A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [126]
It was a slow, smoldering burn, all the hotter for that.
Last night, she’d been in shock and vulnerable.
Some men would have taken advantage of her—but not Steven Creed.
She slipped out of bed, scurried into the bathroom and returned with an empty bladder and, thanks to a bottle of mouthwash she’d found in the medicine cabinet over the sink, fresh breath.
She stood looking down at Steven, willing him to open his eyes.
“I know you’re awake,” she finally said.
A grin crooked the corner of his mouth and, just as he raised his eyelids, Melissa peeled off the T-shirt and tossed it aside.
Steven muttered an exclamation.
“Did you mean it?” Melissa asked, enjoying her brief moment of power. Once Steven got her under him, she knew full well, the balance would shift; he would be in command.
Mostly.
“Did I mean what?” Steven hedged. He scooted upright, sat with his bare back against the headboard, the pillow fluffed behind him.
“When you said you thought there was a good possibility you might be in love with me,” Melissa said. “Did you mean that?”
He grinned, and his whole face changed, seemed to light up, like the world beyond the bedroom windows. “Actually,” he said, reaching out with lightning speed, clasping her hand, and pulling her down onto his lap, “I understated the matter considerably.”
She blinked, still breathless from being yanked, however gently, off her feet. “You mean—?”
“I’m sure of it now,” Steven said, his gaze holding hers, direct and unflinching. “I love you, Melissa. I have from the first—it just took me a while to admit it to myself, that’s all.”
“Are you just saying that because you want sex?” Melissa challenged. She was sitting on his lap and therefore had proof positive that he wanted sex.
He leaned forward, kissed her. The faker, he’d just been pretending to be asleep. He smelled tantalizingly of toothpaste and soap, and his hair was faintly damp. He’d been up well before Melissa.
“I can’t deny that I do want sex,” he said with a smiling acknowledgment of his arousal. However, the fact remains, counselor, that I do. Love you, I mean.”
Melissa wanted it to be true, was so afraid it wasn’t. “How can you be so sure?”
He grinned again, stroked her hair with one strong, calloused hand. “I’m sure,” he said, as the same hand moved down, skimming the bare flesh of her shoulder, setting it to tingling, and then curved around her breast. With the side of his thumb, Steven chafed her nipple. It tightened deliciously, ready for his mouth, and Melissa groaned.
Steven turned her, so that she was straddling him, and tasted her with just the tip of his tongue.
Fresh heat surged through her.
He suckled at her breast, gently at first, and then with a growing hunger.
Melissa whispered something senseless, let her head fall back, offering herself to him.
The night before, he’d shown restraint. This morning, he was all over her, attending to her breasts at leisure, rolling her onto her back, burying his head between her legs after kissing the length of her inner thighs.
He nibbled. Teased.
Melissa cried out and plunged her fingers into his hair, unsure whether she wanted to push him away or pull him closer still. The pleasure was excruciating, almost beyond her ability to bear.
“What about—?” Her question came out as a strangled croak.
“Let—go—” Steven assured her, between flicks of his tongue. “We’re—alone—
Melissa moaned, pleading incoherently. She needed the tension to end, and to never end.
Steven took his time, taking her to the verge, then withdrawing. Finally, though, he gave her what she wanted.
Or she took it.
The orgasm seemed to unspool, like gossamer thread, wild and glittering loops of incomprehensible satisfaction.
Melissa held nothing back, and by the time she’d stopped responding, her body flexing and easing and flexing again, in the throes of helpless release, Steven, too, had lost control.
He must have had a condom ready, because he’d put it on and entered her, deeply, in almost the same motion.
Melissa, having just descended from the heights,