“And I’ve been weak and desperate since I saw you at the dock.”
Clancy dipped his face to hers, licking the sweat off her lip. Their eyes locked for an instant, his dark blue gaze intense, ravenous. Evelyn lay still. She had never felt so naked in a man’s presence—flesh and heart. She was on the verge of surrender and happy about it. No danger. No fear. She had already put her life in his hands. At this moment, she was pinned to the sheets under Clancy’s weight and the force of his desire. And there was nowhere else she’d rather be.
Evelyn gazed up at him, in awe of how quickly this man’s face had become precious to her. She studied his features carefully in the afternoon light, deciding it was the qualities as a whole that tugged her closer. That was the only word she had for it—tug. It was like she was being pulled toward him in a rip current of attraction.
His was a complex face, rugged but approachable. The light in his eyes was often kind but was just as often no-nonsense. The angles and planes of his forehead, cheekbones, and chin were masculine, but when he smiled, everything was transformed to the wild-child boy she’d known. That wide and straight smile cut directly through to Evelyn’s heart. She would go anywhere for that smile.
But right at that moment, his lips were made for kissing and being kissed.
He was studying her, too. He dropped his attention to her mouth, neck, and exposed breasts. Clancy swallowed hard, as the muscles in his shoulders and arms strained.
“Are you holding back?” she asked.
He seemed surprised. “I just . . . I might take off like a runaway speedboat—all power and speed and no control.”
“What if I don’t want you to control yourself?”
“You don’t?”
“What if I’ve had enough of living a controlled life? What if this is my last free day on earth and here I am, a thirty-two-year-old woman who’s never been ravaged, never completely surrendered to passion?”
His eyes widened.
“How sad would that be?”
“Prett-tee damn sad.”
“So go ahead. Ravage me. Do it, Clancy Flynn. We aren’t fourteen anymore. I promise I won’t break. And then later, we can play with each other nice and slow.”
“Ah, Evie. God, what you do to me.”
Clancy pulled her arms up over her head as he used his knees to push open her thighs. He nipped at her breasts, his mouth leaving sucking kisses all around, then on, her nipples, driving her out of her head.
Oh, she wanted to sing and dance and send a thank-you note to fate, because this—this—was exactly what she had been missing. The man who fit her. The man who loved her. Not just any man.
This man.
Clancy dropped his lips to hers again, demanding, taking, his tongue claiming her mouth. They crushed themselves together in need. And though the ceiling fan spun and the doors were open to the ocean, it was warm and humid in his bedroom, and their bodies dripped and slipped across each other. She felt the perfection of nature, how the two of them were designed to meld into one. Clancy had become hard and thick, and she was now fully open and swollen, begging for completion. It would only take the smallest flex of his hips and he’d be inside her.
Clancy pulled back, ripped his lips from her nipples and freed her wrists. Oh, God. His mouth dragged down her sternum and ribs, slick with sweat. His tongue flicked and licked, and his teeth scraped, down . . . down. . . .
“Look at you. God, Evie. Thank you. Thank you for coming back to me.”
He placed his mouth on the puffy outer lips of her sex. It was magical what he did, nibbling and sucking and caressing the most delicate and sensitive part of her body. Every move he made was for her pleasure. Just for her. His fingers slipped inside of her while his mouth stayed in place, sucking, teasing, nibbling.