Out Of Her League (34 page)

He must have taken her silence as reluctance. “I can move into your place if you want, put mine up for sale.”

“You'd sell your luxury condo with the million-dollar view?”

“In a heartbeat, if it meant being with you.”

The joy swelled from the secret depths of her heart. “You're sure?”

He lifted a brow. “What do I have to say to convince you?”

She rubbed her suddenly damp palms on her jeans. “It's just... if things worked out between us, I'd want... I'd want to get married and have a family someday.” Was that clear enough? She couldn't take the next step in this relationship if she had no hope of those things.

“I know.” He twined his fingers around hers. “A lot's happened in the past couple weeks and I don't want to rush you, so if you're not ready for this I'll understand. I just think it'd be smart to move in together for starters and see where things go. Take it one day at a time.”

The pit of her stomach fluttered. He was saying all the things she wanted to hear, yet...

“I'd never do anything to hurt you, Chris.”

She put her hand on his cheek, smiled when he kissed her palm. “I know.”

“So? You gonna put me out of my misery or what?”

She laughed, her heart lighter than it had been in years, the leap of elation frightening. Committing herself to him should be the most difficult decision she had ever made, but in truth her instincts had already made it. She had never been more certain about anything. “I think we should go for it.”

“That's great, kiddo. I'll do everything I can to take care of you, make you happy.” He sealed the pledge with a soul-wrenching kiss and nuzzled her neck, shivering delight down her spine. “Now that we're officially shacking up together, you sure you don't want to have sex with me in my mother's house?”

A thump came from outside her window. Her eyes flew open, her heart pounding as she lay staring at the sheers billowing in the night breeze. A scrape, something sliding.

It can't be him... it can't...

All she had to do was scream and Rayne would be there before she could draw another breath.

A muffled curse drifted in, followed by a groan. If it was him, why was she lying here waiting for him to attack her again? Throwing back the covers, she caught sight of Rayne's silhouette in the moonlight.

“What the hell are you doing?” She slid the sash open.

He was hanging onto the windowsill with a one-handed death grip, glaring up at her with bits of leaves from the climbing rose stuck in his hair. “Well, don't help me or anything,” he muttered, and she came out of her stupor to grab him. He shuffled up and threw a leg over the windowsill, rubbing his sore arm. “I just crawled up the side of the house like Spiderman,” he panted as he struggled to fit his body through the frame. “Didn't think I'd do it, did you?”

She smothered a laugh. “You could have really hurt yourself. More than you already have, I mean. You're crazy.”

“Yeah. Crazy about you.” He came toward her, eyes full of sensual promise. “I want to make love with the woman I'm going to be living with,” he whispered, kissing her, deepening it until she was clinging to him for balance. “That okay with you?”

Would it be okay or would she panic? Doubt crowded her mind. Had she really agreed to let him move in?

“I want to lay you down on that antique bed and love you until you're too weak to move,” he murmured against the sensitive hollow under her ear. “Only thing is, you need to be real quiet. I wouldn't want my mom to know I was in here having my wicked way with you.” He smiled and nuzzled her throat. “Mmm, you smell like oranges.”

“My bubble bath.” Was that breathy voice hers? She was already trembling under his touch. He slid the satin nightgown off her shoulders to pool at her feet, leaving her naked. Automatically her arms came up to cover herself.

“Don't hide. You're beautiful.” He lifted each hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to each palm, nibbling his way up her wrists to the sensitive inside of her elbows. “Come lie down with me.” He stripped off his shirt and led her to the bed.

Heart racing, she climbed onto the four-poster with him, absorbing the shock of his weight as he landed on top of her, wrapping around him as her whole body sighed. She lifted her head to kiss him, the glide of his tongue making her gasp. Her skin burned as though she had a fever. Need pulsed deep in her belly. “Hurry,” she urged, tugging at his jeans.

He shucked them off as fast as his injured arm would allow and resumed kissing her, licking urgently into her mouth and taking her breath away. She moaned while his lips traced a burning path down her throat, pausing to tease the fragile skin over her pulse point, his fingers brushing the curve of her breasts.

