If You Were Mine (18 page)

and what would make it come to life.

He mirrored his actions on the other side of her body and

she tried to hold stil and not beg for more, but the smal,

desperate sound that came from her throat gave her away.

Zach pressed his lips to the smal of her back. “Al in good

time.”

A moment later, stil kneeling behind her in the dark, he

hooked one finger into each side of her panties and held there.

She swalowed hard, a loud sound in the dark silence.

“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for this

moment?”

Each word came more ragged than the one before it. Just

as his wild kiss had been, the raw statement was testament to

how badly he wanted her, despite his slow, teasing seduction.

Somehow she managed to ask, “How long?”

He slid her panties down just enough to press a kiss to the

top of one cheek, groaning as he gave equal measure to the soft

flesh on the other side.

“Forever, Heather. It feels like I’ve been waiting forever for

you.”

And then, just after the most shocking words in the world

had been spoken, her panties were off, lying in a puddle of

cotton at her feet.

She waited, holding her breath, for Zach to touch her again,

to kiss her—
please, please, please don’t leave me like this
—

to kiss her—
please, please, please don’t leave me like this
—

but he was as stil as she was, his breath on her skin al that was

touching her.

“I love the way you smel.” His words went from raw to

guttural as he inhaled. “I love the way you feel.” His hands

moved to her hips, and she felt smal and intensely feminine as he

gently caressed her. “And I love the way you taste.” He rained

smal nips and kisses at her backside, then down her thighs, until

he finaly reached the backs of her knees.

It shouldn’t have been an erogenous zone. She should have

been laughing, not softly moaning as his tongue moved across the

skin at the back of her legs.

“I think we’ve found a whole set of other sensitive spots,”

he confirmed for her as she trembled so hard that his hands on

her hips were actualy holding her up. “But I bet there’s more.”

He paused and her breath caught as he said, “A whole lot

more.”

The next thing she knew, he was back on his feet and lifting

her in his arms.

“Zach, what are you doing?”

No man had ever picked her up like this before and carried

her over to a bed. It felt too romantic for what they were to each

other, for what they’d agreed on.

“Heather, I’m carrying you over to the bed!” he teased,

mimicking her shocked tone.

How could she do anything but laugh, even though she was

more aroused than she’d ever been in her life? Laughter and sex

more aroused than she’d ever been in her life? Laughter and sex

had never been connected for her before.

Then again, she’d never been with a lover like Zach before,

had she?

Zach Sulivan should have been in his element. Giving

women pleasure was what he did best.

It didn’t make sense, then, that he felt so far off his game,

so totaly lost in Heather that every other sexual experience had

falen away—leaving him to have to figure it al out one kiss, one

touch at a time.

He’d turned off the lights to make sure that he stayed in

control of the evening. Only, the darkness was doing a number

on him, too.

Her scent was everywhere, sweet and aroused. Her skin

was impossibly soft. And when she trembled as he kissed her,

when she gasped with pleasure as sensation took her over, his

chest clenched tight.

“Your arms are going to get tired soon if you don’t put me

down.”

He lowered his mouth to hers again, but stopped just short

of making contact. “Questioning my stamina, are you?” Without

waiting for her sure-to-be-sassy reply, he covered her lips with

his own and kissed the breath from her lungs.

Both of them were panting by the time he finaly laid her

Both of them were panting by the time he finaly laid her

down in the center of his bed and then quickly took off his

clothes.

He hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told her he had

great night vision. My God, she was beautiful. He just wanted to

look at her, wanted to memorize every soft curve, every holow

laid out before him.

“Zach?”

She reached out into the darkness and he captured her

hands in his. “I’m right here. Just enjoying the view.”

She made a sound of surprise at the knowledge that he

realy could see her in the dark, even as her fingers threaded

through his. Coming palm-to-palm with her was yet another

moment of connection he hadn’t expected. One more to add to

the al the rest that had already come.

Zach didn’t hold women’s hands. But he didn’t want to let

go of Heather, so he moved onto the bed with her, straddling her

thighs with his own to keep her right where he wanted her.

“You realy can see me?”

Wel enough to see the panic on her face at being naked

when he was stil fuly dressed. Of course, he greatly enjoyed

throwing her off kilter, especialy when she tried so hard to be

the steadiest woman on the planet.

“Sure can.”

She made a frustrated little sound that he had to cover with

another kiss, a soft one this time. Not letting go of her hands in

his, he put them on either side of the pilow and took his time

exploring her sweet mouth.

exploring her sweet mouth.

God, he’d wanted to kiss her like this for so damn long,

desire eating him up more with every second he spent with her.

He loved the way she didn’t hold anything back, that she wasn’t

trying to tease him or turn him on. She kissed the same way she

did everything else, with sweet focus.

Zach had planned on seducing her, but as her tongue

stroked against his, as her fingers tightened against his, and she

lifted her hips up to try to find the release he was drawing out, he

had to wonder if it was realy the other way around...and

Heather was the one seducing
him
.

He puled back from her mouth on the crazy thought,

determined to get back on track. The one where he was the one

holding the cards, not the woman he hadn’t been able to resist

from the first moment he’d set eyes on her.

