel us together. That way.”
“Oh, Maura. My lovely, lovely, Maura.”
The raw huskiness in his voice, the tenderness in his blue eyes, pierced her chest and sank straight to her heart. Suddenly her throat was burning and her eyes were stinging, and before he could guess