When he bent his head and swirled his tongue over her, the tingle was almost painful. “Rayne... ” Her fingers locked in his hair, to hold him close or push him away, she wasn't sure which. She withstood the exquisite torture as long as she could, then reached down to take him in her hand, making him shudder. “Come inside me now.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Yes,” she insisted, pulling his shoulders upward as he moved down to her stomach. She couldn't take much more, part of her wanting this first time over in case she freaked out on him. He kissed the inside of her hipbone, slid lower, and with a flare of panic she grabbed his head to stop its descent. “Don't,” she whispered, quaking inside. No way could she stay quiet if he did what she feared he was going to do.

He tightened his hands on her hips and nuzzled her abdomen, the muscles contracting under his cheek. “Your skin's so soft,” he murmured. “Let me do this, Chris. I've fantasized about it for forever.”

He had?

He stroked his fingers between her legs, making her suck in a breath. “Don't you trust me?”

“Yes, but— ”

“Then let me.”

“But I— ”

“I won't disappoint you,” he coaxed, untangling her fingers from his hair and edging lower.

But what if she disappointed him? She shook her head, almost beyond speech with frustration and nerves. “I just want you inside me.”

“Later,” he promised. “When you're more relaxed.” His tongue dipped into her navel, making her lower body clench.

More relaxed? Not likely.

Rigid with tension, dreading that first touch as much as she yearned for it, she jerked under his mouth and dragged a pillow over her face to stifle a wail as sensation careened inside her. He crooned reassurance, comforting her with slow sweeps of his hand even as he made her mindless. Devastating, his tongue laved soft and slow until she felt like melting ice cream, leaving her straining and trembling. His hands held her hips in a firm grip, holding her still while he pleasured her. When he slid a finger inside to stroke that mysterious spot, the pleasure magnified tenfold. Writhing against the sheet, she felt him tug the pillow away from her.

“Look at me,” he said.

She shook her head, eyes squeezed shut, biting down hard on her lower lip to keep from moaning aloud. His thrust his finger deeper and she dug her head into the bedding, clapping a hand over her mouth to muffle her cry of need.

“Christa. Look at me.” Patient fingers wrapped around the hand covering her mouth and dragged it away. He brought it to his hair and she tangled her fingers into its luxurious softness. When he did nothing more, she cracked open one eye and risked a peek.

He was wedged between her thighs, watching her, lips hovering a few inches above where she needed him so badly, and wet from... from what he'd been doing to her. Her eyes squeezed shut again. God, if he kept this up she was going to faint.

He pressed a gentle kiss against her center, and she trembled, biting back a moan, lifting toward him.

“Chris.”

She shook her head.

“I can feel how close you are,” he murmured, the heat of his breath making the ache between her legs unbearable. As if to prove his point, he licked at her gently.

She whimpered when he stopped, moving against that finger buried inside her.

“Look at me.”

“No.”

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Just look at me.”

God, she couldn't take it anymore. Unable to resist, she lifted her head and gazed down at him, panting, waiting.

He was the sexiest thing she'd ever seen. “Hold me,” he whispered, tugging downward on the hand she had wound in his hair. “Guide me.” She let go of the bedding with her free hand and slid it into the thick waves, shaking, and managed to hold his gaze as she pulled him toward her. With a purr of enjoyment he lowered his head and opened his mouth—

The instant his tongue found her she cried out and threw her head back, dragging the pillow back over her face. Her body opened to him even more, begging him as he licked, stroked and hurtled her over the edge. She fell back against the downy comforter, too weak to move.

He kissed his way up her body and pulled the pillow away. I told you so, his eyes said. She gazed up into his face, gilded in the moonlight streaming though the window, and fell in love with him all over again.

So this was what making love felt like.

He'd had sex plenty of times, but he'd never made love to anyone. Now he understood the difference.

He'd never been so focused on his partner before, so attuned to each sound and movement, every expression on her face. He'd never used his body to underscore the staggering emotion he felt for the woman beneath him. His heart pounded at the intensity of it.

