Author: Bella Andre

Staring down at Heather in the shadowed room, he marveled again at just how beautiful she was. Other women with bodies like hers would have done whatever they could to showcase it to the world, not cover it up with faded shirts and shorts.

Only, hadn’t he been going crazier day by day, wondering exactly what was hiding beneath those shapeless clothes? Almost as if by not simply showing him her assets, she’d amped up his anticipation of the moment he finally got to see all of her.

“So?”

He could hear the bravado covering the insecurity, and the fact that she had any worries at all about her worth made that twinge come back in his chest again.

Knowing he wasn’t the kind of man who had words for moments like this, he decided to show her how beautiful she was in a way that she couldn’t possibly misunderstand.

He lowered his mouth to the tip of one breast and tugged it between his lips. Heather arched up into his hands and gasped out his name, but he was so focused on the sweet taste and feel of her aroused flesh against his tongue that he barely heard her. He swirled his tongue around the taut peak before letting it go to taste the other.

Using his hands on hers and his thighs on either side of her hips, Zach held Heather still as she tried to writhe against him while he loved her perfect breasts, one to the other, again and again, until she was begging.

“Please, Zach, I need—”

He lightly scraped his teeth over the tip of one breast and her gasp of pleasure swallowed up the rest of her plea. He didn’t need her to tell him what she needed because he needed it, too, needed to taste every inch of her skin, needed to know the feel, the scent of her all over.

He moved up from her breasts to her shoulders, then to the soft underside of one arm. But instead of turning even more into liquid, she stiffened as his lips and tongue trailed toward her elbow.

Of course, that only made him more intent on making her feel good. On helping her to forget anything but how good it was to finally be together like this.

His mouth found her softness again, only this time he realized the skin was slightly raised. When he tasted the crook of her elbow and then the underside of her forearm, each time he found more of the same. Slightly raised skin that came as a total surprise against the perfect smoothness of the rest of her.

“Heather,” he asked, his gut twisting at the pain she must have felt to have such scars now, “how did you get hurt?”

Even as he asked, he was trailing his fingers over her other arm, finding the same scars. They were faint, completely healed, but he couldn’t have missed them. Not in the dark when there was nothing to distract his senses from her.

And not when nothing seemed to matter more than Heather.

“They’re old scars,” she said softly. “From an accident when I was a teenager.”

Her voice had broken on those last words and he hated the way she’d gone from being so sensual, so open to him, to suddenly still. Stiff. As if she was scared...and regretting what they were doing.

“I’m glad they’ve healed,” he told her, before pressing another kiss to first one arm, then the other.

Her breath hitched as if she might cry. But then she said, “I am, too.”

He had to kiss her again, needed to turn their lovemaking back around, back to where it had been before he found the scars, and she’d gotten upset. He didn’t know how long they kissed, but he loved the way she threaded her fingers back through his, as if she needed him just as much as he needed her.

And Lord, how he needed her. Needed to taste more of her, needed to know if the scent of her arousal would be as sweet on his tongue.

Pulling her hands down with him, not willing to relinquish that connection with her for even a second, he lifted his mouth from hers to move lower, down over her stomach, and then lower still to the damp curls that drew him like a magnet.

He’d practically lost control earlier when he’d been kneeling behind her. It was even worse now, this desire to take her, to make her his.

And to keep her.

Zach barely managed to remind himself that he didn’t keep women. He didn’t even consider it. Sex was for pleasure. Only pleasure.

Sweet Lord, what pleasure it was to be with Heather.

Loving the way she instinctively opened her legs for him as he came closer to her core, he swept over her with a broad stroke of his tongue. He had planned to tease, to taste her slowly, but the way she arched up into his mouth, those sweet little sounds she made as he drove her higher and higher, made him lose hold of his control.

Next time he’d make her wait, next time he’d tease her mercilessly until she was begging and pleading for release.

Zach needed to claim her as his right this very second. He needed to know that she was as out of control as he was, that he wasn’t the only one out on the edge of passion.

Like a man possessed, he licked and sucked at her aroused flesh. Already, he knew he’d never get enough. He was already addicted to the taste of her.

And then, a moment later, her hands clamped down so hard on his that her nails bit into his skin as she shattered against his mouth.

Chapter Seventeen

None of her other lovers had ever noticed the scars on her arms, not even with the lights on.

Heather knew why, knew that it was because none of the men she’d been with before Zach had cared enough about her to take the time to learn her secrets.

Sex had never been all about her before.

But, as she was surprised to realize yet again, Zach was different. He noticed everything, things that other men would never have paid any attention to. He’d lingered over her scarred skin with his mouth, and he’d given her such soft healing kisses she’d hardly be surprised if the scars were completely gone in the morning.

Heather had never felt anything like this, such all-encompassing pleasure. She’d always been the one to know her body best, usually having more success with battery-operated devices than any of the men she’d been with.

But none of them had been Zach Sullivan.

