Page 28

She let him spin her, let him maneuver her, still trapped against the wall but facing him now, seeing how unraveled he looked, how his eyes glinted in the low light.

No one had ever attempted to handle her body like this, not ever.

She’d never felt another’s will upon it, and oh, it was intoxicating to let go.

She reveled in choosing helplessness. She pushed her entire being into flesh under his hands as he grazed his fingers over her shift.

He held her gaze, daring her to resist the urge to close her eyes and escape into sensation, to stay here with him and acknowledge the forbidden things that were required to feel that way.

And she did.

He didn’t take her shift. At least, he wasn’t taking it yet.

Her brain attempted to question it, to raise her typical threads of curiosity, confusion, observation, but something was stopping that; something had put a full damper of steaming water on her instincts, and answered, impatiently, because he likes it .

That had to be enough. She couldn’t force any thoughts beyond it, not with the gentle rasp of muslin being pulled tautly against the nakedness underneath.

He touched her boldly, cupping her breasts, stroking the soft flesh of her stomach, her waist, her hips.

His eyes shone, somehow reflecting more light by far than the sliver of the moon that watched through the window.

He looked for acknowledgement in her face of the fact that it was him, that it was his hands on her.

He imposed that awareness through his own satisfaction in it.

And once he saw what he wanted, once he knew she felt what he felt, he reclaimed her mouth, kissing her with everything that had transpired since that first day, that first blush when something sparked between them. He poured it all into her mouth, into her body, into her soul.

She found the power of her own hands, her fingers reaching up toward him first of their own accord and then in ravenous deliberation. She fisted her hands in his shirt, arching into him, accepting every red-hot emotion that he had tempered into his kiss.

She flattened her hands and felt the planes of his chest, the radiating warmth of his skin exposed at the collar of his shirt.

She traced her fingers down his arms, her heart leaping into her throat when they reached the roll of his sleeves at the elbow, leaving only his exposed forearms and those hands, those hands that had not left her body.

She followed their movement for the space of a held breath, rode along with the paths they made over her, the claims they staked. She felt it twofold until she couldn’t stand it any longer.

She pushed her grasp from the warmth of his hand to the cool, taunting barrier of his waistband, tugging his shirt loose, fumbling to get it free.

She heard him react, heard the sound of distracted surprise or perhaps approval as he assisted her, jerking the shirt up over his head and onto the floor, all the while refusing to completely remove his grip on her with one hand or the other.

He curled his tongue into her mouth, pressing her soft, smaller hand onto his now bare chest, encouraging her to explore, to claim him the way he was claiming her. And when he was satisfied that she would do just that, he pulled his belt away too.

There was a brief, agonizing loss as he pulled away to look down at himself, at her pale hands on his chest, at the contrast of softness and firmness, the clash of their skin tones.

He drew ragged breaths, looking wild, as though he both couldn’t tolerate the reality of it and wanted to burn it permanently into his memory.

Millie couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop the exploration of the planes and muscle, the warmth and dusting of coarse hair, all of it so very, very different from her own body. She watched it too. She understood the appeal and the torment of it too.

When he moved, the muscles under all of that gorgeous, warm skin moved too, and it stole her breath from her lungs.

And he did move, to cover her hands with his, to crowd her closer to the wall, to stare hungrily into her face while he pulled her fingertips lower, to the dip of muscle at his hips, to what hid beneath the final barrier of his trousers.

“Bed,” he managed to say, eyes falling back down to the path of her hands as the word ripped from his throat.

She nodded, but she did not step aside to immediately obey. Instead, that border that he’d drawn her fingertips to begged to be crossed, called to her, sang to her. It wasn’t that she couldn’t fight it, it was that she refused to.

And so she touched him. She dipped her hands under the waistband of his trousers and she found him, his arousal, the proof of his desire, her fingers stroking and exploring with breathless awe and instinctive need.

“Oh,” she heard herself whisper, shocked at how all this demanding hardness could also be so deliciously soft. How heavy and full her hand felt. How right.

