Just To Be With You

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Can I ask you something?”

Ian’s lungs still burned with the need for oxygen. The need to take Tatiana, to possess her and make her his, had become such an obsession that desire obliterated common sense every time he touched her. Hell, so much as looking at her or catching her scent in a room made him go a little crazier.

Now, in the aftermath of crazy, they were tangled in each other on the small bed, with the quilt bunched beneath their damp, naked bodies. He growled, “If you’re going to ask me why...”

She laughed, her breasts bouncing against him as she said, “I’m pretty sure I already know why this time. Although—” She gave a little nip at his shoulder. “—I may ask you later, anyway, just to see you get all riled up. But only because I never quite know what you’re going to do or how you’re going to take me when you’re like that.” She made a little hum of pleasure. “A little rough. A little angry. A little fast. A little hard.”

Even as a fresh hit of need nailed him, guilt rose. “Tatiana, I shouldn’t—”

“I’ve told you again and again, you should. In fact, speaking of all the things the two of us should be doing together...” She purposely left him hanging there for a few seconds, not because she was an actress who knew how to play her audience, but because she was a beautiful woman with an innate sense of just how to make her lover crave her more with every second she spent in his arms. “I know I don’t have the sexual experience you do—”

“Jesus, if you knew anything more we might never make it outside a bedroom ever again.”

Did she have any idea how sensual her answering smile was? Clearly, she liked the idea of being locked in a bedroom with him forever. And because something told him her question would likely do more than just rile him up, he decided to do whatever he could to get her to forget all about it. But though she let him roll her beneath him for yet another heated kiss that he couldn’t resist taking from her, when he made himself pull back for a moment to let her breathe, he could see that she hadn’t forgotten what she wanted to say. His beautiful, brilliant girl never did.

His?

No, she wasn’t really his, he reminded himself silently, and brutally. But even as he thought it, his hands tightened on her.

Only here, in this strange island world so completely separated from reality, could he let himself possess her.

Only for as long as the rain and wind drove the leaves from the trees outside, and the rough waves of salt water carved out chunks of the cliffs, could he reach for her and know that she was right there reaching for him, too.

Only for this rare moment in time when he was completely cut off from phones and computers could he devote himself entirely to the beautiful woman beside him.

The storm outside, he knew, would end too soon. But the storm inside of him would rage, crashing between desperate desire and the knowledge that what he had to offer could never be enough for Tatiana.

Ian came out of his swirling thoughts to find Tatiana’s eyes, clear and sparkling, on his. How many of his thoughts had she read? Too many, he was sure. Enough that sometimes he might as well just speak every thought he had out loud.

“Go ahead, ask your question,” he said, in a voice rough with desire—and affection for her that grew from moment to moment.

“Well, I was hoping while we’re here and real life is on hold for a little while, maybe you could teach me…” This time she didn’t draw out her words to tantalize. She did it because she was clearly embarrassed. Her skin was flushed as she finally said, “Things.”

“Things?” The word came out strangled from his throat. “You want me to teach you things?”

“Yes.” Such innocence, even as she made the sexiest request on the planet. “Sexy things.” There was another pause, another moment of obvious bashfulness, before she lifted her bright eyes back to meet his. “Please.”

It was the sweet and simple please that got him. That, and the fact that for all his legendary self-control, in this small room, on this island, in the throes of this storm, he was lost.

Completely, utterly lost in Tatiana. Even when he knew better than to drag either of them deeper...

She watched him, clearly confused as he got up off the bed and walked naked—and aroused—across the room to pick up one of the red-painted wooden chairs. Deliberately, he set the chair at the foot of the bed and sat down on it.

“Touch yourself.”

He could see a thousand new questions pop up in her eyes, but she finally settled on only one. “Is this your way of saying yes?”

He didn’t smile, though he wanted to. He didn’t reassure her, either. She’d said just minutes earlier that it turned her on when he was a little rough. A little hard. Lord knew his erection was as hard as it had ever been from nothing more than looking at her sitting sweet and naked on the crumpled quilt.

