“Mara.” His voice was a low, ominous warning.
“Please, Jared.” Her voice was needy, entreating. His clean, masculine scent surrounded her, and all she could think about was getting the hard length of him that was pushing against her ass inside her, filling her until she could think of nothing else but him. That’s exactly how it would be with Jared. He’d dominate her senses, push everything else out of her brain until she didn’t have to think anymore.
“Fuck,” he exploded.
Mara moaned with satisfaction as he easily flipped her onto her back and covered her with his hard, muscular body. “Yes,” she begged.
“Your ankle,” he growled.
“It’s fine,” she argued. “Please.” The twinge of pain in her ankle was nothing compared to the overwhelming longing that was clawing at her mercilessly.
He answered her plea by pinning her hands over her head and covering her mouth with a tortured, agitated groan.
CHAPTER 8
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Jared was doing exactly what Mara wanted: eliminating her ability to think of anything else but him. He assaulted her senses with his all-consuming kiss, taking what he wanted, but giving her what she needed in return.
His full-on invasion of her mouth had her moaning beneath him, tilting her head to give him better access as his tongue pushed past her lips and surged deeply, claiming her completely without a word spoken.
Every nerve in her body vibrated with tension as his hips rolled, and his hard cock rubbed against her saturated core. She jerked at her wrists, needing to touch him. Turning her head violently, she broke the embrace that was slowly incinerating her. “Please, Jared,” she panted frantically. “I need to touch you.”
“If you touch me, I’ll lose control,” he grunted harshly against her ear.
“I don’t care.”
“I care, dammit. I care.” Jared loosened his grip on her wrists and rested his forehead against her shoulder.
The note of desperation in his voice nearly made Mara come unraveled. He sounded . . . defeated. Realizing his big body was shuddering above her, she slid her hands free and into his coarse hair in a soothing caress. “It can just be this once, Jared. I’m not expecting forever, or even tomorrow right now. I just want you now.”
The last thing she wanted was for him to feel like he was hurting her. In reality, he’d be doing her a favor, giving her temporary respite from the negative visions and emotions flowing through her mind.
“You think that will be enough?” Jared ground out coarsely, close to her ear.
“It will have to be. I don’t care about the future. I just want to get through today.”
Mara moaned in protest as Jared lifted his body away from hers. “Please don’t leave me right now,” she begged shamelessly, needing the presence of another human right at the moment.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She heard the rustling of clothing, and it was so quiet in the room that she heard the zipper of his jeans come down, followed by more whispery sounds of clothing being discarded.
“Dark or light?” he questioned softly.
“What?” she asked hesitantly.
“Do you want the curtains open or closed?”
He was naked. She knew it as surely as she knew that he wasn’t going to leave her right now despite her fears. For just a moment, she wished for her glasses, which had been badly damaged during her escape from the fire. Mara ached to see Jared as clearly as possible. But her vision wasn’t bad without them. She wore them mainly because she did intricate work and she had a slight astigmatism in one eye. Her vision sharpened up to perfect with glasses. Right at the moment, she longed for the clearest eyesight possible, but she’d deal with what she had.
“Light.” She wanted to see him so urgently that she didn’t care if he saw her less than perfectly toned body.
Wincing as he opened one of the drapes and the room flooded with sunlight, Mara finally got her eyes full of Jared Sinclair. Blinking fast as her pupils adjusted to the brightness, she stared unabashed as he walked back to the bed without a stitch of clothing on. She sat up, her mouth now as dry as a desert, her gaze lovingly adoring his sculpted, masculine body. His biceps and abs were ripped with solid muscle, and it was obvious he worked out on a regular basis. His powerfully built chest had a light dusting of auburn hair, exactly the same color that highlighted the locks on his head. As her eyes moved downward, she licked her parched lips as she saw a narrow happy trail of the same hue snaking down the lower part of a rippling six-pack that had her itching to trace over it. Finally, her curious stare landed on his groin, and her core clenched as she tried to find the right words for his engorged cock. “Huge,” she choked out, stunned. She’d only seen one other naked man in her life, and he hadn’t been built anywhere near Jared’s size. Anywhere.
“Are you done looking?” Jared asked huskily.
“No,” she answered honestly. Really, she could stare at him forever and never get tired of gawking at his sinfully delicious body. Her glance eventually landed on his face, and she melted when his eyes flared with heat.
Leaning down, he grasped the hem of his own T-shirt that she was currently wearing and tugged it upward. “If I have to get naked, so do you.”
“I don’t look nearly as hot as you do,” she told him reluctantly, but she lifted her arms so he could strip away her only item of clothing. She sat in the middle of the bed silently as Jared’s expression grew hungry and heated, his eyes caressing her breasts like he wanted to devour them.