Mine Until Morning (20 page)

It was heady. Powerful.

His legs began to shake; his body shuddered. He held her tight against him, deep in her mouth. “Fuck, baby,” he murmured into the dark, then long moments later, he pushed her gently, falling to his knees beside her. His breath was harsh, his eyes deep and dark.

“Didn’t want to come, not yet, too good.” Short, clipped words as if he couldn’t manage complete sentences. “Couldn’t stop it, though.” He collapsed against the quilt, pulling her with him. “Next time I come, I’ll be inside you.”

She tipped back to look at him. “No way. I didn’t even taste your come.”

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He grinned, a Cheshire Cat smile, all teeth in a dark face. “I can come without ejaculating.”

“That’s not possible.” Yet she’d felt the quaking of his body, the throb of his cock. He’d had something, that was for sure.

“Takes practice,” he said smugly. Then the Cheshire Cat disappeared. “It’s different, but it feels fucking good.” He rolled, pinning her beneath him. “You took the edge off”—his cold hands wormed up beneath her shirt, making her shiver and gasp—“now I can spend hours pleasuring you.” He put his lips to hers. “Tasting you, licking you, sucking you, fucking you.”

The man was so deliciously intense about sex, yet so easygoing about everything else. Except when he’d gotten upset about the tow truck. She couldn’t blame him, though. She’d never met anyone like him. He could eclipse her troubles, her responsibilities, make her think of only the moment, only the physical, only the pleasure.

“Tell me what you want first.” He seduced her with her own fantasies.

“Get me naked and kiss every inch of my back. It’s very sensitive.” She could damn near come that way.

He made quick, expert work of her shirt, bra, pants, and thong. Practice makes perfect. She wouldn’t think about all the women he’d brought to the restaurant or what he did with them afterward, or how much practice he’d had. It wasn’t her business anyway.

“Stomach,” he ordered, and when she complied, he pulled the blankets over them, covered her with his body, then his lips.

“Oh.” She moaned as he licked. “Ah,” she murmured as he nipped. “Holy Moly.” He stroked, sucked her skin into his mouth, probably giving her hickeys, and she groaned. God, yes, she could come like this. He made her wet and ready. “That is so perfect. I’m almost glad you’ve had a lot of practice.”

He pinched her ass, and she squealed, laughing, then flipped to her back.

“You have too many clothes on.”

“I’m not done kissing your back yet.”

“Strip, Walker. Now. You don’t want to make me unhappy.”

He shook his head, wriggling and rustling beneath the blankets. The top of her head was cold, but beneath the soft wool, she was burning up.

“I love this,” she whispered. She loved how special he made her feel. Her life moved so fast, rushing from home to school to work to home to the restaurant 130

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and finally back home, where the most she could manage was brushing her teeth and hanging her clothes up. At least most of the time. He made the world stop spinning.

His head poked up above the blanket. “I love it more.”

She hadn’t meant for him to hear, but the man was a tease, and he didn’t miss a thing.

“I’m naked”—he rubbed all that hard muscle and skin against her—“so now what do you want?” He waggled his eyebrows.

“You should make me come.”

He stroked down her abdomen, to her navel, then between her legs. “Christ, you’re wet.” He blazed a trail all the way back up, circling her nipple with her own moisture, then pinching hard.

“Oh my God.” Her body arched, almost rising right off the quilt. The man was capable of simple yet amazing things.

“Don’t come yet,” he told her.

“Not yet,” she promised before he sent her blood humming through her veins and set her skin buzzing.

Disappearing beneath the blanket, he kissed and licked his way from her breasts to her belly to her sex. She spread her legs with a sigh of pleasure and a moan of anticipation.

“God, you’re pretty.” He was barely discernible under all that wool. She laughed. “You can’t even see.”

“I see, woman, I see, and you’re gorgeous.” He plied her with a finger, teasing her clit, sliding knuckle-deep inside her, then out, circling, stroking, charging all her little electrons.

“Lick me,” she begged.

He would not be rushed, blowing on her clit, a warm caress, stroking her thighs, then finally, finally licking the lips of her pussy, so close, closer, until he sucked her clit between his lips and teased with his tongue.

“Oh God.” Surely this was heaven.

His chuckle vibrated against her, through her. She ran her hands over his bald crown. Nothing had ever felt so delicious or erotic as all that bare skin beneath her fingertips.

She was cold and hot. She was right there in the moment yet soaring in the sky above. The chirp of crickets surrounded them, everywhere, and an owl 131

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hooted, his mate answering in the distance. The stars sparkled through the trees, one shooting across the sky. She didn’t wish on it. For this moment, she had everything she could ask for.

Then he made her scream.

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8

CHRIST, IT WAS THE SWEETEST SOUND. HER CRY, HER PLEASURE. Walker crawled up her body, planting himself on top of her. She still trembled, breathing hard.

He nuzzled her ear. “Was it good?”

She harrumphed. “You know it was.”

Her taste had flooded his mouth, her cries filling the night, her thighs tight around him. He enjoyed making a woman give in to her pleasure. But he’d lost himself in making Cleo come. The act was unique—he couldn’t say why, or rather it was a myriad of reasons. Because she wasn’t paying him to give her power. Because he gave himself with full expectation of getting something in return, and he needed that something badly. Because he would have her even if she said no. Because he knew she couldn’t say no. Braced on his elbows above her, he held her face between his hands. “I’m going to fuck you, Cleo.”

