Melt Into You (29 page)

Dazedly, Natasha raised her head. She wasn’t drunk anymore. Not on Guinness, at least. But knowing that she wanted Damon and he wanted her ... it was heady stuff. It was all she’d ever wanted.

It
had been
all she’d ever wanted ... until she got here. Now it only felt like a beginning—like the start of something immense.

“Do you want more?” she asked breathlessly. “Tell me.”

“Yes,” Damon said. “I want ... everything. I want
you
.”

He smiled and pulled her down for another kiss, making a lie of her supposed dominance of the situation, dragging her breasts over his bare chest, making her nipples peak, making her pant faster, making her yearn in a way she’d hoped, foolishly, that she wouldn’t. But she couldn’t help it.

“I want you, too,” she whispered, splaying her hands over his chest. Trying to gain more leverage, she rocked upward, but that only made her doubly aware of her position atop him. She flexed her thighs. “I want you so much. And now—”

“Now you’ve got me.” Damon’s smile charmed her. His hands still played with her chemise, rubbing it over her thighs and her backside, probably revealing her panties. “I’m all yours.”

“Ha.” Natasha tried to laugh, but Damon truly seemed to mean it. His sincerity puzzled her. “If
that’s
true, then—”

“Wait. Before you make me do something silly—before you make me hop or bark or do a striptease—” Urgently, Damon cradled her jaw. “Look at us,” he demanded. His gaze traveled over them both. “Look at where we are, together. You must know I’m not joking about any of this. I need you, Natasha. You need me.”

Struck by his intensity, she did look at them both.

What she saw humbled her. Damon had let himself be utterly in her control. He’d let himself be held down, jumped on, teased and taunted by a nearly naked woman, kissed and fondled and bossed around ... and he still looked at her as though she’d hung the moon. He still smiled at her. He still touched her with nothing but tenderness and truth.

Chastened, Natasha drew in a deep breath. Doing her best to ignore the hot, heavy thrumming between her legs and the shaky, needful feeling in her thighs and the achy, intense longing she felt for Damon to stroke her breasts and tongue her nipples and kiss her on the mouth again and again, she gazed straight at him. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said.

Damon shook his head. “I already know.”

“No, you don’t know this. You couldn’t.” Desperately, Natasha closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Damon was still waiting. She inhaled again, then told him, “I’m not—”

“
Married
,” Damon said at the same time she did.

“—anymore. About five years ago, I got—”

“
Divorced
,” he said along with her.

Baffled, Natasha gawked at him. “How did you ... ?”

After an instant, they simultaneously said, “Milo.”

Natasha felt like laughing aloud. Of
course
her son had spilled the beans about her divorce from his dad! Milo was eight. He was an open book. He couldn’t keep a secret—not for all the Legos in Carlsbad, just an hour’s drive up the road.

“I’m
glad
Milo told me,” Damon said, trailing his fingers over her cheek. “It means I can be with you. It means I can start making up for all the rotten things I did and just be—”

“Just be
you
,” Natasha said, feeling inexplicably freed by knowing there was real honesty between them. She didn’t want Damon to change; she knew him for the man he was and loved him anyway. He
had
to know that, especially after all these years. Affectionately, she smiled at him. Flirtatiously, she stroked his arm. Invitingly, she gave a daring wriggle atop him. “Don’t be too hasty about disowning your bad side, either. Because right now I could use a little bit of badness from you.”

“Just a little bit?” Damon gave her an answering grin. “You’re going to get more than just a little bit. I promise.”

“Really? Am I?” With mock dubiousness, Natasha raised her brows. This was more like it—this openness between them. “Are you telling me you weren’t just boasting before? Because a girl hates to be disappointed when she’s in a position like this.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. I try never to disappoint.”

“I’ll bet you don’t. But maybe you’re all talk—”

“
I’m
not all talk. Speaking of this position ...” Damon grabbed her hips again, holding her tight against him. “I like it. I
love
it. I do. But there’s one small thing it’s missing.”

“Oh yeah?” Natasha seriously doubted it. “What’s that?”

“
Me
,” Damon said, using her hips to flip them both. Natasha landed on her back, unsure what had just happened, knowing only that Damon seemed dangerously pleased with himself. “It’s about time I had a turn calling the shots. Wouldn’t you say?”