She felt his body tense, felt every muscle in his magnificent form bunch and freeze. He released more air than his lungs could have possibly been holding, trembling with the power it took to hold himself still, to let this thing he hadn’t expected but wanted more than life to unfold.

Even that part of him she was touching seemed to tense, to move of its own accord in the softness of her palm, to beg her for more.

“Millie,” he said so softly, she might not have heard it through the blood rushing in her own ears.

She looked up and met his eyes, fingers still lingering on him.

Somehow, it held the power of thousands of words, the flash of impact of meeting those eyes, of feeling them hook into her own and dive directly into her soul, even here in this dark room.

“Bed,” she whispered, murmuring the mirror of his own command. She let her hands float back upward, over his hips and stomach, and she felt herself moving, not pulling exactly but inviting, as she found her way toward his bed.

He followed her, his gait almost prowling but not imposing. Giving her the space to choose, to move of her own accord.

She stopped just short of the mattress, her fingers tracing the sheets, the sheets Abe slept on, this secret thing that was only his until he let her into his domain. She marveled down at it, this place where he slept, her heart aching at the nights she hadn’t shared there, all those wasted nights.

She turned back to him and gathered the hem of her shift in her hands, raising it carefully, deliberately, as though he could stop her if it was a step too far.

But he didn’t, of course. He watched, rapt, like she was a comet in the sky or a rare bird landing on one’s finger.

He watched while he breathed with effort as she revealed herself to him. Completely.

“ Gu fòiridh Dia orm, ” he intoned, without even seeming to realize he was speaking, the alien sounds tumbling from his mouth in a raspy gasp of breath.

She wasn’t sure what came next. Part of her expected to feel compelled to snatch up her shift immediately and undo what she’d just revealed, but the panic of regret never arrived; the concern that she’d made a mistake never registered.

All she could think to do was hold her hand out to him, to invite him closer.

He took it.

They fell into the bed together, bare skin colliding in agonizing contradictions with awakening and burning and ache. They were one thing, a tangle of limbs and mouths and want.

She didn’t know when he divested himself of the last of his clothing, didn’t register the perfection of their shared nudity, but when he finally claimed that empty space inside her, when he pushed his arousal into hers, it no longer mattered, because it felt as though he had always been there.

It was impossible to know if it had been seconds or hours.

Was he being careful? Was he being harsh? Was it both or neither or all manner of things at once?

Yes , she thought, yes . It was all of it.

Her eyes rolled shut, her body reacting and mirroring the motions of his as he took her, as he filled her, that gorgeous body beside her, above her, inside her.

She could feel the way she was changing him, the gathering slickness with every renewed collision, the shared madness of it.

“Abe,” she cried, clutching him to her, “my Abe.”

That seemed to spurn him on, the pace increasing, his hands plucking and stroking at her breasts, his hips grinding into hers as he moved. He groaned with every touch, every motion, like each one was the first and most perfect.

She caught herself holding her breath, squeezing her eyes shut, clamoring toward some dangerous thing just out of sight, just out of reach.

He must have seen it too. His hands melted down to their joining, intensifying it, sliding in the slickness of her arousal to push her past the horizon, over the edge, off the cliff. He did not close his eyes, though he was obviously chasing pleasures just as overpowering.

Every time she managed to pull her lashes apart, to see him in the tiny gasps before sensation forced them shut again, he was fixed on her, watching her, intensity and unblinking focus on his handsome face.

And when she did finally tip over that threshold, he watched that too, sucking in a sharp breath and holding it in his chest as wave after wave crashed over her. He watched until he couldn’t anymore, until he was forced to let it take him as well, to drive him past the same point of oblivion.

He was frantic, his body unwound into desperate speed and demand until everything froze and he cried out too and fell onto her mouth for the descent, a final, slowing heartbeat of slowing, luxuriating strokes.

And then there was nothing left to do but collapse. Together.