Page 53 of Feels Like the First Time
Chapter 10
Ali nodded because she needed him more than she needed her next breath.
The intensity of her feelings terrified her. They always had. Even at seventeen she knew what she felt went beyond the run-of-the-mill teenage crush. She’d been in love. Sure, it was a young, simple love, but it was love all the same.
Only he’d loved someone else.
So when he married her sister, she did her best to let him go. But no matter how painful it had been for her, and at times the ache was so acute it had been paralyzing, she was never able to set him completely free. Choosing the pain over the loss.
Now he was back, looking at her how she always looked at him, as if he’d never let go, and Ali gave in to the fantasy. Played out the what-ifs she carried with her for over a decade. He’d been hers for so long, she let herself believe that she was his, too.
He was asking for right here, right now—this she knew. Tomorrow, reality would creep in, and everything would go back to the way it was. But tonight, sitting on this beach, overlooking a world bigger than the two of them, Ali wanted to feel what it was like to be loved by the man who owned her heart.
“I want,” she said.
“What do you want, Aliana?” he whispered, the sound of her name on his lips doing crazy things to her. Crazy girly things that made her feel delicate and desirable.
“I want you.” She trailed her hands down his pecs to that flat stomach and lower, loving how his muscles rippled and curled under her touch. “I want you to pamper me so hard I won’t remember how to walk come morning.”
Hawk’s eyes darkened, and his mouth was on hers. Hard and demanding, and just how she’d imagined. There was no warm-up, no testing the waters. He was kissing her as if he knew what he wanted.
And he wanted Aliana.
Their mouths were fused together, her hands gripping his shoulders for purchase, but his fingers were gentle, languidly exploring her face, her neck, the curve of her shoulder, slowly moving down her arm and bringing the wide neckline of her shirt with him.
He never stopped kissing her, but she felt his lashes flutter open, realized that she’d never closed her own. Then his deep brown eyes locked on hers, watching her as they kissed, and it was erotic and unexpected. As she watched him back, she felt his lips curl into a smile. Could feel the dimples on both cheeks come alive under her touch.
“You like to watch,” Hawk growled, and she felt her cheeks flush.
Ali never considered herself a watcher. But Hawk was such a beautiful and commanding man, she’d never been able to look away. Not even now, when her body was begging for release. He was that good—a simple kiss and she was so turned on, she could feel her body shaking.
That smile turned cocky.
“It’s not like I stand there peering through your bedroom window at night,” she said, leaving out that night he was at the bar. His bedroom window during the morning, when he was walking around after a shower. She was more than guilty.
“I’ve peered through yours.”
And to prove he wasn’t the least bit ashamed, he lowered his head and placed an openmouthed kiss on her shoulder, those eyes of his never leaving hers. Not even when he moved lower toward her collarbone, his mouth working her with a softness that took her by surprise and a reverence that made her feel as if she was precious.
Ali wasn’t sure what to do. Hard, challenging, complicated—that was what she was used to. But this was light, simple—too easy to be real. It confused her as much as it terrified her.
But then Hawk’s finger tugged on the collar of her shirt, pulling it low enough to expose the top of her bathing suit, and he gave a wicked smile that was so Hawk, a small burst of hope welled up, making her believe that maybe it could be this easy. Maybe she didn’t have to go into every situation looking for problems, or the escape hatch.
Turning off the little voice in her head reminding her that love was never easy, Ali gave herself over to the moment. She might regret it come tomorrow, but today she was living in the here and now. And right now she was going to savor every toned, muscled inch of Hawk.
The possibilities alone were enough to make her body quiver.
“Come here,” Hawk said. “Let me warm you up.”
Ali didn’t bother pointing out she wasn’t cold, not when his big, manly hands slid under her shirt and around to cup her ass. One minute she was sitting on the rocks, the next she was straddling his lap, her hands fisted in his shirt.
“Better?”
With a smile of her own, Ali tugged his shirt up over his head, exposing a chest and a set of abs that could be on the cover of a magazine. She rested her hands on his pecs and watched his abs jump. “Now I’m better. You?”
He returned the favor, lifting her shirt up and off, giving a groan of male appreciation when he saw her tiny bikini top. “Fucking great.”
“I don’t think we’ve gotten to that part yet,” she teased.
