Far From Heaven

“Oh God,” she cried. “Oh, yes. Don’t stop.”

How could he? To show her just how intent he was on not stopping, he leaned forward and closed his lips around her bud. Felt her entire body shudder with the shock of it. Her taste exploded in his mouth, tangy and sweet, and he tongued her as if he meant to lap up every precious drop of her arousal. He curled his fingers inside her, giving her little come-hither motions that brought her ass off the bed, and he caught her there with his free hand, holding her thrusting h*ps captive. Her hands released her knees and sank into his hair. He liked that, liked holding her fast to him while she clasped him to her, each of them imprisoned by the other’s pleasure, completion the only chance for deliverance.

Ash felt it begin, the gripping heat of her p**sy rippling around his fingers as the muscles in her thighs pulled tight as bowstrings over his shoulders. So much energy poured off her, so much emotion, and he soaked it up, drank her in and craved more. More of her, her body and soul stripped bare and his for the taking. He held her to his mouth, nibbled and licked and suckled her through it until she collapsed panting and cursing and trembling on the bed.

He crawled up the length of her, glad for the moment her eyes were closed and her face turned away because he had no idea what might be revealed in his expression. There had never been a more beautiful, vulnerable sight. It called to his inner beast, taunted it. Tempted it to run wild. One of her hands was on her forehead and the other fluttered to her chest as she tried to catch her breath, her br**sts quivering. The silk of her inner thighs brushed his hips.

He slid his fingers under hers, felt the pounding of her heart beneath her breastbone. So strong. So full of life. Life that was his for the taking. This was how it would begin. His dark energy would gather, pulse through him into her. It would detach her spirit. It would hurt, and he wished he could avoid that, but there was nothing to be done for it. It wouldn’t last long, and then she would be his. Forever.

Chapter Six

She’d never been orgasmically challenged, thank God, but that had been one freaking amazing orgasm. Maybe there was something to be said for this love-them-and-leave-them stuff. It sounded ridiculously corny and cliché, but she was still seeing stars. Right there, behind her closed eyelids, they danced and exploded. She was content to watch them for the moment, lest she look at his face and fall so totally and deliriously in love the whole love-them-and-leave-them thing would become a moot point. And that’s what she didn’t want. That was where she always messed up.

His fingers rested on her chest, caressing her over her beating heart. The weight of his hand there made her feel weird, like everything on the inside of her was drawn to it, compelled to answer some summons. A tingling, tickling ache went out to all her limbs, and she frowned, trying to squirm away from the sensation. She was floating too high on a cloud of bliss for any freakiness right now, at least any freakiness that didn’t involve sex. Ash, she needed more of Ash. She wasn’t done with him yet. Encircling his fingers—incredibly warm fingers, almost burning hot—with her own, she drew his hand to her mouth, the weird ache dissipating as if it had never been as she kissed one of his fingertips. Flickered her tongue against it, parted her lips and drew it inside. Only when he groaned did she open her eyes and look up at him.

His face was drawn, his brow furrowed, almost as if he were in pain rather than the throes of pleasure. His eyes were closed, sensual lips parted.

Was it weird of her that she didn’t think she’d ever felt more appreciative in her entire life? Tonight she should be drowning her sorrows in chocolate and liquor. If not for him, she would have been. She would have ridden the woe-is-me train straight through until the dawn, and then she would have to face tomorrow alone.

She would still have to face it alone, but at least she would have the glow of great sex around her. At least she would know the night before she’d had someone to laugh with, to make her feel good. It was all thanks to him. And she’d yet to return the favor. The hard length of him against her belly didn’t let her forget it. He was as hot and heavy as a brand lying against her.

His eyes opened and his gaze met hers. Stole her breath. Not because of any sappy romance in the dark depths, but the promise of passion so wild and consuming she didn’t know if she’d ever be the same again. He almost…almost scared her, with that look. Scared her and tempted her. Reminded her of that moment in her Jeep when she’d felt as if a storm was coming. It was here now, poised on the brink of unleashing its fury all over her.

Words crowded in her throat. She didn’t know which to utter. Fuck me, take me, hurt me, oh, God, make me forget my life, make me not care if tomorrow comes…

All she said was his name, and it was enough.

He fell on her like she was the oasis and he the parched desert traveler, his hand winding around behind her head and lifting her into his kiss. She opened to him, lips and legs parting for him to fit even closer to her. His tongue invaded her mouth as surely as she wished his c*ck would invade the hot need throbbing in her core.

“Condom,” she gasped against his lips, and heard his low answering growl. It sounded more like frustration than anything else. She understood that totally, but… “I have some, if you don’t. In the drawer right there…”

Never mind. She didn’t have time to wait for him to rummage around in an unfamiliar space looking for them. She reached over herself and he lifted to allow her. Mercifully, she found a little packet, ripped it with her teeth and reached between them. “Come here, baby.” Ordinarily she loved to watch a man do this, watch his hands stroke efficiently over himself as he rolled it down, but again, she didn’t have time to savor any moments here. If she didn’t get him inside her soon…

Oh, damn, he was gorgeous. Long and thicker than she’d even hoped, the dusky flared head already leaking a pearly drop she longed to lick from him. He was going to feel so good she might not make it through this. She might die. End of problems.

