Page 22

I ron was so goddamn right. Anna tasted better than any delicacy dreamed up by mortals past or present. In that same vein, as he savored the flavor of her skin, he knew, with absolute certainty, another cell-altering truth: he was equally goddamn screwed.

The difference this time was his ability to care.

Iron slipped Anna’s finger free from his mouth and dropped a kiss on her palm, right where some mortal cultures believed a lifeline resided. He had to smile at that, given the way his own life had changed so drastically since she’d been in it. She flinched slightly, then curled her fingers around the side of his face and ducked her forehead against his shoulder.

Was she . . .?

“I didn’t know you were ticklish.”

Anna rocked her head back and forth against him, refusing to break the contact. “I didn’t know how soft your beard would feel against my skin there.”

“I knew how soft you’d feel. Been dreaming about it.”

“Oh my god . I can’t believe you’re talking like that.”

“Believe it and don’t ever doubt it.”

The assurances fell easily from his lips, surprising him at just how few convictions he’d hung on to once he’d gotten Anna in his arms. All it took was one breathy little laugh against his collarbone and everyone one of his duty-bound burdens vacated the space between his ears until all that was left was what his soul needed to keep the woman in his arms right where she was.

Anna leaned back, removed her glasses, and placed them on the nightstand. He caught her hand before the frames hit the wood. “No, leave them on.”

“Why? They’ll just get in the way.”

Iron brushed his hands around the sides of her neck, then used the backs of them to fan out her glorious hair so it fell about her shoulders. He sifted his fingers through the soft strands, smiling at how he was finally able to touch them without some evil mind mist yanking her away from him again. Then he held her stare and made damn sure she saw the seriousness of his belief, and much more, reflected back at her. “I want you to see what I see. And what I see is a stunning creature who knows what she wants and has had to blind herself in a blurry world to be accepted. You don’t need to do that with me, because when you can see clearly— really see clearly—you’d be able to tell how just how fucking gorgeous you are.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, didn’t want to hear any more self-doubt creep in or witness her warring with a life she’d known versus a life he was trying to show her. Instead, he slipped her glasses back on her face, cupped her jaw, and sealed his lips to hers.

As he angled his head and took more and more of her into him, every worrisome thought knocking around his noggin vacated in favor of a far more basic and primal incentive: need. It was lust on the winds of logic. Pleasure chasing the most delicious sort of pain. And when Anna squirmed against his cock, rubbing that luscious bottom in time to the drugging pulls of his mouth, he damn near lost it.

Iron palmed her ass and stood, sucking down her sharp moans of approval. There was no fear, no tension in her body or uncertain jerks of meager touches. In this, they were in sync, as they seemed to have always been.

Anna fell onto the bed, but before she tried to scoot herself back to allow him to join her, he halted her movements, hooking his hands beneath her knees.

He knew all too well the ramifications of what came next, of what he really wanted to do, and if Anna had been any other woman, that cardigan would have been nothing more than evergreen-colored shreds on his floor hoping for a second life as a bathmat. He knew what he looked like and damn well knew how big he was. And there were times when he used that to his advantage in the bedroom, when only certain types of females could scratch only certain types of itches. One woman, in particular, had made it seem like that was his crowning achievement and offering. A glory only he could provide.

But Iron pushed those thoughts away in favor of the feast before him. Anna flushed and panting, color spreading high in her cheeks that he had put there, looking at him with a fiery desire.

A fiery desire reflecting the topaz flames of his celestial power.

Shit. It was happening.

“Are you in pain?” he asked, a sprout of uncertainty bumping up against the bedrock of his need.

Anna shook her head. “Pain’s the furthest thing from my mind. Like, the literal furthest thing.”

He squeezed her knees gently. “Are you warm?” By the mages, he had to do this right, had to know if she really wanted this. Already, his fire was punching through his gut, raging to course through his body with unmatched speed.

“Hot.”

“But not in pain.”

She smiled and then parted her legs, widening the cradle of her hips before him. “Not a bit.”

Those three little words of confirmation were all his lust needed to stomp down his worry and pounce.

Iron grabbed her sweater’s hem and slid it off her. Fabric? Gone. Bra? Tossed to mages knew where. The leggings went next, then any barrier that prevented him from getting his hands on her bare flesh. Once she was laid out before him, perfect and preening, he moved to kiss her in the one place that had been tugging all his allegiance.

Her lower belly welcomed him with its plushness, the spot that housed a life Anna had trusted him with keeping safe, as well as her own. Iron whispered words against her flesh he knew she couldn’t understand or even hear, and that was fine with him. Those words weren’t for her. They were for another soul who he one day hoped to meet.

When he lifted his head, Anna’s neck was craned as well, and a curious sheen wetted the fiery eyes behind her glasses. He couldn’t let himself dwell on the moment too long. No good came from such introspection.

Instead, he grinned, ripped his shirt over his head, and crawled up her body. “If you’re tearing up, I have more work to do.”

He kissed her again, a quick searing claiming, one just forceful enough to break up the roadblocks behind her eyes and redirect her focus to where he was dragging his mouth next.

