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  “Sweet Jesus,” he said. “I swear, you’re turning me inside out.” He curled his fingers beneath my t-shirt, started to lift then paused. “You sure?” he asked with his eyes narrowed.

  “Absolutely.” I’d never been more sure of anything in my life. In my head and my heart I knew Brick was the man for me. He was the man I wanted to have sex with for the rest of my life, no one else would ever compare.

  He slipped my t-shirt over my head and carefully stretched it over my wrist. The breeze fanning over the lake washed around my naked chest. A small shiver, part desire, part coolness, shuddered over me.

  “Are you cold?” he asked, touching his thumb to my tight left nipple.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Honey, you’ve got goose bumps,” he said with a frown. “Come here.” He gently tugged me in front of the huge stone fireplace, reached for a remote under the deer picture and aimed it at the logs.

  The fireplace burst to life. Orange and gold flames licked over the wood and flickered up toward the chimney, the heat instantaneous.

  “Lie down,” he said, sinking to his knees and pulling me carefully down with him.

  I stretched out on a luxuriously thick fur rug as the warmth of the fire enveloped me. The satin-soft hairs tickled my bare back and felt heavenly on my skin after the aches and pains of the previous days.

  “Better?” he asked, stretching out next to me on his side.

  “Yes.” I touched his lips with the pad of my index finger. “Thanks.”

  He was propped up on his elbow and his gaze and fingertip trailed first over my collarbones and then my sternum. “You’re bruised,” he said, running a light finger over my lower ribs.

  “Yes,” I said, trails of longing following his tracking finger. “But it’s fading.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t break more bones than you did.”

  “I know.”

  He ducked his head and touched his lips to the patch of blue-hued skin beneath my left breast. “Anywhere else?” he asked, his breath heating my flesh further.

  “My right leg.”

  He sat back on his heels and took hold of the elastic of my sweats. I lifted my hips and let him slide them over my buttocks and down my legs. On my right thigh sat a bruise the shape of the continent of Africa. It felt the same size too if I pressed it accidentally.

  “Ah, honey,” he said, studying it. “That’s not fun, is it?”

  I couldn’t bear the look of distress in his eyes. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt.”

  “Liar,” he said, dipping his head to kiss it gently. “I’ve had bruises half that size that have kept me awake all night.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “You’re the one who’s silly.” He stretched out next to me again. “You’re the one who thinks it’s okay to ride your damn bike next to hundred-ton trucks going at sixty-five miles an hour.”

  I frowned. “I’ve done it for years.”

  “But you’re made of flesh and blood and bones that break, Carly, not steel and rubber. You’ve got to accept that you’re breakable, you’re not invincible.”

  “I do accept that,” I said with a frown. “And why are we discussing this now?”

  “I need you to promise to rethink your training.” He slid his hand over my flat belly and just skimmed the top of my small black panties.

  I looked up into his face. It was set serious and his eyes bored into mine. “But the indoor track is so boring,” I said, “and”

  “I’m not saying always ride indoors, I’m saying re-think your routes, stay away from the big roads.”

  “But they’re best for distance and” I caught my breath as he dipped his hand between my legs and pressed me through the gusset of my panties. I opened my thighs and squirmed my hips. “I think you’re cheating to get your own way with this,” I said, swallowing tightly as he rubbed me gently and created a luscious spark in my clit.

  His lips curled into a naughty grin. “Not cheating,” he said. “Just determined.”

  My pelvis twitched for more sensation. “Determined to make me frustrated?”

  “No, determined to keep you safe,” he said through a smile. ”Keeping you safe and happy and satisfied has become my major goal in life.”

  “I like the sound of satisfied,” I said, cupping his jaw and feeling soft bristles on my palm.

  “Good, ’cause you will be.” He eased his fingers beneath the elastic of my panties and dipped into the first damp folds of my pussy. “On one condition.”

  I let out a small groan, part frustration, part desire. “What?”

  “You re-think your routes.”

  “Why is it so important to you?”

  “Because if I’m going to make love to you, not fuck you, not fool around naked with you, but make love to you, then I want to know you’re going to be hanging around for a while afterward.”

  I studied his eyes, so intense, so passionate, so unbelievably resolute.

  “If I hand myself over to you, Carly,” he said, softening his voice, “then you need to be there for me, don’t you get it, you’ve become my weakness. I’m a big, strong guy but if anything happened to you it would destroy me.”

  Something way deep inside me melted. We’d gone so much further than a few casual dates in such a short space of time. I’d always hoped we would, and now it actually had happened I felt I’d overflow with joy. “Okay,” I said, smiling with relief and happiness. “I’ll work it out with Sheila, plan new routes and work indoors more.”

  His mouth tipped into a grin and the small crease between his brows relaxed. “Good,” he said, dropping a light kiss onto my lips. “You won’t regret it.”

  I went to capture his face to kiss him again but he sank down my body, peppering me with light kisses as he went. The next thing I knew, my panties were being looped over my feet and he was settling between my spread legs. “You ready for the satisfied bit?” he murmured into my pubic hair.

