“You’re incorrigible.”
“Every man has aspirations. That one word sums mine up quite nicely.”
Shaking her head, she leaned forward and nipped his earlobe. “Stop talking, Tyson.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond. With deft hands, she reached between them and positioned his arousal, then worked her way down his thick length. He stretched her. She reveled in the near discomfort his size caused. She hadn’t been with anyone else who’d made her feel so much, made her long to embrace her sexuality and experience everything a skilled lover could offer. Particularly a skilled lover who knew her body so well.
In the past, he’d always seen to her needs first. Today, though, she reciprocated his every touch, returned his every encouragement tenfold through words, sounds and intimate touches. He fought her at first, trying to make her reach the pinnacle alone. She was having none of it. Where she went, she ensured he followed. This was an exercise in mutual gratification.
She rode him with long, slow strokes, losing herself to the feel of him beneath her, the way his hips thrust up as she sank down, the way his deft fingers pulled her release to the surface, drawing it closer and closer with every careful manipulation. Her chest rose and fell, faster and then faster still.
Beneath her, Ty whispered her name. He dug his fingers into her hips and pulled her down his length as she sank low. His thrusts grew deeper, harder. The sounds of their lovemaking—the touch of skin on skin, the tender words and soft encouragements—filled the small room.
The fluttering of her release began to build, that intangible feeling that something huge was bearing down on her, something bigger than she could control, too large to define, too much for her skin to contain. The pleasure rushed at her suddenly and then over her, shattering her with brutal efficiency. She couldn’t stop herself from bearing down on Tyand crying out, the magnitude of what he drew out of her too large for words.
Losing the graceful rhythm he’d kept, he gripped both her hips fiercely. Driving into her with thrusts so powerful he nearly unseated her, he followed her over the edge with a shout.
Kenzie closed her eyes and simply lived in the moment. No past. No future. Just the present existed. It was the only thing that mattered. She’d come too close to losing the chance to experience him even one more time, to losinghim, and she didn’t want to go through that ever again.
There had to be a way out of the mess she’d made, a way to ensure everyone got what they most wanted—Ty could keep Gizmo, the brothers could keep Ty whole, and she...she could simply keep Ty.
TYLISTENEDTOhis heart. The act had become habitual, the first thing he did every morning and the last thing he did at night. He had to count out one hundred consecutive beats before he could do anything else. The organ—muscle? Or would it be a morgscle?—tattooed a repeating design against his rib cage. He forced his breathing to slow as he discreetly checked his pulse.
One sixty-four.
Not a bad postexertion rate.
Postexertion. He grinned.Postcoital, buddy. That would be postcoital.
His bedroom rodeo queen shifted beside him. She rested her head on his shoulder, her moist breath skating across his sweat-slicked skin.
Chilled, Ty fumbled for the edge of the quilt.
Kenzie sat up and pushed the thick fall of hair over her shoulder. “Any reason you’re manhandling the bedding like that?” She grabbed the edge of the quilt and then paused. “Ty?”
He closed his eyes. “Leave it alone, Kenzie.”
“Can’t.” She traced his stubbled jaw with the pads of her fingers.
“I mean it.”
“Still can’t,” she murmured. “It’s okay to be angry. It’s also okay to admit you’re scared. You suffered a horrific injury. Makes sense you’d want to use caution as you ease back into things.” Her thumb drifted over the fullness of his lower lip. “What doesn’t make sense is why you’re so willing to accept suffering and settle for survival instead of fighting to live.”
She doesn’t understand.
His heart rate picked up speed, and Ty wondered that the morgscle didn’t bruise as it threw itself against his sternum harder and harder. That would be bad in its own right, having a bruised morgscle. Fixated on the repeating thump of his heart, he started counting out the beats.
One, two, three, four, five—
“Ty?” She cupped his jaw.
Shit. Have to start over.
He pulled free of her touch.
One, two, three—
“Seriously, Ty.” Completely unself-conscious, Kenzie moved to straddle his hips before putting a hand on either side of his face. “You have to slow down. You’re going to have a full-blown panic attack if you don’t.”
“You don’t get it,” he said through clenched teeth, his nose flaring on each exhale and nearly sucking closed on every harsh inhale. “You don’t know what it’s like, Mackenzie.”