A hard-muscled arm locked around her waist and sent her airborne. She shrieked, arms flailing; then she bounced on the bed and the air left her lungs with a "whoof." She had time to suck in just a little air before Sam landed on her, his heavy weight flattening her and forcing another exhalation. He was laughing as he subdued her with ridiculous ease; in five seconds flat she couldn't wiggle anything.
To her astonishment and rage, she discovered he had another erection; it throbbed against her closed thighs. If he thought she would open her legs for him again after – He shifted, expertly pressed with his knee, and her legs opened anyway. Another shift and he slid smoothly inside her, and she wanted to scream because he felt so good and she loved him and he was a jerk. Her lousy luck with men was still holding.
She burst into tears.
"Ah, babe, don't cry," he said soothingly, moving gently inside her.
"I will if I want to," she sobbed as she clung to him. "I love you, Jaine Bright. Will you marry me?"
"No way in hell!"
"You have to. You owe me your next paycheck for all the cussing you've done tonight. You won't have to pay up if we get married."
"There's no rule like that."
"I just made one." He framed her head with his big hands and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, wiping away the tears.
"You said shit."
"What else is a man supposed to say when he sees his glorious bachelor days coming to a swift and ignominious end?"
"You've been married before."
"Yeah, but that didn't count. I was too young to know what I was doing. I thought fucking was the same as loving." She wished he would be still. How could he carry on a conversation while doing what he was doing to her? No – she wished he would shut up, and keep doing exactly what he was doing, except maybe a little faster. And a little harder.
He kissed her temple, her jaw, the almost-dent in her chin. "I always heard that sex was different with a woman you loved, but I didn't believe it. Sex was sex. Then I got inside you and it was like sticking my cock in an electrical outlet."
"Oh. Was that what all that shaking and yelling was about?" She sniffled, but she was paying attention. "Smart-ass. Yeah, that's what it was about, not that I was the only one doing some shaking and yelling. It was different. Hotter. Stronger. And when it was over, I wanted to do it all over again."
"You did do it all over again."
"That proves it, then. For God's sake, I've already come twice and here I am hard again. That's either a fucking miracle, no pun intended, or it's love." He kissed her mouth, slowly and deeply, using his tongue. "Watching you throw a temper tantrum always gets me hard."
"I don't throw tantrums. Why is it when a man gets mad, he's aaangry, but when a woman gets mad, it's just a tantrum?" She paused, struck by what he'd said. "Always?"
"Always. Like when you knocked over my trash can, then yelled at me and poked me in the chest."
"You were hard?" she asked in astonishment. "As a rock."
She said wonderingly, "Well, son of a b – gun."
"So answer my question."
She opened her mouth to say "yes," but caution made her remind him, "I don't do really well with engagements. Gives the guy too much time to think."
"I'm skipping the engagement part. We're not getting engaged; we'll just get married."
"In that case, yes, I'll marry you." She turned her face into his throat and inhaled the heat and scent of his body, thinking that if the perfumers of the world could bottle whatever it was Sam had, the female population would be in perpetual heat.
He growled in frustration. "Because you love me?" he prompted.
She smiled, her lips moving against his skin. "Crazy, wild, absolutely, insanely in love with you," she affirmed. "We'll get married next week."
"I can't do that!" she said in horror, drawing back to stare up at him as he loomed over her, slowly moving back and forth, back and forth, like seaweed floating on the tide. "Why the hell not?"
"Because my parents won't be back from vacation for… I've lost count of the days. About three weeks, I think."
"Can't they come home early? Where are they, anyway?"
"Touring Europe. And this is Mom's dream vacation, because Dad has Parkinson's, and even though the medication really helps, he's gotten a little worse lately and she was afraid this would be their last chance. He was always too busy before he retired to get away for that length of time, so this is special to both of them, you know?"
"Okay, okay. We'll do it the day after they get home."
"Mom won't even be unpacked!"
"Tough. Since we aren't getting engaged, we can't do the big church wedding thing – "
"Thank God," she said feelingly. She had gone through that experience with number two, the bastard, with all the expense and planning and trouble, only to have him back out at the last minute.
He heaved a sigh of relief, as if he had been afraid she would say she wanted a big wedding. "We'll have everything ready to go. All your parents will have to do is show up."
Jaine had been doing a really good job concentrating on the conversation while he was doing what he was doing, and she was impressed out of her skull that he could keep up his side of the conversation under these circumstances, but her body suddenly reached the point of no return. She gasped, her hips rising convulsively against him.
"We'll talk later!" she said hoarsely, grabbed his butt, and pulled him hard into her.