“Lie. Back.”
I lowered to my elbows, stubborn to the last, but also unable to take my eyes from him. Cole gave me a dry arch of his brow .
“Good enough.” He raked his gaze over me, his eyes fixing on the tiara at the very top of my thigh, just under my bikini line.
“Fucking gorgeous.” He bent to the mark and claimed it with an open-mouthed kiss. I bit my lip at the shock of pleasure.
He splashed back into the water, his hands landing on my knees. With no more warning, he pushed them apart and shouldered his way between my legs. My heart pumped in rapid, clumsy beats. And when Cole’s hands gripped the back of my thighs and tugged my hips toward him, all that heart-pumping seemed to do no good because my lungs couldn’t take in enough air.
Wearing a heated, hungry look, Cole kept his gaze locked with mine as he slowly lowered his head. The first thing I felt was his breath, a flicker of cool torture on my soaked flesh. My hips rolled when he pressed his nose into the spare thatch of curls at the crest of my pubic bone, a pulse of pleasure coursing through me. I watched him close his eyes as a low moan left his throat.
But when his searing tongue swept up my seam, my head fell back against the towel. He parted my sensitive flesh, and my breath shook from me. When I writhed in agonized pleasure, Cole wrapped his powerful arms up and over my thighs, clamping them down. The moment I realized I was completely at his mercy, Cole’s tongue found my aching clit.
I lost myself to the feel of him, the thrilling, throbbing sweetness. The sound of water splashing reached my ears, and I discovered I was the source. My thighs may have been trapped, but my feet kicked as muscles strained, tension built.
He was slow at first, moving in broad sweeps, slower than the rush of air in my lungs. But soon, my sighs became cries, soft and helpless, and he answered them with pace and pressure. I arched my back, turning my face to the night sky. Even with the bright moon, scores of stars gave me their light. The exact color of his eyes. The color I’d always chased.
“Cole—” His name took flight from me, aiming for the stars. I shut my eyes as a thousand distant suns exploded behind my closed lids.
With the sound of a crashing wave, his dripping body suddenly covered mine, nudging me higher onto solid earth, so that when my heels sought purchase to welcome his weight, they grounded on terra firma.
“Elise.” He rasped my name as if it were a plea, and I opened for him. My body. My heart. As the crest of my climax ebbed away, a tenderness I’d never known washed over me. Beneath Cole, gazing up at the desperate need in his eyes, I wanted nothing more than to offer myself as his home.
He pressed the crown of his sex against me, and I tilted my hips to draw him inside. His eyes, unguarded and raw, locked with mine as he slowly… slowly… entered. In that moment, I knew I’d never be the same. I’d never feel this close, this claimed with anyone else. And no matter what happened, I’d never want to. Only Cole.
“Only you,” I heard myself whisper, stroking his beautiful, stricken face.
“Always you,” he answered, the fingers of both his hands meeting behind my head, cradling me gently.
I wanted to tell him I’d love him for the rest of my life. I’d be his safe place till the end of my days. That he’d never have to shoulder his burdens alone. He’d never have to go without comfort. Here, now, I felt safe enough, sure enough to promise him everything. I opened my mouth to give him the words when Cole moved inside me.
“Oh, God…” My eyes drifted closed as Cole’s every stroke called back all of the pieces of me he’d scattered with my climax. With each surge into me, he built a tower of tension and desire. And with him inside me, above me, around me, he built it higher and higher. Soon, the height of desire and the weight of tension would bring everything crashing down again.
I braced for the fall, feeling the ecstasy of Cole’s body as he tightened above me, the sound of his labored breath urging me on.
“Elise… open your eyes,” he commanded. “Look at me.”
I obeyed, and when I did, I found him gazing back at me, heat and hope in all that blue.
“I feel it too,” I whispered. It was nothing close to what I wanted to tell him, but at that moment, the monument he’d been building reached its teetering peak, and I arched back, head over heels, in a long, luxurious fall.
And Cole was right there with me, driving into me again and again, until both of us found ourselves breathless and spent, tangled together on the ground.
Chapter 28
COLE
Lying on top of her, buck-naked and wet under the stars, I caught my breath, took my weight on my elbows so I wouldn’t crush her, and brushed a kiss on her lips. All with just one thought in mind.
Nothing in the world was sweeter or more exhilarating than making love to Elise.
Placing first in a swim meet… besting an opponent on the wrestling mat… building a company from scratch. They all paled in comparison.
Being found worthy enough to taste her, to enter her, to make her come? Better than anything.
And the way she’d looked at me? As if I was her yesterday, her today, and her tomorrow? God, if she could trust me with her heart, I’d guard it until my last breath.
Elise stirred beneath me, her lashes batting as her gaze focused on me. Before, in my bedroom, this was right about the time she’d grown nervous and shy. And I wanted her to stay loose-limbed and at ease with me.
