Her Forgotten Betrayal(49)

“Please don’t let this end. Don’t let it go away like the rest.”

“Your dreams?”

“The nightmares.” Her eyes teared up. Then he was distracting her again, sweeping away the last of her clothes, then his, never completely leaving her. “They’re horrible. But they’re all I’ve had to hold onto. Before you came back, I thought they were the only things that would help me connect with my past. And every time I wake up, they’re gone. All I’ve been left with is pieces. Pieces of me. None of the truth I need ever stays.”

Cole stroked her hair, his hand coming to rest between her head and the pillow.

“I’m staying, Shaw. This time, no one’s going to convince me to leave. I’ll be here every time you wake up from now on, until the nightmares are gone, and as long after that as you’ll have me. Tell me what you want, and I’ll make sure you have it. Whatever you need, it’s yours.”

“You. I need you.”

She wound her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his waist. She’d thought she wanted to be free and independent. And maybe the old Shaw had been. Apparently she’d believed she would only be safe if she were alone. Now she knew that the real courage she needed to muster was the strength to simply reach for what she wanted most.

“You’re what I’ve always needed,” she said. “I’m certain of it. I can remember feeling completely alone when I was attacked. There was no one I trusted to run to for help, even if I escaped.” She gasped. He was pressing his erection to her throbbing core. “Now, here you are.”

“Here I am.”

His fingers massaged down her back. He licked up her sigh, then nipped her breast with his teeth until her nipple popped into his mouth. He sucked the pebble-hard tip, caught the arch of her spine, and held her suspended off the mattress while he drew on her breast, then its twin.

“Please, Cole.”

Her sore hand was a problem. But evidently her problem-solving abilities were not to be underestimated. Feeling liberated and loose and alive with what Cole was doing to her, she cupped him with her good hand, gliding up the satiny, hard length of him, her fingers caressing the head, finding the moisture there that promised he was as out of control as he was making her.

Who needed her old life back, when what she had now could feel this perfect?

“Don’t tease me,” she half warned, half begged. “Please don’t make me wait.”

His chest rumbled with erotic laughter. “Who’s teasing whom?”

He throbbed in her grasp, then slipped away. His palms swooped to her butt and lifted her to him while he slid down her body, kissing her navel, then lower.

His mouth was a demon between her thighs, nibbling, sucking, shooting stars off behind her closed eyelids.

“Cole!” It was too much.

She grabbed his hair and tugged until he inched away, the tip of his tongue still tormenting her.

“My beautiful Shaw.” He kissed his way back up her body, rose over her, and lifted her arms above her head. He placed her wrists to either side of the pillow. “Let me love you, darlin’. It will make me the happiest man on the planet.”

She nodded, enchanted by his revelation of how much she pleased him. The words she wanted to say in return refused to release. Because his mouth was already stroking fire down her body again, worshipping every inch of her. He pressed her thighs wider, then his fingers and lips finished destroying her, taking her backward and forward between who she’d once been and who she was now, until there was no more confusion or pain or fear.

There was just Cole and her.

There was safety and demand. There was trust and need, giving and taking. There was every part of her she’d missed before him, before them.

She felt herself climbing, surging, her body weeping for him, peaking into wave after wave that took her higher. And when she thought she would fall, taking her even higher.

“I can’t…” She reached for him again. She couldn’t take any more.

“You can do anything.” He rose over her body, covering her as he had at the very start. He shuddered as her legs wrapped around him. “I’m right here with you, darlin’.”

“I’m flying apart.” She felt him pressing into her, past her defenses, but not nearly deep enough.

“We’ll fly together. From now on, Shaw. It’s you and me, together.”

Their gazes connected as he pushed all the way home, locking his body deep inside hers until they were completely one. And she knew. This exact moment, this weightless exhilaration of feeling the world miles below them as they soared in each other’s arms, it had all been theirs before.