Dusty pink nipples stood erect and ready, twin peaks offered at the altar of her full breasts. He palmed her lush flesh carefully, mounding each globe with only as much force as Anna’s gasps dictated, and brought his mouth to the taut peeks that seemed to beg for his touch.

“Oh my god,” she breathed, hitching her hips higher each time he passed his tongue over a stiffened tip. “They’re so fucking sensitive all the goddamn time. You have no idea how distracting it is, but whatever you’re doing feels sooo good.”

Iron smiled against her rib cage and hid his humor beneath a kiss to her sternum. “So, nipple play brings the cursing out of you. Good to know.” It was equally distracting on his part because every filthy warning that fell from her lips found its corresponding anchor in a jolt of his pleasure.

“Iron,” she whimpered as she dragged her eager fingers toward the fly of his jeans, letting her legs fall open even wider.

It hit him, then. The scent of her arousal was a lightning bolt that forced his fire into overdrive. It was a cataclysmic power that stripped him bare of any higher reasoning and had him pulling away from her eager hands so he could get on his knees with an eagerness of his own. His mouth hovered at the juncture of her thighs before she could let out her next breath.

Then he devoured her with a conqueror’s single-mindedness. Even the silken flesh of her hips filling his hands wasn’t enough to distract him from the pleasure he sought to wring from her. Iron gave one slow, strong lick, then he did it again in time to the tremors of her thighs bracketing his ears. He chased her moans with blade-like focus, closing his lips around her clit and sucking so there was no quarter. Iron wanted all of her, to capture every passionate cry and shuddering pleasure that had been wasted on a world too limited to appreciate the limitless wonder he cradled in his care.

Iron’s angel fire grew hotter in his core as he slid a finger into her, pumping in time to his heartbeat. He risked a peek at her face, just one, just so he could see the spark of confirmation blazing in her eyes—eyes that still reflected the topaz fire of his power.

Anna’s passion blew apart when he added a second finger and her entire body trembled through an orgasm as she clamped down on him, tearing free a scream.

Iron’s full fire erupted within his core, blazing to life in a heat without flames. He saw it the moment Anna registered the sensation as well. Her eyes widened—eyes that had returned to their natural jade depths—and she reached for him. Powerless to deny her anything, Iron moved up but paused his ascent into her arms when his mouth lingered over her womb. There, he impressed upon it another devout kiss before joining her, enveloping her against him as his fire’s nature receded, leaving behind the tingling ripples of its footprint.

He brushed his lips against her slick forehead, relishing the feeling of the woman and wonder beneath him.

“Oh!” A surprised gasp bubbled out of Anna, and he quickly lifted off her, ready to fling himself across the room if need be, when her gentle laugh pulled him back down. It was her smile that did him in for good. Pure brightness and heat infused a mouth that had spent far too much time frowning, and he was done, captured as much as he was captivated.

She must have read the question in his face, because she grabbed one of his hands and brought it down low over her abdomen. A very slight tremor, almost imperceptible if not for his celestial senses, whooshed against his palm.

“It’s not really a full kick yet. More like how I imagine a goldfish flutter would feel, but it’s there.” Anna grinned and waggled her eyebrows like a cartoon supervillain. “Someone liked your moves. And speaking of moves . . .”

She was off her back and undoing his belt buckle all while his batty brain was still hung up on the previous thought.

The baby. I felt it.

Anna nearly had his cock free before he gently stilled her hands, remembering her doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning and how late it was already. Though he’d love nothing more than to continue, it wouldn’t be right. He wouldn’t be that guy, the one who took so selfishly at the expense of another. She was tired, though she’d done a hell of a job convincing him otherwise. It was in the speed at which her heart rate slowed and how insistent her heavy eyelids had become.

The fire in her wanted to continue, but her body was putting its foot down.

Iron quickly kissed the resentment away that had been brewing behind her eyes when she perhaps realized why he was pausing their activities. Right on cue, a yawn stretched her jaw wide.

“Let’s get some sleep. It’s after midnight already, and I want to make sure you have enough energy tomorrow morning to give me the rundown on just how many soon-to-be dads I have to leer at in the waiting room before they fuck off back into their phones.”

“Stop being so smart,” she said, still accepting the comforter he wrapped her up in. Then he shucked his pants and climbed into bed with her, grabbing her back to his front. She fit in his arms like a cherished memory.

“Don’t tell Chrome you said that.”

“Why?”

“Because I told him how I beat you in Scrabble, and he’s been dying for a reason to test my skills.”

“You didn’t beat me.” Even her insistence had begun tucking itself into bed.

“ Yet . I didn’t beat you yet . It was inevitable. Just ran out of time.”

“Yeah, because you kissed me.”

Iron squeezed her midsection, loving the feel of her warm breasts cushioning his forearms. “See? I’m smart. Now go to sleep.”

Anna laughed, but there was no malice in it. “You’re really going to take me to my OB appointment tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“You want me there, then that’s where I’ll be.”

She draped her arms over his and snuggled closer to him. “I want you there,” she said softly.

He smiled, turning the lights off with his power. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

It was the only promise he’d made to her that he knew he could keep.