On My Knees (Bridge #1)(82)
Author: Meredith Wild

I exhaled a jagged breath and his mouth was on me, inhaling my relief. He kissed my lips, my cheeks, my eyelids, his fingertips tracing his path. Angling over me, he cradled my face in his palm, commanding me with his kiss. I responded the way he knew I would, hungry for the sweet taste of his tongue. We tangled and tasted, seeking more of each other until we were both breathless.

“Maya?” He pulled back, his eyes dark and serious. “Let me be the place you go to forget and wash it all away. I can take you there. I know I can, because nothing has ever made me feel the way I do when we’re together. No drink, no woman…no rush, risk, or cheap high does what being with you does. I want to make love to you until we can’t remember who we are. I want you drunk on nothing but us tonight.”

My heart beat loudly, a steady reminder of how I loved him, a state of being well beyond my control now. The picture he painted, I wanted that. I wanted to forget everything that had brought me so low and start over with him. I longed for the words that only our bodies could speak, for the force of a physical connection that might transcend everything that had come between us.

A simple nod was all I could manage before he lifted and lowered me to the bed. He covered me with the warm heaviness of his body. The relief was almost instant. My limbs weakened in his embrace. He kissed me, nipping and licking my lips apart, seeking my tongue and sucking gently. I moaned, my hips responding beyond my control.

He rose, unfastened my jeans, and pulled them down my legs. I sat up and tugged off my shirt, reaching next for his. He kicked off his jeans and came to me quickly, claiming my mouth.

My hands were restless. I grazed the muscles that bunched and released as he moved over me. I arched. I wanted him closer still. Impossibly close, until he was inside me, making me his. His hot skin burned against me, the twining of our bodies hungry with need. The sensations crept over me until my head was spinning with desire. The piercing pain of my reality ebbed, faded into the darkening room, until there was only Cameron.

“I love you.” The words fell from my lips before I knew what I was saying, what it meant, what I was giving up with the admission.

He slowed, his lips barely touching mine. The look in his eyes—intense and full of all the love I felt in that moment—branded me.

“I’ve waited a long time for that.”

“I was scared. I still am. I’m so afraid you’re going to leave, that you’re going to break me. Saying it…it’s like giving you the last little piece of me, the part that I can’t afford to give anyone.”

I paused, frozen with a fleeting apprehension that quickly disappeared. He caught my cheek and leveled our gazes.

“Someone could drag me to hell, and I’d crawl back to you, Maya, for a chance to make right everything that was ever wrong between us. Even I can’t tell you what’s happening with us. I’ve never felt this way. But believe me when I tell you I’m not going anywhere. I swear to you.”

With a sharp exhale, he crushed his mouth against mine. I moaned into the kiss, meeting his fervency, his love, his commitment. The way he kissed me was deep, devouring, as if he’d had his own demons seeking release.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CAMERON. I tried in vain to slow down. I moved over her, tasting every inch of her. Her hands fisted and released anxiously by her sides. Her body shifted eagerly below me, a reflection of the longing that coursed through me too. I battled with it, wanting to take my time and love her slowly.

“Maya,” I murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear to gain better access to the sensitive skin below it and unfettered access to her neck. I reveled in the smallest reactions of her body. The way goose bumps raced across her skin when I was there, sucking and licking, breathing her name over and over, like a mantra, like an echo in a dream. She shivered. I pulled her closer, wanting to give her all the warmth and comfort she desired.

Seeing her so upset had overwhelmed me. I wanted to banish the memories and the circumstances beyond her control that gave her an ounce of unhappiness. I wanted to flood her darkness with light, with love. I rolled the word around in my head, analyzing what it meant in the context of having the only woman I’d ever loved in my bed again, in my arms, opening her heart and body to me.

Her shaking hands skimmed over my shoulders and down my chest. I caught them and kissed her fingertips. Then I bent to her, grasping her breast before sucking the tip into my mouth. Pulling them into long taut points, I teased each peak with my tongue and my teeth until she cried out and her thighs tightened fiercely around my hips.