  “Yes,” I said as my pussy trembled with desire. I needed him to touch me, love me, kiss me there. He was all that existed in my world. Brick was my obsession and it seemed I’d become his too.

  He slid his fingertips up the inside of my thighs until they touched me where I was slick with desire. His mouth pressed down onto my strip of hair in a long hot kiss. “I’m going to make you feel so much better,” he whispered, lifting his head and looking at my pussy spread open for him. “Take your mind off all your aches and pains.”

  “Yes, yes, please,” I murmured as my eyes closed and I became lost to the warm anticipation swirling around my body. I could feel his breath heating my damp flesh and his warm shoulders pressing on my inner thighs.

  His tongue began to explore, his fingers gently joined in, rubbing at my entrance and my clit. A shiver tingled up my spine and I arched my back, reached for the top of his head with my good hand and let out a low moan of appreciation.

  He slid his forearm into the hollow of my back and raised me to him, took me more fully into his mouth. I gasped at the feeling of dominant containment as his fingers pushed into me, filling me where I needed to be filled and touching me where I needed to be touched. The tip of his tongue circled and tangled with my needy nub as he sucked and kissed like a starving man.

  I raised my neck and looked at him lying between my legs. His head dipped up and down, his eyes were closed and his nose settled in my pubic hair. His shoulders were so wide, pressing on my spread inner thighs and shifting slightly as his fingers worked inside and around me. Beyond him I could see the water and trees, birds and lightly fluffed clouds. The forest carried on with its day as if I wasn’t about to be catapulted into a dimension of unbelievable ecstasy.

  I dropped my head back to the fur. My climax growing, blooming, tightening. “Oh god, Brick, please, I need to…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. His wicked tongue was lapping at my clit faster and faster, his fingers pulsing in and out of me, stretching me deliciously. The incredible sensations were buildin
g and ripening, overtaking me. “I’m going to…” Like an elastic band stretched taut, my orgasm was there, waiting to snap and spin me out of control.

  He stopped.

  All stimulation was suddenly gone.

  My orgasm, about to claim me, hovered just out of reach.

  “Brick,” I wailed, squirming on the fur in annoyance.

  He sat back on his heels between my legs, silhouetted by the sun bouncing off the surface of the lake behind him.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, unable to contain the judder of frustration that rippled from the soles of my feet to the tip of my scalp.

  “I want to come with you,” he said, shoving at his jeans.

  “Okay,” I said. “But please, now, just hurry.”

  His jeans and underwear were shucked off in an instant and he was naked above me. He folded his elbows on either side of my head so he was taking all of his weight. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his chest hair tickling my nipples.

  “I’m not that delicate.” I wrapped my good hand around his shoulder, gently resting my bad one in the center of his back.

  “You’re messed up,” he said. “I want to make you feel better, not worse. Let me know if I hurt you and we’ll stop.”

  “Brick.”

  “What.”

  “Stop worrying,” I whispered, “and just make love to me.” I tipped my hips and ignored a dull ache in my bruised thigh as I wrapped it around his upper leg.

  The hot head of his cock prodded my pussy, just above the entrance. The ring was icy cold compared with the heat of our skin. And it was so hard and smooth. I could make out the shape of it, the ring and the ball—it was a shock to feel details on my delicate flesh after feeling it muted behind a condom. I whimpered with need. The sensation of his naked piercing was so much better than I could ever have imagined. It felt so damn naughty it must surely be an enormous sin on the chart of sinful pleasures.

  “You feel amazing,” he said, adjusting his body so he was positioned right at my entrance. “Warm and wet and so open for me.”

  “Mmm,” I managed, feeling the ring slip in a fraction.

  He moaned and brushed my lips with his. “You sure about this?” he murmured. “’Cause I’m just about to reach the point of no return.”

  “Yes, yes.” I smoothed my hand over his broad back, his skin warmed from the fire. “I’m sure.”

  He began to push in, higher and higher, a hard, thick rod of flesh invading my pussy, stretching and filling me, widthwise and lengthwise.

  I sucked in a breath. I’d forgotten just how damn big he was. And the ring, it was adding to the rigidness of his cock, creating the perfect extra pressure on my supersensitive internal flesh.

  He froze above me. “Am I hurting you?”

  “No, it’s good.” I stared into his eyes. “It’s perfect, Brick, so perfect.”

  “Tell me about it,” he muttered, his lips hovering a whisper above mine. “It’s the sweetest damn thing I ever felt in my life.” He pulled out slightly then eased back in, gaining even more entry this time.

  We groaned in synchrony at the intensified sensations. My eyes fluttered shut.

  “Look at me, Carly,” he said, claiming the last inch of me until his balls pressed up against my butt cheeks. “Look at me while I make love to you.”

  I opened my eyes and stared into his. His lids were heavy, lazy and sleepy, but beneath them the green of his iris sparkled and the gold flecks glinted like nuggets at the base of a woodland stream.

  He began rocking his hips and his pubic bone caught my clit as his cock shifted gently in and out. I was consumed by him, pinned down and overtaken by his big body lying above me, around me, in me. Every one of my senses gorged on him.