“Touch. Yourself.” Each word was spoken as a command, because for all her strength, for all her determination, it was obvious to him that she also loved giving herself up to his dominance in the bedroom. Not every time, perhaps, but definitely tonight.

While he taught her things.

Jesus, he thought as his erection pulsed hard between his thighs, he wanted to pounce on her, wanted to take her again and again until he’d figured out a way to burn through his fierce need for her. Instead, he forced himself to remain on the chair as she blushed and began to slowly slide her hand on top of her stomach.

She bit her lip, the flush now moving from her cheeks to spread over her breasts. “Do you want me to touch my breasts? Or...between my legs?”

He didn’t stop his lips from curving into a smile this time. Of course, as an actress, she would ask him for direction. And he would give it to her. Only, it wouldn’t be anywhere close to the kind of direction she was expecting.

“I want you touch yourself the way you have, alone in your bed, naked beneath the sheets, since the day you met me at the wedding.” Her eyes grew even wider as he said, “I want you to show me if my own fantasies about you were right.”

“You fantasized about me?”

“I thought you wanted me to teach you things,” he replied in a deceptively gentle voice, “but from the way you keep stalling with more questions, maybe you aren’t serious, after all.”

That was all it took to persuade her to shift on the bed so that she was lying on her back with her legs falling open on the messy bed covers. From his perfect vantage point, he could see that she was still aroused from their earlier lovemaking, the smooth skin between her thighs plump and slick. Her hair was wet and tangling over her shoulders, where a few marks from his lips and teeth were starting to come into stark bruised relief against the pale skin. There was no order whatsoever to any part of the picture she painted before him...and yet, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever set eyes on.

Order, he was beginning to believe whenever they were together, was vastly overrated.

She brought her hands up to her breasts and as she softly cupped them, her eyes fluttered closed. Looking as if she was going deeper into her imagination, into the fantasies she’d once created about the two of them, her hands squeezed, pinched, caressed her soft flesh and nipples that grew harder by the second. When a low moan fell from her lips, he decided it was time to push her a little farther.

“Very pretty,” he said, wanting her to know how much he appreciated, and approved, of what she was doing before he shoved her all the way past comfort. “But I want more, Tatiana.” Hell, he wanted so much from her that it was nearly ripping him to shreds.

“Tell me what you want, Ian. Tell me and I’ll do it.”

“I want you to tell me what I’m doing to you in your fantasies.”

Her hands nearly slipped from her skin as a number of different emotions—surprise, lust, fear, along with determination to see this through—raced across her beautifully expressive face. But when only lust and determination remained, she held his gaze as she began to speak in an intoxicatingly sensual tone.

“After we met at the wedding and you shook my hand, I couldn’t forget the way it felt. Your hand was so big, so warm, and rougher than I thought it would be for a businessman. I couldn’t stop thinking, fantasizing, about what it would feel like if you were touching me somewhere else.” She didn’t so much as blink as she told him, “Everywhere else.”

He swallowed hard as she moved her hands away from her breasts to slide over her neck, and then to her flushed face. “I wondered what it would feel like if you held me still so that you could kiss me exactly the way you wanted to. And how it would be if you fisted your hands in my hair—” She moved one hand from her cheek to her damp locks. “—so that I had to go wherever you decided to take me.” Her hips shifted slowly up and down on the bed in a rhythm that told him just how ready she already was to take him again. “I wanted so badly for you to take me.”

She was whispering now as she ran her hands back down over her neck, her collarbones, and then the upper slope of her breasts. And, oh, how he’d wanted it, too, wanted to take her every single second from that first handshake. Knowing that she’d been just as hungry, just as desperate for him, didn’t just send him all the way to the edge, it nearly tipped him into the abyss. But if he moved, if he spoke, he knew she’d stop confessing her erotic fantasies to him, so he stayed exactly where he was, even as he watched her fingers move over her nipples, rougher on the second trip so that her flesh stood hard on the tips of her full breasts when she finally continued her journey down over her ribs.

