Page 240 of Her Reluctant Hero
She looked at him, fighting the urge to laugh or cry, she wasn’t sure which was bubbling inside her. “It melted? You took it up on the fire line?”
Eyes wide with chagrin, he shook his head. “I didn’t even know I had it.”
“So—now what?”
He regarded her for a beat. What kind of picture did she make, sitting on the middle of a cheap bedspread in her cheap underwear, her wet hair a mess from his hands, her skin scraped red by his kisses?
Apparently an appealing one, because he was suddenly all motion. He hopped off the bed, grinning, and bent to brush his mouth over hers. “There’s a condom machine in the bathroom. And you thought this place was tacky.” Several long minutes later he extricated himself from her and disappeared into the bathroom.
Peyton pulled back the bedspread and was inspecting the cleanliness of the sheets when Gabe popped out of the bathroom, hanging both hands on the doorjamb over his head, displaying his form to advantage. The T-shirt he’d been wearing hadn’t been nearly snug enough to follow the lean line of his body, the hard muscles beneath. A dark scattering of hair covered his chest, thickened and narrowed into a line that pointed to his navy boxers and their interesting shape. A stab of good old-fashioned lust shot through her and she reveled in it until he said, “You got change for a five?”
His meaning took awhile to sink in. “You’re kidding.” Reaching for her fire pants, she pawed through her pockets, trying to remember where she’d tucked her cash. “Maybe safe sex is overrated.”
“Really?” Hope tinged his voice.
She shot him a glance from under her hair. “No. What does it take, quarters, dimes, dollars?”
“Any of those.”
She dug out her change and poured it into his palm. “Hurry, all right?”
“Why?” He stopped, squinting at her. “You going to change your mind?”
Arching her back to entice him, she tossed her hair back over her shoulder. “I might.”
He closed his hand around her wrist, buried his other in her hair, let the money fall around them, and kissed her hard. “Wait for me.” He pushed her toward the bed and ducked into the bathroom.
The fall of coin after coin into the machine rang out through the room, a twist of a lever, muttering, then banging on the metal dispenser. A horrible crash had her leaping from the bed to check on him, but he strolled in nonchalantly and dumped a handful of condoms on the nightstand.
“Problem?” she asked, looking from the pile of cellophane wrappers to him, trying to keep the laughter from her voice.
“Problem solved.”
He skimmed off his boxers and dropped over her, the mattress squealing a protest.
“You didn’t use your Pulaski, did you?” She reached for him and watched his eyelids lower as he bent to kiss her.
“Woulda if I’d had it.” He covered her mouth with his.
Shock and pleasure had her gasping as he nipped his way down her body. He glided his fingertips up her thigh. She cried his name and clutched his wrist when he slid one fingertip into her, then two. How were these sensations coming from her body? Her mind fragmented.
“Feel what you do to me. Touch me, Peyton.”
He groaned her name when she brushed her fingertips over the swollen head of him before dancing them down the underside. This time her name was a squeak, strange coming from his big body, and he closed her hand around him, ending her teasing touch.
She ached, hollow and empty, mindless from his fingertips stroking up and down over the backs of her thighs. Otherwise she couldn’t have worked up the nerve to tilt him onto his back and rise up over him, to guide him inside her. Her body resisted him at first, but he glided his fingers between them, touched the new center of her nervous system, and she took him into her so fast and deep she lost the ability to breathe.
He curled into a sitting position and buried his face against her throat. Peyton clung to his shoulders and raised and lowered her hips, feeling her body contract in his absence, expand at his depth. She no longer needed his encouragement as she followed the path.
He tried to soothe her, to steady her, but she threw his hands off. He tried to kiss her, to help her regain her rhythm, but she was focused, driven to pursue the pleasure he offered her.
Then with one accidental shift of her hips, she found it, and flung herself back, depending on his arms to be there to hold her as she expanded and shattered. She thrust down on him, hard, holding him prisoner inside her body, exploiting her pleasure. She felt him follow her, heard his soft moan of surrender, felt the short jerks of his hips, felt his teeth dig into her shoulder.
For endless moments, they floated in the hazy denouement. Finally she found the strength to move her arms from their limp submission behind her, to wrap them about his shoulders.
Apparently that was all he needed to tip him back onto the pillows, carrying her with him. They sprawled, damp and slack, him still deep inside her. He turned his head and nuzzled her hair.
“I didn’t mean for it to be over so soon,” he murmured.
