I felt embarrassed now, and my cheeks heated. “She told me Steph was, quote, practically your fiancée, unquote.” I shrugged, but inside I cringed.
“No way. She’s just a kid.” He lifted our linked hands to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “I’ve never seen her as anything other than Marnie’s friend.”
I breathed deeply and pushed back my anxiety. She didn’t mean anything. It was just his mother making trouble. Steph visibly adored him, and maybe was even in love with him, but Zack had no feelings for her. That’s all I needed to know.
…
Inside the rental cottage he flicked on the kitchen lights, grabbed two tumblers from the draining rack, and then opened the freezer door. “Don’t know about you, but I need a drink.” The half-empty vodka bottle appeared in his hand, and he set it all down carefully on the table before tugging out a chair for me. Without waiting for my reply, he poured two generous measures, leaving the bottle open.
I lifted the glass he nudged toward me and took a cautious sip. Straight from the freezer it had an oily feel to it, was thicker and more viscous. Even more potent. The alcohol hit the back of my mouth and stole my breath, making me gasp. Zack was unaffected. He knocked back the drink in two gulps and poured another. My eyes were watering from the icy burn, and he must have misunderstood.
He groaned, abandoned his drink, and pulled me up and into his arms. “Don’t cry, Hol. There’ve been enough tears today.” He nuzzled against me, seeking my mouth and pressing his lips to mine, his tongue demanding entrance. My senses were flooded with the sensation of vodka again, mixed with the unique taste that was all Zack.
Gentle at first, it was as though something flicked a switch inside of him, and he turned up the heat. One hand tangled in my hair, the other curled around my hip. He pulled me against his lean body, his erection nudging my belly. I acknowledged the pressure on my hair and lifted my head to meet his lips full-on. Hot and hungry, he controlled the kiss, held me in place, and then slid his hand down across my butt before tugging at my skirt.
I knew the exact moment he discovered my continued panty-less state. Warm fingertips skated over the curve of my ass and paused, a strangled groan emerging from his throat. “God, Holly. I have to be inside you.”
I sucked in a breath through lungs that were forgetting their basic function and curled my hand around his neck to pull him back to me. Every inch of me ached for him, for the feel of him moving inside me, possessing me. Making me whole.
Zack walked me backward a step, and another, and one more until I came up against a wall. I didn’t care. I wanted him so badly, so much, I’d strip naked in the city center if that was the only way to have him. My inner thighs were slick with arousal and every moment he made me wait, the tendrils of desire wrapped tighter. At this rate, I’d come the second he entered me.
“Don’t move.” He took hold of both wrists and lifted them above my head, then yanked at my shirt, the mother-of-pearl buttons scattering under his fingers. Finding my bra underneath, he pulled down the cups to expose my breasts. They looked even bigger like that, the nipples swollen and aching. “Oh fuck.” Zack paused, his lips moving with no sound. “You are so fuckin’ perfect like this, Holly.” His whisper made me squirm with anticipation. He palmed the sensitive flesh, the slight calluses on his hands creating a delightful friction. “All mine.”
“Hurry. I don’t want to wait for this.”
He kissed me again, branding me with his mouth and burning a path straight to my soul. His hands disappeared from me, but only to dig into a deep pocket and extract the condoms. I fumbled with his pants while Zack ripped into the foil, and within seconds he was sheathed. This was going to be a wild ride.
Chapter Twenty-One
The mechanics of what we were about to do were hazy. I’d never had sex standing up before, but when Zack hauled up one of my thighs and looped his arm underneath it, I saw in a flash how it’d work. He pushed into me with a steady precision, and I moaned, completely lost in this, in him.
He stretched me wider than before, the angle giving rise to an almost painfully deep penetration, and my knees trembled. Already, I hovered over the cusp of my climax, and I clenched around him, trembling and greedy.
I leaned back, using my shoulders to support my weight as I tried to take Zack even deeper. It’s like my body was on autopilot. Take Zack. Take everything. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, and I panted, unwilling to pause for even a moment. Christ, that felt good. Thick and oh so hard, he filled me and brushed against every sweet spot with ease.
He flattened his free hand on the wall by my head, vodka-scented breath flashing over me. His eyes were half closed, a look of total concentration on his beautiful face, and he shifted position slightly, changing the angle. I gasped, the move driving everything from my head apart from this. The heat and hardness of Zack hammering into me, relentless and unstoppable.
A myriad of sensations burst across my skin in a vibrant cascade. His chest rubbing against my hypersensitive nipples. My clit tormented by every movement, every plunge and withdrawal. The hungry mouth that claimed mine, nipping at my lower lip. His scent wrapping around me. My heart bursting.
“Holly,” he moaned, lips against my cheek. I was close, trying to delay my climax until the last possible moment, dragging out the intensity of this coupling to relive it later. He closed his mouth over the sensitive flesh at the base of my neck and dug his teeth into the skin.
I could have been a fly stuck in a spider’s web, unable to move, pinned by his bite and his cock. Shudders racked my body, the orgasm erupting in every cell, heating my blood to boiling and robbing me of breath and sight. He followed me, thrusting once more and trembling from the violence of his release.
Slowly, I caught my breath, my heart still racing. Zack rested his forehead on mine, the intimacy cracking through another layer of my heart’s shell. At this rate I’d do something majorly stupid before the night was out. I couldn’t fall in love with him. What if he never came back? And I wouldn’t be here, anyway. I needed to go back to London and salvage my promotion. Or if he came back and didn’t want me? I’d never survive.
He withdrew and left me instantly empty, then released my thigh and helped me stand on unsteady legs. “I’m going to fuck you all night long. Just so you know.”
After disposing of the condom, he took my hand and led me silently to the bedroom. My skirt was bunched around my hips, bra pulled down, and shirt hanging off my shoulders, but I’d have followed him down the street like this if he’d asked. He paused next to the bed and cupped my cheeks. “Slow this time,” he murmured.
True to his word, he removed my clothes with gentle fingers, dropping them in a heap by my feet, and kissing every fresh area of skin he found. He spent a long time crouched behind me, petting and kissing my butt and the dip at the base of my spine. Every time I tried to touch him, he shook his head. “No. I need this.”
His breath tickled the nerves in my stomach, and I trembled, but he didn’t stop. He took his time, every brush of his lips lighting a new fire inside me. Eventually he kissed his way up to my mouth, but still in his lazy, unhurried fashion. At last I could slip my arms around his neck and then help him to undress. He slid the condom packet onto the bedside table before abandoning his clothes with mine. Still he would not be rushed.
I admired his body, the muscles clearly defined in the soft light from the bedside tables. The tattoos on his chest and arm, the dark fuzz of hair that led down to his proud, hard dick, and the molten look in his eyes, all added up to an irresistible package. And tonight he was mine.
I’d examined the inked seagulls this morning—a lifetime ago—and now I used my fingertips to trace the complex pattern on his arm. Most of it was made up of the traditional Maori swirls and loops, but on the inside of his arm I found a quotation. “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” I frowned as I searched my frazzled brain for the source of the words. “Nietzsche?”