She swallowed a hysterical giggle, scarcely believing she was about to get spectacularly laid with a complete stranger. Yeah, it was so not her, but maybe she’d just met another side of herself she hadn’t known existed. Maybe they should get better acquainted.

Her task finished, she settled back on the pillows and he followed, stretching out over her. The minor condom speed bump had little effect on their momentum. He kissed her hard and she was lost again, flipping end over end through a maelstrom of lust. The blunt head of him found her entrance, feeling ten times bigger than it had looked, and the death she was anticipating, oh yeah, it was coming for her after all. She nearly came just from the touch of him there, and when he pushed…

The world ended. And began again. He stretched her beyond the point of pain, but so many sensations mingled it was impossible to extract it from the pleasure. Just when she thought he couldn’t give her any more, he had more to give her. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, she caught his h*ps in a death grip with her thighs.

“So f**king good,” he murmured in her ear. She could only sob her agreement. Good, so good, she didn’t think anything had ever felt so good. He was burning hot above her, inside her, damn, she melted around him. But he wasn’t moving fast enough—he wasn’t moving at all—and she needed to move.

“Please,” she whispered, making a little circle with her hips, the most she could do with him pinning her to the mattress. “Ash, please.”

A gruff sound burst from his throat. Slowly, so slowly she wanted to scream, he pulled out inch by inch. Her body clung to him, gripped him, protested his retreat. He withdrew until he was poised at her entrance again, slick with her juices. The aching emptiness he left in his wake seemed to spread out to include all of her, until she was one big vessel waiting to be filled up by him and him alone. It was the singularly most terrifying thought she’d had in a long while, and she didn’t know why. When he kissed her and nearly drew tears with his tenderness, she did.

It was going to be damn hard letting go of him. How would she not spend the rest of her life wishing she had this every night?

His gaze drew back and found hers. His h*ps surged. The rhythm he set punished her. So wet now, so easy, she took him all, tossing her head on the pillow as ecstasy devoured her. He knew just how to move, how to twist his h*ps to hit all her sweet spots, and she bit her lip on cries that would have her neighbors dialing 911, because surely that quiet girl next door was being brutally murdered.

“Madeleine,” he groaned, every iota of pleasure she was feeling evident in his voice. She loved how he had the presence of mind to say her whole name; she could barely remember it. He somehow flared even hotter against her. She was liberally slicked with sweat, when he didn’t seem to have broken one at all, and hers was as much from the heat he was generating above as the heat he was generating within. She didn’t know if she could take much more without combusting.

“So close, I’m so close,” she whispered hotly in his ear, as much to encourage him to keep doing it just like that as to hurry him along to his own completion. She wanted to come with him. It had never been something she cared about before and it was something that had rarely, if ever, happened. But everything about this had been so perfect she couldn’t imagine a better ending than for both of them to fall into bliss together.

She felt the shudders and the tightening of her muscles begin. She couldn’t stave it off. It grew inside her, eclipsing her, frightening her with its power. A few more strokes, a few more brushes against her clit, and she’d be there, she’d be…

The building pressure crested and dissolved into rolling waves of mind-numbing pleasure. That storm she’d been waiting for, that fury, blew over her, and she hung on to him as the only anchor in all this wildness. But even in the tumult, she felt his h*ps jerk away from the smooth, sure rhythm he’d maintained, heard his rough groan in her ear, and knew that she’d gotten her wish. She wasn’t alone in the storm.

Time passed, she wasn’t sure how much, just that it seemed the night would never end and that was damn fine with her. Ash was the most insatiable lover she’d ever known. When they finally collapsed, exhausted—at least, she was—she’d expected him to announce any moment that he was going to get up and call a cab. She hadn’t expected to lie face-to-face with him like this, talking. Talking about nothing and everything, with his fingers trailing lazy linear patterns on her arm.

Was this supposed to be part of the deal? She’d heard Delia talk about her sexual escapades and never had she mentioned the time spent baring your soul to the guy you likely would never see again. But Ash asked her questions about herself, seeming genuinely interested in her answers, even if he wouldn’t offer up many of his own. She found, finally, that she couldn’t keep quiet about it.

“Why all the interest in me?”

His brows drew together, dark eyes flickering up from where he’d been watching his fingertip trail down her neck. “What’s that?”

“Why me? I know I happened to fall into your arms quite literally tonight, but…what made you pursue a pathetically weepy female with obvious baggage?” Her lips twisted with bitterness as a new thought struck, a thought that should’ve struck long ago—that should’ve knocked the hell out of her, actually. “Pity?”