A groan rumbled up from deep in his chest and he took a deep breath a moment before he shook his head. “This was a mistake,” he said, splaying his hands over her bare back to hold her to him.
“W-why do you say that?” She was truly surprised that her vocal cords still worked, let alone that she had the capability of putting words into a coherent thought.
Sliding his hands from her back down to her hips, he cupped her bottom and pulled her more fully into the cradle of his hips. The solid ridge of his arousal pressed to her lower stomach threatened to send her into a total meltdown and she had to force herself to breathe.
“You’ve made me harder than a chunk of granite.” Holding her to him with one arm, he reached for the waistband of her khaki slacks. “I want you so damned much I’m about to explode.”
As spirals of heat twined their way throughout her body to gather in an ever-tightening coil at the apex of her thighs, Haley couldn’t speak. Weakened by the urgent desire building inside of her, she grasped Luke’s biceps to stay on her feet.
“You feel so good,” he said as his lips moved over her collarbone, then down the slope of her breast.
As he unfastened the closure at the top of her slacks and lowered the zipper, she unbuckled his belt and released the snap of his jeans. Then, feeling bolder than ever, she toyed with the tab at his fly a moment before slowly easing it downward a fraction of an inch.
“I thought we were supposed to be…” Her heart skipped several beats when her fingers brushed the insistent bulge straining to be released from the denim fabric. “…taking each other’s clothes off.”
When he shuddered and caught her hands in his, their eyes met and the hunger she saw in the navy blue depths sent a shiver of anticipation skipping over her. “Haley, before this night is over, I fully intend for you to know every inch of my body, as I’m going to know every inch of yours,” he said, his voice sounding deeper and sexier than she’d ever heard it.
As she watched, he finished lowering his fly, shoved his jeans and boxers down his long muscular legs, then stepped out of them and kicked them to the side. When he straightened, he stood proudly in front of her and she knew he was giving her the luxury of perusing his body without the hindrance of feeling self-conscious about her own.
With her stomach fluttering like a swarm of butterflies had been trapped inside, her gaze slowly slid from his muscular midsection down to his lean, well-toned hips, then beyond. Her breath caught in her throat and her pulse pounded in her ears at the sight of his proud, heavily aroused sex surrounded by a thick patch of crisp dark hair.
“Oh heavens,” she said, her gaze flying up to meet his.
As he wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him, his smile made her feel as if she were the most desired woman alive. “I give you my word that making love this time will be easier, sweetheart,” he promised as he slid his hands to her waist. “I’m going to give you nothing but pure pleasure.”
Unable to find words adequate enough to express how she felt, Haley simply nodded and waited for him to lower the last barriers between them.
“Do you have any idea the hell I’ve gone through today just knowing what your clothes have been hiding?” he asked, when he added her slacks and panties to the pile of clothing beside them.
“I-I didn’t…realize—”
“Let’s get into bed while we’ve still got enough strength left to get there,” he cautioned, his words vibrating against her lips.
“That’s probably…a good idea,” she agreed, trying to catch her non-existent breath.
The world suddenly tilted precariously when he lifted her in his arms to gently place her in the middle of his bed. As he stretched out beside her, she briefly wondered if he was thinking about making love to her or if he was concentrating on making her pregnant. But as he pulled her to him and she saw the raw hunger in the vivid blue depths of his eyes, she forgot about the purpose behind their union and concentrated on the way he was making her feel.
As he kissed her with a tenderness that robbed her of patience, heat streaked from every part of her to gather in a pool in her very core and she briefly wondered if she’d ever breathe again. But when he cupped her breasts and chafed the overly sensitive tip with the pad of his thumb, a shiver rippled the length of her spine and she moaned from the pure pleasure of it.
“Does that feel good, Haley?” he asked as he nibbled tiny kisses to the rapidly fluttering pulse at the base of her throat.
“Y-yes.”
He slid his hand over her ribs to her waist. Then, as he kissed his way from her collarbone down the slope of her breast, he moved his hand to her hip. “Would you like for me to do more?”
“I-If you don’t, I think I’ll go out of my mind,” she groaned, meaning it. She needed his touch, needed his lovemaking like she needed her next heartbeat.
The overwhelming hunger in her lower belly quickly turned to an emptiness that needed to be filled when he took the hardened bud into his mouth and teased her with his tongue at the same time he touched her intimately. Tremors of desire ran through her at the speed of light, but when he slipped his finger inside it felt as if fireworks had been ignited in her soul.
Wanting to bring him the same kind of pleasure, she flattened her palms on his chest and caressed the firm pads of his pectoral muscles, then used her fingertips to trace the lines of his abs on the way to his flat lower belly. But unsure if she should touch him as intimately as he touched her, her hands stilled.
“Go ahead, sweetheart. I promise I won’t break,” he reassured her, taking her hand in his to guide her to his rigid flesh.
As she encircled his hard masculinity, Haley was encouraged by his deep shuddering groan and she took the liberty of measuring his strength, of teasing his velvety tip and exploring the softness below. But all too quickly Luke took her hands in his and brought them back to his wide chest.
His gaze never left hers as without another word he nudged her knees apart and moved to settle himself between her thighs. “Only pleasure this time,” he repeated as he slowly moved his hips forward. “I promise.”
Trusting him as she’d never trusted any other man, she didn’t even think to be apprehensive. She wanted him to love her, wanted him to take her back to the heights of ecstasy that he’d taken her to that morning.
A shimmering heat began to dance behind Haley’s tightly closed eyes when she felt the blunt tip of him against the most feminine part of her. “Please make love to me, Luke. I need you inside. Now.”
The blood in her veins felt as if it flowed to the beat of a sultry drum as he slowly began to enter her. Wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, she reveled in the exquisite stretching of her body as she became one with the man she loved.
When their bodies were completely joined, Haley closed her eyes and lost herself in the intimacy of it all. It felt as if there was no beginning and no end as he set a slow, leisurely pace and wave after wave of pleasure began to consume her. Tension, sensual and exhilarating, began to grip every fiber of her being. Apparently sensing that she was rapidly approaching the peak, Luke deepened his thrusts and she suddenly broke free of the ever-tightening need holding her captive.
Basking in the delicious crescendo of sensations overcoming her, she clung to him to keep from losing herself and held him close in an effort to prolong the feelings. Then suddenly, she felt his body go perfectly still a moment before he hoarsely called her name and joined her in the peace of sweet release.
Haley tightened her arms around Luke and tried not to think about their arrangement being temporary. How long after she became pregnant would he still desire her? Would he view the pregnancy as “mission accomplished” and lose interest in their lovemaking?
And