Page 202 of Love, Rekindled

She felt the fleshy head of James’s arousal slide through her core, pausing at her entrance. “Oh God, oh God…” she chanted, voice cracking.

James jerked her hips up, leaving her bottom in the air, her cheek pressed against the ground. “He can’t help you, either.”

When he seated himself inside her body, it took Lita’s scream a few seconds to work free of her throat, oxygen was at such a premium. Even when the piercing cry finally found its way into the air, James’s hand cut it off after only a few seconds. Her vision wavered under the attack of his body on hers. No quarter was given. No mercy. He was a hostile man determined to use her body as an outlet for lust. His hips dipped down and rammed up in forceful thrusts that jarred her teeth inside her skull. Without the brawny arm supporting her midsection, keeping her center in place for the taking, she would have fallen flat.

Inside her mind, a vision of James interchanged with a shadowy stranger. One he’d kept locked inside. A side that came out and turned him into a different man. But that blurry juxtaposition of trust and uncertainty only made it real. Made her the only thing standing between this man and relief from his pain. There was power in that knowledge, even with her body held immobile.

James slowed his movements and leaned forward to align their bodies, chest to back, as he teased her with slow, thorough drives. “Put you on the pill to protect you, didn’t I? From who?” He uncovered her mouth and hammered into her with a series of rough thrusts. “Fromwho?”

“You,” she shouted.

“That’s right.” He rose again, gripping her hips as their bodies joined, again and again. “All that acting out and getting into trouble. Maybe you just needed to flash that pussy at me and run away, somewhere I could make you sorry and no one could hear you scream.”

Irritation flickered in Lita’s chest, traveling down through her arms. She didn’t like hearing that her efforts had been wasted. That he’d managed to maintain control around her for so long while she’d been suffering. Memories of those nights tossing and turning in her bed, wishing for James, hardened the muscles in her legs with frustration and she pushed, shoving backward. Simply to show she still could. That he hadn’t won yet. “Asshole.”

James’s hardness slipped from her body with a grunt, but he remained upright on his knees, his grip a touch looser on her hips. Enough for her to turn around and slap him across the face.

Lita’s back hit the ground a second later, adding to her shock that she’d struck him. James loomed above her to block out the filtered sunlight, pinning both wrists above her head and wedging his sweating body between her thighs. Concern swirled in the gray of his eyes, but not enough to block out the animal need there. No, his desire was visible and rampant, much like the flesh hanging between his thighs. “Youknowhow to make me stop. And that’s not it.”

She ached to scream the words, just so he’dhaveto stop. Just so he’dhavesomeidea of the pain she’d been in living without him. Knowing she might be required to do it again. But if he stopped, she would ache from now until her dying breath, would regret it with every cell in her body. Sheneededhim. So she clamped her lips shut and fought to free her wrists, knowing full well he’d never let go.

But then, hedid.

He freed her wrists.

It was so unexpected, her hands fell backward to frame her head. “What?—”

James dropped down to interlock their lips, scrutinizing her as they breathed into one another’s mouths “You don’t really want me to stop.” Their lips slipped together in a sensual mating dance. “Do you? Lita?”

The touch of dread in his deep voice undid her. Before she could think of a response, Lita’s heart answered for her. “No.” She shook her head back and forth in the dirt. “Never.”

Before the word fully escaped her mouth, James entered her once more on an agonized groan, his mouth finding the side of her neck, sucking and biting as he started to move. His first few drives were even, controlled, but the drag of his stiffness over her clit drove Lita a little crazy.More. More. She clawed at his ass, arching her back, until she felt the now-familiar snap in his surrounding energy. Both of her knees were hooked beneath his arms immediately—and then he fucked her into the ground. Just as he’d said he would.

Teeth sunk into available flesh, fingers dug into muscle, hips collided, clothes were torn. Lita didn’t recognize the sounds coming from either of their mouths. They were desperate and foreign and often angry.

Their coupling turned rough. Violent. The lust for danger had built too long and now it took over, urging Lita to issue whispered challenges to James. Sometimes daring him to go harder, sometimes begging without shame. Those dares made him bare his teeth, picking up her body just to pin it back down with breath-stealing force, his bottom half never ceasing, pumping relentlessly.

“You little brat. I should have started fucking you a long time ago. Maybe you’d have some goddamn manners by now.” He shoved a forearm beneath her ass, lifting her lower body up to his lap to receive him. “Or maybe I just bought myself four years of relative sanity. I’m going to lose a little more of my mind every time you slip down onto my cock, aren’t I? Every time youbreathe.”

Lita was teetering on the edge of something catastrophic. Air wheezed in and out of her lungs. Her leg muscles started to freeze up. The angle of James’s thrusts prodded a spot inside her that rendered her unable to form words, lest she disturb the brutal accuracy. Shit,shit…she couldn’t orgasm like this or she’d break apart into nothing. Too much—too?—

Stars blinded Lita as the crisis powered through her lower body, clenching her every muscle in a way that made her instantaneously sore. Her scream sounded distant, like someone had turned down the volume on a movie. James covered her mouth with his own, meshing their bodies together as he rode out his climax above her, his masculine roar of relief muted against her lips. It wouldn’t end, ripples and shocks of pleasure spreading, a boulder dropped into a still pond. Her heels dug into the small of his back, her body writhing in the disturbed earth.

“James, James…I’m…Ican’t.”

Her world tilted when James scooped her off the ground, cradling her on his lap and squeezing the limited amount of oxygen from her chest. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.” His lips skated over her features, lingering on her forehead. “Please, tell me you’re okay, Lita.”

There was no veiling the truth after what they’d done. Only trust. At some point since venturing into the woods, her anger and doubt had evaporated. She’d neededthis.Cravedthisexchange of trust. It’s what she’d needed from James all along. What they’d needed from each other. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt better.” She laughed when her words were a little slurred. “What about you?”

When James didn’t answer right away, she tilted her head back and saw she hadn’t managed to convince him. His attention raced over her skin, lighting on her ripped T-shirt, the bite mark on her shoulder, the smeared dirt…everywhere. His jaw looked tight enough to shatter. “Hey.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

No. Fuck this.

She’d never felt closer to another human being in her life than she did right now. He wasn’t going to drift away on her. Lita scrambled to face him fully, throwing her legs around his hips and framing his face with her hands. “Kiss me and you’ll know that everything is going to be fine.”

There was only the barest hesitation before James broke, devouring her mouth with a gruff sound. In between kisses, he rasped words of apology, praise, amazement, worry.

“Didn’t hurt my gorgeous girl. She’s still here with me. I’m sorry I was a prick. God, I’ve never felt or seen or touched anything like you. Mine.MyLita.”

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