Page 76 of Possess Me at Midnight

Need what? I scan him from head to toe. The black eyes and beaten jaw are now faintly marred with yellowish bruises. The wounds on his back are closing and scabbing over, the blood, pus, and ragged flesh almost gone. The wounds on his hip and thigh are all but healed.

Then Ice rolls to his side—and reveals his need in the turgid length of his cock.

I jerk my stare back to his face. The need etched there melts me. In the most tangible way possible, he’s aching to reconnect, feel alive, and assure himself that we’re safe and whole. Without a word, he’s begging me to bond with him as much as I’ll allow. He’s desperate to know, at least in this shadowed, predawn moment, that I’m his.

I need that, too.

Emotion clogs my throat as I press my mouth to his. He waits, his body trembling with the effort to hold back. But for me, he does, remaining nearly still while I sweep into his mouth in a slow, worshipping kiss that leaves me panting when I finally lift my head.

“Ice…”

With a nudge, he rolls me to my back, half covering my body with his own. His massive shoulders block out the rest of the room. His familiar weight on me both chases away the darkness that festered during his absence and ignites an inferno inside me.

He takes over, covering my lips with his own, soft but urgent, lingering but demanding. His mouth tastes of copper and determination. Beneath that, I detect a flavor that’s uniquely Ice—wild and untamed and completely addictive. The scrape of his stubble against my jaw sends shivers skittering across my skin.

With his kiss alone, he reaches deep inside me and finds my heart, my need, and he embraces them. I sigh against him, desire and desperation rising. I can no more keep my hands from roaming him than I can resist taking my next breath.

“That’s it, princess. Touch me…”

I don’t need to be told twice. With reverent fingers, I skim his back, gratified to feel his wounds nearly healed. My palm glides down his arms, my thumb brushes over his jaw. He repays me with a kiss that starts like gossamer and ends like a hammer. Soft, then deeper, harder, burning, until I can’t breathe, can’t think. And I don’t want to.

Ice dominates the kiss as he does everything else—with devastating thoroughness that leaves me breathless and aching. The rhythm, cadence, and fury of his mouth over mine… The pleasure drowns me, setting me adrift. Thoughts? Gone. The outside world? Not important. Only now. This man, this moment, this promise of devotion. I open to him and give him my all.

With greedy strokes of his mouth, he takes again and again, as if he can’t get enough. And that suits me; I can’t either.

When we’d first made love in MacKinnett’s coach house, Ice’s touch was a blend of possession, insistence, and mastery. He pushed me far and hard, well beyond any former lover. I gloried in his ability to please me so thoroughly, and I yearned to please him as much in return.

Now, reverence, joy, and fascination tinge his embrace, as though the beautiful man cheated death and wants to share his soul with me.

Slowly, he lifts his lips from mine, his gaze fastening on my face. “You’re beautiful, princess. Not because you’re part siren. Because you care.”

“You’re beautiful as well.”

“If it’s because I care, too, then I must be bloody gorgeous.” He smiles, then it fades to something solemn. “I haven’t cared about anything or anyone in nearly two hundred years.”

The grief that crosses his face is an endless dark chasm, and I ache for him. “Why?”

He shakes his head. “Now isn’t the time. I need to love you.”

I hesitate, then nod. Unless I speak the Binding to him, I have no right to demand all his truths. Besides, his expression tells me that he means to make this moment special, not cloud it with the past.

“I’m here for you, Isdernus.”

With worshipping caresses, he removes my nightgown and lays me out across the white sheets, spreading kisses all over my body. He laves the side of my breast, palms my hip, nips at my navel, and strokes my thighs until I’m trembling. Until my body is burning. Ice has that effect on me.

From the moment we first met, when Bram behaved like a horrible prat and refused to allow Ice to shake my hand, he’s called to me in a way no wizard has.

I don’t want to lie on my back and wait passively for him to touch me. Our first time together, he gave me no opportunity to explore his heavily muscled and veined body. No time to learn his textures, experiment with his taste, or discover ways to please him. But I yearn to.

“How is your back?” I whisper.

He lifts his mouth from the flat plane of my stomach. “Better. Every moment I’m with you heals me more.”

Perfect.

I anchor my hands on his shoulders and give him a gentle shove. A question looms on his face, but he follows my lead and rolls over, allowing me to raise myself over him. “Let me.”

Ice stills for a moment, then spreads his arms wide. A mischievous smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “Anything you want, princess.”