“I knew that if—when—you took me, it would be good, better than anything I’d ever known.” Her mouth curved up into a sexy smile as she brought one hand back up to her breasts and let the other move lower, then lower still, until her fingers hovered just above her sex. “I was right.”

Her fingers had barely slicked over her clitoris when Ian could no longer hold back from touching her, too. On a deep groan of need, he got up from the chair, moved to the bed, and slid one finger, then two, into her. She lifted her hips into his hand, but when she began to slide her own fingers away, he said, “No, I want you to keep touching yourself.”

“But you’re—”

“Needing to be closer to you.”

The words that should have come out simply as sexy, ended up being about so much more. Because as much as he wished he could hide from her just how deeply and strongly she affected him, in moments like this when she gave herself entirely up to him, he couldn’t find a way not to give her at least part of himself, too.

“I need it, too,” she said, and then just as he’d told her, she continued sliding her fingers over herself in a circular pattern that matched perfectly the deliberately slow pace he’d set between her thighs. She watched through heavy-lidded eyes the way their hands worked in unison over and into her, to bring her higher and higher with every stroke, with every swirl.

“Did you ever dream of this? Of both of us touching you this way?”

“No.” The short word was little more than a gasp as he pushed just a little deeper, a little harder. “In my fantasies it was always just you touching me. Never both of us.” She shook her head, admitted, “I didn’t know we could do this together.”

“So much,” he said in a low voice, “there’s so much we can do together. Like this.” He took one of her nipples into his mouth. And as he suckled it, both of their hands naturally picked up the pace between her legs.

Now that he knew just how sweet, how soft, how hungry she was, every time he had her only made him wild with craving more of her. “I want all of your orgasms to be mine.” He’d already taken too much from her, but he couldn’t control the urge to want more.

“They are yours. Only yours, Ian.”

He loved the way his name fell from her lips again and again, growing more and more ragged as they both took her closer to her climax. On a light scrape of his teeth over the tip of her breast, he growled, “Come for me. Only for me, sweetheart.”

A sob tore from her throat as she went completely taut at his command, then broke apart, inch by gorgeous inch, beneath his mouth and hand and her own, as well. Nothing in the world but Tatiana would ever be this beautiful, this precious.

Between Thursday night and today, she’d come apart again and again for him. But his utter lack of control meant that he needed to see more, needed to feel more, needed to take her up even higher, needed to be right there as she experienced greater and greater pleasure, until he was absolutely certain that she had nothing left to give to him. And maybe then, he told himself, he would finally be able to sate his desperate need for her.

He wouldn’t let her recover, not wanting to let her catch her breath or think or do anything but feel. She was still trembling as he moved to kneel on the rug beside the bed. Putting her legs over his shoulders, he found her core to be deliciously hot and wet against his lips and tongue. With his fingers still moving hard, fast, and deep into her, he nudged her own hand away from her sex.

This time, there was no slow buildup to her climax, no need to coax—or demand—that she come apart for him. And as one orgasm spiraled into another, though she’d already given him so much more than he deserved, when he moved again to his feet and gripped her hips in his hands to pull her to the edge of the mattress, he couldn’t catch his own breath.

All he could do was feel.

A heartbeat later he was completely inside her and he couldn’t look away from her beautiful eyes, so green and so full of love for him.

She’d done exactly what he told her to do from the moment he’d pulled the chair up to the foot of the bed, but now she surprised him by reaching up to wind her hands around his neck and kiss him so sweetly that before he knew what had happened, she’d rolled them over so that he was flat on his back and she was on top.

They’d moved straight from lesson one to lesson two, but this time he wasn’t the teacher.

She was.

And, Lord, the things she taught him as she kissed him hungrily while rubbing her breasts over his chest and grinding her hips into his.

He’d never known desire could be this sharp, this sweet, this overwhelming.

He’d never known a woman could be this soft and this strong, this innocent and yet so beautifully sensual all at the same time.

And he’d never known, until they drove each other higher before reaching the pinnacle of the storm together, just how high it was possible for a man to reach...or how far it was possible for a man to fall.