Prayer (16 page)

“John?” Her voice broke as she forced his name from her mouth.

He looked up at her from his place between her thighs. God, he was pure sex, the red-tinted light catching in his eyes, his hair mussed from her grabbing hands, that dark, scruffy beard so close to her tender skin. “Yeah, baby?”

Baby
. If she’d been standing, she might have swooned. She was falling again, right over the side of the cliff. Her treacherous brain nudged her and told her to shut up and let him do what he wanted. What if he didn’t like to be told what a woman wanted? What if telling him ruined the night?

Well, then, he’d be an asshole. And John wasn’t an asshole, right?

Except for that one time.

“I want you up here with me I don’t want you so far away.” She’d said it all in a rush, before her mind cut her tongue off. And then she held her breath.

He smiled and kissed the inside of her thigh. Then he scooted off the bed. Before she could fret about that, he’d dropped his jeans and underwear.

Boxer briefs. Dark and snug. Excellent.

And fuck, look at him. Even better than she remembered. She held out her arms, and he climbed back onto the bed, onto her.

“Your wish is my command,” he murmured and kissed her neck, just beneath her ear. Oh, God, his tongue.

Emboldened, she put her mouth to his ear and whispered, “I want you inside me.”

With a groan, he sat back, and Katrynn saw that he had a condom in his hand, snatched from his jeans, she supposed. He tore the packet open with his teeth. She watched as he rolled the latex up his beautiful cock. Without intending it, she licked her lips, and, seeing her, he laughed.

As he came back down, propping himself on one hand, he said, “Bring your legs up. I want to feel them around me.”

She did, and he slid his fingers through her folds, making her tremble. She could feel how wet she was, how easily his skin moved on hers. Then he took hold of his cock and pushed against her. She flexed her hips upward, giving him more access, and gasped long and loud as he filled her.

“Sweet fuck, Katrynn,” he mumbled. He moved inside her, slow and steady, and settled onto his elbows. His forearms framed her head.

She hooked her ankles together on the small of his back, then clenched around him and surged against his motion until she had him grunting. He bent his head and kissed her, and they were caught in a perfect bubble that she never wanted to break. They moved together, finding the right rhythm, their bodies entwined as if they’d been built to fit in just this way. She felt surrounded by him; even the parts of her his body couldn’t reach were alive with the sparks of his touch.

This was
perfect
. It was so fucking perfect.

Finally, she was too close to stay with their kiss, she needed more air than he could give her, and she tore her mouth from his with a desperate gasp.

He buried his face against her throat and changed the rhythm, letting it become fierce and erratic, and ecstasy began to spiral out from her belly. Her joints ached with the need for her climax.

“John, please,” she gasped, clutching at his shoulder. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted him to do.

But he stopped, went still, except for his heaving chest. “Look at me, Katrynn.”

She opened eyes she hadn’t known were closed.

He took her hand from his shoulder and kissed it. He linked fingers with her and then pressed her hand to the bed.

There was something potent in that simple touch, in the way he held her hand, protected and immobilized in his. It was hot as fuck. She turned her head and looked. His big, dark hand, the skin olive and dusted with black hair, dwarfed her small, pale one, and she felt her body clench at the sight.

“Look at me, baby.”

God, she loved that. She looked at him. As soon as she did, when his eyes locked onto hers, he thrust into her, so hard that he grunted with the effort. He pulled out, slowly, not letting her eyes go. And thrust again. And again.

Again.

Each time, Katrynn let out a high-pitched gasp of shocked pleasure. He was reaching a place in her that she’d thought a myth.

Again. Again. Again.

“Oh, fuck! John!” She didn’t usually say anything during sex, but random words kept leaping from her mouth.

Again—Again—Again. Now the thrusts had become almost savage, but his eyes on hers, his complete attention to her, left a sheen of sweetness, kept the bubble complete.

And she was coming. Fuck oh fuck, she was coming. Liquid fire filled her belly, her joints seemed to come apart, her blood buzzed like a hive of bees in her ears. She’d never come anything like this, not even before with John, not even alone with the toys she liked best. This was more than a full orgasm. This was a
full-body
orgasm.

As she peaked, clenching her teeth to hold back a scream, he made a rough, desperate sound and froze, deep inside her.

When they had both finished and returned to sense, John eased out of her. He got up, dealt with the condom, tying it off and tossing it in her little wastebasket, as she got under the covers.

He came back and settled at her side. Smiling sweetly, almost sadly, down at her, he brushed her hair from her face. “I can’t believe I could have forgotten that.”

“It wasn’t like that before.”

He frowned. “No?”

“No.” She smoothed her fingers over his brow, easing the furrows away. “This was even better.”

He grinned and kissed her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Yeah. And she was terrified. She’d fallen completely on this night, and if she was wrong about him, if he again left her alone at the foot of that cliff, she wasn’t sure how she’d climb back up.

