Jessica Andersen - Under the Microscope

She rose above Max, naked while he remained half-clothed. Then she paused. “Oh, hell. We don’t have-”

He held up a finger. “Yes, we do. It’s not all snacks and soda in that gift shop.”

She grinned, bubbles of light froth and excitement expanding in her chest and bursting through her as she dropped from the bed, padded naked to the crinkling bag and extracted the small packet. Power spiraled through her. A sense of rightness.

This was right. No matter what came after, this was right for her. For them.

Riding on the high, she turned back with the thin box held between her thumb and forefinger. “You planning on a three-fer?”

She faltered when she saw that he was standing beside the bed, gloriously naked, supremely confident.

He was as heavily muscled and perfectly proportioned as she had imagined in her darkest, unacknowledged fantasies. But the whole of him was more than she’d pictured. More warrior-like. More masculine. And his proud, jutting flesh suggested that he was up for anything.

He held out a hand. “Come over here.”

She hesitated briefly as nerves tangled with needs inside her, then crossed the room and pressed the condoms into his hand. “I was hoping we’d end up like this.”

Part of her wished he’d say something about this being a beginning rather than an end, but no such assurance was forthcoming. Instead, he kissed her-a simple, closed-mouth kiss that quickly spiraled into something more, something larger than itself. Skin slid across skin, inciting delicious friction, torturous want.

She drew him down to the soft bed, or maybe he urged her down, she wasn’t sure anymore whose idea was what, she only cared that the kisses didn’t stop, the friction didn’t stop.

The heat built. Quiet was forgotten; gentle was lost to the inferno of passion as they strained together, twined together, kissing and nipping until Raine’s entire essence was steeped in him.

He said something on a low growl. The dark, almost violent sound of it pulled at her, inflamed her, called to something deep within her. She whispered his name in a demand, a plea, and parted her legs, wrapping them around him and rolling so they reversed to a position as old as humanity itself, with him atop her, his hard flesh nestled at the juncture between her legs.

The need pounded in her blood while he sheathed himself in one of the condoms and set the other two on the bedside table. Then he was back there with her, truly with her, focusing all his attention on her with a fierceness that might have been intimidating had she not trusted him.

But she trusted him. Hell, she loved him. So she opened to him, welcomed him, demanded him the way her body had been clamoring for his, ever since that first moment she’d knocked on his apartment door and been forcibly reminded of what she’d left behind in Boston.

At the time, she hadn’t understood. Now, as he slid into her on one graceful thrust of hard against soft, flesh against flesh, she finally did understand.

When she’d run from her hospital room, she hadn’t just left her job and a man who might have been her lover. She’d left a piece of herself behind. She might not have ever understood the enormity of it, the finality, except for one thing-

As he moved inside her, as he loved her, that piece was restored.

The beauty and power of it, the heat and the mad frenzy gripped her tightly. She might have struggled against the hold, except it was pulling her exactly where she wanted to be, down into the swirl of pleasure and sensation and flesh and Max, only Max, who waited for her at the center of it all.

Their eyes locked as surely as her legs gripped his hips and her hands anchored at his shoulders. She saw herself reflected in his dark irises, saw the flicker of candlelight and emotion. And heat. So much heat it nearly scorched her, burned through her like a nearing wildfire, increasing with every second.

Their bodies moved together with relentless rhythm, slowing down, then building as the sensations layered within her. But where always before Raine’s climax had turned her inward, until she concentrated on that deepest core of herself, this time, the sensations radiated outward, encompassing Max, drawing him into her pleasure as it spiked and imploded, carrying her along with it.

No, she realized as her body pulsed and clenched around him and he groaned deep within his throat, within his soul as he emptied himself into her. The tidal wave of sensation wasn’t carrying just her along with it this time. It was carrying them. Together.

The tide built and crested, then just when she thought the ebb was inevitable, Max moved in a long, slow glide of flesh against flesh. Raine cried out in surprised pleasure and tightened around him once again, wringing a groan from him. Her name perhaps, or a prayer.

As the sensations faded, as the dim light came into focus around them, Max collapsed gently atop her, pressing her into the yielding mattress with his good, strong weight.

He said her name. Pressed a kiss to her temple. And laced his fingers between hers and held on.

Then they lay there.

Together.

THEY TURNED TO EACH OTHER twice more as the snowstorm built, crested and then ebbed outside, leaving the world cloaked in white and the plow crews working double duty to keep the roads open.

The third time, they drew out the experience as long as they could.

If their first time together had been all need and greed, and their second time together had moved with the fresh, exciting rhythms of new lovers, then their third time was forever. Simply forever.

Though she hadn’t said the words-and neither had he-Raine knew they’d made a commitment to each other that third time. They had soundlessly agreed to make a go of it, to find a halfway point between his desire for a homemaker and her desire to be a high-powered executive. Between trust and distrust. Between rescue and equality.

They’d find their compromises and make them work. What they had together was too special to lose.

Afterward, they dozed, twined together, until Raine woke near dawn. She held herself still, listening to her own heartbeat. To his, where her cheek was pillowed on his chest.

Max slept the deep, motionless sleep of satiation. He didn’t stir when she said his name. In fact, he barely appeared to be breathing.

It was foolish and feminine to be pleased by how thoroughly she’d undone him, but Raine felt both foolish and feminine, so that was okay.

Still, it was time for them to get up and out before their shot-up truck attracted attention.

Thinking to get a head start while he slept a bit longer, Raine levered herself away from him. Sitting cross-legged on the bed with one of the blankets draped over her shoulders against the morning chill, she watched him for a few seconds, memorizing the moment.

Though he slept deeply, his features weren’t soft or any less forbidding in repose. He remained formidable, as though chiseled in stone.

But she knew the gentle warrior within.

She touched his shoulder, knowing there were demons yet for them to face. “Max. Time to get up.”

He mumbled something and grabbed her hand, but didn’t wake.

Her heart tugged at the pressure of his fingers on hers, and she bent and kissed him. “Fine. You sleep. I’ll pack and check out.”

As she mentally reviewed the smaller highways they could use on their trip back to Boston, she realized they would pass very near the burned-out wreck of her rental house in New Bridge. Max’s truck should still be parked in the driveway. Did they dare switch out?

“Probably not,” she murmured. “If The Nine aren’t watching the house, you can bet Detective Marcus is.”

And if anyone had told her a week earlier that she’d be avoiding the police with relative calm by the weekend, she would’ve called them a liar.