Lori Foster - UP In Flames

“Enough.” He gripped her wrists and pulled her away. “I can’t take it, Mel. Not yet. Maybe after...”

She started to protest, but he didn’t give her time. His hands cupped her breasts; his thumbs brushed her nipples. When she groaned, he said, “You’re wearing too many clothes, honey. I want to see you naked. I want to kiss you everywhere.”

Everywhere? It took him mere seconds to untie her halter and bare her breasts. She felt another stab of vulnerability, until he bent to greedily suck one nipple. There were no preliminaries, no forewarnings. Just the hot, moist pull of his mouth and the rough stroke of his tongue. It was so intense she tried to draw away with a short, startled exclamation. But he held her close, his callused hands spread wide on her back, gently refusing to let her retreat.

After long minutes he released her, only to switch to her other nipple.

“Adam...”

“It’s the coconut, sweetheart.” He nipped her with his teeth, and she trembled, tangling her fingers in the silky hair over his nape, trying to bring his mouth to hers. But he didn’t budge. “I intend to drink my fill, Mel, so quit fighting me.”

His fill turned out to be long minutes of sheer agony. Before he finished she was spread on her back, half on, half off the skirt, and he had settled comfortably between her thighs. She couldn’t keep her hips still, thrusting up against him, but that only seemed to encourage him, to make him more ruthless. When she tugged on his hair, hurting his injured head, he captured both her wrists in one hand and pinned her arms over her head.

Leaning back on his knees, his eyes glowing in the darkness, he whispered, “It feels like a lifetime I’ve been waiting to see you like this.” The atmosphere vibrated with his potent sexuality, making her feel decadent and drunk with erotic need.

“I can’t tell you how many times I imagined coming after you, forcing you to help me get over my obsession. I wanted you just like this, open to me, accepting me.”

As he spoke, he kept her arms immobile, stroking his free hand slowly down her side, closer and closer to the notch of her thighs. Tingling from the inside out, she opened herself a little wider, making it easy for him, trying to hurry him.

“That’s it, Mel. Show me that you want me.”

“I do.”

“Not enough. Not yet.”

His long fingers slid over the soft material of her shorts, right where she needed his touch most. No man had ever done this to her, and it seemed so right that Adam would be the first to make her feel this way. She had the vague impression of knowing this was what she’d waited for. He was what she’d waited for.

“Please...” She felt so close to something she’d never experienced, and she desperately wanted it. She strained against him, lifting her hips as high as she could.

He pulled back. His eyes were midnight dark as he looked at her, seeing everything. With a slight shake of his head, he whispered, “Not yet, baby.”

Gasping, she scrambled up and reached for him. Adam let her get as far as her knees, then caught the waistband of her shorts and started working them down. She tried to kiss him but he dodged her mouth, chuckling softly.

“It’s okay, Mel. I promise. I’ll take care of you.”

“I want you to take care of me now.”

He smiled, amused by her sudden lack of inhibition and uncharacteristic brazenness. “So impatient,” he chided.

“You’re the one who fed me the damn coconut!”

He slid her shorts and her panties down to her knees, then eased her onto her back to slip them the rest of the way off. He tossed them aside, and with a hand on each knee, spread her thighs wide. “Such long, sexy legs, Mel. Not at all what I imagined. Even better...” He bent to kiss the inside of one knee. “Hell, I’m glad I went overboard.”

“Really?” She tried to keep her mind clear, to be coherent, but the cool brush of his silky hair on the sensitive inside of her thigh was startling. The fact that this was Adam, the town bad boy, the man who’d taken over her dreams, made it all the more incredible.

He kissed her belly a few inches below her belly button, then licked the spot. “Absolutely,” he said with a throaty groan, then started licking his way downward.

“Adam.”

His mouth closed over her, and she stiffened at the acute pleasure. Never in her wildest imagination had she been able to aptly prepare for such a thing. Her muscles went taut while her insides seemed fluid. His rasping tongue delved and stroked and licked, and when he slipped one long finger inside her she climaxed with a raw groan that ripped from her throat and echoed around the quiet island. Adam held her there, insatiable, refusing to let the pleasure dwindle until her body went utterly limp.

He released her, gently lowering her thighs and moving to her side. She felt so drained, she didn’t at first realize that he had separated himself from her. Then she felt his hand cup her breast.

“Your heart is still pounding,” he said with deep satisfaction.

“That’s...that’s good.” A heartbeat, considering she felt like she’d died, was definitely a promising sign.

She could hear his smile in the way he spoke. “You didn’t do a very good job of staying on the skirt. You’re more in the sand than out of it.”

What was he babbling about? What difference did it make if she was in the sand? Blindly, she reached out to him, wanting to draw him close again. He caught her hand and held it. “Mel, I lied about the coconut.”

He obviously thought her beyond naive, bordering on stupid. But she played along. “No aphrodisiac?”

“Of course not. But you did want me.”

Very slowly, his words sank in. She heard the wonder and the insistence. She turned her head to face him. “I still do, Adam.”

“Are you sure?”

He sounded uncertain, and for a man like Adam, that had to be unique. It was her turn to smile. Despite the lethargy that tried to rule her body, she rolled on top of him. He gladly went to his back and helped hold her in place, his hands firm on her bottom. She kissed his nose, his bristly chin. “No woman needs an aphrodisiac when you’re around. You breathe and women want to jump your bones.”

“You were never interested, Mel.” He stroked her hair and gave her a slight smile. “No matter what I did, you managed to turn up your nose at me like I didn’t exist.”

Her eyes widened. “You really think that?” Then another thought invaded her fogged brain and she asked, “Do you mean to tell me you constantly provoked me just to get my attention?”

She might not have believed him, despite the recent display of his desire, if she hadn’t seen the look in his eyes. But there was so much feeling there, so much raw emotion.

His hands cupped her head, his thumb brushed her cheek. “I’m sorry I was sometimes mean. As a kid, it seemed so damn unfair that you had everything, even things I hadn’t dared dream of. You sort of represented everything that was missing in my life, all the stuff my parents worked so hard for but could never get.”

She felt the prickle of tears and knew he wouldn’t appreciate her sympathy. She swallowed hard.

“But somewhere along the way,” he continued, “I started wanting you, not the material things you had. I’d stopped being mean by the time we were thirteen, Mel, but you didn’t notice. You still avoided me.” With a smile, he said, “You could get that pretty little nose so high in the air, I could have thrown myself at your feet and you wouldn’t have seen me.”

He was so wrong, but how could she explain all the various things he’d made her feel over the years? Yes, she’d often been angry at him, but she’d also felt alive whenever he was near. Adam never ignored her like the rest of the town did. He didn’t give her only distant politeness. And he didn’t hide what he felt behind proper manners, as her parents were wont to do. Her mother and father loved her, she’d never doubted that. But they considered an excess of emotion uncouth. They’d always been careful in how they expressed their feelings.