~oOo~

Katrynn woke several times during the night and always found John sleeping at her side. She must have relaxed more completely at some point in the early morning, because the last time she woke, the room was in daylight—overcast, but still light—so a few hours must have passed.

She opened her eyes and found him awake at her side, sitting up against her headboard, reading one of the books she had stacked on her nightstand. The way he was holding the paperback, and without her glasses—where were her glasses?—she couldn’t tell which one.

Lennie and George were both lying on his legs, curled in matching balls. He seemed fine with that. She remembered how nice he’d been to Lennie last night, talking to him and giving him some affection as he moved the cat from the sofa.

She lay there and watched him. In the daylight, he was even more gorgeous. He was older than she was, she thought he was in his late thirties, but he didn’t look it at all. His hair was dark, with no traces of grey, and his skin was smooth. The only wrinkles she’d ever seen on his face were a couple of faint lines at the corners of his eyes. Good living and a happy life, she guessed.

He turned the page, and the front cover came up so she could see it. He was reading
The Constant Gardner
. She smiled. “Good pick.”

“Hey. Good morning.” He closed the book and set it aside, then scooted down and lay facing her. The cats complained and jumped down. Very soon, they’d be yelling for breakfast, but they seemed willing to let her have this moment.

She smiled and brushed her fingers over his scruffy cheek. “You’re here.”

“I am.” He took hold of her hand and kissed it. “I do have to pee, though. There was no force on earth that would have made me leave this room before you woke up, but it was close, I won’t lie.”

Laughing, she sat up. “You’re sweet. Thank you. Go pee.” He really was sweet; Katrynn knew exactly how she would have felt if she’d woken alone in the bed. Even if he’d only been in the bathroom, that first strike of crushing disappointment would have been vicious.

He stood and went to the door, unconcerned with his nakedness. She was not nearly so unaffected by the sight. Damn, his ass was fine. In the doorway, he turned. The front view was great, too.

“Hey—you should look out the window. It’s still snowing. I checked my phone. They’re saying we’re at twenty-two inches and counting. Maybe up to thirty before it stops. The plows can’t keep the main roads clear, so they’re not going to get to side streets at all today. We definitely have a snow day.”

Katrynn smiled, and he gave her a little wink and headed to the bathroom. When she was sure she was alone, she indulged a tiny moment of utter glee, clapping and bouncing up and down as she sat naked on her bed.

Then Lennie and George came in and reminded her in clear terms that they had been there first, so she got up, pulled her Snoopy bottoms back on, got a much sexier cotton cami from her dresser, and shrugged it on. Before she left the room, she went to the window. The world was buried in white, softening the sharp edges and brightening the dark corners. Just so very beautiful. Like a fresh start.

George bumped her leg impatiently, and she went to the kitchen to feed her fellas.

And breakfast for her and John. A snow day called for oatmeal. She hoped he liked oatmeal.

~oOo~

He did like oatmeal. They had it with coffee and cinnamon toast, and then John set her on the counter and fucked her next to the sink stacked with their dishes. They spent the rest of the morning talking and fucking—in the kitchen, on the sofa, back in bed. He ran out of condoms, but she had a box in her nightstand. It was only a box of a dozen, though; at the rate they were going, if the snow-in lasted much longer than a day, they’d be in trouble.

The snow stopped in the early afternoon, with an official accumulation of twenty-eight inches, and they went out and shoveled the walk. When she dumped a shovelful of snow on his head, they also had a snow fight, laughing and lurching around the thigh-high snow like idiots.

Before they went back inside, John dug out his truck enough to get into the cab, and he pulled out a backpack and his guitar.

She lifted her eyebrow at him. “Pretty cocky, packing a bag.”

“I meant to go to the house after I apologized, I swear. I did not plan on seducing you last night.”

That deserved a higher eyebrow. “Is that what you think you did? Seduce me?”

“Hell yeah. Wicked good job of it, too.” He grinned and grabbed her hand. “Come on. I need to get my guitar inside and let it warm up. I want to play with you.”

“Play?” She stopped in the snow.

“You, me, guitar, keyboard. Play. I’ve been thinking about it since I saw the keyboard last night.”

That seemed strangely intimate, and Katrynn wasn’t sure why. But it scared her, took the head off the day’s blissful buzz. She felt herself take an internal step back. If they went too fast, they could crash.

Obviously surprised by her hesitation, John cocked his head. “Katrynn?”

She was being ridiculous. They’d been fucking all day—how much more intimate could they be? And anyway, wasn’t that what she wanted? To be close with him? For him to be down at the base of the cliff with her?

Yes. That was exactly what she wanted.

Shaking off that weird moment, she smiled. “Okay. Sounds fun.”

While his guitar warmed up, they showered. When things got extra steamy, Katrynn took quiet control and jacked him off—she didn’t want things to get to a point where she’d have to stop him. She still didn’t trust herself to speak up when she needed to, and she didn’t want to have to make a pharmacy run in the snow.