“Yes.” She didn’t even open her eyes.

“Look at me.”

Starlight sparkled in her pupils. “Yes, please, Walker, I want it.” Then she pulled his head down, taking his lips, whispering, “Thank you,” as she kissed him.

He’d laid out a condom strategically, and he slipped down to lay by her side as he rolled it on. She nuzzled and kissed him, her hair brushing his face. Touching her breast, her nipple, he leaned in. “You wanna ride?”

She shook her head, wafting her sweet scent all over him. “I’m a missionary girl. Hold my buns in your hands and drive deep.”

“I like a woman who knows exactly what she wants.”

Blanketing her body with his, he pulled the covers tight around their shoulders to keep her warm. She opened her legs, and he filled the vee, his cock brushing her. She cupped his head in both hands, stroked her fingers across his bare scalp. “I need you inside me. Hard, fast, and deep.”

He plunged, and she cried out. “Oh God, that’s good.” She breathed deep, settled, laid her head back, and sighed deliciously. “It’s been soooo long since I’ve had a man on top of me.”

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She’d had a child, yet her body welcomed him, tightened around him, milked him as she squirmed.

“How long?” He nuzzled her hair, taking her with just a flex of his ass.

“Months. Last year sometime.” She opened her eyes wide. “Oh my God, more than a year. Heidi was in middle school.”

A freaking year. She was too hot and gorgeous to go without sex for a year.

“I’ve got a lot to make up for, then.”

“You’re going to spoil me.”

“Never.” But he would if she let him. Grabbing her butt, he hauled her higher, the way she’d told him to. “I’m going to fuck you so good, baby.”

He stroked deep and slow, riding her G-spot. She moaned for him, and he knew he’d hit it just right.

“Oh, Walker, yeah, that’s perfect.”

The slow and steady slide did it. Her body trembled beneath his. She moaned, then, losing her voice, she simply clung to him. Her body clenched and rippled around him as she came, shooting him closer to the edge.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” she chanted. She’d come down off the high, but needed more.

So did Walker.

With the night sounds all around them, the caress of cold air, her body’s heat and softness, her sweet scent, he steeped himself in her essence. When he felt her rise once more, he pumped faster, harder, and this time her climax wrenched the orgasm from him. He added his shout to the night.

HIS BODY WAS SO WARM, HIS COCK PULSING INSIDE HER. CLEO didn’t want to move. She didn’t want him to leave. She loved the weight of his body on her.

She hadn’t had this since Phil dumped her, the long moments after sex where you felt like you were one with him. In the four years since, she’d chosen purely for the physical. Good sex. Nothing emotional. No attachment. God, she’d missed this. You don’t realize until suddenly it whomps you upside the head; this was what made good sex great. His warmth, that uniquely woodsy scent of his. More than just an aftershave, it was innate. The taste of his pre-come still lingered, accompanied by the utterly sublime sense of being filled. She’d never spent a full night with a man, always dragging herself home. She 134

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didn’t want Heidi missing her or waking up to find a man in the house. Cleo had been fine with that.

Walker, she wanted to wake up beside him. Just once. Make love to him again.

He shifted on top of her, easing his weight but not letting her go altogether. Layering tiny kisses along her jawline, he settled again as if he planned to fall asleep where they were.

Who could say why? What specifically did he do for her? Some men were just ho-hum, part of the landscape. Sometimes you looked at a man, and your heart pitter-pattered and some reptilian part of your brain just went gaga, repeating I want over and over again. That was Walker. He’d teased and flirted for three years. If he’d asked her out, she’d have been a goner. But things went south with Heidi and her libido had gone with it.

Until Walker turned everything back on again.

He was dangerous. She didn’t know how she’d be able to turn it all off in the morning.

God help her, she didn’t want to. If you didn’t have it, you didn’t miss it. But once you had it, man, you were hooked.

SHE LIVED IN A TIDY LITTLE NEIGHBORHOOD. YEARS AGO, THESE houses were modest, middle-class, single-family homes. Now they were worth upward of a million. Or more. Walker knew her mom didn’t want to sell. Cleo drove what was basically a clunker from the late eighties, and she worked two jobs to make ends meet. Everything could be solved if they sold and moved to Fremont across the bay.

He stopped in front of the two-story, and shut off the engine. He’d felt her withdrawal with every scrap of clothing she’d put on. They’d been close, connected. Until he pulled out.

Everything good had to end.

“Does your mom have a car you can borrow to get to work in the morning?”

She rubbed her forehead with the flat of her hand. “I’ll take the bus. It stops out on the El Camino. One of the other mothers is carpooling the girls to school this week.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

She snorted and gave him a didn’t-we-already-go-over-this look. “Don’t be 135

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silly.”

“I can help, Cleo. I’d like to.” He touched her cheek. “I want to. No obligation.”

There wasn’t enough light in the car to read her expression. “Don’t you ever work?”

“Flexible hours.” He grinned.

She didn’t ask what he did, and he dodged the bullet yet again. Holding her gaze, he willed her to accept his offer. He could do this. It was so easy for him. Such a small act in the scheme of things. Small steps led to bigger steps. He’d be good for her. He knew he would. She’d be good for him, too.

“I hate the bus,” she said, and he knew he’d won. He shouldn’t feel such a surge of triumph, yet it swamped him. “What time shall I pick you up?”

“Ten to eight would be good.” She put a hand on the door as if she was suddenly nervous of how much she’d given away.