Page 25

I t was on the tip of Anna’s tongue to ask Iron to kiss her—or beg, to be frank. It would have been a million times easier to get lost in the heady flavor of him than to slice open more of the wound she’d been trying to cover up ever since she found out she was pregnant. She never expected him to silence that noise by stealing bits of her broken soul into him. Hadn’t even known that was possible, just like so many things when it came to this man.

With the mental clamor gone, or at least silenced for the time being, she dove headfirst into what she finally wanted.

Anna let Iron carry her far away from whatever anxiety had spilled out of her mouth and onto her living room floor. Whether it evaporated into the ether or chose to fester into a larger problem for her to deal with later, she didn’t care. All that mattered was Iron’s mouth on hers and the feel of his solid strength supporting her.

Iron kicked her bedroom door closed behind them. The slam of the wood was a definitive statement, shutting out her problems while barring entrance to anything that wasn’t supporting her body with his strength. But when Iron didn’t immediately carry her over to the bed like she expected, she forced herself to pull away from him. The look etched on his face nearly stopped her heart.

Whatever master had previously taken their chisel and hammer to Iron’s features had replaced their tools with lust-fueled flames. A tempered need flashed high in his eyes, which had yet to land on any part of her and not ignite her skin with reciprocal force. Anna blinked, then focused her gaze on where her forearms rested over his shoulders, double-checking for heat that was surely rippling off her skin.

Nothing. Nothing except a frenzied desire to rip off the far too many layers of clothing he still wore, including his coat, and run her scorched palms over every mound of muscle she’d only ever dreamed of touching.

Which had been fever dreams, clearly, because holy shit, it was hot in her bedroom. Even the air felt arid, and that was quite the problem, because if he kissed her like that again, she was going to need entire atmospheres of the stuff just to keep up with him.

With a groan she felt in every single one of her vertebrae, he attacked the side of her neck with a renewed enthusiasm that had her tumbling over whatever cliff he’d brought her to. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted you.” He palmed her ass, spreading and massaging her through her pants, maneuvering her right where he desired. When he squeezed the flesh there, gripping her with just the right amount of force, her pulse kicked higher against his lips. “Mmm, perfect. I want your wild heartbeats, Anna. I want everything about you, all the frantic, messy bits no one sees. Let my arms be that safe place for you, where you can come apart without consequences.”

“Yes,” she breathed, shocked at the emotion in her voice. She wanted all of that. God , she wanted all of that, to hold Iron in her messy world and be held in return, free of any rebukes or reprimands. She wanted?—

“I need the sun on your skin.”

Iron whirled them both around so fast, her thoughts and words had no time to catch up. The temperature shifted on her next breath, and then her back was against her bedroom window, her ass on top of the dresser. A sharp gasp was robbed from her throat. Then he was kissing her again, deeper than before. She was lost in the pleasure of it, of the frosted glass chilling her from behind while the heat from Iron scorched her front. It was impossible to keep it all straight, even as her body tried its former-gifted-student best to make sense of what was being asked of it.

Together, they slid their hands over each other, attacking and peeling off whatever got in their way. Iron’s heavy coat hit the floor first, followed by whatever remained of his flannel shirt and tank beneath it. She was about to lift off her T-shirt when his large hands covered hers. “No. Let me take care of you.”

She didn’t have a chance to object—though, c’mon, like she would have? For the first time since she’d been pregnant, all her body parts had finally gotten on the same page. Every nerve ending snapped into sync, standing up to take notice when Iron slid his hands gently beneath her shirt, then lifted it over her head, along with her lounge bra.

Bare before each other from the waist up, Anna breathed through the still moment between them while basking in the heated glory of Iron’s strength. If his face had been chiseled from the granite of the mountains around him, his chest had been carved from the boulders beneath. She sat forward, eager to slide her fingers down his wide chest just to memorize the paths each valley and divot charted. Thickly capped shoulders, sloping biceps, exquisite contours. She wanted to discover them all and experience what it felt like to be protectively wrapped in the armor of such a man. His physique was a curious wonder for the ages that her questing fingers couldn’t get enough of. And the heat. God! The stuff radiated off him like a furnace.

She was just about to say as much when he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her breastbone, then swept his lips over the sensitive skin of her breasts to toy with her nipples.

Damn. The bastard remembered.

“Oh god!” she cried, bucking against his head, pushing more of her into his mouth. When he pulled away, he blew cool air across one heated peak, before repeating the delicious torture to the other.

Anna’s smile was teased wider with the fade of the sting, and she sat up higher, eager to see what he’d do next with that wicked tongue.

Then a prism of colors landed on her belly, a byproduct of the sunlight beating through the window behind her. Iron noticed it too, then traced his fingers over the small rainbow, which was no bigger than her pinky. A knowing smile teased his lips. “The sun’s in on the secret, too.”

“What secret’s that?”

“Knowing how much the light suits you. It craves you, Anna. It would share with you all its beauty if you let it.”

“You can’t say stuff like that to a pregnant woman,” she replied, cupping her palm around his stony chin, fighting to speak through the tension in her throat.

He leaned into her caress. “Why not?”

“Because it messes with our brain chemistry. It’ll make me want to think of spending time in the light with you, and this is supposed to be transactional. Temporary. And that kind of talk feels more?—”

“Permanent.”

The word hovered around them, suspended above the flames that crackled unseen between their panting bodies. It charged the air and bolstered every breath feeding into Anna’s lungs. And like a volley of atoms reaching critical mass, the release was inevitable and one she knew she’d never come back from.

