Page 30 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)

Chapter twenty-nine

Baird

T hey picked up where they had left off downstairs, but this time slower, more deliberate.

Baird wanted to savor her—to taste her again, breathe in her scent, explore the softness of her skin.

He took in the perfect curve of her teardrop breasts, nipples still flushed and tender from his teasing mouth and hands.

Mira rolled him onto his back and swung her leg over his hips, straddling him.

She took his hard cock in her hand and guided him inside, inch by inch, her breath catching as she adjusted to his thickness.

She stilled for a moment, letting her body reacclimate, then began to move—slow, sinuous, more back and forth than up and down, controlling the pace.

He gripped her ass with both hands, grounding himself, giving him just enough leverage to push up into her deeply with every few strokes.

Her moans grew softer, more desperate, as her second orgasm began to build.

Her breath came faster, shallower, and he watched her reach between them to touch her clit—sliding two fingers along each side and squeezing gently as she rode him.

Baird felt her tighten around him just before Mira cried out, her body convulsing in waves of release. Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks—unexpected, raw. He reached up and pulled her down to him, holding her against his chest, their noses brushing.

“That’s it, Mira,” he whispered. “God, I love the sound you make when you come.” She collapsed against him, breathless, letting herself rest there until the storm inside her stilled.

After a few moments, Baird eased out from beneath her, stood, and reached down to offer his hand.

He led her across the room to a large picture window, throwing back the heavy velvet drapes.

Below them lay the same terrace they’d looked out onto at dinner—now seen from thirty feet above.

There was a full-length mirror to the left of them, and the chandelier behind them cast enough light to turn the window glass into a kind of mirror itself—ten feet high, reflecting them both.

He pulled a wide, low stool in front of the window and helped Mira step onto it, aligning their heights. Then he turned her again, back to him, her body framed in the reflection—bare, perfect, powerful.

“Look at me, Mira,” he said, his voice rough with need and something deeper—possession, longing. “Look at us. Watch me… feel me. I need you to see what this is. What we are.”

He entered her again from behind, urgent now, his thrusts deep and relentless. Mira braced herself against the window frame, her face transformed—wild, untamed, her skin glowing with sweat and fire, her chest and cheeks flushed with passion. Seeing their bodies reflected back heightened everything.

It was primal. Feral. Sacred.

There was no shame.

She was made for this, he thought. For this moment. For him.

His rhythm began to shift—subtle at first, then more frantic, uneven.

His breath hitched, his groans growing louder, his lips pressed to the hollow of her neck—right over the place where her pulse beat steady and strong.

He knew that spot, knew the way it sparked a white-hot current between them, energy flowing into both their bodies like fire through a closed circuit.

He wanted his lips there—needed his mouth there.

To feel how alive she was beneath him, how her heartbeat thudded against his skin.

It made him feel alive too, in a way he hadn’t in years.

When his climax finally overtook him, he cried out—loud and unrestrained.

Waves of pleasure crashed through him, deeper, longer, stronger than anything he’d ever known.

It rolled through his body in relentless pulses, as if she’d unlocked something buried—something he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding back.

Still deep inside her, he braced a hand against the glass, his forehead resting in the crook of her neck, both of them breathing hard, tangled in the afterglow.

He stayed inside her, unwilling to let the moment end.

He wanted her to see them—exactly as they were.

Together.

And if Bastien had been out there watching, Baird hoped he saw it too.

He watched her sleep through the night, her body limp with exhaustion, utterly spent.

It had been so long since a woman had slept beside him—he hadn’t allowed it.

When the need became too great, he took his pleasure in passing encounters, one-night stands that were little more than transactions. A means to an end.

But this…this had not been that.

Not at all .

He wondered why he’d fought it so hard in the beginning. Why he’d wasted even a moment resisting what he was now so afraid to lose. Was this penance? A higher power letting him feel—only to remind him what he could never truly keep?

He’d told himself getting involved with her was the last thing he should do—his role had been to protect her, nothing more. But it hadn’t mattered. He was drawn to her like a moth to flame.

And for a man who understood all too well how to wield power, how to enthrall—he now felt utterly spellbound. As if she held an invisible cord tied to his chest, turning some unseen wheel, pulling him closer with every slow, deliberate crank.

Her body had felt like it was made for his—their connection electric, magnetic—but from the very first moment, he’d known it was more than physical.

Beneath the conflict, beneath his half-hearted attempts to keep her at arm’s length, there was something else: peace. A quiet, undeniable peace that settled over him whenever she was near.

And it was that peace, more than anything, that terrified him. Because deep down, he didn’t believe he deserved it.

The time was fast approaching when he would have to tell her the truth. He didn’t know how, or what might happen afterward. So he prayed—quietly, fervently—that when the time came, she would believe him.