Kat’s heart pounded. She placed her hands on his face and pulled his mouth to hers. “Take off your top,” she said firmly. “I want to feel you.”

Carter whipped the thing off over his head immediately and watched in awe when she, too, removed her hoodie, leaving her bare. She oozed sexiness, and the color of her alabaster skin against the dim lighting made him want to lick her from head to toe.

“Sit up,” she rasped.

He obeyed, slack-jawed, as Kat straddled his waist and assaulted his mouth. He moaned. The sensation of her nakedness against him was incredible. Her nipples shifted, etching his skin with invisible lines of ownership, just as her mouth declared possession with every flick of her tongue and suck of her lips. His hands delved into her hair, gripping her close.

“God, Carter,” she breathed, sending sparks of lust over his skin. “I want to show you. I want—”

She stood suddenly, leaving Carter’s hands holding nothing but air, and pushed her pants to the floor so they pooled around her feet. Carter whimpered, recognizing the look on her face, the dark hunger in her eyes. She bent to his ear and brushed his lobe with her tongue. His fingers moved between her legs.

“No teasing,” she whispered, pushing him away. “I need you too much.”

Thank Christ.

He pulled his cock from his sweats, locked his hands around her hips, making her straddle him, and pulled her down, slipping into her easily. They gasped in unison as the lights flickered with the heavy roll of the storm. Holding his breath, Carter moved slow and deep, dragging a moan from her throat while she clutched his shoulders and rocked over him. He cupped her cheek, grunting when their lips met. She tasted of wine and desire.

A loud clap of thunder shook the house.

Kat pushed down, taking him in with small thrusts and slow rotations of her pelvis, surrounding him while he slid his palms down the curves of her waist, around to the luscious swell of her ass.

She was a fucking vision. She moved over him, in control, greedy, dominating, and hard, leaving him breathless. He’d never seen her this way before. There was something in her eyes, a passion, that made his heart race and his hips jerk, and when their mouths slid together, it grew hotter and more powerful. The fervor with which she fucked him pulled every conceivable emotion to the surface. She was letting go in a way he’d never seen, wild and unashamed.

It was magnificent.

It was different.

The two of them together was different. It was as raw, hot, and mind-blowing as always, but the desperation between them was so thick, Carter could almost taste it. As though reading his thoughts, Kat rode him harder, scoring his flesh with her nails, arching her back, taking him deeper, making his entire body burst into flames.

“So fucking good,” he told her, his voice hoarse. “Don’t stop. Take it all.”

He continued to ramble incoherently, begging her as he wrapped his arms around her back and drove up, hard. She was sensational with her head thrown back, crying out, her neck elongated. His orgasm built, heavy between his legs, stretching to his stomach, which tensed and relaxed in microspasms as they fucked.

“Can you feel it?” she gasped. She moved harder, making Carter’s eyes roll. He pressed his lips to her damp shoulder, nodding, growling. “It’s us. It’s you and me.”

He’d tried to hold his orgasm off, but her words and the way in which her body held him were making every attempt futile. Each one uttered tore him apart in brilliant ways. Carter licked her jaw, clutching her hair in his fists, pleasure vibrating through every vein, every organ.

She slammed down again, rough, eager.

Fuck. Carter lost himself to the sensations her body stirred up, reveling in her, in what she gave him.

The wetness, the heat, the pounding heart almost bursting from his chest.

The gasps, the moans, the filthy words, the orgasm teetering on the brink of oblivion.

And then she was calling out for him, gripping him, clenching around him.

His hips drove upward. “Come with me.”

Her mouth chased his, hungry and wet, as her arms embraced his neck. She whimpered and gasped for air. “Now. Now. Oh.”

When all his energy started to push down into his groin, Carter fell back, watching in breathless wonder as Kat continued to pull it from him. She lifted and fell, she demanded and begged, she swiveled and tightened, she thrust and grasped until, with a furious bellow, Carter shattered into her. Carter’s neck corded as his orgasm blasted through him like a rocket and smothered his entire body in white heat, her name leaving his lips with an agonized moan.

Bright lights blinded him, while his body twitched and shuddered beneath her. He held tightly, praying she would secure him to the earth and keep his heart from stopping altogether. She squeezed around him, milking him. He threw back his head with a cry of almost painful pleasure. “Sweet Jesus!”

“Wes,” she screamed out, coming apart, bucking, and writhing in his lap. “Wes. Oh God. Oh God. I love you!”

With a giant flash of lightning and a deafening clap of thunder, the room was plunged into darkness.

27

As they came to a gradual stop, still wrapped around each other, their heavy, labored breaths filled the living room, illuminated only by the still roaring log fire. Carter’s eyes opened slowly as Kat’s words rang around them.

Like a statue, Kat remained on his lap. Her knotted arms stayed around his neck with her face pressed against his. Carter’s brain moved at a thousand miles a minute, and he was damn sure he could feel her heart pounding in time with his.

He moved his thumb minutely, touching the delightful dimples at the bottom of her back, and took a deep breath. “Peach—”

“Shhh,” she interrupted in a quiet, anxious voice. He could feel her shaking her head next to his. “Just. Shhh. Don’t say anything.” He made to move his head so he could look at her, but she held him fast. “Don’t move. Please.”

Confused, he continued to hold her in the same position, cocooned in her warmth. He exhaled raggedly in aggravation when she kept silent and still. Why the hell was she so quiet? Did she regret saying those words to him? Maybe it was a simple impulsive thing inspired by the amazing sex they’d just had.

Maybe she didn’t mean it.

Astonishingly, Carter’s heart paused at that particular thought.

“Kat,” he whispered. “Please.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice shook.

Carter swallowed hard. He heard her sniff and tried to move his head to look at her, but she was too damned strong.

“Kat,” he admonished. “Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I—I can’t. I shouldn’t have …”

At the sound of the words, he gripped her wrists from around his neck and pulled them away, keeping her body close to him with his hand on her cheek. His gaze wandered over her face in question. He saw she was crying, her face pained, and immediately a huge rock of discomfort lodged in his gut.

He smoothed her damp hair from her face. “What shouldn’t you have done?”

If it was a slip of the tongue—so to speak—then he wanted to hear her say it. As masochistic as it sounded, if Kat had said those words and not meant them, he had to know. He wanted to believe her, truly, but so many things in his mind made him doubt her words. He hated that there was any doubt at all, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been programmed that way: to be suspicious and untrusting. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying his damnedest to rid himself of the uncertainty coursing through him.

Kat stared down at where they were still connected. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Carter slumped and watched her wipe at her tears. He let his hands drop to his sides in defeat. The warm postcoital sensation inside him turned cold.