Montana Wildfire (29 page)

He didn't, not yet, but soon. Very soon.

He straddled her hips, and his slitted gaze scanned breasts that were heavy and more perfectly formed than days of fantasies had made him dare dream they would be. She was full and round, her nipples puckered and pink and tempting. His gaze slummed her slender waist, marveling at the way it flared into temptingly curved hips. His attention snagged on the nest of golden curls between her thighs. The urge to possess returned with staggering force; had he been standing, he would have crashed to his knees.

Jake shifted, blanketing Amanda with his body, nudging her legs apart with his knees. She opened for him, and he sandwiched himself between her thighs. The tip of him probed moist, velvety flesh, but he resisted pressing into her. For just a few seconds, he was content to know release was in sight—content to merely look at her flawless face, to watch her lashes flicker against soft white cheeks.

His contentment burned away the second her thick, honey-tipped lashes swooped up. Her green eyes, wide and questioning, held him prisoner.

A thousand words ran through Jake's mind, phrases that would make this first time easier for her. Easier for him. He didn't utter a single one. He couldn't. The anticipation he saw in her eyes clogged any words he might have spoken in his throat.

Her hands lifted, skimming his back before her fingers tangled in his long, dark hair. Her palms cupped his scalp, drawing his lips down to hers for a searing kiss. Only when their lips met did Jake's hips arch forward. Only then did he slowly, slowly enter the tight, warm core of her.

The barrier was broken as delicately as his feeding passion would allow. He felt her tense, and he captured her startled whimper with his mouth. His scalp burned from the pull of her fingers fisting his wet hair, but the pain didn't last long; it only
seemed
like it lasted forever. Soon, she relaxed. Soon, she began moving in an age-old rhythm beneath him.

Jake pushed forward, sliding into her fully. Only once he'd buried himself as far as he could go did he pause. A surge of emotion rocked through him. The strength of it made him shake.

The feeling was that of coming home.

Amanda moved restlessly, arching her hips upward, searching. Now that the initial pain was forgotten, she began to burn again. It was like a slow-building fire that sparked in her thighs, insistent and demanding. The warmth spiraled to her abdomen when Jake began moving atop her, moving inside of her.

His thrusts were smooth and unhurried, deep and long—and much too slow, as far as Amanda was concerned. She wanted a tempo to match the one drumming through her blood. She wanted fast and wild. She wanted more. Of Jake. Now.

She wrapped her legs around his hips. Her grip tightened, her hips eagerly met his as he plunged into her. She held him to her, deeply, until he groaned, shifted, almost withdrew, then thrust into her again.

And again.

And again.

The fire in her blood melted into the liquid heat of all-consuming passion. A need stronger than anything she had ever known before throbbed through her. It was aggravated beyond endurance by the way Jake's head dipped and his mouth and tongue suckled her neck. Her chin shot up, her head twisted atop the ground as, following her urgings, he quickened the pace.

"Remember," she murmured, his words coming back to her with breathtaking clarity, "once you've set the pace you can't let up or you'll have to start from scratch."

He laughed—softly, deeply, a sound that rocked Amanda to the core. His hands slipped beneath her back, holding her close. Their moist bodies slid together and apart and together once more. Flesh rubbed against hot, wet flesh.

Amanda's hands skimmed Jake's back in a smooth, downward stroke. She cupped his hips in her palms. Her fingers tunneled into flesh and muscle as she encouraged him to move faster still.

The feelings inside her were melting together—electric, building, just out of reach. No, just
within
reach. Her body arched to meet powerful thrusts and retreats. Each plunge was longer, deeper, fuller than the last. Each rise of her hips was bolder, more daring, more demanding. She felt herself tightening around him, felt minuscule spasms shudder up her spine, building and building. She was on the brink, the very precipice of...

What?

Jake had held himself back for as long as he could, but... dammit he was losing it. He couldn't wait much longer. She felt too good, too warm and tight and wet. Her body was milking a response out of him that he didn't want to give her, a response he couldn't, no matter how hard he tried, hold back from her.

Think of it as like... making love.

He drove into her, his pace reaching a frantic pitch. Each thrust brought their chests into searing contact. He could feel her hardened nipples grazing against him, burning into his skin. He could feel her rapid, ragged breaths burning over him.

He wanted release. He wanted it right now. And, goddammit, he wanted it for
both
of them!

And what Jake Chandler wanted, Jake Chandler got.

The first tiny quivers of her tightening and releasing around him was the sweetest form of torture Jake had ever known. His control came damn close to shattering. White heat shot through him when he felt her arch, clinging to his back as she buried her face in his shoulder and cried out her pleasure.

That
was all Jake had been waiting for. His hands searched the ground until he found hers. Their fingers locked, entwined, their grips white-knuckled and strained as his hips arched forward, his thrusts hard and demanding, the rhythm no longer smooth and controlled, just needy.

Amanda wrapped her legs higher around him, tightening, accepting,
demanding
all of him. Her body rippled around him as Jake filled her time and again. She groaned, shuddered, and felt the earth splinter around her.

Jake knew he'd waited too long. His intentions had been to make this first time feel so good she wouldn't think twice about doing it again. And again. And again.

Good intentions flew right out of his mind when he felt her sweet, hot spasms of satisfaction. He would have liked to wait, liked to bring her to that peak again and again, but he couldn't. Not this time. He had needs of his own that had been too long suppressed and refused to be denied a second longer.

