Page 44

She gasped, arching her back. Her head knocked against the wall with a dull thud. “Still waiting for the fuck,” she rasped.

His mouth curved slightly. “Impatient.”

Hands closing around her ass, he shifted them away from the wall and turned, carrying her the two steps to the staircase.

Her legs loosened by unspoken command, and her boots found the floor. Her hand slid into the front of his sweats, her palm cool against the heat of his flesh. He couldn’t stop the hiss that escaped his lips. “You got a condom handy?”

“Front pocket.” Her fingers played a dangerous game, curling around the thick length of him, catching the slick bead already forming.

Ronan fished the foil packet from her pocket and set it on the step behind her. Then he went to work on her jeans. His hands weren’t nearly as steady as he would have liked.

He shoved the denim over her hips to mid-thigh, exposing plain black boyleg panties. Hmm. No silk and lace for the deputy.

Interesting. Practical. Like everything else about her.

His hand traced a path from her navel, over the seamless briefs, and cupped her at the junction of her thighs.

She burned. Scalding his palm with damp heat. “So hot,” he murmured. “And wet. For me.”

She rocked into his touch. “Ronan.”

He loved the way she said his name. Reluctant. Like it cost her something to admit what he did to her. It tightened something deep in his gut and sent another hard pulse through his cock.

And he was done playing around.

“Face the stairs,” he commanded, urging her to turn. “And hold on tight.”

She hesitated for half a second before obeying; her hands closing around the banister spindles. Shaking her head, her hair spilled down her back in a blonde curtain.

Ronan took a step back.

And a long moment to appreciate the view.

Smooth skin, pale in the dim light, covered only by the fall of silk reaching almost to the hem of the black material still hugging her ass.

Slowly, deliberately, he gathered the hair and moved it over her shoulder.

Her back lay bare to him. Unmarked skin. The delicate ridge of her spine.

And the two small dimples at the start of the curve of her ass.

He crouched and pressed open-mouthed kisses to those dimples, his hands catching the hem of her briefs and dragging them down until they bunched against her jeans.

The scent of her arousal rose to meet him. His hand found her again. “So, so wet.” The words came out like an incantation rather than a comment.

He pushed two fingers into her, deep. She bucked under the sudden intrusion, her cry matching the groan that tore from his throat.

But it wasn’t enough. He needed more.

Ronan straightened, drawing her hips back and urging her torso lower over the banister. He shoved his sweats out of the way and reached for the foil packet, tearing it open with his teeth before rolling the condom over his cock.

“Hold on tight.” And then he drove into her.

One hard thrust. All the way in.

The sensation stole the breath from his lungs.

The heat.