Page 13 of Surrendering To The Forbidden Mountain Man

He pulls back enough to look at me. Eyes heavy. "Tell me."

"I've never done this before."

His hands still on my legs. His gaze searches my face. He looks like he's processing, not shocked just rearranging the facts.

"I waited for you." My hand comes to his jaw. "I know that sounds crazy. Thirty years old, and I waited for a man who spent twelve years pretending I didn't exist. But every time someone else was interested, every time I went on a date or let someone close, my brain just..." My thumb traces the scar through his eyebrow. "It was always you. I couldn't want anyone else. I tried."

His forehead drops to mine. A long exhale. His hands slide from my thighs to my hips, pulling me forward on the counter until there's no space between us.

"You waited." His voice is wrecked.

"I chose to wait. Don't make it into something fragile. I'm not fragile."

"No." His thumb draws a circle on my hip through my jeans. "You're not." He kisses me once, slow. Pulls back. "We go at your pace. And you stop me if anything doesn't feel right."

"Okay."

"I mean it."

"I know you do." My fingers work the buttons of his flannel. Steady. Sure. The shirt parts and underneath is a gray thermal stretched across his chest, and I pull that up too. His stomach is flat, scarred along the left side where the shrapnel hit, covered in dark hair that trails below his waistband. His body is hard everywhere mine is soft. Built for the things he's done. Maintained because he doesn't know any other way.

My mouth presses against his chest. His breath catches. My lips trace the scar on his ribs, gentle, and his hand tangles in my hair.

"Off," he says, and tugs at the hem of my sweater. The cream one. The one I wore because it sits off one shoulder, because his eyes went to that bare shoulder at Sunday dinner and stayed.

The sweater goes over my head. Underneath, a plain cotton bra, white. Nothing fancy. His gaze drops to my breasts, to the curve of my waist, to the soft stomach I stopped apologizing for somewhere around twenty-six. His jaw flexes. His hands come to my sides, palms flat, sliding up my ribcage slowly enough that my skin prickles.

"Christ, Mira." Rough. Reverent. His thumbs brush the underwire of my bra, then higher, tracing the swell of each breast through cotton. My nipples are already hard, visible through the thin fabric, and when his thumb drags across one I gasp hard enough that my back arches off the counter.

The bra unclasps from the back. His fingers find the hooks without fumbling, and it falls forward. Cool air on my bare breasts for one second before his hands are there. Cupping, lifting, his thumbs circling both nipples while his mouth finds mine again.

Then his mouth drops lower. Down my throat, across my collarbone, and his lips close around my left nipple. Hot. Wet. His tongue flicking, then sucking, and the sound I make isn't dignified. His right hand works the other breast, rolling the nipple between his thumb and finger while his mouth drives me out of my mind.

"Bedroom." The word barely forms.

He lifts me off the counter. My legs wrap around his waist, arms around his neck, and he carries me down the hallway without breaking stride. My back hits the mattress, and he follows me down, one knee between my thighs, his weight braced on his forearms.

Jeans next. His hands on my button, my zipper. He peels them down my legs, slow, taking my underwear with them. Cool air, then warm hands on my thighs, pushing them apart.

He looks at me. All of me. Spread on my bed, completely bare, lit by the hallway light spilling through the doorframe. His throat works on a swallow. His hands bracket my hips, thumbs pressing into the crease of my inner thighs.

"You're gorgeous." He says it like a fact, plain and inarguable. The same tone he used when he told me I was good at my job. Objective, certain, final.

Then his mouth is on me. No buildup, no teasing. His tongue parts my folds flat, one long stroke from my entrance to my clit, and my hips buck so hard his hands have to pin them down.

He doesn't rush. He eats me like he does everything else: thorough, focused, deliberate. His tongue circles my clit with the precision of a man who pays attention, reads responses, adjusts. When my thighs start to shake, he pushes two fingers inside me, curling forward, and works them in a rhythm that matches his mouth.

"Reid." Broken. My hand in his hair, pulling. "God, right there, don't stop."

He doesn't stop. His fingers thrust deeper, his tongue presses flat against my clit, and the orgasm rips through me in a wave that starts at the base of my spine and doesn't end. My back bows off the mattress. His name leaves my mouth on a sound close to a scream. His free hand presses flat on my stomach, holding me down while his mouth works me through every aftershock.

When he finally lifts his head, his chin is wet and his eyes are black.

He stands long enough to strip. Flannel already gone. Thermal over his head. Belt, jeans, boxer briefs. His cock is thick, hard, already leaking at the tip, and the sight of him fully naked in my bedroom makes my mouth go dry.

A condom from his wallet. He rolls it on efficiently, one hand. Climbs back over me. His weight settles between my legs, and his cock presses against my inner thigh, hot even through the latex.

"Look at me." His hand tips my chin up. "Keep your eyes on me."