Before he could suck in a breath, his body arched and he was speeding after her, a mere second behind. His climax came long and hard, feathering up his spine, bursting behind his tightly closed eyelids in a blinding haze of earth-shattering completion. He felt the culmination of their joining literally rip through his body, and spill into hers in a burst of liquid heat.

When it was over, when they both lay panting and spent, he groaned and slowly lowered himself atop her. Her body was a bed of soft, moist, feminine curves that welcomed his weight.

Jake was too weak to move. Too weak to breathe. In all his life, he'd never felt anything as depleting as what they'd just shared. Nor anything as good and right.

Home,
he thought again as, with a weary sigh, he nuzzled his face against her neck. Making love to Amanda Lennox felt like coming home.

"You all right?" Jake asked as, leaning to the side, he helped Amanda onto the white. His large, warm hands spanned her waist, positioning her between the hard wedge of his thighs.

"Yes, fine," she answered, knowing full well she'd just told the biggest lie of her life. Fine? Oh, no, she felt better than that. Much better.

"You're sure?"

"Positive," she said dreamily. "I'm... fine." Actually, what she felt came closer to giddy. Relaxed, unfettered, happier than she'd been in months. Make that years. Make that her
entire life!
Right now, she felt like she could conquer the world. Sighing in contentment, she leaned back and snuggled into the hard contours of Jake Chandler's chest. Not for the first time did she admire the way her body fit into his so nicely, so perfectly. The last time she'd found herself in this position, her blood had been hot with anticipation. While her blood was still hot, this time it was with an entirely different emotion. The feeling was contentment. Pure, physical gratification. It burned away every other emotion she'd ever felt before it.

The firm chest pressing into her spine and shoulders, the hard, corded legs flanking her outer hips and thighs, the arm molded around her waist and the palm possessively riding her thigh... not a single inch of Jake Chandler's body held any mystery for her now. Maybe that explained why even his simplest touch was more exciting now than it had been before. Maybe. Although Amanda thought it more likely her excitement stemmed from how...
stimulating
she now knew that touch could be.

Perhaps her outlook had changed because the look and feel of Jake was now stamped in her mind, on her palms, on her body. She no longer
wondered
what he felt like, she
knew,
and she couldn't forget! Sleek and warm and appealing—
that
was how Jake Chandler felt. Her desire to have his mouth on hers had been temporarily assuaged. So had other, baser cravings she hadn't known she had—until Jake had awakened them in her. She knew what it felt like to have his hands scouring her body. And she knew...

Well, she knew that what Jake looked and felt like was heaven. Even now, with clothing separating them, he felt good. Very good! Good enough to make Amanda's mind swerve, good enough for her thoughts to turn suggestive and hungry once more.

Again and again.

That was what he'd promised her. She clung to those words, replayed them in her mind. Her heart skipped when she thought of the next time with him, and the time after that.

Again and again.

The words sliced through Jake's mind like a warm knife through butter. He angled his head, and the underside of his jaw scraped the top of Amanda's head. Her hair felt damp and cool against his skin. At some point while he'd been busy satisfying his craving for this women the raindrops had begun to mix with snow. Amanda's hair was now dusted with it. So was his. Most of the flakes melted on contact, cooling passion-heated flesh, cooling passion-heated thoughts. Well, almost.

He glanced down, and noticed that Amanda's skirt was hiked up to midthigh so that she could ride astride.

Jake's vision filled with shapely, snow-moistened legs. She was only slightly tall for a woman, and most of her height was in her legs. They went on for miles, all long and slender and white. Perfectly shaped, the muscles firm, yet appealingly so.

His gut fisted when he remembered what it felt like to have those legs wrapped around his hips, urging him on, drawing him deeper and deeper into the hot velvet core of her. He gritted his teeth when he remembered how willingly he'd gone there, how willingly he'd picked up and quickened the pace that she had set.

That was a first. Jake had never before let a woman take the initiative during sex. Then again, with Amanda Lennox... well, what had happened between them couldn't be called mere sex. In this instance only, the term seemed too cold, too clinical, too dirty for his liking. But the term "making love" didn't fit, either. Or did it? God, he hoped not! "Making love" to a woman meant a certain amount of give and take. It meant a union of more than two bodies, more even than two minds. It meant...

Jake shifted uneasily.
Making love.
The phrase ran circles in his mind, hitting a raw nerve inside him. It was a term he rarely thought. Just the words made him uncomfortable, probably because they described an act he'd never participated in. Jake had never "made love" to a woman. Until now. Until Amanda.

Dammit! He could deny it all he wanted, but the fact was, he
had
made love to her. With Amanda Lennox, it wasn't just sex. As good as
that
had been, there was a hell of a lot more to it. He'd be lying if he said otherwise. There was something about her velvet-smooth touch, her petal-soft scent, her feathery kisses, that catapulted him over the need for physical gratification—strong as that need was—and made him crave something more. Something that was his alone. Something he could wrap his arms around and cling to. Something unattainable and forbidden.

That
was what Jake wanted, more than he wanted to draw his next breath. He wanted Amanda Lennox, all of her, and he wanted her so much it hurt—more so now that he'd had her once. He wanted her, to coin a phrase, again and again. In every way imaginable. Yet he also wanted more than to leave his brand on her body. He wanted to burn himself into her soul as well.

The strength of that desire brought to mind the question of his sanity. Was he
crazy?
Yes, Jake thought, that was a good possibility. It would explain why he'd paid dozens of whores for his pleasure in the past and come away only mildly content. It would also explain why he hadn't paid Amanda Lennox a plugged nickel, yet he'd come away from her feeling like he'd gotten more than he'd bargained for. More than he knew how to deal with.