Page 43 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
She gazed at him. “You were trapped the same way I was.”
He kneaded the base of her skull idly, as if he was taking comfort in the touch. “I didn’t ‘wake up’ until I found myself in that little garden, looking at the black hole with you beside me.”
“You were pretty out of it.” She tilted her head into his caress. “I thoughtyou were a poet.”
He chuckled. “Warlords of my time were expected to recite tales of our own mighty exploits. I suppose I was overcome by the beauty of the singularity and the flowers.” His smile dropped away. “And you, my lady.”
Her pulse thudded hard at the way his voice lowered. “I’m not a lady yet,” she reminded him. “Not until the wedding is over.”
“They are bound in their hearts,” hesaid. “And you’ve been mine twice already.”
Oh no, she didn’t need that reminder. A tingle spread from his touch at her nape down her spine to pool softly in her core. “That was before I knew you were…” She gestured at the bribes arrayed around them. “A god.”
His dark eyes were somber. “You’ve found out terrible things about me. But none of it changes who I am.”
Desperation—and desire—madeher heart beat faster. “I don’t really know you still. God, warlord, poet, alien, in the body of a felon. Which one is it?”
“Does it matter, compared to this?”
His position on the step above her gave him the high ground, but he descended slowly enough that she had plenty of time to evade him. If she’d chosen.
But she thought maybe she’d chosen from the moment she’d opened the door of her suiteand saw him standing there.
Leaning her head back into the cradle of his big hand, she let his mouth land lightly on hers.
The rasping release of his breath over her lips hinted at his precarious grasp on his control even as his hand held her steady and his tongue traced a slow, sensuous path around hers. She wrapped her arm behind his neck—just in case his control broke. Or worse yet, he regainedit. Because she was definitely makingthischoice.
His hair, still damp from the rain, was like cool waves under her restless fingers. But the storm inside her was heating up. With a huff of impatience, she shoved away the coat she’d taken from the shuttle so she could press herself into his wide chest with only her thin night robe between them.
He groaned hoarsely and pulled her up againsthim, knocking loose the silky headscarf she’d wrapped around her hair before going to bed in her lonely suite on that far-away space station. She didn’t even care that his hungry groping would make her hair wild; it was already too wet from the rain anyway.
And she was wetter and more wild.
The kiss went on and on, their hands roaming desperately, until they were sprawled on the steps in awkwardabandon. He bumped his elbow and winced. She cracked her knee trying to wrap one leg around his hips.
With a guttural oath, he lifted her—oh, it was so wrong that she’d never get tired of that effortless strength and the way he handled her as if she was precious—and turned toward the throne. With a reckless sweep of his forearm, he knocked away the centuries of tokens and draped her across thewide seat with its splayed arms.
One of the data cubes rolled down the steps, and when it landed at the bottom, it started to play a song, something rhythmic and tribal, a reminder that before Thorkons got all noble and proper, they’d been a galaxy of fierce warriors. And she had one of them at her fingertips…
She kicked off the oversized boots she’d taken from the shuttle, and they hit thefloor with echoed thumps. “Enough room for two,” she purred, holding her hand out to him.
Staring down at her with a hot, hungry gaze, he reached over his head and yanked his tunic over his head. Behind him, rain started to fall again, sifting through the cracks in the arched ceiling in silvery veils. But the dais was protected. And she was protected as he closed the short step of distance betweenthem and knelt beside the throne, reaching out to tangle his fingers through hers.
Water droplets in his black hair and scattered across his bare shoulder glimmered in the multicolored lantern light like opals. “I don’t want it to be only the burn of the ghost-mead that brings us together,” he murmured.
“It’s not,” she assured him. It wasn’t mead, but need, and if there were ghosts of theirpasts lurking… Well, let them burn too.
She drew him inexorably toward her, and he surrendered, pulling himself up to prop his hip on the edge of the seat beside her. He leaned down for another endless kiss, and she murmured in pleasure as she lounged back, caught between the wide arms of the throne and his brawny embrace.
The kisses made her feel like a goddess, worshipped and adored…
Thenhis lips dropped lower and everything turned to carnal ecstasy.
Her night robe had been shielded from the rain, but as he unfastened the front seal, laying her bare, the damp heat of his mouth teasing across her skin made her wet inside. She moaned and arched up, as if she needed to reach the veils of rain to calm the fire in her veins. But Tynan was there first, stoking the flames higher.
“I love the sounds you make,” he murmured against her throat where her pulse pounded. “Sweet as a prayer.”
“You heathen,” she whispered. “But I’ll give you my blessing anyway. Kiss me. Touch me. Make me come…”