Laurel explored the smooth, hard planes and ridges of his body, marveling at the strength there, marveling at her own response to his fever-hot skin. She couldn't get enough of touching him, wanted to press into him and feel that strength and heat against the length of her and absorb it through her skin. When he lifted the hem of her top, the sound she made in her throat wasn't protest, but the eager anticipation of pleasure. Naked from the waist up, she moved into him, what was left of her breath vaporizing in her lungs as her breasts flattened against him.
Jack growled low in his throat as he kissed her. Like a sculptor admiring a work of art, he traced his hands down her back, caressing, exploring, interpreting every graceful curve, every plane and hollow. Lifting her into him, he pressed her hips to his, pressed her into his arousal, letting her know how badly, how urgently, he wanted her. He felt her tongue dip into the hollow at the base of his throat, and the flames of desire licked at his sanity.
Need making his fingers clumsy, he fumbled with the button and zipper at the back of her skirt and pushed the garment out of his way. At last she was naked in his arms. He stood back for a moment and drank in the sight of her with greedy eyes.
She was slender and sleek, but there was no mistaking her feminine curves-or her uncertainty about showing them to him. A delicate blush rose up her neck into her cheeks as he studied her, as if she were afraid he would somehow find her lacking.
"Viens ici, chérie," he whispered, holding out his hand to her. "Come here before your beauty undoes me."
He pulled her tight against him, kissing her greedily, hungrily, letting her know his words were more than just the clever prattle of an experienced Lothario. They were truth.
Slowly he lowered her to the red flowered cushions of the bench that was directly behind her, following her down, sprawling over her. She arched her back off the cushion as he found her breast with his mouth, capturing her nipple between his lips and sucking hard on the turgid tip, then sucking gently, massaging her with his tongue.
Laurel tangled her hands in his dark hair and moved restlessly beneath him, soft, wild sounds of yearning keening in her throat. She wrapped her legs around him, lifting her hips against his belly, seeking contact, seeking to assuage the urgent ache that burned at the core of her desire.
He stroked the swollen petals of her woman's flesh tenderly, seductively, opening her to his touch like a precious, fragile flower. She gasped with pleasure as he eased two fingers into the hot, tight silken pocket between her thighs. Then he found the sensitive bud of her desire with his thumb, tapping against it with the slightest of touches, then rubbing gently until she was breathless.
"You like this, sugar?" he whispered, stroking deep, then easing slowly out of her, opening her, stretching her.
"Yes-no-" she gasped, lifting her hips.
"Enjoy it, darlin'. Let yourself go," he coaxed. "Let me make you happy," he murmured. He kissed her quivering stomach, mouth open, hot, wet, tongue dipping into her navel. "Are you ready for me, angel?"
"Yes. Jack, please…"
She gulped a breath and strained against the fist of desire that tightened and tightened within her. She'd never wanted like this. When Jack sat up, reaching for the button on his jeans, Laurel reached out to help him. Sitting up, she pressed fervent kisses to his chest as she closed her fingers around his thick, pulsing shaft.
Jack's control broke at the feel of her small hand stroking him. He tumbled her back on the cushion, pushed her hand aside and guided himself, squeezing his eyes shut as he eased into her.
"Mon Dieu, you're tight!"
Laurel moaned. "I'm a little tense," she said breathlessly. "It's been a long time for me."
Her admission caught Jack by the heart and squeezed. "No," he said, bending down to kiss her. "It's the first time. Our first time. Just relax and enjoy, darlin'."
Laurel closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him as he began to move against her and within her. He kissed her deeply, then playfully. He nipped the side of her neck, murmured hot, sexy words to her as they moved together. The pleasure built and intensified, swelling inside her until she could barely breathe for the pressure of it.
Jack's kisses grew more urgent, more carnal, his thrusts deeper, driving, straining, filling her to bursting. The time for play faded, paled in the face of something hot and intense that enveloped them and threatened to consume them. Something like fear gripped Laurel by the throat, and she tightened her hold on him, not sure where this was taking her or what would happen after.
"Don't fight it, sweetheart," he whispered urgently. He rubbed his cheek against hers, swept her hair back from her face, kissed her temple. "Don't fight it. Let it happen. Take us to heaven, angel."
Not giving her a choice, he slipped a hand between them and touched the tender nerve center of her desire, taking her over the edge. Taking them both over the edge.
"Mon Dieu, angel."
Even in the dim light of dusk he could see the color rise into her cheeks as she turned her face away from him. "Oh, no, sweetheart," he said softly, skimming his fingertips along her jaw. "Don' be shy with me now. Don' be embarrassed. That was beautiful. That was perfect."
"I'm not very good at this," she mumbled, still not looking at him, despite the gentle pressure he applied to her chin.
"At what? Sex?"
That, too, Laurel thought, chagrined. "Talking afterward."
"Your ex-husband, he was a mute, or what?"
She laughed at that because she was still feeling embarrassed and because laughter was what Jack had been aiming for with his teasing. He tickled the side of her neck, and she cringed, turning toward him at last. "No. He just never had much to say afterward."
Jack looked down into her face, reading vulnerability there in her wide dark eyes, and it tugged at his heart. So fiery, so sure of herself in other ways, she was uncertain about this most natural and basic aspect of her femininity. How different she was from Savannah, whose expertise in the bedroom was the stuff of legends. He wanted to know what forces had shaped their lives to make them so different from one another, but this wasn't the time to ask. This was the time to reassure.
"What was he-paralyzed from the neck down?" he queried dryly.
No, Laurel thought, he was sweet and kind and honest, and he'd tried his best to make their marriage work, but she had failed him in so many ways. What she had felt with Wes was friendship and a sense of emotional security, not all-consuming passion. She had used him to anchor her life and had given him little in return, had in fact turned on him when The Case had been at its most stressful, all but pushing him out of her life.
"Hey, sugar..," Jack murmured. "Don' look sad, angel. I didn' mean to drag up bad memories."
If it weren't for bad memories, I'd have no memories at all. She looked away from him and tensed herself against the ridiculous urge to cry at his concern.
"We've all of us got bad memories," he said. "But they don' belong here, between us. We came out here to have fun, remember?" His fingers found another ticklish spot along her ribs and tortured a little smile out of her. "We were doin' pretty damn good there for a while, no?"
"Yes," she whispered, the corners of her mouth turning up in pleasure, in embarrassment.
"That's it," he praised her in a warm, seductive voice. Settling himself on top of her, he lowered his head until they were nose to nose, lips to lips. "Smile for me." He smiled as she did. "Kiss me," he whispered, groaning with pleasure as she complied.
Her breath caught as he shifted his hips and eased into her again. Need took precedence over old memories. "Reach out and take something you want for once." She wanted this. She wanted Jack-for now, for the pleasure he could give her and the bliss that transported her mind away from the problems that plagued her. Heaven, he called it. She arched her hips against his, closed her eyes, and held on to him for the return trip.
Midnight was nearing when they finally dressed. The process was complicated with much touching and teasing and long pauses for kisses and hot, whispered words. Laurel felt like a teenager-not the quiet, serious teenager she had been, but an ordinary, hormone-crazed teenager out for a night of forbidden fooling around with the class bad boy. Jack played his role to the hilt, trying to take off every article of clothing she put on, trying to talk her into spending the night on the bayou with him.