Page 25 of Blood in the Water

He was pacing the living room when she opened thedoor, a beer on the tiny counter that separated the kitchen from the studio’s combination bedroom/living room.

He crossed the room in a couple long strides and swept her into his arms.

“Jesus christ…” he said. “I was so fucking worried.”

“I’m okay,” she said, clinging to him. “I’m okay.”

It was true now that she was in his arms. Nothing had ever been able to touch her when Nolan was with her.

“Are you sure?” He cupped her face in his hands and scanned her features like he was looking for damage.

“I’m sure.”

“What happened when you left?” he asked.

She slid her hands around his waist and looked up at him. “I don’t want to talk about them, Nolan. Not now.”

He looked at her for a long moment before he crushed her lips beneath his. The kiss was deep and savage, his tongue pillaging her mouth like an invader.

She matched the urgent sweep of his tongue with her own. The fear and adrenaline of the last hours — the last weeks, the last months — surging through her veins, expanding in the frenzied kiss, the frantic movements of their hands as they hurried to remove their clothes.

He tore of her coat and scarf, lifted her shirt, and removed his own before pulling her back against him. His skin was smooth and fevered against her own, his erection hard against her stomach. He angled his head over hers to take their kiss deeper, and electricity sparked at her center.

“Bridge…” He dropped kisses along her brow, her nose and cheeks, his voice a whisper against her skin.

She let her hands trail up over his back, around to his chest, the sculpted muscle begging to be explored by her tongue.

He kissed her neck and she dropped her head back togive him better access, goosebumps breaking out on her skin as his tongue dipped into the hollow at the base of her throat.

She ran her hands across the rippled ridges of his stomach and unzipped his jeans, then slipped her fingers inside the gaping waistband, enclosing his slick, rigid shaft inside her palm.

He groaned against her chest and lifted her off the ground, his mouth finding hers like a heat-seeking missile. She wrapped her legs around his waist and closed her eyes, letting the world spin as he carried her across the small room, his cock nestled against the heat pulsing between her thighs.

He dropped her onto the bed and she opened her eyes, watching as he bent to the snap on her pants. He slid them from her legs, dragging her underwear along with them, his breath coming fast as he hurried to undress her.

She propped herself up on her elbows and reached back to unsnap her bra, tossing it aside as he pulled off his jeans. His cock sprang free, rising in all its perfection between his legs, sending another rush of wetness to her pussy.

He knelt at the side of the bed and grabbed her calves, pulling her to the edge of the mattress and spreading her thighs until she was wide open for him.

She shivered as he ran his fingers through the soaking petals of her sex. “Jesus christ, Bridge… You’re fucking perfection.”

He wedged himself between her legs and lowered his mouth to her sex, slipping his tongue into her opening and running it up to her clit.

She lay back and closed her eyes as he circled the bundle of nerves with his tongue. She reached down and slid her hands into his hair, closing her fingers around thesilky locks and tugging until he groaned against her clit, the vibration sending a fresh wave of arousal through her body.

He drew it into his mouth, sucking until she wanted to scream, then releasing it long enough to lap at it with the pad of his tongue. She drew back her knees, letting her thighs fall open further and moving her hips in time to the rhythm he was playing out on her sex.

She moaned as he slipped his fingers inside her. The orgasm that had been lurking under her skin roared to life as his tongue picked up the pace, fingering her in time to the sucking and lapping of his mouth on her clit. Her hips came up off the bed, grinding against his mouth, fanning the flames of her climax until it rose in her like an unstoppable tide.

“Nolan,” she gasped.

He knew her. Knew her body and all its cues. Knew she was about to come. She sensed it in the faster and more urgent movements of his tongue and fingers.

She held his head in place, every thought obliterated by the primal clamoring of her body working for its own release. She let it carry her like a strong wind, lifting her up and over the rest of the world until everything disappeared behind the explosion that rocked through her body.

She cried out as it took over, rolling through her body in a series of waves that cleansed her of everything that had come before, of everything that might come next. There was nothing but the relief of letting go, her skin and bones flooded with the waters of her release.

She opened her eyes to find Nolan standing between her legs, his eyes fiery with need.