Below her breasts were fainter bruises, where she’d been struck, though the blows hadn’t connected as hard as he knew they were meant to. He could tell by the placement that the son of a bitch had been trying to damage her ribs.

Lower, along her rounded thighs, was heavier bruising. Finger marks, thumb imprints.

He parted her thighs gently, trying to ignore the dampness he could see against the silk of her panties. Trying real fucking hard to ignore the fact that there were no curls beneath the silk.

He hadn’t remembered that for some reason. He’d had his mouth on her pussy, licking it like a starving man devouring a treat, but he hadn’t remembered that there had been no curls there.

Drawing in a hard, deep breath, he slid his fingers beneath the band of her panties before he lifted his eyes to hers. “Let me take them off, Sierra.”

Her hips rose. Hazy sensuality filled her gaze now, flushed her face. Pert lips parted, a lazy pink tongue licked over them with a slow, damp stroke as he drew the silk from her body.

“God, I’ve dreamed about this for a fucking year,” he whispered.

For far longer than a year. He’d dreamed before and refused to allow himself to acknowledge those dreams.

“John, touch me.” The plea went straight to his cock.

Why the hell did he keep hearing innocence in her voice, seeing it in her eyes? When he stared into the slate gray depths, he saw a woman who had no idea the pleasure her body could experience, the heights arousal could take her.

His gaze went down her body once again, a groan tearing from his throat at the sight of the honeyed glaze glistening on the folds of her pussy. Her clit, a sweet pink little pearl, peeked from between those folds, tempting his lips, his tongue.

“You don’t know what you do to a man,” he growled as he moved closer, leaning over her until his lips could brush against hers. “You make me hungry, lollipop.”

A slow smile curled the lips beneath his. “Your lollipop?”

Hell! He wasn’t going to survive this. The low, sleepy sensuality in her face and voice was more than he could bear.

“My lollipop.” And he’d be damned if he let another man have a taste of it now.

His lips lowered against hers more firmly, his tongue licking at the seam of her lips until they parted for him, until her tongue came out to meet his and a low, feminine groan met his kiss.

God, he remembered her kiss. Of all the things he remembered from that alcohol-hazed memory of nearly having it, it was the taste of her kiss. Like the sweetest innocence.

How the hell did she manage it? She’d dated more men than he could name over the years. There was no way that innocence was as pure as it seemed.

He’d be damned if he cared, though. Hell, he wasn’t exactly a virgin himself and he didn’t expect to ever encounter one. He didn’t give a damn. From here on out, she would belong solely to him, though; he’d ensure it.

Threading his fingers into the thick, blue-black curls that framed her face, John held her in place and deepened the kiss. His tongue sank into her mouth, touched hers, and felt her lips close on it with a sensual grip. She suckled at his tongue with lazy enjoyment, causing his dick to clench and tighten at the memory of her lips sucking him there as well.

Damn, she was making him hot. He should have turned the AC up before bringing her to the bedroom.

The sweet brush of her nipples seared through the material of his T-shirt as she arched against him. Full, swollen breasts were cushioned against his chest, and the heat of them rushed through his body like a narcotic.

He couldn’t think of anything better than releasing his dick and sinking balls deep inside the tight, slick depths of her pussy.

For just a second, for one flash of imagery, he could have sworn he’d done so before. Felt her, so fucking tight he thought he’d die from it. Then it was gone, remnants of dreams he’d had over the years. Fantasies he hadn’t been able to help.

Tearing his lips from hers, John set about giving her pleasure. Simply pleasure. No pressure. This time wasn’t for him, it was for his Sierra.

She’d been hurt, bruised, almost broken. He wanted to wipe that memory from her mind. Wipe it and replace it with sweet pleasure, with satisfaction. He wanted her to know gentleness, to know the heated arousal, the warmth of sexual fulfillment.

She was exhausted, worn, but he knew she didn’t sleep well. That was something he intended to help her with this morning.

Sierra barely restrained the cry that would have torn from her lips as John’s lips moved down her throat to the rise of her breasts. Her entire body was sensitized, but strangely, she couldn’t feel the pain.

There was no pain.

There was only John’s touch, the feel of his lips and tongue stroking their way to a nipple as it rose hard and tight for his lips.

“Don’t tease me, John,” she moaned, arching closer to his lips, desperate to feel them enclosing her nipple.

“You’ve teased me,” he whispered, pure sex filling his voice. “For a year, Sierra, the thought of your touch has teased me to near insanity.”

His head lowered, the feel of his tongue licking around the sensitive, hard tip of one nipple, stole her breath. The damp warmth stroked sensations through the flesh that sent her senses spinning.

Slow, deliberate licks, each one avoiding the nipple, stroking around it, teasing her so unbearably that her hands slid into his hair to hold him to her.

Which was more destructive? she wondered. Those lazy licks, or if he actually took her nipple into his mouth?

She had no idea of the answer to that question, but she wanted to know it.

Before she could voice the demand, the plea, his lips covered the tender peak, sucking inside his mouth as the nerve endings began to riot chaotically.

Sierra could feel her nipples becoming impossibly harder. The tender tip he held between his lips throbbed and ached, ecstasy spiking through it and slicing to her womb as he sucked it harder.

