he turned back to her, the emotional storm riding within him as unfamiliar as the tears filling her eyes now.

"love you?" he questioned her roughly. "no, kimberly. this isn't love. this is a part of my soul that rips out every time i have to let you go. but by god, i won't let you give up everything you've fought for like this. it's only five years."

she shook her head slowly, a single tear falling from her eye, breaking his heart.

"five years that i can be warm beside you. five years that i can laugh with you, that i can love you. five years versus something that was my mother's dream, but never mine. i want you, not the curse that estate has become."

he should have argued further, he thought. he should have made her see exactly what she was giving up, but he couldn't fight past his need to hold her, to kiss her. his need to shelter her and hear the screams he had every intention of fucking out of her.

he reached out, his body clamoring to take and take until he was so sated he collapsed in exhaustion. but nothing could still the need to give until he saw her eyes fill with happiness, with satisfaction.

his fingers touched her cheek gently.

"be certain," he whispered. "because i'll never let you go, kimberly. it would kill a piece of my soul to ever have to let you go again."

her hand covered his, pressing it to her lips as her lips caressed his palm with a butterfly touch.

"do i have to tie you down and rape you, jared?" she asked him with a tearful smile. "or are you going to tie me down and love me?"

"no restraints," he vowed as his arms went around her and he swept her against his chest. "just me and you, kimber. me and you and the fires that are going to explode around us."

kimberly gasped at the heat and warmth of jared's body as he carried her into the house and up the stairs to his room. he didn't exactly walk; his movements were too quick, too filled with purpose for such a sedate pace. but neither did he rush.

her lips moved to his neck as he stared up the staircase. her teeth nipped at his flesh, her tongue soothing the ache as a broken growl left his lips. she wanted to give him the pleasure he had always given her. she wanted to consume him, wanted to melt so deep into his body that she never had to worry about being apart from him again.

finally, he was pushing his way into his bedroom and laying her on the bed as he stared down at her, his gray eyes turbulent with the swirling shades of gray that colored his eyes.

she propped herself up on her elbows, watching as he undressed. he tore his clothes from his body, dropping them carelessly onto the floor until every hard, muscular inch was revealed to her avid gaze.

"are you attached to that dress?" he growled then.

she glanced down at the dress in surprise. "it's just a dress."

"good." he reach for her, his hands hooking in the neckline, and before her amazed eyes, he tore the fabric from her body.

laughter welled inside her and would have escaped her throat if he hadn't covered her lips with his own, coming over her as he pressed her back to the bed, his legs pushing demandingly between her thighs.

"i don't know how long i can wait," he whispered between the kiss. "i'm dying for you, kimber. so damned starved for you that i feel as clumsy as a callow youth."

"never clumsy," she panted as his hands framed her breasts a second before his lips moved to her hard, aching nipples.

pinpoints of rapturous sensation began to tingle over her body as his mouth covered one distended tip. his mouth drew on her with a hunger she couldn't have imagined. she thought she had known him at his most passionate, his most aroused, but she had been wrong. this was jared, raw, unconcerned with control, but no less intent or powerful for it.

her head fell back on the bed as her hands moved over his shoulders, his head, her fingers tangling in the short strands of his hair. she wanted, no, she needed to touch him. she had to feel the bunching muscles of his shoulders, hold his head to her as he sucked at her breast, driving her insane with the pleasure.

when his lips began to move lower, his tongue licking over her flesh, she arched to him, knowing that as the fires inside her began to rage out of control, that jared would once and for all put out the flames.

"i love your taste," he groaned as his mouth poised over the aching, wet folds of her cunt. "so sweet and hot, kimber. i could eat your pussy for hours."

"later," she begged. "god, jared, i've been in misery for a year now. make it stop..."

her eyes closed as a ragged moan escaped her lips. his tongue swiped between the sensitive lips, circled her swollen clit then moved down to tongue the entrance to her greedy vagina.

"damn you, fuck me," she demanded roughly as her pussy wept with its need. "i've waited long enough, jared."

she needed him inside her, needed him to fill the empty aching places, not just in her body, but in her soul as well.

"condom," he panted as he pulled himself to his knees, his eyes wild, his face flushed. "...have to find one..."

"no." her hands fell to the jutting length of his cock, wrapping around it as they both groaned at the touch. "i'm protected, jared. i took care of it. i need you like this. all of you."

her eyes met his. neither of them had known another's touch without that layer of protection. she needed no protection from jared. she didn't want any.

as though her words had broken the last threads of his control, he lifted her thighs, opening her further as he came over her, pushing her hands from the rigid length of his erection, and positioned himself carefully.

he was breathing hard and fast, just as she was. perspiration covered his body, dampened his hair. he stared down at her, his eyes nearly black as he guided the wide, flared head of his cock through the narrow slit of her pussy.

kimberly whimpered with the pleasure. the mushroomed crest was satin soft and hot as fire as he tucked it against her opening.

"i don't want to hurt you," he groaned, leaning his forehead against hers as he fought for breath.