Then he clasped her hands in his, lowered his head, and took her mouth in a kiss so sweet and heady it stole her breath.

He gave and he took and he savored, and Natasha couldn’t help being reminded of Damon’s insistence that she was somehow
unusual
in the pleasure she took—in the enjoyment she found in a tasty caramel-chocolate truffle, in the thrill she realized in being in Damon’s arms at last ... in the wholehearted delight she experienced when he kissed her again and held her again and brought his body down on hers again and again and again.

But there was nothing unusual in loving the warm, soft force of his mouth on hers. There was nothing unique in arching higher to press her body against his, feeling their heartbeats thump together, hearing their breath mingle in raspy, urgent unison. There was nothing uncommon, Natasha told herself as she let her hands rove over Damon’s hard-muscled back, in wishing he could be everywhere at once, kissing her mouth and her neck and her breasts and her thighs and ... at the thought, she sighed again.

There was nothing unusual about wanting or liking those things. But there was everything unusual about getting them.

She’d come into her bedroom believing she wanted nothing more than a fun, lighthearted turn on the merry-go-round that was Damon Torrance. She’d told herself that all she needed was to know what it felt like to be desired, to be needed, to be in control of her own sexual destiny for the night. Instead, Natasha realized as Damon gazed into her eyes and smiled, she got so much more. She got love. She got tenderness. She got ...

Ooh
. She got more than she’d ever imagined, she understood as Damon delivered her a sexy look, then slid his attention to her chemise’s strap. Natasha didn’t understand the disgruntled way he frowned at it, but she did understand that she loved it when Damon lowered his mouth to her shoulder, kissed her there, slipped his fingers beneath that fragile strap and then lifted it away, sliding it down her arm, pulling down the silky scrap of fabric that covered her, dragging it across her breasts and lower, and ... before Damon bared her completely, he covered her breast with his hand. Her nipple pouted against his palm, wanting more—and Damon gave it. His caress made her moan; his obvious happiness in her response made her close her eyes and sigh. She hadn’t expected this: this reverence and gladness.

With Damon, Natasha realized as slowly,
slowly
, he pulled down her chemise, she felt treasured and beloved. With him, she felt like the most irresistible woman on earth. Because he made her feel that way, she behaved that way. When Damon lowered her chemise all the way, then whisked it off her completely, Natasha arched proudly beneath him, offering herself to him. When he licked her nipples and stroked her breasts and lifted his head to smile at her, she couldn’t help smiling, too.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and she believed him.

“You’re perfect,” Damon added, nuzzling a seductive path downward. He offered her another smiling appraisal of her navel piercing, then used his hands to follow the same erotic path his mouth just had traveled. “You’re even better than I imagined.”

Disbelievingly, Natasha blinked. “You imagined
me
?”

Damon nodded. His dark wavy hair tickled her ribs. “All the time. Just like this. Just like this ... and more. I tried not to—”

“But you couldn’t help it. I know.” Thrilled to know that he’d wanted her too, she caressed his arms, loving the way his skin and muscles felt beneath her palms. “Me too. Especially since we’ve been here together. All I’ve wanted—”

“Is this,” Damon knew, clasping her hips in his hands.

Slowly, he dragged his mouth over her panties’ skimpy waistband. He followed the path it outlined across her pelvis. His breath penetrated the insubstantial barrier formed by her panties’ sheer floral fabric. Shivering, Natasha bucked upward.

“And this,” Damon added huskily, tracing a similar pathway with his fingers. “I’ve wanted
this
. I’ve wanted to kiss you, right here.” His fingers delved lower, skimming over all the hot, slick, aching places between her thighs. “I’ve thought about it so often. How you would feel. How you would taste. How you would respond if I touched you, just like this ...”

He nudged his fingers a little higher, and it was all Natasha could do not to yell out loud. She bit her lip, tossing her head against the piled-up pillows at her back, needing and wanting and knowing that she’d perilously underestimated the effect Damon would have on her if he was ever allowed to do ...
this
. Because she’d never felt anything like it. Between Damon’s dexterous fingers and his unwavering look of awe and delight and his unerring way of almost,
almost
making her come undone with just his heated breath, she could hardly stand it.

