"Jesus Christ," he said at last, bringing a giggle from her. She gave his inner thigh a little nibble and then laid her head against his knee, gazing up at him. "Incredible. Fucking incredible."
"I'm glad you liked it," she teased.
"Liked doesn't begin to cover it. Nearly blacked out." Yeah, she knew all about that; he'd done the same to her just last night. Lifting his head, he frowned down at her and then reached for her elbow. "Come up here, beautiful. You can't be comfortable down there on your knees."
For him, she thought troublingly, she could probably be comfortable anywhere. But curling up next to him on the couch in the dim silence of his home was pretty comfortable too, with his fingertips tracing lazy patterns up and down her bare arm. She could imagine spending every night this way.
And thoughts like that were the reason she needed to get her ass back to New Orleans and stay there, no matter how much it would hurt to do so. Sighing, she turned her face into his chest, trying to escape from having any thoughts at all. All of them wounded her in some way or another. All of them.
But he soothed her without even trying. Everything about him was a balm to her soul, from the feel of him next to her to the slow rise and fall of his breathing. The steady beat of his heart, the way he took care of her. It was so soon, too damn soon to feel this way. Yet she felt it nevertheless.
"So . . . ," she began tentatively, "I go home tomorrow."
"Trying not to think about that," he murmured, sounding more than a little drowsy. "What time is your flight again? Close to two, isn't it? I can't quite remember."
"Yeah. Two-thirty-ish."
"Glad it's not early. I was thinking ahead and didn't even know it."
"I'm sorry you haven't gotten your money's worth for my hotel stay," she teased. "I've barely been in the room at all."
"That's the least of my worries, darlin'."
If she hadn't had two-thirds of a bottle of Cristal tonight, she probably couldn't have worked up the courage to ask her next question, no matter how important it was. "Where do we go from here?"
All at once it seemed too presumptuous; maybe he had no intentions of seeing her ever again and she was putting him in an uncomfortable spot. Maybe his fling with the blonde from the concert would switch back to on after Savannah was safe in New Orleans. But if either of those were the case, she needed to know now.
"I don't know," he said after a long silence she could barely force herself to breathe through. "I know what I want, and I know what I keep telling myself is the right thing to do."
"Let's start with what you want."
"I want to keep seeing you. I want to see you as often as I can, any way I can. I don't care if you come to me or I go to you."
She couldn't deny the warm glow that spread in her belly at his words. "And what's right?"
He sighed, picking up her hand and sliding his fingers between hers. "Letting you go. Letting you heal and get on with your life, not complicating things for you, not causing any strife between you and your family because you need each other right now more than you need me." He lifted his head a little so he could see her face. "What about you?"
"I couldn't have said it better," she admitted. "Except that . . . I'm finding myself needing you too."
Mike scoffed at that. "You don't need me. Sounds to me like you have your shit thoroughly together."
"Michael, what if part of my healing is you?"
"Then I'm here, darlin', and I don't plan on going anywhere. We can give it time," he suggested as she played absently with one of the buttons on his shirt. "No reason to do anything rash."
"That's just the thing," she said, now unfastening the button and sliding her hand through the gap she created to feel his skin, warm and firm beneath her stroking fingers. "Part of me wants to be rational. But most of me wants to be rash."
Oh, Jesus. The husky need in her voice when she said that . . . there was nothing to do but kiss her. She melted against him like his mouth on hers was a relief, the answer to everything, to all their problems. If only.
He could fall for this girl. So hard. So easily. Hell, he was fooling himself to think he hadn't already begun that particular descent. Like sitting on the Ferris wheel with her tonight, they were getting higher and higher, and the only way to go from here was down a dizzying drop.
Her flavor went to his head, sweet and seductive; his hand slid up her smooth thigh as she shifted her weight until she was straddling him. Mike urged her up on her knees so he could push both hands under her dress, raising it to her waist so that her lace-covered mound was inches from his face, his lips. Savannah's breath caught on a little moan as he pressed kisses above the waistline of her black panties. Here, she smelled like heaven, pure feminine arousal mingling with sweet floral notes.
"Did you get these today, too?" he asked, giving her panties a tug with his teeth.
"Yes," she whispered.
"All for me?"
"All for you."
With a groan, he buried his face between her legs, breathing her in, hooking his fingers into the black lace to pull it down, to get the taste of her on his tongue to go with the scent of her swirling in his head. Her hands came down hard on the back of his couch, on either side of his head, as he gave her one long lick between her folds. So wet, so delectable. Her thighs trembled at his sides. Glancing up her body, he saw her mouth open, her eyes closed, lashes fluttering against her pale cheeks. When she looked down and met his stare, city lights caught in her eyes, his reality reflected there. Sexiest fucking thing he'd ever seen. Funny how often he thought that when he was with her.
In their position, he could only get her panties partway down her thighs, but he liked the degree of difficulty, liked the way she arched sexily to help him reach her. He kissed, licked, delved, even managed to get his hand between her legs and slip a finger inside, then another, where she was so fucking hot and wet and tight. Despite coming like a freight train earlier, he was throbbing to get inside, but contented himself with massaging her sweet swollen clit with his tongue, slowly thrusting his fingers.
"Michael," she sobbed, grinding against him, clenching at the cushions before letting her hands go to his head.
"That's it, baby," he murmured against her, drinking her like the fine wine she was. "Let me taste you come."
"Oh, God!" The cry echoed through his loft, and he would remember it until his dying day. Her pussy pulsed erratically around his fingers as her climax swept her away, as she gasped and sobbed over him, her knees giving so that he had to hold her up with his free hand at her back. When she was slack and done and shivering in his arms, he stood with her still wrapped around him and walked back to his bed. He laid her gently down and stripped off his clothes, feeling her weary gaze on his every movement. Then he moved to her, pulling her panties the rest of the way off, rolling her over to unzip her dress and slide it down her body. In the light coming through the window, her skin practically glowed. Her bra was the last to go, flung carelessly aside so that she was gloriously naked.
By then she was reaching for him, wordless and bewitching, and he slipped on a condom from his nightstand before crawling over her body, leaving a trail of kisses up her belly and over her breasts. The fine sheen of sweat on her skin lent a saltiness to her inherent sweetness. How could he ever think he could let her go back to New Orleans for good, never taste her again, never absorb the delectable vibrations of her body again? Two nights with her, and he was hers in a way he had never been anyone else's.
They groaned into each other's mouths as he pushed into her, her grip on his dick almost more than he could stand but nothing he could escape from. She wriggled her legs wider for him, and he caught one over each of his arms while she gasped at the new depths he reached in her. "Are you okay?"
"More than," she murmured back, lacing her fingers behind his neck as he began to move into her, his nerve endings on fire.
He attacked her neck with kisses. "Can't get enough of you. Never. Never will." She made no reply save for a whimper, meeting him in the steady, rolling rhythm he set. Slow, to build the ache. "I want you begging, Savannah. Fucking begging me to come. If it takes all night, I've got it. If you have to miss your flight, I don't care. Even if it has to be the last time, I don't want you to ever forget."