‘I don’t want that image back,’ he declared emphatically. ‘I want the real you.’
Did he see the joy erupting in her soul—the joy she couldn’t contain? ‘I’m here,’ she said simply, offering herself up to be loved.
A smile of sheer devilment broke across his face and his eyes were suddenly steaming with plans he intended to execute with maximum impact in mind. ‘Yes,’ he said with relish. ‘Here with me. Let’s make that in every sense there is.’
Did he really mean every sense or was he only talking in the sexual sense? For a moment Merlina felt a little flicker of disappointment. She’d opened a door to him and it seemed he was side-stepping, but she had no time to think about it. He kissed her, instantly drawing her back into a world of vibrant sensation, bombarding her with such intense excitement it was impossible not to give herself up to it.
He kissed the pulse at the base of her throat, heating her entire bloodstream. He kissed her breasts, his tongue swirling around her nipples, lashing them into peaks of hard need, then sucking them into his mouth, making a wildly erotic feast of taste and titillation that drove her into offering them up for more of it, her own hands sliding under and lifting the soft flesh, wantonly aiding and abetting the exquisite ravishment, totally enthralled by it.
But he didn’t stay there. He moved lower, sweeping kisses over her stomach, teasing her navel with his tongue, grazing his mouth over the erogenous zones under her hipbones, causing her skin to twitch with pleasure, his hands caressing her legs apart, long, shiver-inducing, purposeful caresses on her inner thighs, and the tension of becoming more and more intimately exposed to him had every nerve and muscle in her body poised on a very fine edge in anticipation of being touched there, and taken to even more extremes of feeling.
Her stomach was contracting. Her heart was drumming in her ears. Her breathing was reduced to quick panting, her mind seized with the waiting, the knowing it would come, focussed totally on how it would be, her eyes shut tight, instinctively closing out everything else so that her entire being was tuned to this inner world of Jake’s making.
She felt his fingers slide slowly between the folds of her sex, seeking the source of the moist heat that surely told him how wildly aroused she was. They circled the highly sensitive opening while his thumb laid bare her clitoris, caressing it into a stiff pulsing peak, which he then covered with his mouth, licking, sucking, making her body arch with almost torturous tension.
She couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t…
Her hands scrambled into his hair, tugging, begging an end to it. Her inner muscles were convulsing, her nerves screaming, yet she cried out at the loss of the strangely sweet torment as he released her from it, lifting himself up to position himself for the plunge into ultimate intimacy.
Her hands kneaded his back muscles in desperate wanting. Her legs curled around his taut buttocks, her feet urging him to a fast entry. The need was so compelling, nothing else existed for her. She hated the enforced pause for him to slide on a condom, savagely wished there’d been no need for it. But it was sheer bliss when he came into her, filling the aching void. The relief of it sent ripples of pleasure through her entire body. She felt herself pulsing around him, melting, and the glorious heavenliness of it put an ecstatic smile on her face.
‘Don’t hide from me, Merlina. Open your eyes.’
He was deep inside her, beautifully wonderfully deep. It was difficult to tear her concentration away from how it felt, yet Jake was giving her this pleasure. It wasn’t fair to keep it to herself. She opened her eyes, not even thinking of what she might see in his.
‘You’re smiling,’ he said, smiling right back at her, happy that she was happy with him.
‘Feels good,’ she said, only just stopping herself from blurting out that she loved the sense of having him like this.
‘Only good?’ he quizzed, his smile tilting into a teasing quirk.
‘Great?’ she offered, wishing he wasn’t asking for a rating of his performance. It smacked of playboy games and this was no game to her. She wanted to think this was more than just sex for him—an important connection that was being heightened, deepened by the physical union.
‘Great is good but—’ the joyous twinkles in his eyes fused into a look of burning purpose ‘—I aim to improve on that.’
His mouth claimed hers in a kiss of driving passion, his tongue invading strongly, then matching the plunging rhythm of his body, reinforcing his possession, doubling the intense intimacy. Merlina was swamped with wave after wave of incredible sensation, taking her to the crest of climax and spilling her into it, over and over again.
Her arms and legs were suffused with a weird weakness. She couldn’t hold on. Jake slid an arm under her to keep her with him, keep the momentum going. It was awesome, fantastic, the constant chaotic roll to pinnacles of creamy pleasure. If this was just sex she didn’t care. She’d take this blissful ride with Jake wherever it went.
She couldn’t imagine anything more exciting, but there was. His body tension seemed to explode into a much faster pumping, and she knew his control had been stretched to the limit. Somehow the sense that he was losing it—in her—was wildly exhilarating, and when she felt the spasms of his release, a huge swell of satisfaction triggered a very primal possessiveness. Jake…hers…and her own inner muscles suddenly leapt into squeezing tightly, holding him there.
He carried her with him as he rolled onto his side, still maintaining their union with a gentle rocking, one of her legs lying between his, the other loosely hooked over his thigh. Breath whooshed out of his lungs and he scooped in more before moving his mouth over hers in sensual little kisses.
‘Tell me it was right for you,’ he murmured against her lips.
Right? The question rolled around her dazed mind. It didn’t matter any more whether it was right or not. ‘Yes,’ she said on a contented sigh. It was the truth, no problem at all for her to say it and if Jake wanted to hear it…right at this moment she wanted whatever Jake wanted.
He moved his head back onto the pillow and smiled at her, his dimples deepening, warm pleasure dancing in his eyes. ‘You see? You had to be with me, Merlina.’
‘Yes,’ she said, not even caring if this was only about winning for Jake.
‘Stay right here!’ He dropped a kiss on her forehead as he slowly disentangled himself. ‘Got to go to the bathroom. Where is it?’