Rush of Pleasure. Rhyannon Byrd

knees braced in the bedding. She moved like she wanted to crawl under his skin, driving him out of his mind.

      Driven by blinding urgency, his hand shook as he grasped the hem of her tank top and shoved it up, his mouth closing hotly over a sweet, pink nipple. She cried out at the intimate contact, the throaty sound making him wild. He used his tongue to stroke and lick, nipping with his teeth, before sucking on her with a hunger that just kept rising. He could not get enough. Not of her taste or her skin or those provocative little sounds she kept making. The way she arched against his mouth, seeking more … or the breathtaking quiver of desire shivering through her limbs. The way she wound her fingers in his hair, tugging him closer.

       God … I need her. Want her.

       Just her. Her. Her …

      In that moment, all of Noah’s concerns were forgotten. He was an animal, primal and male, at the mercy of his baser hungers. He grunted with feral satisfaction as he lifted her body higher, trapping her against the headboard with the burning heat of his body, his muscles coiled hard and tight. Her dazed eyes went wide as he gave a raw, guttural growl, just before he covered her mouth with his, his blood roaring in his ears as visceral craving bore down on him, obliterating reason and logic. Smashing it with a violence that should have shaken him … but he was too far out there, existing in pure sensation.

      She didn’t fight him, but her mouth had been shocked into stillness beneath his—passive, simply taking, accepting—and he wanted her hunger. Wanted the bite of her nails and her mind-blowing passion.

      He wanted her wild for him.

      “Goddamn it, kiss me back,” he snarled, holding the side of her face in his hand. She moaned, tilting her head, fitting her mouth more closely to his. “Please,” he gasped against her silky lips, his voice cracking as he begged her … pleading. “Kiss me back, Will.” And then he felt the soft, sweet stroke of her tongue, and his body shuddered violently in response to that delicate, seeking touch. Within seconds, the kiss became something explicitly carnal, devastating in its power. Noah kissed her like he wanted to consume her. Like he never wanted to stop. And he didn’t. He wanted it to last forever. Wanted to keep drinking in that warm, heady flavor, loving the way she tasted on his tongue. Loving that for once in his godforsaken life, reality was so much better than the dream.

      With another feral, rumbling growl, he broke the kiss, pressing his mouth to the sharp point of her jaw as he sucked in lungfuls of her mouthwatering scent, his chest heaving. Heat shot up his spine, roaring through him as he reached for the waistband of her pajama bottoms, wrenching them down as far as he could get them with her legs wrapped around his waist. His body shuddered as he pressed his hand between her thighs, stroked through the plump, slippery folds that were drenched with heat, then thrust a long finger inside her. She cried out again, panting against the side of his face, her nails biting into his shoulders, while her inner muscles spasmed, clasping him tighter, fighting to hold him inside her. He made a thick sound as he pressed deeper, loving the way she clung to him, so tender and hot, and he pulled his head back so that he could watch her eyes. Watch the pleasure climb, shocking her, the moment so intimate it made his chest hurt. He’d done this with too many women to count, and yet, in that moment, he couldn’t remember a goddamn one of them.

      Not. A. Single. One.

      All he could see was Will.

      It was mesmerizing, watching the emotion flash through her dark eyes as he stroked inside her, penetrating the plush sheath, pushing deep, then slipping his finger back out and swirling the callused tip wetly over her clit. She trembled, her mouth open for a soundless word that looked like More, and he locked his jaw as he pushed back in, giving her two fingers this time. Her sex was tight and wet and scalding around his fingers, burning him alive, and he braced her with the press of his body so that he could free his other hand to shove down his boxers.

      She cried out again, his name spilled huskily from her kiss-swollen lips, and the next thing Noah knew, long, lethal fangs were bursting into his mouth, heavy and throbbing and hot—just like the ones he had in his nightmares. But he was too far gone to care. He pressed himself against her, stroking the heavy head of his cock through her slick, swollen folds, his breath leaving his chest in ragged bursts as he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. Her skin was deliciously smooth against his scratchy cheek, her scent an intoxicating lure. Unable to resist, he put his mouth against the tender column of her throat, the hunger demanding that he possess and mark her in the most primal, savage way that a male could mark his mate.

      Just as the blunt tip of him nudged her entrance, he scraped his fangs across her sumptuous flesh, on the verge of taking his first bite, when she gripped two handfuls of his hair and wrenched his head back.

      “Whoa,” she said breathlessly. “Noah, wait!”

      “I won’t hurt you,” he groaned, lowering his head and flicking his tongue against her throat, loving the way her wet sex felt against the bulging head of his shaft. “I—”

      “Noah! Listen to me. I said no!”

      He pulled back a little, confused. He could sense her withdrawal, but couldn’t understand exactly what she wanted. Her words were fuzzy in his ears, their meaning not getting through to his brain, like she was shouting at him through soundproof glass while he struggled to read her lips. He shook his head, trying to concentrate, while the import of those words fought to break their way through the deafening fog of hunger and lust.

      “Goddamn it, Noah!” She shoved hard against his shoulders, then slapped him with so much force that his head whipped to the side. “Move back!”

      The words busted through that time, like a douse of cold water in his face. He brought his face back around and looked into her eyes … and reality came back in a slow, sickening slide.

      Shit, he thought dully, shaking his head again, while the details of the situation came into sharper focus. Her warm body crushed against his chest. The thick, granite-hard length of his cock pressing against her inner thigh. The kiss-swollen shape of her mouth beneath eyes that were burning with hot, vibrant emotion. Christ, he could not be doing this. What the hell was wrong with him?

      “Damn it!” He curved his hands into shaking fists, lifted his arms and slammed his fists against the wall, making her jump. A muscle in his jaw pulsed with fury as he narrowed his eyes at her. “This isn’t going to happen,” he snarled. “I am not going to bang you against the wall in some cheap motel room. Not for our first time!”

      “Hey!” Indignation filled her expression. “It wasn’t like I asked for this. You’re