Linda Howard - Prey

He unsnapped, unzipped his fly, and pushed both jeans and underwear down and off, kicked them aside. Angie eagerly reached for him, found his penis already iron hard and heftier than she’d expected, even though she’d already known he’d been lying about having a little dick. Reaching down, she cupped his heavy testicles while with her other hand she began a slow stroke that wrung a groan from deep in his chest.

He stopped her almost immediately. “Uh uh, that’s not the way we do this.”

Because his voice was guttural with pleasure, she smiled against his chest. “It isn’t? Are you sure?”

“Next time, maybe. Not this time.”

“Why not?” Was that sultry voice actually hers? She found one of his nipples, dipped her head to give it a slow lick. “I think you like it.”

“Fucking love it, and that’s why not this time. My fuse is too short.” With a lithe movement he flipped her to her back and pinned her hands above her head while he licked and sucked and slowly fanned the heat that was growing inside her.

She liked sex. She liked the way it felt, liked the anticipation, the closeness, the pleasure. The fact that she’d never had a climax from intercourse itself annoyed her, because she felt as if she were missing out on something that was probably fantastic, going by the way her friends had talked. After she’d broken up with Todd, she hadn’t wanted another relationship, especially not one just for sex, and gradually her need for sex had kind of gone away, and that had bothered her, too. Had all the romance in her, both emotional and sexual, just withered away?

The more Dare touched her, the more emphatic the answer to that question became. No .

Then he tugged the thermal bottoms down and off, and they were lying together naked, kissing as if the slightest distance between them was intolerable. She loved kissing him, loved everything about it, the taste, the way his lips felt, the hot smell of his skin. He kissed his way down to her breasts, where his beard stubble scraped across her sensitive nipples and startled a cry from her, not in pain, but in a sharp, exquisite pleasure that took her by surprise.

His hand dipped between her legs, his thumb finding her clitoris and lightly stroking, circling, until she felt as if it had engorged beyond bearing, needing more, feeling empty and wanting him to fill her. Her legs were open, her back arched, everything in her straining and desperate for release.

“I want to see you when you come,” he growled, lifting away from her and stretching out a long arm to turn on the lantern.

Angie instinctively flinched from the light; she made an aborted movement to reach for the sleeping bag, but then Dare was there, covering her with his body, settling between her legs and reaching down between their bodies to guide the thick head of his penis gently to her opening.

He didn’t enter her, not right away. Instead he slowly, gently rocked, putting just enough pressure behind the movement so that he dipped into her a little, then out, then back in. She caught her breath, her fingers digging into his shoulders, but even though she was holding on for dear life she couldn’t stop her body from writhing beneath him, searching for more, for the completion promised by his penetration.

“More?” The single word was hoarse; his face was set in the hard, strained lines of a man who was holding himself under ruthless control.

She couldn’t answer; even that one word was beyond her. Instead she hooked her left leg around his waist and lifted herself, blindly taking more of him in. The physical shock of the intrusion was uncomfortable, verging on pain, but she didn’t care. The feel of him sliding deep was exquisite and shattering, and she felt tears gathering in her eyes.

He was breathing so hard that every exhalation seemed to rasp from deep in his chest. His gaze burned down at her like blue fire, the color deeper and more intense than she’d ever seen it. “Now,” he said, sliding a muscular arm under her hips and lifting. He grabbed something, maybe his jeans, maybe part of the sleeping bag, bunched it up, and slid it under her to keep her hips tilted. Then he braced himself over her on his elbows and began thrusting, slow and steady, keeping the penetration fairly shallow at first and then going deep and hard. The gasp had barely died in her throat when he dragged himself back and began anew that slow, steady rhythm. Hard and deep. Slow and steady. Over and over again, alternating his rhythm until she was all but climbing him, the pleasure built to such a pitch that it verged on torment. She heard the raw sounds tearing from her own throat, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered, except the shattering release that still hovered just out of reach.

She needed him, needed him, needed release from this pleasure that was so acute it felt like torment, unbearable, as if she would come apart under the tension-and then she broke, a savage cry exploding from deep inside her, sensation pulsing, her entire body feeling as if every muscle in her clamped down on the thick penis moving back and forth inside her. And he broke, too, abruptly driving his body hard into hers, over and over again, groaning, his teeth grinding together until the shuddering, throbbing pleasure released its hold on him and dropped him down onto her where he lay, heavy and boneless, almost crushing her.

Neither of them moved for a long time. The chilly air felt wonderful on her overheated skin. Her bones had turned to water, her muscles to mush, her brain to utter blankness. Breathing was the best she could manage. She dozed, if falling off a cliff into unconsciousness could be called dozing, and woke when he groaned against her neck and muttered something she couldn’t understand.

She licked her lips, took a few deep breaths, and mustered the energy to say, “What?”

He did his own deep breathing, gathered himself, managed to heave his weight up onto his elbows. He wobbled a little, but the expression in his heavy-lidded eyes was fiercely satisfied. “I said, ‘This is serious.’ Us.” He cupped her face in his rough palms, kissed her mouth. “I love you. I have from the first. I think you love me, too, if you’ll stop doubting yourself and just go with your gut.”

Angie opened her mouth to deny it, panic already blooming, but at the last minute she caught herself. She had to stop being such a coward; if Dare could hang himself out emotionally like that, she could at least have the courage and honor to tell him the truth. “I think so, too,” she finally managed to say, her heartbeat double-timing at the risk she was taking, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth she felt a massive sense of relief, a lightening inside, as if she’d dropped a burden she hadn’t even realized she was carrying.

“What did you say?” He tilted his head at her. “I didn’t hear you.”

Of course he heard her, unless he’d gone deaf in the past five seconds. She put her hands over his and raised her gaze to his. “Yes, you did. I thought: How could I possibly love anyone in such a short length of time? The same goes for you, too.”

“Two years? That isn’t such a short length of time?”

“You can’t love someone you don’t know,” she chided.

“I knew you were the one. Drove me bunny-boiling nuts every time you looked at me like I was a pile of horse shit you’d stepped in. This thing with buying your place was one last effort to work things out between us, because that was the only way I could think of to keep you here.”

She was silent, thinking that she very likely wouldn’t have listened to the deal he’d offered; she would have taken the money and left, started over somewhere else, probably near Missoula. If circumstances hadn’t intervened and given them this time together, she would have missed this. Suddenly she identified the feeling she had inside, that sense of lightening; it was happiness.