He kept his weight off her by leaning on his elbows, but they touched body to body all the same. Noah rubbed against her, kissing and caressing, until he was hard again. Insatiable, but then a man of his size surely had large appetites.
“Again?” she asked weakly.
“Baby, now that I don’t have to hold back, we can go all night long.” His wicked grin aroused her anew, though her body needed more time to recover. She tugged at her wrists and ankles. He tsked. “Now, now. We’re nowhere near ready to let you go.”
“We?”
“Me and my friend.” He nudged her with his semihard erection.
She couldn’t help but laugh.
Noah’s lighthearted teasing disappeared under an intense regard. “You are so pretty. Really, really beautiful.” He kissed her with a tenderness that scared her.
It was just sex. So she kept trying to convince herself.
“You’re strong, sexy, and not one to panic. I like that in a girl.”
“You’re not so bad yourself in a morgue,” she teased, trying to keep things light between them. Noah shouldn’t look at her like that. Like he could see to the very core of who she was inside. “But I’m not calling you master.”
He chuckled. “You’re no slave. Submissive, yeah. But just in bed, unfortunately.” He sighed. “It was too much to hope that you’d be this way all the time.”
“Ass.”
His grin widened. “Oh, you’re going to be punished for that. I can’t wait.”
Neither can I. And then she yawned.
Much as he wanted to continue where they’d left off, Noah decided to give them a break. After all, they did have a thief and murderer to catch. He meant it about keeping her safe. But after a taste of her, he knew he couldn’t go back to a platonic relationship. Not until he’d played this out. He’d never met a more fascinating woman in his life.
She had a psychic sense of the past, like him. She didn’t freak about him being psychic. And her body, that face—he didn’t think he’d ever tire of looking at her. The painting had intrigued him. But seeing her in the flesh, smelling the warm woman, tasting those ripe lips, watching her react in a crisis and respond to people with genuine warmth—he had a bad feeling he was falling for this woman he’d just met. He hugged her close and let the contentment wash over him.
Hours later, he awakened, aware something was different. A woman lay in his arms. Noah hadn’t slept with a woman in a very long time, not since Deirdre had kicked him out of her bed and out of her life. Since then, he hadn’t felt drawn enough to a woman to bother. The past normally intruded when his guard went down, and he had a hard enough time focusing on pleasure when his mind would drift to past decades during orgasmic bliss. And if the past didn’t distract him, those dark desires would find a way to intrude into his relationships. The need to control, to own and command with no room for argument.
With Lara, he’d been with her every step of the way. No odd visions, no sidelines into western expansion or Brownville’s sordid history. Even better, she’d responded to his need to dominate with a desire to submit. As if she’d been made for him. Hours later, his need for her had yet to abate. He cupped her breasts and rolled her nipples with a gentle touch. That sixty-nine had been fucking fantastic. Coming in her mouth was a dream come true, but he wanted to fill her up with his cum. To feel her pussy milking him of every drop while she cried out and tightened around him.
Just feeling her with his hands, he’d taken note of how tight and hot she’d been. He rubbed his thickening shaft against her smooth ass and wondered how’d she’d react to some anal. He had every intention of claiming her everywhere. But if she really hadn’t been into anal play before, he’d need to help her through it slowly. Maybe a few days of teasing, some plugs, lots of lube, and some…
Noah shook his head. He had a job to do. A painting to find, and now a killer to catch. He should have been catching up on sleep and focusing on his plan to recover Vala’s portrait. Instead he wanted nothing more than to sink inside Lara. He needed to figure out a way to extend his stay in Brownville until he could get her out of his system.
She murmured his name and sighed into her pillow, and he said to hell with everything but feeling her around him.
He continued to plump her breasts, pleased at how she sighed and trembled, slowly wakening. He rubbed against her ass, not penetrating, just loving the friction against his cock. But he wanted more, so he angled his shaft down and pushed between her slick thighs, wet with arousal.
“I’m hard for you, baby. Aching to fuck you again.”
She moaned and laid her head back, giving him room to leave more love bites over her neck. She liked it, his roughness. His dominance. Just one more way they fit. Too easily, he could imagine her in Bend with him, sharing a house filled with antiques and stories of their own unique pasts.
The idea of permanence and tomorrows with Lara unnerved him. Even with Deirdre, he’d taken it slow and easy, dating for a good year before opening up to make a permanent commitment. And look at how that had turned out.
Best to confine his focus to the here and now, to fucking Lara’s pussy and filling her with white-hot cum. “That’s it. Spread your thighs.” He reached around to flick her clit, gratified to find the bud hard and moist. He glided his thumb over her, nearly ready to thrust inside when she begged.
“Please.”
She shifted her hips, and the next thrust between her thighs ended up with his tip at the entrance to her pussy. Lara’s hips rocked over him, and Noah swore when she gloved him in one hot, hard motion.
“Noah, yes. You feel so good inside me.”
Hearing her moans and pleas as she flexed her hips and rode him, Noah let her have her way. This time. “You sexy little witch.” He gritted his teeth. The ecstatic pressure built in his balls and settled at the base of his spine. His orgasm readied to explode. “Shit, Lara. Baby, here it comes. All up in you.”
He pinched her clit and came, dimly aware that she whispered her pleasure as a blast of his cum jetted into her. The shocking rush sucked him dry, taking not only his sperm but his thoughts and sensations until he floated in a cloud of bliss.
She continued to ripple around him, the jerks of her body bringing him back to the present with a mind-tingling welcome.
“Noah. What a nice way to wake up.”
He laughed, his voice hoarse. “I’d say good morning, but it’s more like three or four.” He flexed when he started to slide out of her. But, softened and replete, Noah accepted the withdrawal.
“Oh, I like you in me,” she protested.
“Me too. But I need a short break.” More like a long nap. The woman had sucked the life out of him. Literally. The thought that he could have gotten her pregnant if she hadn’t been on birth control struck him as absurdly appealing. Lara round with child. A Madonna with mischievous eyes, a generous heart, and a mind that never stopped working. The image of that pioneer mother suckling her infant son came to mind. Lara would be like that. Loving. Accepting of any child with differences. So unlike his own mother…
“What are you thinking about?” she whispered and rolled on top of him.
Normally Noah would have been ultra-aware of cleaning up the mess, of extricating himself from a clingy female with haste. But he felt too drained to care. He liked that he’d messed her. His seed marked her, a reminder of their close tie.
“Not thinking about much of anything. You wore me out. I don’t think I can move.”
She gave a soft laugh. “Good. Then you’ll be too tired to give me any more orders.”