Vision in White

He nudged her onto the bed, eased down with her.

“The boots,” she began.

“I like them.” And he lowered his head to take her breast.

Her body shuddered and shone, it ached and sighed. Her mind simply emptied of all else but him and what he brought to her.

Slow hands, skilled lips swamped her body with sensations, layer after gossamer layer until they lay so thick she couldn’t find air through them.

“I can’t. I can’t.”

“It’s all right.” He slid a finger down, gliding over her, into her.

The veils ripped away with a blast of release.

As her body quaked through it, he ran his lips down and used his mouth to destroy her. She rose and fell. So fast, so fast. So much, as sensation poured over sensation until all blurred into shadow and light and mad movement. A sea of feeling swamped her, with a storm rolling through, pitching her toward desperation until she broke over the next swell.

When at last he slipped inside her, they moaned together.

She bowed up, nearly snapping his thinning leash of control. He stared into her eyes, gone dark, gone glassy while he drove them both mad with long, slow strokes. He felt her climb, watched her climb, steeped himself in her.

“Mackensie,” he said, just “Mackensie,” as he let himself fall into her eyes, into her body, and drown.

SHE FELT DRUNK AND DRUGGED. EVEN HER TOES FELT HEAVY, Mac thought. Air went in and out of her lungs again, and that was good. She was pretty sure she’d stopped breathing a number of times while Carter had . . .

Annihilated her, she decided.

Even now, when he was splayed over her like a man suffering from blunt force trauma, and their heartbeats knocked together like a couple of manic tennis balls, he touched his lips gently to the side of her throat.

“Okay?” he asked.

Okay? Was he out of his mind? You were okay when you slipped on the ice and caught yourself before you fell and broke an ankle. You were okay when you sank into a nice warm bath after a tough day.

You were not

okay when your system had been turned inside out and right side in again.

“Yeah.” What could she say? “You?”

“Mmm. Mackensie’s naked in bed with me. I’m really okay.”

“I’m still wearing my boots.”

“Yeah. Even better. Sorry, I must be heavy.” He rolled off to tuck her up against him.

“Carter, you’re nearly as skinny as I am. You’re not heavy.”

“I know—about the skinny part, I mean. Nothing seems to change it. Cor—somebody talked me into working with a personal trainer once. But who has time for all that? Buff isn’t in my DNA.”

“You have an appealingly lanky body. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Besides, you use it like a stevedore.”

“I’ve been saving up.” He grinned, studied her face. “You’re so beautiful.”

“I’m not. I know this because I’m a professional. I have an interesting face, and can play up its assets. I have a skinny build as well, which is reasonably toned from—well, thinking about working out as much as actually. It’s like a coat hanger. Clothes look pretty good on it. Otherwise it’s just wire.”

“You’re beautiful. Don’t let anyone tell you different . . . ly. Sorry, can’t help it. It’s differently.”

She laughed and snuggled in. “Yes, Professor. And aren’t we both being post-coital—ly—complimentary.”

“You’ve always been beautiful. You have red hair and sea-witch eyes. And dimples.” He thought if he had another fifteen minutes or so, he could lap her up like ice cream and watch her rise again.

She tipped up her head to smile at him. His eyes were closed, his face utterly relaxed. He’d look like that when he slept, she thought. If she woke up before him, she’d see him just like this.

Lazily, she traced her finger under his jaw. “And what’s this intriguing little scar here?”

“From a fencing mishap.”

“You fence—like Captain Jack Sparrow?”

“If only. I bet you have a thing for Johnny Depp.”

“I am alive. I am female. Next question.”

“He transcends generations. It’s interesting. Grown women find him compelling, sexually, as do the teenage girls I teach.”

“I saw him first. But I’m actually finding another man compelling, sexually, at the moment. Fencing mishap,” she prompted as he grinned.

“Oh, that. I was running from a couple of kids who wanted to entertain themselves by pounding on me. I had to climb a fence, and in my usually nimble and graceful way, which unfortunately doesn’t resemble pirates or the actors who play them, managed to slip. Gashed myself on the wire.”

“Ouch. When was this?”

“Just last week.”

Chuckling, she rolled on top of him. “Brutal little midgets.”

“They were. I was ten, but they were brutal little midgets.”

“Did you get away?”

“That time.”

He tugged the short ends of her hair to bring her down for a kiss. Sighing with it, she nestled her head in the curve of his shoulder.

It felt so good, she thought, cuddled up like this. Skin to skin, with the twin beats of hearts quieting, and every square inch of her body perfectly tended by a man she found ridiculously appealing on every possible level.