He rose over her and she clutched at his shoulders, reveling in his hard strength.

“You don’t have to sing. I hear it in your words. No one has ever said such beautiful things to me.”

“Then you’re hanging out with the wrong people.”

And then he started again. Scorching a path over her body, only this time he stopped at her breasts, lavishing attention on each of them. He coaxed her nipples to rigid peaks and then he sucked them between his teeth, one at a time, alternating until she was making incomprehensible sounds of pleasure.

His movements were like the most beautiful notes. Perfect pitch. So in tune with her body—and her soul. He stroked her like a pianist might stroke the keys of a song he’d composed just for her.

She heard the notes, the raw, exquisite beauty, as they reverberated over her skin.

She no longer even knew what she needed. She needed him. Just him. It was a stupid thought but it was all that echoed in her mind.

“Please, Connor. I need you.”

As if realizing just what the admission cost her, he looked down at her tenderly as his hand went to part her thighs. He settled one knee between them and then he reached over her body to pick up a condom she hadn’t realized was resting beside her pillow.

He gave a slight groan as he rolled the latex over his cock. “God, I’m so close to coming and I haven’t even gotten inside you.”

She shifted restlessly, hoping he got the message that she didn’t want to wait any longer. Her skin felt too tight. Pressure swelled in her core until she fidgeted. She burned.

He eased his fingers farther into her heat and she moaned. His thumb gently circled her clit just as he fitted another finger and delved into her tight passage.

“You’re not ready yet, baby,” he murmured.

Her eyes flew open. “Please, Connor.”

“Not yet. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She sighed but closed her eyes when he lowered his mouth to her breast while his fingers continued their slow exploration of her most intimate recesses.

He stroked in and out in a perfect demonstration of how his cock would stroke through her insides to the very heart of her. She arched into his touch like a cat seeking petting. A low sound of contentment poured out of her throat and she reached blindly for him as he continued his erotic assault on her senses.

Her fingers curled into his hair, running through the crisp, short hairs as she held him to her breast. She idly stroked down to his nape and followed the thickly corded muscles of his neck and shoulders.

He was a perfect specimen of a man. Long, lean and tight. Clean-cut. Mr. All-American. Which begged the question of why in the hell he was attracted to her—she was decidedly not a fresh-faced girl next door in middle-class America. That was the woman she could see Connor with. Mr. Always Do Right with Miss Sweet Apple Pie.

“You left me,” Connor murmured.

She blinked and he came sharply into focus. He was staring down at her, his gaze seeking.

“Am I doing something wrong?”

She softened at his tone. His desire to please her couldn’t be more prevalent. Fuck Miss Apple Pie. Lyric hated apple pie anyway. This man was hers at least for the next half hour, and quite frankly, she’d kick some Miss America ass if she came within spitting distance of Connor.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a long, breathless kiss.

“You’re doing everything perfect.”

CHAPTER 17

Connor rotated over Lyric until he came to rest between her thighs, his body held up off her by his hands on either side of her head.

She was ready for him. Satiny smooth and slick with her own arousal. And in her eyes glowed a sweetness that belied her hard edge.

There was something to be said for a soft, willing woman underneath you—who looked at you like you held the answer to all the problems in the world.

Lyric without the bite was sweet indeed. It made him wonder if anyone else ever saw the woman underneath the layers she’d carefully constructed. Did anyone even care?

Wanting to taste her again, he fit his mouth to hers and licked over the seam of her lips just as he positioned himself at her entrance.

“Tell me you’re ready now, Lyric,” he strained out. “Because I can’t wait any longer.”

His body screamed at him to take her. To mark her and possess her in every primitive way there was for a man to possess a woman.

“Take me,” she whispered.

The fact that her words so perfectly echoed his thoughts made his chest tighten. Desire raged through his veins and he stilled for a moment before the urge to thrust as deeply into her as possible took over.

He eased forward, bathing the head of his cock in her silken flesh. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he fought for control.

“Connor.”

His name escaped as a whispered plea and her eyes were glazed with passion. She stared at him through half lids, her vibrant blue eyes looking drugged and unfocused.

He inched forward, pushing farther inside her. God, she was tight.

Her nails raked over his back and came to rest on his ass. She arched and pulled at the same time, trying to force him deeper. With a groan he relented and thrust hard.

It was all he could do to hang on as her sweet heat enveloped his aching erection. He was balls deep and straining to get deeper.

Her shocked gasp startled him from his single-minded goal to bury himself deeper than he’d ever buried himself in a woman.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked urgently even as he began to withdraw.

“No. No!” She pulled at him, almost fighting to get him back, arching her hips to hold on to him.

He smiled and leaned down to fuse his lips with hers. “Well okay, then.” He surged back into her and closed his eyes as intense, mindbending pleasure shattered through his groin.

His balls tightened even as they pounded against her ass. His body wasn’t his own. He had no control. And she urged him on. Taking everything he had to give. Demanding more.

Fire coiled low in his balls, clutching the base of his cock with a death grip. It built rapidly, rising like an inevitable tide.

He looked down, wanting her with him. He wouldn’t go until she’d found her satisfaction.

“Tell me what you need,” he breathed.

She feathered a hand over his cheek, a simple touch he felt all the way to his soul.

“Just you. Just you.”

But she wasn’t as far as he was and he knew it. He paused though it damn near killed him. He had to grit his teeth and breathe harshly through his nose to prevent his orgasm.

He reached for her hand and gently guided it downward. “Touch yourself. Show me how you like it.”

He shifted his body the slightest bit so she could fit her hand between them. At first she hesitated, her expression a little uncertain—and shy—but then she slid her fingers through the damp folds, her knuckles grazing through the hair at his groin.

She gave a restless moan that prompted him to pull out of her and then stroke back, long and liquid. To his surprise her fingers wandered lower and wrapped around the inch of his cock that still remained outside her body.

She caressed his length as he eased out of her. Her fingers danced across the latex, and he cursed the condom that lay between her touch and his flesh. He’d never gone bareback with a woman—not even one he was in a relationship with, because caution was too firmly ingrained. But right now he’d sell his soul to be able to get inside her skin to skin.

Finally he had to pull at her wrist and return her fingers to her own pleasure because he was a nanosecond from exploding all over her hand. At this point he’d likely blow the condom completely off.

“You first,” he rasped. “I want to watch you come apart around me. I want to feel it.”