Urgently, Natasha levered upward. His touch was so light, so perfect, so completely effective at making her crazy... .

“Yes.” Again, Damon smiled. His dark gaze roamed over her, taking in ... everything. “This is a lot like what I imagined. Only better. Because in my dreams, I couldn’t do this.”

Finally,
finally
he stroked her a little harder. He brought his mouth between her thighs, then delivered her a wild, arousing, completely necessary kiss. He laughed with pleasure, and Natasha begged him not to stop, and somehow she felt her panties being whisked away, and she definitely didn’t need them anymore, just like she didn’t need her chemise anymore, because without them both, Damon could see her and touch her and ...
oh, God
, he could torture her with long, slow, maddeningly teasing strokes of his tongue, and he could slide his fingertips over her, and it was all she could do just to get closer and closer to him, to get more and more from him, and all of a sudden ...

All of a sudden, the whole world fell apart.

Gasping and clutching and moaning, Natasha went still for one wonderful, nonstop, unbelievable moment. When she came down again—when she finally quit pulsing and needing and feeling her ears ring—Damon was there with her, hot and steady and revelatory. He cradled her to him, whispering things she knew were impossible but appealed to her anyway, because in her bedazzled state it sounded as though Damon said he loved her and needed her and wanted to be with her always, and Natasha said some of those same things, too, because for her they were true.

They
were
true, Natasha realized then. She
did
love Damon. She loved him for his smile and his honesty and his wholly unlikely sense of integrity. She loved him for his sex appeal and his humor. She loved him for his talents with chocolate and his endearing swagger and his insistence that the only thing better than having fun was having
more
fun. But most of all, in that moment, Natasha loved Damon for his pure, raw ability to make her feel incredible ... and she wanted to do the same for him. Desperate and determined, she grabbed at his interfering pants.

“You have
got
to get rid of these,” she murmured, wrestling with his loose drawstring tie. “They’re so in the way.”

But not for long, they weren’t. Between Natasha’s now-agile fingers and Damon’s always-helpful hands, the two of them made fast work of undoing his pants and getting them off him.

Naked without them, Damon moved across the mattress toward her, his face a study in focus and intensity and wanting, and Natasha knew she’d never seen him look more right or more natural or more at ease ... not once during all the years they’d shared together, laughing and working and finding their way.

“Nakedness suits you,” Natasha panted, reaching for him. “I never knew exactly how well. But now I do.”

She
really
did. Damon felt hard and heavy and hot in her hand, and even as she stroked him for the first time, she couldn’t help shuddering anew. It didn’t seem likely that just touching him could make her come again. Yet Natasha felt a new, decadent, undeniable surge of pleasure as she looked at him, thick and erect and velvety, filling her hand in a way that felt erotic and right and vital. She
loved
the way Damon felt.

Licking her lips, Natasha imagined taking him in her mouth, swirling her tongue over the head of his cock, running her lips along the taut, engorged length of him. She imagined herself sucking him inside, stretching her mouth wide to accommodate his size, making him moan, making Damon thrust uncontrollably as she kissed and licked and drove him to the edge and beyond.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Damon said. “And
yes
. A thousand times, yes. Another time. But right now I want
you
.”

His hand dipped between her thighs again, and all at once, Natasha remembered that
she
urgently wanted that, too. She wanted Damon inside her. She wanted him thrusting and taking and giving, wanted to know that he was experiencing the same satisfaction she just had. Wide-eyed, she nodded. “
Yes
. Hurry.”

Her breathless agreement was all Damon needed. A heartbeat later, he’d settled himself above her, and just when Natasha was about to beg him to love her ... he did. With one incredible motion, Damon entered her, and everything went still. Their breath held in unison. Their eyes met. Their bodies melded. For once, for then and forever, they were together in a way that felt essential and inevitable and wonderful. Just when Natasha was about to whisper again that she loved him, that she needed him, Damon held her hips in his hands and drove himself home, and everything rational flew from her mind. All that existed were need and love and exquisite friction; all that mattered was being and loving and getting more, more,
more
of this.