Iron spun her over, pushing her onto her knees on top of the dresser. Then he caressed her bare arms and positioned them out in front of her so her palms were flat on the frosty window glass. There was nowhere to hide from the sun. It draped over every part of her, from her exposed breasts to her quivering belly, bathing her in an existence that she’d not let herself dream of revisiting for fear of what it would reveal. A broken, discarded woman whose judgment think tank was always running on E.

“Keep your hands here,” Iron said, his words pushing back the fog of doubt creeping in, anchoring her to the present she craved. “The light needs all of you, Anna. I need all of you.”

The heart in her chest pumped wildly against her rib cage as he curled his fingers into the waistband of her pants and slowly slid them and her underwear down over her hips. Carefully, tenderly, he helped her out of them, including her socks, until she was completely stripped save for the goose bumps prickling her flesh.

Behind her, his belt buckle tinkled, clothing rustled, and the stiff denim that had abraded the backs of her thighs a moment ago was gone, replaced by a stolen kiss deposited at the base of her spine.

“Iron.” His name became a plea on her lips, a supplication to both begin and end the lives he’d uncovered inside her. She wanted her old one to die so she could be reborn with the knowledge of what it meant to be sustained by this man.

His fingers traced a path along her inner thighs, then stilled when they reached the slickness that waited for him. She could feel the virile heat spiraling from his body, urging every magnificent sensation that had yet to be fully realized between them higher. His knees hit the floor, and his mouth took her to heights she’d never dreamed of. He ravaged her wet heat with a devotion that could only be perceived by the absence of all else. With his mouth on her and his appreciative moans sending shivers everywhere throughout her body, she was lost and limp, tossed about a choppy sea of pleasure with only Iron’s strong hands on her hips as an anchor.

She came apart on his tongue in wave after wave of satiated bliss. But just when she thought to let her delicious exhaustion claim her and allow her to crumple to her bedroom floor in an orgasm-replete puddle, Iron stood and placed his hands on the backs of hers, holding her to the window. The dark leather wrist bracers he always wore were little more than smudges pressed against the bright canvas he’d created.

“I’m not done with you yet.”

It was ten kinds of exhilarating to be such a singular focus of his attention, to pant with need in time to the shivers he sent down her spine, knowing he’d make good on every promise he bestowed on her body.

“Please, Iron. I need you. It’s all too much.”

“Anything you want, it’s yours. Always.”

“I want you. All of you.”

“You have me.”

The tip of his cock pressed against her entrance, robbing the breath from both of them. He sank in farther, stretching and filling her with its exquisite invasion. The moan that left her lips fogged over the glass in front of her, creating a slick surface for Iron to interlock their fingers against.

He was at her ear, commanding her attention and forcing her to look at him with that blazing gaze of his. It was no longer a mix of brown and hazel, but that of the burning topaz that came out when his fire needed to play. Then he pounded into her with purpose, pulling heat from within her soul higher to the surface with each thrust of her breasts against the glass. Anna couldn’t look away from him, even as he played her body like a finely tuned concert instrument. Her skin slicked over with sweat, and a fresh bloom of warmth coiled tighter in her belly every time he sank into her.

Still, he pierced her with his stare. Always watching. Always devouring. Always demanding she do the same.

Each time he seated himself fully, her body trembled with the fulfillment of all his promises. Every kiss, caress, and claiming brought something out in her, foreign feelings that lit her soul from within, until it felt like her very skin was pulsing with a fire that instinctively would never harm her, nor would it stop from erupting around her.

Anna leaned toward Iron, straining to kiss him as he sent her diving over an edge she’d not known prior to this man. Before his mouth captured hers, however, swallowing down a searing orgasm pulled from a place she’d never ventured, power rippled over his body. Flesh turned to armored iron beneath her fingertips. He pulled away, growling his release as he slammed his hips against her with unmatched ferocity.

Her body trembled around his cock, her core clutching him even tighter through pulses that somehow blinded her. Brilliant light flooded her small bedroom, its energy seeming to spark from her core connected to his. At her back, his fire erupted. Blue electric flames rippled over his metallic body as he let out a roar into her neck that could have toppled mountain ranges.

Anna collapsed back against his chest as the final pulses left both their bodies. The flames subsided, his armor gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving behind a slew of answers to questions she’d never gotten the courage to ask.

Iron held her back to him, curling around her curved form like a protective shell. Then he lifted her and rolled them both into the bed next to them. They lay there, flat on their backs, caring not for the mechanics of covers or how they were going to chase what they’d just done with some big spoon, little spoon consolations.

Anna turned to face him, but he was already looking at her, a stern expression taking over the wonder she’d hoped to see there.

Then she realized he wasn’t looking at her, so much as her wrist, which lay next to her ear facing up.

Anna reached for his hand, knowing full well what was likely now tattooed on hers based on what Iron had told her about the soul bond ritual, and kissed each of his knuckles. And when she was finished with one hand, she moved to the other. She didn’t stop there. She kissed everything she could. His pecs, biceps, the caps of his shoulders, that delicious divot in his chin, the perpetual furrow between his brows. All of it. She wanted to taste and own all of it.

Then he finally wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest. The heart hammering back against her ear was the sweetest rhythm she’d ever heard next to the heartbeat of her unborn child, and one she’d happily guard for as long as he’d let her, even if it meant wading through the waters of mortal overwhelm in a supernatural world.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered against his neck. He tightened his hold on her, still shaking with the aftershocks of all they’d just shared and all that he’d gained. She kissed his jaw again. “Whatever happens, I’ve got you, too.”