It was totally unstoppable, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Every muscle in his body clenched, and he shook and groaned as he exploded inside her. Though he was incapable of thinking clearly, at some deep level he realized he could bite her in his excitement, so he took his mouth from hers and buried his face in the cloud of hair, the smell of roses prolonging his spasms. It felt like he came forever, shuddering and groaning, as every drop of liquid in his body came spurting out of his cock. He was holding on to her hips in a death grip, pushing with his toes, grinding into her so he could be as deep in her as he could, and simply hung on while he exploded, heart beating double time, breath pumping in and out of his lungs like at the end of a fifteen-mile run.

Sweat poured out of him and plastered her to him.

It took ages before he was able to settle. When he got his breath—and his brains—back, and took stock, his heart sank.

Jack lay sprawled on Caroline, making no effort to keep some of his weight off her, though he outweighed her by a hundred pounds. She was sticky everywhere from his sweat and the gallons of come it felt like he’d poured into her. Their groins were wet, and he knew come had seeped down to stain the pretty flowered sheets.

He was known for his stamina but tonight it was as if he was fifteen again and green. He hadn’t even lasted a minute—he’d come the instant he’d entered her. The explosive climax had wiped out most of his memory, but he knew one incontrovertible fact.

Caroline hadn’t come.

Man, he’d fucked this up, but good.

Six

Summerville

Well, she’d asked for it.

Caroline lay under Jack’s heavy weight and tried hard to breathe without wheezing. The man weighed a ton. She tried to quietly expand her lungs and contemplated the etiquette of the situation. She needed oxygen and some space. How could she do this? Would it be okay to push at his shoulders to hint that he should get off her? Would it be rude?

How soon after sex was it okay to cuddle? And of course, the big question—was he a cuddler?

He actually didn’t look like much of a cuddler. He’d been grim and mainly quiet all evening. Most cuddlers were warm and chatty. Maybe he was the kind of man who had sex, rolled off the woman, then got up, the saddest kind of lover there was. The kind who left solitude and melancholy behind in the bed. She’d known a few of those.

What Caroline liked most about sex was the sense of closeness. The feeling that, for this small moment in time, she wasn’t alone. She liked touching and being touched, affectionate words whispered in the ear, even if they were only true for the moment. Even a little human warmth was better than none.

That was basically what she had wanted from Jack, though she knew sex would have to come before. She’d never really enjoyed sex all that much—though the last time she’d slept with a man had been so long ago she almost didn’t remember what it was like. But she did enjoy the afterwards. Quietly lying in the darkness with a man’s arms around her, listening to the comforting thump of another human heart.

Right now, his was thumping triple time. It must have been a doozy of a climax because he’d shaken and groaned and panted, almost as if he were in pain. He was also as hot as a radiator. If nothing else, the quickie sex had rid her of the deep chill she’d felt. Jack Prescott was like a huge, heavy, hairy electric blanket.

Hesitantly, Caroline lifted her hand and placed it on his shoulder, wondering if she’d have the nerve to push at it.

She was instantly distracted by the feel of him under her fingers. There didn’t seem to be any give in him at all. The shoulder muscle was dense, ridged, hard as steel. She stroked the heavy muscle uncertainly, and was surprised when he took her hand off his shoulder and pressed it to his mouth. He kissed her palm first, then the back of her hand, as if they were at a ball instead of lying together, his penis still inside her.

She shifted slightly and—

“You’re still, um…”

“Hard?” he supplied. He was lying with his cheek on her hair, close enough that the hot puffs of breath against her temple ruffled her hair. His mouth was an inch from her ear, and the deep voice, so close it felt as if he were speaking inside her head, sent shivers down her spine. “Yeah. Oh yeah. I haven’t begun to be finished with you.”

He levered himself up on his muscled forearms and looked down at her. His features were blurry in the dim light, the whites of his eyes and his teeth light against his dark skin. His big hands clasped the sides of her head and he bent to kiss her, lightly, mouth moving gently on hers.

He lifted his mouth for a moment and tilted her head slightly so he could kiss her from another angle. Sweet kisses. First-date kisses. A postsex cuddling kiss except it wasn’t post sex. They were still having sex. Sort of.

He was still iron-hard inside her, but he wasn’t moving. The only thing he was moving was his mouth on hers. His kisses were warm, deep, a soft gliding of his mouth on hers. It was easy to lose herself in them, particularly now that she could breathe again.

He lifted his head once more, his gaze piercing in the dimness. “Are you okay?” he whispered, mouth an inch from hers. “Did I hurt you?”

Caroline smiled at that, pushing back a lock of black hair that had fallen over his face. “You seem to think I’m some kind of cream puff.” She shook her head, her hair rasping faintly against the pillowcase. “I can assure you that I’m not.”

He blinked. In an instant his expression changed utterly. The faint lines of kindness and anxiety around his eyes disappeared and his face tightened, nostrils flaring. The heat in his eyes was visible even in the semidarkness. “Oh, but you are.” His voice was husky, pure sex. “You’re a beautiful little cream puff, and I could eat you right up. All over.”

There was no mistaking his meaning. Unbidden, an image shot straight to the most primitive part of Caroline’s brain. She saw herself spread out on a bed, Jack’s dark head between her thighs, big hands holding her thighs apart. The image was unsettling. No, not unsettling—arousing. Unmistakably. Her vagina tightened around his penis at the thought. Immediately, he thickened and lengthened inside her.

Her startled eyes met his. “You like that thought,” he said, voice deep and low. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth. “It turns you on.”

“Yes, well…I–I must like it.” Her voice was breathless. She was completely distracted by what was going on in her body. Each pulse of his penis brought a little tug of her inner muscles tightening around him.

Amazing. That had never happened to her before—that intimate link so intense she could feel the changes in the man’s body inside hers.

Caroline was not only turned on by the thought of Jack Prescott going down on her, she was turned on by him. While her head had whirled with her neurotic, grief-stricken thoughts, and she’d been reticent and hesitant—her body had raced right on ahead without her and become aroused all on its own. There was no question of it. Now that she was really paying attention, and her head had caught up with her body, she realized she was more turned-on than she’d ever been in her entire life.

Jack Prescott might be grim-faced and not the world’s greatest conversationalist, but her body didn’t give a damn because he was perhaps the sexiest man alive. The most…male man she’d ever seen.

Everything about his body was a source of intense, bewildering pleasure. The sheer size of him, the hard muscles, the thick mat of dark, wiry chest hair brushing her nipples with each breath they took, the thick, iron-hard penis buried inside her…

God, just the feel of him…