Free Stone-Cold Lover by Mel Teshco Page B

understanding. Then, as if collecting himself, he strode through the elevator doors. Automated lights flooded on, dazzling them, and the moment was gone.
    He set her gently onto her feet. And suddenly everything seemed awkward, contrived, as if they were young lovers experimenting with sex for the first time.
    “Can I get you a drink?” he asked brusquely.
    “Please.” She followed him to a cedar bar.
    “Scotch, vodka?”
    “Scotch. Thank you.”
    Even when he was fully dressed in jeans and a white dress shirt, she couldn’t help but admire his body as he bent and selected a bottle from the lower shelf. He was built like an athlete. Wide shoulders, long, muscular legs and a flat stomach with a washboard ripple.
    As he splashed the amber liquid into squat glasses, she asked, “Why did you bring me here? Why now?” When he turned, eyes hooded as he handed her the drink, she urged, “Tell me. Please.”
    He took a swallow and then placed his glass back onto the bar. “I didn’t plan it. But I realized you didn’t want to go home…you never were comfortable there.”
    He’d known! The harbor mansion had never felt welcoming. She’d always felt like an outsider looking in, never quite fitting into the world her father had expected her to inhabit.
    She placed her untouched drink by his, studying his unreadable face. “You’re right. But so what?” She needed to hear how he felt without having to always second-guess him.
    “You want me to spell it out?” he growled. “Want me on my knees, groveling?”
    “It would make a nice change,” she said, deadpan.
    His expression shifted and suddenly he threw his head back and let out a deep belly laugh, the sound rich and pleasurable as it rolled off his tongue and bounced off the pristine walls. His stare glittered, eyes eating her up. “Touché.”
    She didn’t say a word, just stared and stared. Then he abruptly dropped onto his knees, his face open and letting her know it was her move.
    She didn’t need coaxing. She moved toward him and he opened his arms, drawing her against him. His mouth lifted to meet hers and they kissed softly at first, exploring each other with tender restraint.
    He pulled back a little, looking into her eyes with utter seriousness. “I have to ask you one last time because, God help me, I’ll never have the courage to ask again—is this what you want? Am I what you want?”
    Loretta stepped back. “Yes.” Oh yes. She licked her swollen lower lip, eyeing his heat-stoked gaze, his sensual mouth. He was giving her control.
    She lifted a hand, tracing the jagged scar along his brow and realizing it would be a permanent reminder for him of his human days long ago, before he’d become indestructible.
    He must surely know she loved everything about him. His flaws were just a small part of his beautiful package. “I want no one else. Just…you.”
    His breath hissed out, and suddenly they were in each other’s arms again, their mouths fused while each peeled the clothes frantically off the other.
    Time was a luxury they had now, with Cray freed from his curse. But their hunger was urgent, primal, needy .
    With their clothes scattered around them, he stood and propelled her backward, the wall suddenly against her spine. She eagerly wrapped her legs around his hips, emitting a gasp when the head of his cock nudged her slit, opening her to his sex.
    He thrust forward and her head abruptly rocked back, a cry of pleasure-pain tearing from her lips as he filled her to the hilt.
    He held the position for just a few seconds but it seemed long minutes as she writhed in his hold, so very desperate for more. He pulled back, the head of his cock just barely nudging her slick entrance, and she almost shrieked with the need to have him back inside her.
    His ice blue stare anything but cold, he flashed a look that was wholly possessive as he demanded throatily, “Tell me you want me.”
    Her chest heaved as she fought for breath, her breasts