Beginning Again: Book 1 in the Second Chances series (Crimson Romance) by Peggy Bird Read Free Book Online Page A

hand to help her up. “No, not at you, sweetheart, with you.”
    As soon as they got into her bedroom, she stripped down to her white lacy bikini panties and he to his black silk boxers. He clicked on the light by the side of the bed.
    “Don’t. Leave it off, please,” she said as she reached for the light switch.
    “I want to look at you. I want to see your face when you come.” He brushed her hand away and sat her down on the bed.
    She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I don’t know that I want you to look at me like that. I’m not some twenty-year-old.”
    “You’re beautiful and age is only a number.”
    “Maybe we should … ”
    “Maybe we should finish what we’ve started. And don’t tell me any more sad stories about how I’ll hate it in bed with you. This tells me otherwise.” He took one of her hands and pressed it around the erection that was tenting up the front of his boxers.
    She jerked her hand back as if it had been scorched. My God, he was big everyplace, wasn’t he? As she scuttled into the middle of the bed, she wondered what she had gotten herself into. And what was about to get into her.
    He pulled the comforter and sheets down and wordlessly urged her under them. His eyes were smoky with desire, which somehow both comforted and exhilarated her. How he could calm and arouse her at the same time was a mystery she would have to solve later. But not now. Right now she had to concentrate on storing up oxygen for when he kissed her again.
    And figure out why he wasn’t joining her in bed. As she watched, he felt around in the pocket of the trousers he’d shed and she realized what he was doing. “You don’t need a condom. I can’t get pregnant and I just had tests for everything imaginable. They were all negative and I haven’t been with anyone since.”
    “And you’re not worried about me? What I might have?”
    She looked at him with unblinking eyes. “If you say you’re okay, I believe you. I trust you. If I didn’t, you’d never have gotten into my apartment, let alone my bed.”
    He hesitated so long, avoiding her gaze, she began to wonder if he was having second thoughts. Or didn’t believe her.
    Finally he swallowed hard and said, “I’m not sure I’m that deserving, but thank you. I am okay.”
    What did he mean, he wasn’t deserving? It was out of character for the Collins she’d seen so far. Her desire-clouded mind struggled to make sense of it. Before she could, however, he shed his boxers and knelt over her saying, “So, where were we?” and she forgot what she was supposed to be figuring out.
    His legs astride her and with a wicked smile on his face, he slid his fingers under the waistband of her bikinis and began to slip them down over her hips, seeming to enjoy the way she squirmed as he touched her. When he’d gotten the panties off, he moved slowly, kissing as he went, back up her body until he was where he had been when they were on the couch, his legs between hers, his erection tight against the cleft of her sex, his arms braced on either side of her chest. His mouth hovered over hers and he whispered, “We were about here, I think.”
    “Oh, God … I think … yes, that’s … it’s exactly where we were.”
    But they didn’t stay there for long. As he resumed his ministrations to her breasts, and the kisses that robbed her of a will to be anyplace but here, her body began to feel restless, demanding more from him. A desire she’d never felt before began building deep in her, confusing her with the intensity, exciting her with the power. He seemed to understand and left off kissing her mouth and began to move down her body again, kissing, nipping, and licking between her breasts, to her navel, her hipbones. When he got to her sex, he used his tongue to tease again, this time the nub of nerves where the coil of heat had taken up permanent residence. He began slowly circling, then rapidly flicking the tip of his tongue across her clitoris as her