Edge of Midnight (43 page)

Her eyes were closed, tangled hair spread out across the couch cushions, the smudgy, sooty shadows of her lashes dark against her tear-streaked face. That stain of sunrise pink in her pale cheek, the soft lower lip caught between her white teeth, every detail devastated him.

The contrast between her delicate female body and the thick wool socks, the shabby skirt, the battered boots, was unspeakably erotic.

She moved against him, gripping his shirt, shoving his heavy jacket off his shoulders as if it pissed her off that he was still wearing it.

He let go of her just long enough to wrestle the sleeves off his arms. His hands were starving for contact with her hot skin. His dick felt like a ravening beast lunging at the chain, but he had to redeem himself first, as best he could. Making her come was his favorite way, cheap, short-term solution though it might be.

He didn’t care.

He slid his finger reverently into the tight, suckling heat of her pussy, mouth watering. He’d been aching for a taste of her sweet girl juice for months. He sagged down to pay passionate homage to her tender female flesh with his tongue.

Ah, God. Like always. Silken salty sweet. Delicious. Every sobbing breath, every lapping sliding stroke. He loved the way she struggled and writhed, bucking and heaving against his face, though he could feel her anger in the sharp, nervous bite of her nails through his shirt.

She was wound so tight, vibrating with furious excitement, but he was instinctively wary of making her come too soon.

Better to drag it out, make her wait. Keep her in this drawn up state of shivering need, for as long as he possibly could.

God knows, he was content to wallow with his face between her thighs for hours. Forever, even. Seeking heaven with his tongue.

That manipulative bastard took his own sweet time about it.

He brought her up to an agonized point of shivering desperate need, and kept her there, for an endless, struggling eternity.

When he finally had mercy and shoved her over the crest, the climax was so violent, it wiped her out completely.

She was a sobbing mess. Destroyed. All dignity dissolved.

He didn’t gloat, though. He had that much sense. He just pressed his face against her belly, nuzzling her, his breath tickling her mound.

Liv twisted to the side, insofar as she could with her legs wrapped around a huge, gorgeous man’s broad shoulders, and hid her face in her hands. She expected him to follow up his advantage, and make love to her. Pleasure shimmered through every nerve. Her heart felt hot, glowing. Squishy soft inside her chest. She was melting down. She ached to be filled up, to feel his heat, his weight. His wonderful steely strength. She was poised for him to mount her, enter her, give her a long, hard, furious ride. She was braced for it, breathless for it.

But all he did was nuzzle her muff. It was driving her nuts.

“Stop that,” she muttered. “You’re tickling me.”

He nipped lazily at her thigh, stroked his faintly scratchy jaw against her. Petting her damp curls, her slick, sensitive folds, as tenderly as if he were caressing a purring kitten. “Never,” he whispered.

Sean looked thin, his features cut sharper. He seemed so different with such short hair. Hard and intense.

She turned away and stared, hot-eyed, at the plasterboard. Three months of pent up hurt and confusion was bottlenecked inside her. The grief, the abandonment, the piercing loneliness. She couldn’t bear it.

“Why?” she burst out. “Why are you here, after all this time? What changed your mind? Did you have a goddamn vision? Or what?”

He lifted his head, but she didn’t dare meet his eyes. She couldn’t let him hypnotize her. She had to stay sharp.

“I guess I did,” he said quietly. “I went up to the mountains. I realized a couple of things up there. One, if I can’t trust my own self, I might as well be dead. Two, I don’t want to die. Three, if I’m going to live, I have to have you. Because my life isn’t worth a handful of shit without you.”

“Oh. Really.” A teary giggle shook her. “Such poetic eloquence.”

“You inspire me, babe.”

She wiped her eyes on her sleeves. He shoved a tissue into her hand. He turned her face ’til she was looking into his somber eyes.

“I haven’t had one of those episodes since then,” he said quietly. “Which isn’t to say that it won’t happen again. I got messed up pretty bad. But I think—I hope, anyway—that the worst is behind me. So you decide, Liv. If you want to risk it, that is. I can’t wait around until I feel like I’m good enough for you. Because I never will.”

“Oh, shut up.” She tried to wiggle free, but he was having none of that. His embrace just tightened. She sniffled angrily into the tissue. “That’s insulting and ridiculous. I never expected you to be perfect. But I can’t be with a man who shuts me out whenever the going gets rough.”

His face tightened. “I’m sorry. I promise you I won’t do it to you, ever again. Before God, my parents’ graves, my sacred honor.” He hesitated. “Such as it is.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your sacred honor,” she snapped. “It’s your lack of plain common sense that bugs me.”

He muffled his laughter against her chest, and peeked up at her, sidewise. “Uh, well. Like I said,” he ventured. “I’m not perfect. Not even close. But I do have my strong points. And I promise to do my best.”

He waited for her to answer. She couldn’t. She shook with conflicting emotions. Anger, doubt…and a wild, crazy hope.

Her voice was locked in her throat. She could hardly breathe.

Sean groped behind himself for the thick, fleece lined leather coat, and pulled something from the pocket. He held out a tiny velvet box.

She stared at it stupidly. Sean made an impatient sound, grabbed her hand, closed her fingers around it. “Open it,” he urged. “Please.”

She flipped it open, and stared at the ring inside. Mouth agape.

The white gold ring seemed to flash and pulse against the black velvet backdrop. A diamond glittered, slightly off center, and around it, a ruby, an emerald and a sapphire were mounted in a sensual, geometrical setting that looked somehow both modern and ancient.

It was a stunning piece.

“I thought I should use the same diamond,” he said hesitantly. “But I thought I’d jazz it up, give it some color. Make something fresh and new out of it. I hope that you…” His voice trailed off.

