Free Faith in You by Charity Pineiro

words on his lips. “Say it again.”
    Paul brought his head up, brushed his lips with hers, but just barely, teasing as he whispered, “
Mi amor
, Carmen,” he repeated with more certainty. “But do you mean it?”
    Their lips were barely in contact, and yet electricity arced between them. She rubbed her lips back and forth across his, generating yet more sizzle.
    “Do you?” she questioned back.
    He gently grasped her head then to ease her away so he could see her face, his mood suddenly changing, growing intense. “I’ve never felt this before in my life.” His voice was rough. His body tense with the admission.
    It brought tears to her eyes that this very caring sensitive man had not had anyone to love him. But she did love him she realized, wanting him to know her feelings for him without doubt. “I love you, Paul.
Mi amor
. You are my love and I want you like I’ve never wanted any other man.”
    Paul closed his eyes and held her tight, his heart beating so loudly he thought she could feel it as she laid her head against his chest. He wanted her too, and not just for the sex. In the past two months, he had come to need her the way an addict needed a fix. She was his joy, his happiness. Her smile made even the dreariest of days come alive. She was everything he had thought was impossible for him. He loved her, with all his soul.
    “I … love … you,” he said past the thick lump in his throat, his voice rough to his own ears from the emotion. “And I want you. I want to make love to you, if you want that too.”
    She raised her head and the brightness of her smile drove away the dark of the night. “I want you. All of you, body and soul, Paul.”
    “You have me.”

Chapter 8
    Paul rose with her, water sluicing off their bodies, leaving a trail behind them as he walked to the house. She held onto his shoulders, continuing to smile at him as he strode through the French doors and into the living room. For a second she started to slip and he bounced her higher against his chest and settled her more securely in his arms.
    She tightened her hold and leveraged herself so she could whisper in his ear, “I could get used to this.”
    He bent his head and kissed her cheek. “So could I.”
    In a few short paces he was moving up the stairs, nearly running along the steps with her until he was at the door of his bedroom. He hesitated then, glancing at her. There was no hesitation in her gaze, only desire and love.
    He walked her to the bed and stopped, giving her time to reconsider. His bed was a gorgeous mahogany sleigh bed, covered in a rich, olive-colored silk brocade bedspread, and tossed with a half-dozen or more pillows in matching colors and fabric. She wriggled in his arms. “We can’t. We’ll soak it.”
    Paul smiled, turned, and fell onto the bed much the same way she had pulled him into the pool earlier. “So?” He bent his head, nuzzled the side of her neck, earning an encouraging moan from her.
    Carmen loved the feel of his mouth on her and the length of his body as she rested against him. He was so big, so hard. She sat up and straddled his waist. He looked at her quizzically and would have spoken, but she laid her hand on his mouth. “I want to touch you. All over.”
    He nodded, raised his arms, and crossed them behind his head. She sucked in a breath, unprepared for all his blatant masculinity. The muscles of his biceps and triceps were bunched. His pectorals were firm, developed. They created a small valley in the middle of his chest. She laid her hands there and his heart beat a tattoo against the palms of her hands. She stroked her hands across his chest, through the fine line of blond hair, to his paps. They hardened beneath her fingers and she skimmed her nails across them, eliciting a groan, and a shift of his lower body up into hers.
    “Relax,” she urged, bent, and tongued first one and then the other.
    Beneath her his body tensed and he shifted his hips upward, but she gave him