Staring down at Heather in the shadowed room, he

marveled again at just how beautiful she was. Other women with

bodies like hers would have done whatever they could to

showcase it to the world, not cover it up with faded shirts and

shorts.

Only, hadn’t he been going crazier day by day, wondering

exactly what was hiding beneath those shapeless clothes? Almost

as if by not simply showing him her assets, she’d amped up his

anticipation of the moment he finaly got to see al of her.

“So?”

He could hear the bravado covering the insecurity, and the

fact that she had any worries at al about her worth made that

twinge come back in his chest again.

twinge come back in his chest again.

Knowing he wasn’t the kind of man who had words for

moments like this, he decided to show her how beautiful she was

in a way that she couldn’t possibly misunderstand.

He lowered his mouth to the tip of one breast and tugged it

between his lips. Heather arched up into his hands and gasped

out his name, but he was so focused on the sweet taste and feel

of her aroused flesh against his tongue that he barely heard her.

He swirled his tongue around the taut peak before letting it go to

taste the other.

Using his hands on hers and his thighs on either side of her

hips, Zach held Heather stil as she tried to writhe against him

while he loved her perfect breasts, one to the other, again and

again, until she was begging.

“Please, Zach, I need—”

He lightly scraped his teeth over the tip of one breast and

her gasp of pleasure swalowed up the rest of her plea. He didn’t

need her to tel him what she needed because he needed it, too,

needed to taste every inch of her skin, needed to know the feel,

the scent of her al over.

He moved up from her breasts to her shoulders, then to the

soft underside of one arm. But instead of turning even more into

liquid, she stiffened as his lips and tongue trailed toward her

elbow.

Of course, that only made him more intent on making her

feel good. On helping her to forget anything but how good it was

to finaly be together like this.

to finaly be together like this.

His mouth found her softness again, only this time he

realized the skin was slightly raised. When he tasted the crook of

her elbow and then the underside of her forearm, each time he

found more of the same. Slightly raised skin that came as a total

surprise against the perfect smoothness of the rest of her.

“Heather,” he asked, his gut twisting at the pain she must

have felt to have such scars now, “how did you get hurt?”

Even as he asked, he was trailing his fingers over her other

arm, finding the same scars. They were faint, completely healed,

but he couldn’t have missed them. Not in the dark when there

was nothing to distract his senses from her.

And not when nothing seemed to matter more than

Heather.

“They’re old scars,” she said softly. “From an accident

when I was a teenager.”

Her voice had broken on those last words and he hated the

way she’d gone from being so sensual, so open to him, to

suddenly stil. Stiff. As if she was scared...and regretting what

they were doing.

“I’m glad they’ve healed,” he told her, before pressing

another kiss to first one arm, then the other.

Her breath hitched as if she might cry. But then she said, “I

am, too.”

He had to kiss her again, needed to turn their lovemaking

back around, back to where it had been before he found the

scars, and she’d gotten upset. He didn’t know how long they

kissed, but he loved the way she threaded her fingers back

kissed, but he loved the way she threaded her fingers back

through his, as if she needed him just as much as he needed her.

And Lord, how he needed her. Needed to taste more of

her, needed to know if the scent of her arousal would be as

sweet on his tongue.

Puling her hands down with him, not wiling to relinquish

that connection with her for even a second, he lifted his mouth

from hers to move lower, down over her stomach, and then

lower stil to the damp curls that drew him like a magnet.

He’d practicaly lost control earlier when he’d been

kneeling behind her. It was even worse now, this desire to take

her, to make her his.

And to keep her.

Zach barely managed to remind himself that he didn’t keep

women. He didn’t even consider it. Sex was for pleasure. Only

pleasure.

Sweet Lord, what pleasure it was to be with Heather.

Loving the way she instinctively opened her legs for him as

he came closer to her core, he swept over her with a broad

stroke of his tongue. He had planned to tease, to taste her

slowly, but the way she arched up into his mouth, those sweet

little sounds she made as he drove her higher and higher, made

him lose hold of his control.

Next time he’d make her wait, next time he’d tease her

mercilessly until she was begging and pleading for release.

Zach needed to claim her as his right this very second. He

needed to know that she was as out of control as he was, that he

wasn’t the only one out on the edge of passion.

wasn’t the only one out on the edge of passion.

Like a man possessed, he licked and sucked at her aroused

flesh. Already, he knew he’d never get enough. He was already

addicted to the taste of her.

And then, a moment later, her hands clamped down so

hard on his that her nails bit into his skin as she shattered against

his mouth.

None of her other lovers had ever noticed the scars on her

arms, not even with the lights on.

Heather knew why, knew that it was because none of the

men she’d been with before Zach had cared enough about her to

take the time to learn her secrets.

Sex had never been al about her before.

But, as she was surprised to realize yet again, Zach was

different. He noticed everything, things that other men would

never have paid any attention to. He’d lingered over her scarred

skin with his mouth, and he’d given her such soft healing kisses

she’d hardly be surprised if the scars were completely gone in