She struggled to speak, tried again. “Did Tam make this?”

He nodded. “She said to tell you that if you were foolish enough to give in to my bullshit, that she wanted to be your maid of honor,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “It’s becoming a sort of a family tradition.”

She covered her trembling mouth, still staring at the ring. “She’s a little ahead of the game, isn’t she?”

He shook his head slowly. “More like about fifteen years behind.”

She gulped. He took the hand that held the ring box, and gave it a slow, reverent kiss. “I want to make love to you,” he said softly.

“I know,” she whispered.

“But I don’t want to be kicked out on my ass afterwards,” he said. “Can I tell you how I want it to be? My wildest, craziest fantasy?”

She shrugged. “Nobody’s stopping you,” she muttered.

His eyes gleamed. “I want to slip that ring on your finger,” he began. “I want to crawl up on that couch on top of you, and very slowly, push my cock into that tight, red hot pussy. I want to stare deep into your eyes and kiss you while I make sweet, slow love to you. For hours. Make you come til you’re just glowing. Beaming. Shining.”

She looked away, pink. “That much, I could have guessed.”

“Oh, am I too predictable for you? I’m not done yet. When we’re exhausted, we’ll go home. Your place, since it’s closer. I want to take a bath with you. Uncork some wine. Cook some dinner. Snoop around, check out the books on your shelves, your DVDs, your photographs. Get in bed with you. Make love again, if we have the strength.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “You would, I bet. Knowing you.”

“Probably,” he admitted. “I want to wake up in the morning, and feel how right it is, to have your sweet, warm, naked, silky, womanly body wrapped up in my arms. We’ll make love again. Take a long, sexy shower together. I’ll lick the drops of water off you with my tongue. Comb your hair. Make you coffee. Cook you some bacon and eggs.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You mean, you’re not going to make love to me again between coffee and the bacon and eggs?”

His grin turned brilliant. “That part’s implied. Then I’ll take you to work, and spend the rest of the day bouncing off the walls because I’m so fucking happy, I just don’t even know what to do with myself.”

She dissolved again. She clapped both hands over her face.

Sean tugged them gently away. “I want to spend all my days and all my nights with you.” His voice vibrated with emotion. “I want to protect you, stand by you, honor and comfort you. Have children with you. Grow old with you. As many years we get.” He kissed both her hands. “I want your company, Liv. Forever.”

His voice broke, but she couldn’t tell if he was crying too, because her eyes swam with tears. She reached for him, blindly, grabbing him with arms, legs, everything she had, in a tight, shaking embrace.

She couldn’t fight it anymore. She wanted to wrap her hair around him, tie him to herself with it. She never wanted to let him go.

But he pried her arm from his shoulder, and pulled her hand between them. The fire flashing in the diamond, the rich colors of the stones, swirled into a pool of shimmering rainbows in her tear drenched eyes. “May I?” he asked softly.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Nodded. He slid the ring on.

It was a perfect, exquisite fit. It felt so comfortable, so incredibly right on her hand, she could feel it all the way up her arm. He cupped her face and kissed her tears away with passionate gentleness, as if she were a flower. Or some delicate little thing made out of fine china.

She couldn’t open her eyes. She pressed trembling lips together. Her body vibrated with feelings. Oh, God. She was going to burst.

She couldn’t bear it any longer. She made a sharp little growling noise and shoved his face away. “Enough of this!”

He stiffened with alarm. “Huh? What?”

“I am not some goddamn fragile china doll!” she snarled.

His eyes widened. “Uh, never said you were, babe.”

“So?” She held up her ringed hand, brandished it at him. It sparkled and flashed gorgeously in the harsh fluorescent overhead light. “I kept my part of the bargain. Now you keep yours, damn it.”

“My part of, uh, which bargain?” he ventured, his face wary. “Not that I’m not willing, I just want to be dead sure I’ve got the right—”

“All that stuff you said? All that gooey, super-romantic hooey about making love to me for hours? The wine, the shower, the bacon and eggs, the forever? Remember that? Is that just more of your jive talking clown act, or are you actually planning to follow through?”

Sean let out a big, shuddering sigh as his worried look relaxed into a big, goofy smile. “God, yes. You bet, baby. I just thought that the restrained, gentlemanly, refined, sensitive act would be more—”

“The drawings were great. I’m going to have them framed. But don’t get too sensitive. And don’t think.” She wrenched at his belt buckle, pulled it loose, fumbled for the buttons of his jeans. “You’ve got a job of work to do. So get to it.”

He let out a sharp, gasping moan when she shoved his jeans down and seized his hot, thick shaft, stroking it greedily. She slid down sideways, onto the couch, and pulled him down on top of herself.

“Oh, yeah.” He rose up between her spread thighs with a groan of need. “I have condoms in the pocket of my coat. I could—”

“Don’t you dare make me wait one more goddamn instant!”

The whipcrack of her voice made his muscles jerk. His cock twitched and throbbed in her hand. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered.

She wiggled with frantic eagerness until she felt the blunt tip of him nudge inside. Finally entering her. They let out the same keening moan of agonized pleasure at the slow, delicious push of his thick shaft into her body. They stared into each others’ eyes. Fused into one taut, throbbing whole. Poised in breathless stillness.

“Do not hold yourself back from me,” she said to him.

“Never.” His low, shaking voice had the solemn ceremony of a sacred rite. “I swear it.”

She jerked his head down, kissed him. “I want all of you,” she told him. “Everything you’ve been, everything you’ll be. Everything you are.”

“Done,” he said.

He gathered her tightly into his arms, and gave it to her.

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Copyright © 2007 by Shannon McKenna

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ISBN: 0-7582-2646-2