Should he accept the invitation she was extending?
Should was a difficult word. The answer was probably not. Maybe definitely not. He’d made that decision, hadn’t he? But he’d fantasized about Sophia so many times when he was younger that he knew it would take a stronger man than he was to refuse her. He was already rock hard, already thinking about the moment he’d feel her hips lift to meet his.
Determined to take it slow and savor every second, for old times’ sake if for no other reason, he moved his hand up the back of her shirt to massage the muscles on either side of her spine.
“I thought your offer had been rescinded,” she whispered.
He grinned at the slight taunt in her voice. “And I thought you had to protect your reputation.”
“I don’t seem to have much to lose anymore.”
This sounded more serious than he’d expected. “Something happen tonight?”
“Nothing I want to talk about.”
Should he force the issue? Not now. He had the one person he’d always dreamed about in his arms and she was finally receptive to him. There’d be time to talk later. In the morning. Right now, he preferred to communicate with his hands.
Her breathing grew shallow when he cupped her breast. “You sure you’re not sex-starved?” he teased. “Because it feels that way to me.”
“If I wasn’t, I am now.”
He chuckled at the honesty of her response. Her flesh was so supple, so smooth. But before he took this any further, he wanted her to know she could trust him to keep his mouth shut. “I won’t tell anyone about this, Sophia. This is between you and me, and no one else. I promise.”
“Okay.”
“You believe me?”
Her response was barely audible but sounded sincere. “I do.”
“That’s my girl.”
He wasn’t sure where that last remark had come from. It was a little too possessive; she wasn’t his “girl.” But it’d slipped out, and he chose not to draw attention to it. Instead, he pushed up her shirt and rocked back to see her.
With the blinds drawn it was too dark to admire what she’d shown him earlier. But he didn’t really mind. There was something incredibly erotic about having to rely on his other senses. He could get lost in making love to her without worrying about what his own expression revealed, wouldn’t have to guard himself. That freedom seemed vitally important with Sophia, even though he’d never thought of it with anyone else. Maybe it was because of who she was and what she meant to his past.
Kneeling over her, he bent his head to run his lips across her stomach. He could smell some sort of fruity lotion and liked the scent. When her fingers delved into his hair, he took her hands and held them above her head as he slowly made his way up her abdomen to the tantalizing swell of one breast.
When his mouth closed over her, she shivered and he felt himself letting go, getting caught up in the moment. Suddenly, all that mattered was the way her hands moved to his head when he released them, the taste of her, and the fact that she wanted him.
The girl who’d stood him up for the big dance fifteen years ago, who’d turned up her nose at the half-breed bastard, was now trembling at his touch.
20
The rhythmic pull of Rod’s mouth made heat pool in Sophia’s belly. She liked the way he moved, but the reverence with which he handled her body surprised her. He didn’t treat her as if this was cheap and easy, the means toward an ultimately selfish end. He acted as though every touch, every gasp, meant something.
The problems that had threatened to overwhelm Sophia—the murders, Leonard’s desire for revenge, the fake picture he’d shown at the Firelight—seemed to break up and disperse, float away from her along with all her smaller concerns. Or maybe her problems weren’t going anywhere. Maybe she was. Rod was carrying her to some far distant place, where there were no worries. Only physical sensation. Exquisite sensation.
She caught her breath as his deft fingers slipped beneath the elastic of her boxers. He wasn’t someone who’d be able to give her what she wanted in the long term. She’d known that from the beginning. But he seemed to have exactly what she needed right now.
“You’re perfect,” he said.
She jerked as he touched the most sensitive part of her, and he chuckled softly. “Look what I’ve found.”
“But do you know what to do with it?” she teased.
“I’ll see if I can figure it out. Hmm…”
Darts of pleasure shot through Sophia and she writhed against his hand.
“That seems to work,” he said. “Yeah, you like that.”
She was breathing too hard to speak.
“You’ll let me know when you’re looking for something a little larger, right?”
The way her legs began to shake answered for her—and triggered a powerful response in him. She could sense it.
“You’re so warm. So…wet,” he said, but he wasn’t teasing anymore. The ragged edge to his voice told her he was being swept away, just as she was. He’d started their lovemaking slow and lazy, as if he planned to take hours. But she could already sense his mounting tension, his struggle to retain control of the desperate urge to reach completion. And his arousal excited her more than anything else.
Picturing his handsome face, because she couldn’t actually see it, she arched upward, and he shoved her boxers down over her hips. A moment later, she lost them entirely. Her T-shirt, too. Soon they were both naked, kissing deeply, rubbing and tasting and straining….
“We’ll do it again.” His words sounded more like an apology for being unable to wait. But she wouldn’t have changed anything. She couldn’t resist the compulsion that propelled her forward, either.
Wrapping her legs around his lean hips, she urged him to deliver what he’d promised almost since the day she’d first seen him, at Debbie’s trailer. And he was more than willing to accommodate her. But he tried to do it gently. Supporting the bulk of his weight on his hands, he started to ease into her. But she craved force, wanted to be overpowered.
“Take me now, hard and fast,” she whispered, and that was all the encouragement he needed. Throwing his head back, he drove into her as powerfully as she’d asked him to, again and again, stretching, filling, satisfying.
“That’s it—ah, that’s it,” she gasped, and let the natural rhythm of their lovemaking take it from there. She was on a runaway train speeding into the night, and it had never been a more thrilling ride.