"i like the pain, remember?" she tried to smile, but her breath was catching in her chest with each new, violent burst of pleasure. "take me, jared. all of me..."

he closed his eyes, his hand moving to grip her hip a second before he surged inside her.

kimberly's eyes flew open wide, not from the pain, but from the filling. he stretched her impossibly, working his cock inside her with stiff, hard strokes that had her gasping for breath, had a scream building in her throat with no air to let it free.

"god, kimberly," he groaned desperately as she struggled to take the thick width of his erection. "fuck, you're so damned tight. too damned tight."

she felt the penetration of the thin membrane she had protected for so long. her back arched as a cry escaped her, her legs lifting to allow her knees to clasp his hips, to open herself further for him.

her hands gripped his shoulders, fingers biting unconsciously into his skin as the next hard stroke sent him deeper, stretched her further. each breath was a gasping cry. each inch that sank inside her, another slice of ecstasy she feared she would never survive.

finally, his hands gripped her hips hard as he pulled back a second before he pushed inside her, hard and heavy, a spearing impalement that let loose the scream building inside her.

electricity sizzled over her flesh as tremors shook her body. she could feel him inside her, every hard, throbbing, heavily veined inch of his cock buried to the last depth of her pussy.

she stared up at him as his eyes opened, gasping for breath, her eyes wide, her hips rocking against him. and she could say only a single word. "more..."

jared lost his mind. for a second, for one blissful second he thought he could hold on to the control he needed not to ravish her. but that word, that single word, so filled with hunger, with desperation, tore it from him.

he came over her fully, catching his weight on his elbows and began to fuck her with all the driving, greedy desperation he had locked inside his soul for a year now. his hands tangled in her hair, holding her still as his lips came over hers, his tongue pushing past her lips as he surged repeatedly into the fist-tight depths of her cunt.

she was tight. so tight she gripped him like a silken vise, the walls of her cunt dragging over his cock and driving him closer and closer to the edge of release.

her lips opened to him as eagerly as did the rest of her body, her hands moving over his shoulders. flames whipped over his body as his chest tightened with a surge of protectiveness and overwhelming emotion.

his arms cradled her close to him as he felt his scrotum tighten almost painfully at the base of his cock. he gritted his teeth against the whiplash of sensation that began to move up the base of his spine. the slick, satin softness of her tight cunt flexed and rippled around his erection. tiny fingers of bursting sensation speared inside the swollen flesh, striking with destructive results to the depths of his balls.

he couldn't hold back. she was burning in his arms, searing him with her pleasure, her cries urging him to thrust harder, faster, to fuck her with the last measure of strength he possessed. he was helpless against her need, her hunger.

jared was shocked at the sound of the ragged groan that escaped his chest as he began to hammer inside her. quick, deep strokes, the sound of her wet pussy sucking at his cock, driving him over the edge of reality.

"jared...jared..." she was gasping his name, her body tightening beneath him as he felt the first warning contractions of her cunt around his cock.

she was close, so close.

"i love you, kimberly," he growled at her ear then, the emotion surging through him like a tidal wave. "come for me, baby. come for me now, sweet baby. right here in my arms."

as though his voice was the trigger needed, she bucked in his arms, her breath strangling past her lips, as he raised his head to watch those incredible eyes as the storm took her.

they were nearly black, wide, unfocused, as a keening cry escaped her lips. her sweet, sweet pussy clamped down on his cock like the tightest fist as hard, spasmodic shudders began to convulse through her.

then he felt it. the rush of her release vibrated against his erection as her legs tightened further, her pussy flexing, releasing, gripping and sucking at his hard flesh until his head, his heart, his very soul exploded in a release that had a rough, desperate groan tearing from his chest.

on and on it went. every pulse of his seed inside the liquid heat of her body was like a whiplash of fiery sensation. his hips pressed deeper, determined to spear into the very heart of her womb as he spilled every drop of his semen into the flexing depths of her cunt.

when it was over, it was like a puppeteer cutting the strings on his creation. jared collapsed over her, loath to pull free of the velvet depths of her body. he had to be crushing her, but her arms wrapped tight around his neck, her lips whispered, pleaded that he hold her forever.

"i love you, kimberly," he whispered again, humbled by the emotions that swept through him as exhaustion claimed them both. "i love you..."

chapter twenty-one

three weeks later

"your mother is insane," kimberly accused jared as she hung up the phone and lowered her head into her hands. "six months? six months to plan a wedding?" she gazed up at him pleadingly from where she sat at the kitchen table, her coffee cooling in front of her. "i have to wait six months, jared? that's no fair."

he stood across from her, leaning lazily against the counter, his jeans lying low on his hips, the top snap still undone, his chest bare. god, he was so sexy she just wanted to eat him up.

his dark hair was tousled, his lips still appeared swollen. she barely remembered biting that lower curve as her release rocked her body earlier that morning. looking at him now, she couldn't imagine how she had managed to keep her hands off him as long as she had.