Dead by Midnight - Beverly Barton [59]
Lorie speared her fingers into his thick black hair, encouraging him to give her what she so desperately needed.
He increased the tempo of his strokes until she came, her orgasm rocketing through her, exploding inside her, shaking her from head to toe. Crying out with pleasure, she clung to him while he lifted himself up and shucked out of his wet swim trunks. Fully erect, his penis jutted forward from a bed of black curls. She reached up and touched him. He groaned.
“I love you, Lorie. God in heaven, I love you!”
He thrust into her fully, her slick, wet body more than ready for him. He lifted her hips to bring her closer. She wrapped her legs around his waist and moved sensuously against him.
“I love you,” she whispered as he delved and withdrew, delved and withdrew. “Love you…love you…”
Seconds later he came, grunting and trembling. His release triggered a second climax for her and the moment she came apart beneath him, Mike eased down on top of her, wet with sweat and panting softly.
She kissed him again and again.
He slipped off her and stretched out at her side. They lay there together, sated and happy, young and in love.
“Do you think it will always be like this?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think it will,” he replied. “Even after we’ve been married twenty years and have half a dozen kids.”
She rolled over onto her side and kissed his damp, darkly tanned shoulder. “Giving birth six times will probably ruin my figure. In twenty years, I’ll be fat and flabby and—”
“And still sexy.” He ran his fingertips across her chest, from collarbone to collarbone. “Don’t you know that I’ll always love you and want you, no matter what? Nothing can ever change the way I feel about you.”
She sighed contentedly. “I’ll love you forever, Michael Birkett.”
Forever…forever…forever…
Lorie woke suddenly, the word forever on her lips.
She sat straight up in bed, her skin moist with perspiration, her body remembering the orgasm she’d had in her dream. A dream that had seemed so real.
It was real, or at least it had been. Years ago when she and Mike had been together, a couple of kids who’d had no idea what the future held for them.
A soft rap on her bedroom door brought Lorie completely back to the present. She glanced at her bedside clock. 5:45 A.M. Nearly an hour before her alarm would go off.
“Yes?” Lorie called.
“Are you all right?” Shelley Gilbert, the Powell agent who had replaced Maleah, asked her through the closed door.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“I thought I heard you crying out and I wanted to make sure everything is okay.”
“Come on in,” Lorie said. “See for yourself. I was dreaming and must have been talking in my sleep.”
Shelley eased opened the door and peered into the semidark bedroom. She scanned the entire area and then smiled at Lorie. “If you’re getting up, I’ll go put on a pot of coffee.”
“The coffeemaker is preset for six-thirty, but yes, please reset it to start immediately. I’ll join you in a couple of minutes.”
“Sure thing.”
Shelley had arrived Sunday night and Lorie had liked her immediately. Medium height and solidly built, the thirty-something woman looked the way Lorie thought a female bodyguard should—intelligent, nondescript in appearance, and with a tough glint in her keen blue eyes. Her short, wash-and-go brown hair, a minimum of makeup, sensible, low-heeled black shoes, and all-business attire consisting of tan slacks, white shirt, and a black blazer only added to her overall aura of competence.
Although their conversations hadn’t gotten personal, not beyond the basic facts, Lorie felt comfortable around Shelley. And she felt safe. Shelley seemed more than capable of defending not only herself, but Lorie, too.
Doing her best not to think about the erotic dream that had given her an orgasm, Lorie hurried into the bathroom.
After flushing the commode, she washed her hands, dampened a cloth, and washed her face. Staring at herself in the mirror, she ran her fingers through her disheveled hair.
“It was just a dream,” she told herself.
No, it was more