He laced his fingers through hers on either side of her head, content to stare down at her while she recovered from her orgasm. She lay beneath him utterly relaxed, eyes sleepy and sated. The hunger inside him was almost unbearable but he fought it back, wanting to give her more, so he aroused her all over again, taking his time as he used his hands and mouth, ignoring the ache of protest in his healing triceps. He watched the need building in her, heard it in every broken moan, felt it in the beat of the pulse in her throat as he licked it.

“Rayne, stop— ” She arched into him, her body dissolving into shivers as the arousal began to build again. “No more. I can't.”

“Sure you can.” Her skin was like warm velvet. “Just be patient.”

Savoring each gasp, every breathless cry she gave, he explored her body, his mouth pleasuring her breasts, all of her, learning exactly where to linger, exactly how much pressure to exert to make her mindless. The feel and taste of her drove him out of his head.

When he was satisfied she was as starved for him as he was for her, he let go of her hands and came up on his knees while his fingers trailed along the center of her body. She caught her breath when he caressed her, teasing her with whisper-light caresses until she opened and bowed up off the bed, begging for deeper contact.

With a guttural sound, she pulled him down, hands moving over his hips to the engorged length of him. He grabbed the condom from his jeans pocket beside him, sheathed himself and settled his weight over her, balancing on his good arm.

He stilled above her, the enormity of what they were about to do registering in his numbed brain. Until now he'd never thought about how vulnerable a woman was at this moment, how much trust she had to place in her partner. Especially this woman. Her guileless blue eyes gazed up at him, body and soul wide open, trusting him to be gentle and cherish her with his much stronger body. In reassurance he kissed her tenderly, fighting back his own need.

Holding her gaze, he shifted his weight and eased his throbbing length into her, just deep enough to tease the glow he'd ignited inside her, careful not to rush her. She wrapped her legs around him, straining against him, seeking more of the pressure she wanted, but he stayed there like that, not letting her move, making her body focus on the sensation of him inside her until the knowledge of what he was doing registered on her face. He held her gaze, letting everything he felt for her show in his eyes. “I love you, darlin'.”

She rewarded him with a tremulous smile and reached up to touch his face. “Show me.”

Hell yes he would.

Needing to witness her expression, he gathered her tightly against him and sank all the way in, fighting to hold back as her body shuddered beneath him, legs tightening around his hips. When she wrapped her arms around his shoulders with a blissful sigh, he started to move. Not in a thrusting motion, but a slow, subtle caress that made her cry out and arch helplessly. Smiling at her shocked expression, he angled himself to please her, giving her that specific friction to trigger the charge deep inside. She cried out and dug her fingernails into his back, fighting to get closer.

He subdued her sensual struggles, gentling her with butterfly kisses and murmurs of reassurance, waiting for her to relax before rebuilding that throbbing pressure inside her. “Shhh, trust me.” He pressed a kiss to each tightly closed eyelid. “So close, Chris,” he promised, willing her to believe him, loving her desperation, the way her eyes went hazy with the pleasure he was inflicting.

He moved slowly, steadily, patiently as he taught her all he knew about giving. But God, the sight of her, eyes squeezed closed, head tilted back as she moaned. The urgency in her made his blood pound as he neared the edge of his limit. He groaned, closing his eyes a moment to get control.

“Let go,” he coaxed, hoping she wasn't fearing the intensity, reaching down to stroke the slick, ultra-sensitive place between her legs. No way was he going to let her pull back now. “Let go and come for me.”

Relentless, he held the rhythm, built the pleasure until she made a mew of distress and came apart beneath him, clutching him, adrift.

Still he moved, wringing the last cry from her until she lay limp beneath him. With a hoarse groan he buried himself as deep as he could inside her and allowed himself to let go, dropping his head to her shoulder in surrender as release wrenched through him.

As he pinned her there with his weight she held him close, stroking her hands over his hair tracing the ridges of muscle either side of his spine down to the rise of his hip. He snagged her hand in his.

“Give me a minute before you start again,” he muttered against her temple, sighing as he snuggled into her. “As soon as I can move, you're going to be in big trouble.” Like maybe next Tuesday.