Rubbing his tongue against it a murmured growl of approval rumbled in his chest as she arched, trying to get closer, fighting to press deeper into his mouth.

The feel of his shoulders, the muscles shifting and bunching beneath her hands, had her nails digging into the flesh as his tongue licked over nipple again.

The suction of his mouth combined with the lash of his tongue against the nerve-ridden tip had a cry tearing from her lips. He sucked her harder now, deeper, his tongue whipping over the sensitive tip with such destructive pleasure that she felt her senses rushing out of control.

Her hips arched, her thighs opening wider as she pressed the wet, aching heat of the enflamed folds against the hard strength of his thigh and rode it in pleasure.

He had to know how desperate she was for his touch now. How desperate she had always been. There was no disguising it at this point. No matter how much she wished she could fight against it, it was still overwhelming.

“John,” she panted his name as his hand slid from her waist to her bare thigh. “What are you trying to do to me?”

She was so wet she could feel her juices collecting thick and heavy on the bare folds of her pussy as he moved back, holding her still with one hand as the other caressed and stroked. His fingers stroked along her thigh, growing closer as his lips moved to her other nipple, enclosing it in the heat of his mouth as she arched and allowed her thighs to fall wider apart. She needed his fingers closer to her aching flesh, to the pulsing heat of her clit.

As his lips drew on her nipple, his fingers found the delicate knot of tissue, surrounded it, and oh so delicately began to milk the little kernel.

Sierra’s eyes widened. Her thighs tightened until she could feel the muscles straining, trembling. She could feel the orgasm rising inside her. She could feel it pulsing, pounding through her senses, riding a wave filled with heat and desperation.

What the hell was he doing to her?

She strained, trying to lift closer as he milked her clit with slow, firm strokes. Strokes that edged pleasure-pain, that had her body straining in pleasure.

“John . . .” she panted his name, her head thrashing in desperation.

Sierra could feel her juices easing from the flesh between her thighs, a thick, heavy dew, coating the intimate folds, preparing her flesh for a penetration she felt as though she were dying for.

Lifting his head slowly, John stared back at Sierra’s dazed features. He licked one nipple, then the other, feeling her shudder in response as he continued the delicate plumping of her swollen clit.

She was so fucking close to orgasm. So close he could nearly taste it spilling to his lips.

“I remember tasting you that night, Sierra,” he groaned as he began kissing his way down her torso, loving the sweet-salty taste of the perspiration lying on her skin. “The feel of my tongue inside your pussy, feeling how snug and hot you are. I swear, the taste of you haunts me.”

She jerked in his grip, hips arching, nails pricking his shoulders as his lips neared the silken, flushed, glazed mound of her pussy.

Damn. He was going to enjoy this. He was going to make sure she enjoyed it.

This was his sweet. His treat.

His tongue slipped inside the narrow slit, and in one long, slow lick he swore he became drunk on her. The taste of her exploded against his tongue like spicy honey, like addictive, sensual nectar.

Sierra felt a rage of heat rush through her pussy. His tongue licked, lapped slow and easy, circling her clit gently, too gently. She strained against him, needing a firmer touch, more heat to trigger the explosion she was reaching so desperately for.

Knees rising, heels digging into the mattress, she ground the intimate folds against his lips, her fingers twining into his hair, and she fought to breathe. Heat rushed around her, perspiration dampened her flesh, making her body almost as slick as the folds John caressed so intimately.

His tongue was wicked, destructive. Licking around her clit one last time, he moved lower, his fingers parting her bare folds and moving ever closer to the aching center of her pussy.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh God, John, please . . .”

Her head thrashed against the mattress and still he gave her no mercy. He licked against the entrance, increasing the dampness moving from her vagina to his eager tongue.

Her hips moved, rotating against his lips as she gasped, reaching, fighting for that explosion of pleasure that she knew he could give her.

It had been so long.

So many dark, lonely months with nothing but the memory of his touch, nothing but the memory of his pleasure.

Sierra could feel desperation rising inside her. Pleasure burned through her body, tore through her senses.

“Damn you, let me come already!” The cry was ragged, pleading, demanding.

John tensed between her thighs, his hand clamping on her upper legs, drawing them farther apart a second before his tongue plunged into the liquid hot, clenching depths of her pussy.

Almost. Almost.

Sensation washed over her like a tidal wave. Sierra held her breath, fighting to ride that sensual edge as his tongue began to move inside her. Thrusting, plunging, fucking into the slickened depths as Sierra began to writhe beneath him. She couldn’t lie still. She had to orgasm. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t, couldn’t, survive it.

Crying out his name, she felt his tongue ease from her, his lips moving, covering her clit and sucking it into his mouth again. He drew on it, his tongue lashed around it, until the explosion that rocked her drew a strangled, ecstatic scream from her lips.

Her fingers tightened in his hair. Her thighs locked around his head, and as he sucked her deeper, two fingers pressed inside the spasming depths of her pussy and threw her higher.

She felt him fucking her with his fingers, plunging them inside her, pleasure and pain rushing through her, drawing muted screams of pleasure, tightened her body, lashing her senses with pure, absolute rapture until she swore she exploded into fragments.

She was pulsing, flames slowly easing, throbbing through her body as she felt his lips and tongue easing, stroking now rather than ravishing. Caressing rather than devouring until Sierra felt her senses slowly darkening.