Gateway to Heaven (23 page)

He slid one hand behind her neck and pressing the other against her back, so that she was bowed tightly against his partially bared body. He grasped her soft curls in his hand and tugged, tilting her face upwards. He kissed her until his mind went black. It was like diving into a sea of raw need. His fingers moved as if they had a mind of their own. The halter around her neck fell first. He whipped it down between their bodies while his other hand worked on the zipper at her waist. They shared a groan of sensual gratification when her breasts were crushed into his bare chest. He greedily ate her moan of anticipation when the dress fell down her legs and pooled around her sandals.

His hands gloried in the softness of her skin and the way she curved so beautifully into his palms. He’d wanted to touch her for so long without restraint. Sweet, pretty Megan, with the soulful smile and the shining eyes, the calm, elegant demeanor and the fires that leapt just beneath her surface.

Her fires were burning him now.

She started to unfasten his jeans. Christian broke their kiss and buried his face in her neck. For a second, his mind did battle with the words he knew he should utter into her ear. He should force them to pause, ask her if she was certain…

But when her fingers moved, he didn’t take the noble route. Instead, he muttered hoarsely, “Touch me, Megan.”

She glanced up at him, her eyes wide. Her uncertainty melted him.

“
I’ve never touched a man. I don’t know what to do,” she whispered anxiously next to his lips.

Without breaking their gaze, he reached for her hand. He covered it in his own and guided her between the opened fly of his jeans. He familiarized her with his shape and texture through the thin material of his briefs. They watched each other with tense desire. Megan began to map his contours on her own. He watched her, captivated. Her uncertainty segued to wonder…and then heat.

She plunged her fingers into his briefs and stroked his naked length avidly.

Christian bent at the knees and spread his hands over the cheeks of her bottom. When he raised himself, he brought her with him. She cried out in surprise at being swept off her feet, but then her legs wrapped naturally around his hips. He kissed her like a madman…like he was starved for her. She clung to his shoulders when he lowered her to the couch. But Christian resolutely removed her hands and stood.

He felt like he was going to explode, implode…he didn’t know what as he studied her reclining, wearing only her sandals and white bikini underwear. He thought of the thousands of ways he wanted to savor her, pleasure her, love her. Then Megan said his name plaintively, and he shrugged out of his shirt, kicked off his shoes and lowered his jeans and briefs.

She looked dazed as she studied him when he stood naked before her. His breath burned his lungs when she raised her hand. Her sensitive, knowing touch was the hallmark of her art.

Sweat began to bead Christian’s brow and upper lip as he recognized her touch would be the hallmark of Megan’s lovemaking as well.

He willed himself to endure the pleasure of her alternating butterfly light touches and squeezing fist for as long as he could. But when she focused her curious fingers on the engorged tip of his erection, he reached his limit. His breath was coming ragged and harsh as he bent and removed her underwear. His urgency had become so great that he couldn’t take the time to appreciate how stunning she was when she was fully revealed to him. He was next to her before Megan could fully murmur his name.

He swallowed the end of her plea in a fiery kiss.

Their bodies responded naturally to their need to mate and join. But even though Megan opened for him, she was small and untried, and the space on the couch wasn’t large enough for her to spread further. Christian could feel her entrance with his erection. She was very wet. Her kisses and desperate hands told him that she was ready.

But he wasn’t going anywhere.

For a few seconds, reality sobered him. He sunk his head into the juncture of her neck and shoulder and breathed like he’d just crossed the finish line of a sprint.

“
I should have taken you to bed. I’m sorry.” He felt her hands on his hips and buttocks and he groaned. “Megan, stop…just give me a second to—“

“
I don’t want to stop. Come inside me now, Christian.”

She met his stare when he raised his head slowly. His need tore at him.

He raised himself to his knees and lifted her lower body. When he did, it allowed her freedom to move her feet and calf over the back of the couch. She instinctively opened her thighs further to accommodate him. When she nudged her sex next to him with an erotic shift of her hips, Christian gritted his teeth. Their gazes melded as he entered her with painstaking slowness. When he saw her face tense, he paused, utilizing as yet untried resources of willpower. She squeezed around him in a tight, pitiless grip.

“
Don’t stop, Christian.
Please
,” she whispered.

He studied her face, memorized it. Her features were damp with perspiration. Her facial muscles were pulled tightly, but Christian suspected it was with arousal, not fear or pain.

He gripped her hips tightly and sunk into her completely in one stroke.

The sensation of being fully inside of her ripped at the very limits of his consciousness. The groan that tore through his throat was both emotionally and physically rendered. In a searing moment of realization, his eyes opened wide. The full awareness of what he was doing struck like an electric jolt.

When the ability to breathe returned to him, he heard Megan whisper.

“
It feels…odd.”

“
I should…stop…should I stop?” he asked disjointedly in a strangled voice.
God in heaven
,
please let her say no.

She shook her head at the same time that she shifted her hips, accommodating him completely. Christian bit his lip to stifle a groan at the same time that an aroused cry spilled over Megan’s lips.

“
It’s starting to feel nice,” she admitted as she experimentally ducked her hips. The stroke made his eyes go wide in desperation.

“
Ah, Christ, Megan. You feel so… I have to…”

“
Yes…please.”

With those sweet, generous words, he lost himself in her.

* * * *

Megan’s mouth fell open in wonder at the sensation of him loving her without doubt or restraint. He wasn’t gentle with her. He seemed to know instinctively what she needed to build the mounting pressure within her ever higher. He never broke his rhythm, even when he bent over and kissed the stunned expression from her mouth.