The things he could do with his lips. With his tongue. She’d never come that hard, that long, that good before. Even now that she was starting to come down from the incredibly high peak, Zach didn’t seem to be done, wasn’t climbing over her to finish what he’d started and get what was coming to him.

Instead, he licked over her slowly, soothing the sensitive area after the riotous explosion of pleasure he’d just put it through, while seeming to savor her at the same time.

Finally, he lifted his head and said, “I love the way you taste when you come,” before lowering his mouth back between her thighs and pressing a kiss to her. “You know how greedy I am,” he murmured against her incredibly sensitive flesh. “I want more of your sweetness, Heather. Right now.”

She shouldn’t have been so easily aroused again, not by a couple of bossy sentences, but even before he treated her to more focused attention from his brilliant tongue, just knowing how much he was enjoying being with her had Heather going from zero to a hundred again in a matter of seconds.

Gently, he slid one of his hands from hers and ran it down over her hips. She shivered at his touch, and then she was losing control of her body again, needing that beautiful release that only Zach could give her. Again and again she bucked into his hand, his mouth, wanting, begging, needing, gasping.

And then, there it was, a kaleidoscope of colors, as she burst apart again, this time crying out his name, needing to feel it on her tongue as she rose to impossible heights, then fell down, down, down into the darkness.

Heather had never known that she could be pure sensation. Every inch of her skin felt hyper-aware. Every cell inside her was ready, waiting, for more.

She should have been exhausted, shouldn’t have been able to crave anything more, but when Zach began the long, slow climb up her body, his mouth pressing kisses to the insides of her thighs, her hip bones, her rib cage, she couldn’t wait another second.

He had never let go of his grip on her right hand and as he slid the fingers of his left over hers, connecting them again, she used all her might to pull him toward her, over her. She couldn’t see his face in the dark, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t need to see him anymore.

Just knowing he was there with her was enough.

“Zach.”

“You’re so beautiful,” he said as he took her lips with his, her hands back up on either side of her head.

He might act as though life was just for fun, but here, in bed, she sensed who he truly was. A man to whom everything mattered deeply.

She didn’t want to feel anything for him beyond annoyance and laughter and arousal. But she knew why she had started to fall for him. Not just because of his ridiculously good looks...but because she sensed what he tried to keep so deeply hidden from them all.

A surprisingly big, beautiful heart.

Still blurry after her orgasms, and from the emotions she couldn’t seem to fight back in this one perfect moment, she reached out to put her hands on his chest, on his breastbone, beneath which his heart beat hard. Steady.

She leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the hairs that dusted over his skin.

He stilled after her kiss landed on his chest. She wanted to make a joke, wanted to say something to lighten the mood, to make it clear to him that what they were doing was just sex.

Instead, she found herself whispering, “You are, too.” So incredibly beautiful.

Suddenly, he was slipping his hands from hers and she felt the bed shift. For a split second, she worried that he’d seen the truth beneath her kiss over his heart—a truth she couldn’t even admit to herself—and was planning to get the heck out of the bed before she could make the mistake of pairing any more emotion with the great sex they were having.

But before she could find a way to string any words together that would make sense, to make it clear to him that she wasn’t going to make that mistake, she could hear the ripping of paper.

Thank God, she thought, he was putting on a condom. And then she was pressed down against the mattress again and he was over her, her fingers threaded through his again, his thighs pushing hers open, wider, then wider still until she was wrapping them around his waist to take him into her.

“Mine.”

The one word penetrated the darkness and her heart was nearly pounding out of her chest as she waited, poised on the edge of dangerous anticipation.

“I’ve been waiting for you for so long, Heather. I’m finally going to make you mine.”

“Yes,” she said, the one word raw, and more desperate than she’d ever heard from her own lips. And for all that she was trying to stop herself from saying something she’d regret in the morning, the words, “Make me yours, Zach,” couldn’t be stopped.

When he surged inside her, so fiercely that her head would have hit his headboard if he hadn’t been holding her so firmly in place, her breath whooshed out of her.

She’d never been with a man this big, or this strong. And she’d certainly never known one with such sweet knowledge of a woman’s pleasure. Because as he continued to take her hard, fast, deep, she knew that this was what she wanted, was exactly what she’d been yearning for.

Not only to find someone who could help her lose herself. But to find a man who would possess her body in the darkness, then make her laugh in the light.

Zach’s power was extraordinary over her, inside of her, sweat from his chest mixing with hers. She wanted to touch him, wanted to run her hands over all those muscles, the unwavering strength. But at the same time, how she loved holding his hands...and being held right back.

Her hips moved with his, rising to meet each powerful thrust, falling as he pulled back before coming into her again, seemingly deeper every time. She could feel her body tightening, inner muscles not used to such exquisite pleasure, almost aching with how sensitive her aroused flesh now was.

“Again,” he gritted out, she was sure from between clenched teeth, as he worked to hold onto his own control. “Come for me, Heather. I need to feel you around me.” He plunged in harder, deeper. “Now.”