Page 107 of Drive
“Are you with me?”he growled, gripping her wrists as though they were the reins of hiscontrol.
“I’m with you,” she answered,breathless.
Rainey’s eyes went wide when her back hit the mattress, but heat flared in them as Jacques covered her body with his. She’d pushed him to the edge of his limits, and she hadn’t even touched him. The woman was going to make him lose his mind, his heart, and even more farthersouth.
“I need to be insideyou.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
In her one, breathy assent, Jacques heard the whole world. And it was a world that belonged to the two of themalone.
His fingers sunk into her hair, pulling it free so that her locks spilled into his hands. “You are mine,” he confirmed, grinding his hips into her even though his jeans still held themapart.
“Yes.” Her admission was half-cry, half-sigh, and Jacques thought the beauty of it would slay him. He kissed her deep, worshipping her mouth as one hand tugged down the tie of her robe. When the palm of his right hand ran over the silken skin of her waist, finding nothing separating them beneath her robe, Jacques’s body trembled with need — the need that knows deliverance is insight.
Yet as much as he wanted her, as much as he needed to claim her, as much as Jacques longed to find release, his ache to join with Rainey transcended all other desires. He wanted to be as close to her as he could possibly get. He’d kept his distance longenough.
But when he finally closed that distance, joined with her, and tipped into bliss, he wanted her to be right there with him. Nothing less would do. She might not feel in her heart what he already carried in his, but this was a moment they had to chase downtogether.
So, he would have to fight for restraint as he brought her with him — which was maddening now that he pushed her robe open and could take in all of her beauty. She was the muse to conquer all muses. Human and divine. Rainey’s skin, as fair and luminescent as an opal, was an unbroken, creamy perfection, and he longed to taste every lastinch.
Her breasts now bared before him, not trapped under the confines of her clothes as they had been that afternoon, left him helpless. Jacques would have begged to kiss them if he’d been denied thepleasure.
But no denial emerged from Rainey’s lips, only fretful panting and intoxicating whimpers as he closed his mouth over her right breast and sucked to hiscontent.
“Oh, Jacques…” Rainey’s hands fisted in his hair again, and this sensation, this claiming, both familiar and new, filled him with gratification. She needed him. She wanted him, and one day, if he were very lucky, she might lovehim.
It was new, and it surprised Jacques with a frightening strength, but as he lay above her, desperate to enter her, Jacques Gilchrist knew he loved Rainey Reeves. He loved her for all of the reasons (and countless more) he’d avowed moments ago that he’dlikedher, but that had been such a cop-out. The promise of love had made it impossible to let her go, and love, unnamed and unknown, had driven him to take her on this journey. It was love that had possessed him to find a sanctuary for her tonight, and it was love that demanded to be consummatednow.
Jacques was smart enough and — for the moment, anyway — clear-headed enough to know that even though he was ready to admit this truth to himself, Rainey was nowhere near ready to hear it. Her life was in too great a state of turmoil to process that, and if he gave her the burden of his heart and all he felt, Jacques feared that she would runagain.
And he could not let thathappen.
So, for now, he would let his body speak for him. With kisses and caresses, he told her what his mouth could not utter in words. He moved from her right breast to her left, silently vowing his love. And Jacques was relieved to find that he spoke no monologue. Rainey’s heart, insistent and strong, beat hard against his worshipping mouth. Her body squirmed deliciously beneath his. In fits and starts, she pulled him against her, grinding her pelvis into his, driving him nearly out of hishead.
His fingertips grazed down to her smooth, quivering belly and then down again until he found the whisper of hair at the apex of her sex. He growled his pleasure, and Rainey bucked against him when he slipped two fingers inside her. Her soaked flesh gave him a heady surge of pride that mixed with a humblingtenderness.
This was sacred. Her desire was his holy ground, the place he was meant toworship.
The knowledge drove him down, and in one move, he’d shifted down her body, spreading her legs. With her knees pressed into his shoulders, Jacques gazed at her pink, glisteningshrine.
“Jacques,” she spoke, a question in hertone.
He answered with his mouth against her flesh. The taste and scent of her charged him like a live wire. He felt a jolt of desire rocket from the top of his head to the balls of heels. She was beauty. And need. And desire. Andfulfillment.
And love madeflesh.
All forhim.
He heard her call his name, but taste and touch had overthrown all other senses. He was tongue and lips and teeth feasting on pure love. He was hands and fingers cupping her rounded bottom as she trembled in his grasp. He was face and neck, cradled in the valley of her strainingthighs.
But with the third echo of his name, her words drifted through his haze. “Jacques, I… I needyou…”
He would admit to himself later that it took a moment — a rather long moment — for him to understand what this meant. But once he did, Jacques was up like a shot, and it was all he could do to kick out of his jeans andboxers.
He fell on her again, ecstatic at the sensation of his naked body pressed to hers. Soon, soon he would know what it felt like to be inside her. He pressed the tip of his cock against the searing heat ofher.
Soon—