  I moaned in desperation as my orgasm began to grow once again. It was there, on the inside and out. My G-spot was being stimulated by the ring in a way it never had been before. It felt glorious and I reveled in the climb to satisfaction.

  “Lord help me,” he whispered, “but I just want to do this to you forever.” His warm mouth came down on mine, open and firm as his tongue stroked my lips and my teeth then plunged deep into my mouth.

  I surrendered myself as the first tug of a delicious climax pulled my belly. A groan spilled from my throat and twisted with his matching one.

  My orgasm was there.

  It balanced for a moment of bliss before crashing through me. I cried out in ecstasy as his hips gave one perfect, forceful ram at the point of my wild spasms. Wave after wave of additional pleasure washed through me as his cock pulsed long and hard.

  He didn’t stop kissing me. Even as he came and I cried out, his mouth didn’t leave mine. His tongue probed and his lips stayed connected as I sensed a wet heat seeping into my core.

  Curling my hand around the back of his neck, I pulled him deeper. I had never felt so connected to another person. Never felt in such harmony with another human being or let anyone witness every not so perfect part of me.

  I’d never been in love with anyone or anything the way I was in love with Brick.

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  The vast cathedral was packed with sports stars, singers and other celebs all dotted amongst a huge host of family and friends. The congregation sat in their finery watching Mae French and John “Wolf” Jones swap expensive glittering rings and promise to cherish each other for all of time.

  In a navy trouser suit and with a feathered fascinator poking from my hair, I sat and let the timeless words fill my heart and my soul. Brick was on my right, his hand curled around mine and looking amazing in silver-gray Armani. Brooke sat on my left, Phoenix had his arm draped around his wife’s shoulders as she fiddled with her own wedding ring and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

  “You may kiss the bride,” the priest finally announced with a flamboyant flick of his wrist.

  The happy couple kissed, long, deep and lovingly and not at all appropriately for a place of worship. The crowd erupted in cheers. A choir sprang to life, singing one of Mae’s latest songs and a host of prettily dressed bridesmaids blew rainbow bubbles from small white pots as they walked back up the aisle.

  “You okay?” Brick asked as we wandered into the bright sunshine behind the happy couple.

  “Yes, fine.”

  “Not sore?” He slid on his Ray-Bans and rested his palm in the small of my back.

  “A little stiff, but that’s to be expected.”

  He rubbed his hand up to my shoulder and then back down again. The previous day I’d defended my U.S. endurance title and brought home the medal, again. It had been hard, harder than ever with a body that was only just at peak fitness and a wrist that had been weakened, but I’d done it and I couldn’t complain about a few sore muscles.

  “I’ll give you a total-body rubdown later,” Brick whispered in my ear. “If you think that would help.”

  “It would definitely help,” I said, tipping my cheek for the kiss he was sending down.

  I glanced over and saw Ramrod, who had the role of best man, chatting to a petite girl with amazing long curls of black hair. She had a pouting ruby mouth and a clipboard squeezed against her voluptuous chest. Ramrod had a sparkle in his eye that I recognized only too well. He liked her and something told me she had better watch out.

  “You’d look good like that,” Brick said.

  “Like what?” I looked up at him with a frown. Did he want me to curl my poker-straight hair to look like a lush waterfall?

  “Like that.” He nodded at Mae posing for photos, her arm linked with Wolf’s and a giant bunch of lilies in her hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  Brick swept his tongue over his bottom lip. “In white.”

  “White?”

  “Yeah, in a long white dress, walking down an aisle.” He swallowed, lifted his shades to the top of his head and captured my gaze. “Walking down an aisle, toward me.”

  I lifted my brows. “Is that a propos
al?”

  One side of his mouth tilted and he shoved a hand around the freshly cut hair at the base of his neck. “What would you say if it was, honey?”

  “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.” I grinned and tried to look cool even though inside I was erupting like a volcano. Marriage? He’d never mentioned it before but that wasn’t to say it hadn’t been on my mind as we’d gotten closer over the last few months.

  He grabbed me suddenly and dragged me up against his hot, hard body. I let out a gasp of surprise and put my hands on his chest.

  He simply grinned at my shocked expression and took four big steps around the back of a sweetly scented acacia bush to duck us out of view. “Then I’m asking,” he said down to my stunned face. “Carly Flannigan, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

  I gazed into his eyes. It was as if time stood still. The world stopped spinning. Everyone else on the planet ceased to exist.

  There was only one possible answer.

  “Yes.”

  The next thing I knew, he was kissing me in that special way, stroking and caressing me with his tongue and his lips. And in that moment I knew I had the ultimate prize. Brick, my gorgeous, sweet, caring and accepting Brick, was going to be my husband, and I knew full well he was going to be so much more fun to play with for all eternity than a cabinet full of gold medals.

  About the Author

  Lily Harlem lives in the UK with a workaholic hunk and a crazy cat. With a desk overlooking farmland, she allows her imagination to run free and revels in being able to use the written word as an outlet for her creativity. Lily’s stories are made up of colorful characters traveling on everyone’s favorite journey — falling in love. If the story isn’t romantic, sexy and exciting, it won’t be written, at least not by this author.

  Lily welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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