He cracked an eye open and rubbed a palm down the center of his glistening chest, as she lay back down at his side. He looked deliciously rumpled.
She trailed her fingertips through the hair on his stomach. “Hey.”
He turned his dopey, pillow-creased face toward her, smiling lazily. “Hey.”
“How’s your heart?”
He reached for her hand and placed it on the left side of his chest. “You tell me,” he said, piercing her with an intense stare.
Kat bit her lip. “It’s pounding.”
“It always is when you’re near me.”
She took his wrist and did the same, placing his large hand over the top of her left breast. Unhurriedly, Carter lifted onto his elbow, watching his hand and her face with childlike wonder.
“It’s flying.” His gaze moved from his hand, leisurely up the curve of her neck, stopping hungrily at her lips before it rested resolutely on her eyes. His silence made the hair on the back of Kat’s neck lift and tingle, while the air around them began to thicken and buzz.
“Do I do that to you?” he asked, tracing the gooseflesh along her arm.
“Every time you look at me.”
The tips of his fingers danced lightly along the lace edge of Kat’s bra. Her chest heaved at the sensation and her eyes fluttered closed of their own volition. With featherlight touches, Carter moved his hand over to her right breast, tracing every curve, caressing lightly, while purposefully missing the places Kat was desperate for him to touch.
Shifting his body closer, Carter began to draw languid figure eights up toward her collarbone, mapping its shape and pressing against the pulse points in the valley of her throat. It was such a simple thing, for him to touch her that way, but Kat was unable to hold back the soft whimper slowly building with every brush of his gentle hand. His index finger dropped from her throat and meandered knowingly, erotically, down between her breasts, over the fabric of her bra, to the soft skin of her stomach.
Kat held her breath when he reached her belly button. He circled it twice before his finger dipped into it teasingly. Unable to hold her head up any longer, Kat lay back against the pillows, giving herself over to her senses, while Carter continued his wonderful exploration of her more-than-willing body.
“Your skin is so soft here.” His hand skimmed the waistband of her shorts. “So soft.”
Kat gasped when his lips pressed onto the same spot, and purred when Carter’s tongue licked along the trail his finger had just taken.
“Carter,” she moaned.
“What is it, baby?” He moved gradually so his body was leaning over hers.
Kat’s hands moved from his hair, finding his broad shoulders that flexed powerfully under her palms. His chest pressed against her.
“I miss your lips.”
His thumb skimmed her jaw, as his stare burned across her mouth.
“Please.” The word escaped Kat’s lips as a wanton whisper.
Desperate need bubbled below the surface of her skin. The inevitable explosion of passion, always so present when she was with him, was only one touch away.
“Tell me what you want,” he said gruffly. “Keep looking at me like that and I swear to God I’ll give you anything.”
“Kiss me,” she begged. “Just kiss me.”
* * *
Kat’s mouth, pink, wet, and soft, entranced Carter. They’d kissed a million times, in a million different ways, but her request seemed so fucking huge that, for a split second, he could do nothing but stare. A divine image of her mouth around his dick immediately flashed before him, simultaneously drying his throat and weighing his body down to hers in seconds.
Skin to skin, flush and warm.
Carter tried to calm himself but struggled. Fact was, his body didn’t feel like his own. It was as though something had taken it over, like it was being controlled by something.
Something bigger. Something incomprehensible.
He closed his eyes and exhaled a soothing breath.
Who was he kidding? Kat had taken him over. Kat had control over him.
She’d had a hold on him since he was eleven years old. And if he hadn’t realized it before, he sure as shit knew now that he’d loved her every second, minute, and hour of those sixteen long years. He’d lost himself to her on a lonely, dark street one heartbreaking night in the Bronx, and now he finally understood that he’d never, ever truly found himself again.
Sixteen years. Five thousand eight hundred and forty-four days.
Jesus, how had he survived without her for so long?
He loved her, desperately, and, truthfully, it terrified him. He’d missed her without even knowing her and fantasized about her whenever he’d begun to lose himself to the bullshit surrounding him as he grew up. If he weren’t so hypnotized by her, Carter would have laughed at his own blindness and the ridiculous denial he’d immersed himself in since Kat had come back into his life.
As subtle as it was, her body writhed underneath him. Her legs shifted against the mattress and her hips lifted, rocking toward him, seeking out any type of friction. She was exquisite. He opened his mouth, gasping into her. His entire body shook when he pressed his lips to hers, and he grunted when she pulled him down, deepening the kiss quickly.
Their tongues met, reunited, touching, tasting, and rubbing together, inside her mouth, then inside his. Carter gripped her waist with one hand and her face with the other as their passion began to snap and sizzle. Sweet Jesus, the heavy ache pounding between his legs was torturous. He ground his hips against her stomach, showing her what she did to him. Not that she would ever understand. She had no comprehension at all.
He’d been such a damned fool to think he could ever get away without speaking those three words to her. The three words he’d never uttered to another human being in his entire fucked-up life. They’d taken his ass by surprise, but the relief that came with them was more freeing than any parole board’s release letter could ever be.
He moved his mouth from her lips to her jaw and down her neck. She bent backward, curving under him so that he could access any place he wanted on her gorgeous body. He began with her chest, yanking the straps of her bra down the tops of her arms so he could pull at the cups, releasing her to his eager hands and demanding mouth. With his eyes closed, Carter began to lick, suck, and tease, tugging her between his lips. He moaned when she scratched his back, pulling him closer while whispering her need for him.
Carter let his lips caress her hip, the soft flesh of her belly, all the way to her panty line peeking temptingly from beneath her shorts. He wanted her on his tongue. He wanted to feel her in his mouth and make her come so hard she’d see stars. He wanted to devour her, bury his entire face in that shit and never come out for days. He wanted her gasping and soaked. He wanted—
“I missed you,” Kat breathed.
Astounded by the pained expression on her face, Carter rested his chin against her hip.
“I missed you while you were gone.”
Carter’s heart fractured. “I missed you.” He brushed away the stray hair lying on her cheek. He shook his head. “God.” He kissed her. “I was a fucking fool to walk away from you.”
Walking away from her was as close to being burned alive as Carter imagined he would ever get. The pain had crippled him, rendering him immobile.
When the boys had visited him in Kill and tried to explain how Max had fallen apart when Lizzie left, Carter had struggled to understand. Now he knew exactly what pain his friend had been through—was still going through.
Carter never wanted to feel that pain again. He doubted very much that he would even survive it a second time.
“I know why you did it,” Kat whispered. “And if you walking away helped you realize that you love me,” she continued in a hushed tone, “then I’m happy you did.”
Christ, she was right. He’d walked away and cracked into a thousand pieces, bare, with nothing to hide behind. Realistically, Carter couldn’t refute admitting his true feelings had been inevitable. And now that his finely executed punk-ass demeanor had been thoroughly fucked, Carter at last accepted just how exhausting it had been.