“Unless…”
“No, I’m good. I had a physical before I bought this place, wanting to be sure I could do the work.” He smiled, slow and pained. “But I am never going to last if we start like that.” He slid down to kiss between her breasts. “You know what I think about when I’m in the shower, Meg? How you practically screamed that first time. Like no man had ever got you off by going down. Do you have any idea how much it turns me on to know I did?”
She strangled out a protest, catching at him and pulling him back up to her.
“Trust me,” she said against his mouth. “I won’t last either. I think about that, too. Everything. That last time when you were naked inside me…”
He made a feral noise and slid between her legs like a missile with a homing device. She was wet and needy and he was sharp and hard and they slid and locked together with cries of mingled relief and craven hunger. Trembling, they held each other close and tight.
“You feel incredible,” he groaned, moving carefully, gritting out, “I’m trying to be gentle.”
His fist knotted under her shoulder. Her nails dug into his back and she arched to take him as deeply as possible with each slow stroke. They kissed and broke away for gasps and mutters of encouragement, delicately tormenting each other into such acute need the world fell away.
When the tension became too much, when tingles danced across her skin, teasing her toward release, she jerkily urged him to quicken his pace.
“Meg,” he protested, abbreviated thrusts growing tighter and harder.
“Yes, Linc. Like that. Don’t stop, please don’t stop.” She basked in his lovemaking, released herself utterly into his possession and when climax hit, she fell through the middle of the earth.
He came with her, hard body clenched, a yell of pleasured triumph leaving his lips as he poured himself into her.
Chapter Nine
‡
Linc woke in their new master bedroom five weeks later and wondered how the hell this had all happened.
Meg slept beside him, her nose under the edge of the blanket, only her red-gold brows visible along with a few ribbons of her wavy ginger hair. She’d called Blake late that afternoon when Linc had taken her into town to see the apartment and brought her back here. Meg had told Blake she was staying the night and she’d been in this bed every night since.
Linc liked it. A lot more than he’d anticipated for a man who’d been such a confirmed bachelor. In fact, he was a man who liked to be in control. He was the type to set goals and achieve them. He didn’t go with the flow and leave things up to chance, but here he was, living with a woman he barely knew, anticipating a baby with her and feeling genuine excitement at the prospect.
And he liked Meg a lot more than he’d expected, even though they bickered sometimes. Last night was a perfect example. He’d thought this was a dumb place for the bed. He was paying people to finish his house, which annoyed him, and she’d had a lot of strong opinions about the bedroom. He knew she deserved to weigh in on the decision-making, this was her home, too, but it wasn’t like him to give up final say on something so personal. The bed had been the last detail after so many rounds of debate he’d been sick of it.
He’d made her cry. Which had made him feel like the biggest heel.
Meg kept telling him she wasn’t usually so emotional. He was learning to apologize and cuddle her through the tears. She was always perfectly reasonable after the storm of reaction played out. She’d figured out that putting a sandwich in front of him before talking about something serious made him a lot more willing to compromise and after he’d eaten dinner, he’d agreed to leave the bed where she wanted it, at least on a trial basis.
Now he had to admit she was right. He would even swallow his pride and say so once she woke up. He wanted to let her sleep, though. She was always yawning and, even though the morning sickness had eased up, still green in the mornings.
They were both working hard to meet each other’s needs and get past the little niggles of learning to live with someone.
And the make-up sex made up for the disagreements. Hell, walking into a house full of good cooking smells and the sound of a woman humming, finding clean towels and fresh shorts at the ready, seemed pretty mundane, but it was gold to him. The fact he could talk to her about anything under the sun amazed him. She was funny and compassionate and scarily smart. When it came to politics and headline news, she always had a fresh angle he hadn’t seen right away, provoking thought. She gave a damn about stuff, big or little.
She gave a damn about him.
That was the part that really got to him. He hadn’t wanted to care about someone. It was too big a risk. But Meg did sweet little things like fetch an ice pack or listen or research something online so he could get on with the physical work.