“
I’ll never be able to tell you how good you feel.”

“
I think I’m starting to guess,” she murmured next to his cheek before she gasped at his next powerful stroke.

“
Megan…shift up, so… ah, God…like that. You’re warm and sweet and tight,” he whispered harshly in her ear. “I could lose myself in you.”

She made a high, breathy sound of arousal as he continued to praise her and prompt her and love her so deeply that her mind became a fuzz of blending sensations. She tasted his murmured love words, felt them run thickly down her throat like honey. She saw their mating bodies as if from a distance, knew in her bones how beautiful and right they were together. She heard Christian’s hesitation, his longing to prolong the inevitable climax, even though he never spoke a word of it.

He paused on an inward stroke and leaned down far enough to tongue her tight nipple. She chanted his name mindlessly when he suckled her greedily at first, then with so much gentleness, tears squeezed past her tightly clenched eyelids. She quivered in incipient release. She felt his eyes on her face when he lifted his head.

“
I told you how much I wanted to do that while I was deep inside of you. It was a thousand times better than I imagined.”

“
Christian, don’t…you’re killing me.”

“
Then let’s die together, honey.”

He never removed his eyes from her face as he thrust into her again and again. She sensed the reins on his restraint stretching tight, felt him waiting for her with wild anticipation. She strained for release… from a friction that was so glorious it was unbearable.

“
Come for me, Megan,” he mouthed.

She did. He let go then as well, plunging into the flames with her with a final hard stroke and a loud roar.

She’d been right. Christian’s desire did have the power to transform her.

When she became lucid again, she was holding Christian’s head against her breast. She trailed her fingertips through his soft hair and massaged his scalp languorously. He responded by softly kissing and tonguing her sensitized nipple. After a moment, she felt him tenderly caress her other breast with the paradoxically lazy but intense focus that she had come to associate with Christian.

She smiled.

A minute passed, and then two. Megan didn’t know when it started, but she became slowly aware by degrees of a tension building in his muscles.

“
Christian?” she asked uncertainly.

He shifted his hips, drawing out of her. He winced at the deprivation of her warm, sweet embrace. He levered himself off the couch in almost the same motion. Megan had likely noticed that he had become completely hard again buried inside her. His body had been ready and eager to go another round, then and there.

God, he was an animal.

His kept his expression neutral as he stood and grabbed for his jeans. He willed himself not to look at Megan’s face, but what his eyes didn’t see, he filled in the blanks masochistically with his imagination.

When he’d pulled on his jeans, he glanced at her uneasily.

“
Are you all right?” he asked.

“
Yes.” She began to sit up. Her nakedness plagued him in more ways than one. He reached for a throw that was folded at the end of the couch, unfolded it partially, and draped it across her.

“
What’s wrong?” Megan asked.

“
Nothing.” He bent for his shirt and pulled it on. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“
I’m fine. What
is
it, Christian?”

He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. He kept envisioning what he’d just done. He’d pictured making love to Megan an uncountable number of times at this point and never had it involved the raw, uncontrolled lust and need he’d just experienced.

In his imagination, it’d been tender and restrained.

What had just transpired had been impulsive and wild. He couldn’t bear to look into her face.

He turned and walked out of her loft.

Chapter 12

Megan fought with a heavy sense of depression the next morning, but finally rose early to go to church. She had lain sleepless for most of the night, wracked with anger and sadness.

Why had he done it? Christian obviously regretted their impulsive, impassioned lovemaking. That he could have wished something so beautiful had never happened made her furious.

Or maybe he hadn’t regretted the sex itself. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to deal with her after their passion had been spent.

Even as she considered it, she knew it wasn’t true. It was clear to her now that her verbal attacks on him were more a result of her own feelings of vulnerability than being associated with any deep faults in Christian’s character. If anything, he was probably trying to maneuver through the awkwardness of her situation as best as he could. It was true that he often hadn’t been forthright with her. But in fairness to him, Megan admitted she that couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live in the public’s eye for so many years. He had undoubtedly been burned in personal relationships as a result of lies and insinuations about his character. His career as a rock star already had a slew of stereotypes and prejudices associated with it.

Megan blushed when she recalled his biting sarcasm when she’d accused him indirectly of enjoying having the young girl take off her shirt for him. With the morning light came honesty. Megan realized that she’d deserved his scorn. She herself had been guilty of being swept up by those prejudices as she’d watched him up on that stage last night. Those stereotypes had fueled her personal insecurities.

She showered and dressed with a leaden heart. While she was pulling on a white cotton skirt that would keep her cool on another hot day, her eyes suddenly widened in panic. She had told Caroline Lasher that she would meet her this morning at the library for their first piano lesson. How could she face Christian’s mother after what had happened between her and her son last night? She thought of trying to contact Mrs. Lasher to cancel, but had already struck down the thought before it was fully formed. It was too rude to cancel this late. Besides, she didn’t have her number. And Megan would be damned if she was going to call Christian for any reason after he’d walked out on her last night.

Later in church, Megan tried to focus on Father Gregory’s sermon, but her mind kept wandering to thoughts and images of Christian. She flushed hotly as she unintentionally replayed moments of their lovemaking last night. As she sat in the holy confines of St. Catherine’s, surely some of the things that Christian had whispered so hotly in her ear last night should seem irreverent and sinful.