He stood, holding her legs against his chest, and reached into his back pocket.
The condom.
He tore open the packet with his teeth, yanked down his jeans and boxer briefs, his erection straining toward her. She expected him to put on the condom and enter her, but he didn’t. Instead, he slid two fingers inside her, stroking her, exploring her. “Can you feel how wet you are?”
She was still hypersensitive, the slick glide of his fingers both soothing and arousing. “Yes.”
He found that magic spot inside her. “Do you like this?”
“Oh …yes.”
He withdrew his fingers and stroked her moisture over the head of his cock, making himself slick with her essence, the act so erotic that it made her breath catch. Then, at last, he rolled on the condom.
He looked into her eyes. “Are you sure?”
He was truly asking her, giving her a chance to back out, to say no, to refuse him. But she wanted him. “Fuck me.”
His gaze held hers as he entered her, his pupils going wide, his slow thrust making them both moan.
It had been so long since a man had been inside her, and it took a moment for her body to adjust to the thick, hard feel of him. But then he was moving, his hips thrusting, pushing his cock in and out of her, the sweet, slippery friction driving her crazy.
“God, you’re tight.” Big hands palmed her breasts, rubbing and pinching her nipples through the silk.
Needing him, wanting every inch of him, she drew her knees back, reached for him, her fingers digging into his lower back.
“God, yeah, open yourself to me, honey.” His voice was rough, his face hard with the raw ache of sex.
He grasped her hips, drove into her faster, harder, each thrust bringing her closer to the bright edge of orgasm. Oh, God, the way he moved, so smooth, powerful, erotic, all that muscle in motion. He reached with one hand to stroke her clit. The combination feltso… fucking … good.
She was unraveling, coming undone, pleasure breaking her down. Little moans rolled from her throat with every exhalation, mixing with incoherent whispers. “Jesse…God…Fuck…Oh, yes…”
Orgasm hit her with the force of a tidal wave, drowning her with more bliss than her body could contain. “Jesse!”
He wasn’t far behind her. He pounded himself into her, then sucked in a breath and held it, his eyes squeezed shut as climax claimed him, the sexual anguish on his face relaxing into bliss.
* * *
Jesse stretchedout in the big bed and drew Ellie into his arms, his body replete, his mind empty. They’d had sex again, this time in her bedroom, taking it slow, lingering over little details, the smallest pleasures.
She snuggled against him, her head resting on his shoulder, her fingers trailing through his chest hair. “Your heart is still pounding.”
“So is yours.”
There was sex a man forgot the moment it was over. There was sex he remembered. There was sex that blew his mind. Tonight had definitely been in the latter category, because …damn.
Her scent still filled his head, the taste of her lingering on his tongue, his mind and body shaken by the force of his response to her.
He kissed the top of her head. “I can’t stay.”
“I know.”
Still, he couldn’t get himself to leave her. He told himself that no one would want to climb out of a warm bed and hike uphill through the snow. But the truth was that he didn’t want to leaveher.
As they lay there together in the light of her bedside lamp, he began to notice things he hadn’t when they were tearing each other’s clothes off. The plush armchair in the corner. The photo of Ellie and Dan on their wedding day that hung on one wall. The pictures of the twins there on her nightstand. The portrait of Dan in his Ranger uniform that sat on her dresser.
She must have noticed the direction of his gaze. “Do the photos bother you?”
They did, though he couldn’t say why. Seeing Dan’s face again …