Clay didn’t wait for her to recover. He crawled up her body, a predator capturing his prey. He blocked out everything as he hovered over her, braced on his hands. He lowered his head, caught her lips with his, kissed her. Her fists released the comforter and rubbed along his lean flanks, circled his back. Her fingers dug into the taut muscles and he groaned into her mouth.
She tugged him closer, wanting his weight settled on her, wanting him buried inside her, stroking in and out. She would have crawled inside his skin if she could have, but even that wouldn’t have been enough. She wanted to be part of him. Needed him to be a part of her. Then his hips lifted and he grasped her hand in his.
“Touch me, Georgie. Take me in your hand and guide me inside you.”
She did as he asked, savoring the hard feel of him, a tiny part of her noticing he wore a condom. He sank inside her and her breath hitched. She’d gone a long time without a lover and never had she felt so complete, so alive, as when his body joined with hers. Clay stilled, watching her, both of them savoring the power of the moment. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t, knowing he was sinking inside her soul as easily as he had her body, stretching and filling her.
She wanted to speak, wanted to tell him how good this felt, how sexy and thrilling, how completely perfect she found this moment, but she had no ability to form the words. Instead, she just whimpered and moaned and clutched at his shoulders, lifting herself up to him.
Her fingers slid up the back of his neck, fisted in his thick, black hair. She tugged to bring his head down to hers. She wanted to taste him, fill her mouth with the flavor of him. She whimpered and Clay took mercy, claiming her mouth in a desperate kiss.
Desperate—yes, that defined how she felt. Desperation colored everything, every look, every touch, every kiss. Their bodies moved to a primitive rhythm as she reached for something less physical, something more spiritual than just a climax.
His breath, moist and heated, teased against her cheek. How was he not panting, gulping in great lungfuls of air the way she was? Tension wound tighter, then Clay shifted, changed angles, and light burst in her brain. She shattered into stardust, watching as tiny sparkles of Georgie rained down on them both.
She felt as though she needed to sweep up all that shiny glitter to save in a jar so maybe—just maybe—she could put herself back together. She felt infinite, a part of the universe, transcendent and powerful. Her vision cleared and she focused on Clay’s face. His features were etched with his pleasure and she clung to him as he tensed and poured himself into her. They’d each taken and then gave back to the other pleasure a thousand times more intense.
He collapsed over her, rolling to the side and wrapping his arms around her. His sweat-sheened skin pressed against the length of her body, and the lazy strokes of his hand up and down her back made her want to arch and purr like a well-satisfied house cat. Basking in the afterglow, she concentrated on the one thing she could manage without thought—breathing. As her heart slowed, the stardust that was the essence of her settled back into the bottle made up by her skin until she once again became the woman named Georgie Dreyfus.
Her brain, like her heart, slowed its madly whirling attempt to make sense of things. A thought, not even fully formed, tapped against her consciousness. Words. She should say something, but that would mean stringing syllables together to form a coherent thought. She was too tired, too incoherent for that. Words could wait.
Everything could wait. Her world may have just gone topsy-turvy, but it would still be there in the morning, waiting to be dealt with.
At least she thought it would. With her last shred of coherence, she noted that Clay kissed her forehead and murmured something that sounded like, “Sweet dreams, love.”
Nine
Georgie lay very still when she remembered where she was. Beyond the windows, the city was coming awake. Traffic. Voices. The noise of life in DC, but much closer than the sounds she normally heard from her third-floor apartment. Clay’s house. Clay’s room. Clay’s...bed. With Clay asleep beside her.
She wanted to flail. To hyperventilate. To totally freak out as warmth at her back reminded her that she’d plunged headfirst into waters way over her head. Memories of the previous night flooded through her and she fought the temptation to get up and flee. Not just run for the hills, but escape to the farthest place on earth. Totally not practical. Plus, she’d never been a quitter. Smoothing out her breathing, she cautiously turned her head.
Clay had ended up on his back, his right arm flung above his head. She lay curled on her side, her back to him, using his biceps for a pillow. His chest—his very masculine and muscular chest with its fine feathering of dark hair—rose and fell in time with his measured breaths.