Midnight Bayou

busy day to come into town for a quickie, but I—”
    “Excellent idea. It wasn’t my first order of business, but why wait?” He hitched her more securely on his shoulder and headed for the bedroom.
    “Declan, you’re starting to seriously irritate me now. You’d better just put me down and—”
    She lost the rest—and the air in her lungs—when he flipped her onto the bed. He could see her eyes glittering dangerously behind her hair before she shoved it out of her face. And that, he thought, was perfect. He was in the mood for the fast and the physical, the sweaty and the sexy.
    “What the hell’s gotten into you? You come marching into my place like you own it, cart me off like I’m spoils of war. If you think I’m here to scratch your itch whenever it suits you, you’re about to find out different.”
    He merely grinned, yanked off a shoe and tossed it aside.
    “Put that back on, or hobble out. Either way, I want you gone.”
    He pulled off the other shoe, then his shirt. Her response to that was to scramble to her knees and spit out in Cajun so rapid and thick he caught only about every sixth word.
    “Sorry,” he said in mild tones as he unbuttoned his jeans. “That was a little quick for me. Did you say I was a pig who should fry in hell, or that I should go to hell and eat fried pig?”
    He was ready when she leaped, and laughing as she swiped at him. It was time for a fast tumble, fast and violent, and her clawing nails and bared teeth added the perfect punch.
    She slapped, cursed, kicked. Then bucked like a wild mare when he crushed her under him on the bed and covered her snarling mouth with his in a hot, hungry kiss.
    “Not what you expect from me, is it?” Breathless and randy, he tore at her shirt. “Given you too much of what you expect so far.”
    “Stop it. Stop it now.” Her heart sprinted under his rough hand. No, it wasn’t what she expected from him, any more than her electrified response to his dominance was what she expected from herself.
    “Look at me.” He clamped her hands on either side of her head. “Tell me you don’t want me, that you don’t want this. Say it and mean it, and I’m gone.”
    “Let go of my hands.” Though her gaze remained steady, her voice shook. “You let go of my hands.”
    He released one. “Say it.” His muscles quivered. “You want, or you don’t.”
    She fisted a hand in his hair and dragged his mouth back to hers. “J’ai besoin . ”
    I need.
    She used her teeth, gnawing restlessly at his lips. Used her legs, wrapping them around to chain him to her.
    “Take me,” she demanded. “Fast. Fast and rough.”
    His hand shot beneath the short, snug skirt, tore awaythe thin panties beneath. Sweat already slicked his skin and hers as she arched to him.
    “Hold on,” he warned, and plunged into her.
    She cried out as the explosive sensation ripped through her, cried out again as he drove deeper, harder. Filled, invaded, took until needs, frantic, outrageous needs swarmed through her. Her nails scored down his back, pinched into his hips.
    De plus en plus. More and more, her mind screamed. “More,” she managed. “I want more.”
    So did he. He shoved her knees back, opened her and hammered himself inside her.
    It burned. His lungs, his heart, his loins. The ferocious heat, the unspeakable pleasure of going wild with her hazed his vision until the world was drenched with it.
    White sun beating through the windows, the brassy blast of a trumpet from the street, the mad squeak of springs as slick skin slapped rhythmically against slick skin.
    And her eyes, dark and glossy as onyx, locked on his.
    I love you. Endlessly.
    He didn’t know if he spoke, or if the words simply ran a desperate loop in his brain. But he saw her eyes change, watched emotion swirl into them, blind them.
    He heard her sob for breath, felt her vise around him as she came. Helpless, half mad, he shattered. And poured into her.
    Out of breath, out of his mind, he collapsed onto her. Beneath him she continued to quake, to quiver. And shudder, those aftershocks of eruption. Then she was still.
    “Can’t move yet,” he mumbled. He felt hollowed out, light as a husk that could be happily blown apart by the slightest breeze.
    “Don’t need to.”
    Her lips were against the side of his throat, and theirmovement there brought him an exquisite tenderness. A rainbow after the storm.
    “Would you believe I came in to talk to you?”
    “No.”
    “Did. Figured