She opened her eyes and stared up. Her gaze was opaque. “I . . .”
“Say it, Antonia,” he snarled, edging a fraction further. Her muscles contracted as she struggled to draw him deeper. Each tiny movement shot flame through his head, singed his mind.
“I . . .”
Her face was stark with arousal, with longing, with discomfort. He knew what he did tried her to her physical limits. Her nails s
cored his flesh like knives.
“Say it.” For all his pride and determination, he knew he couldn’t hold back much longer.
“I . . .”
She surged up and in a conflagration of light, he lost his futile battle. With a broken groan, he buried himself to the hilt. He slumped forward as she closed around him.
As if she never meant to let him go.
She inhaled on a jagged sigh and shifted, her beaded nipples grazing his chest with sweet friction. “I’m yours,” she whispered.
The shaken confession etched itself on his skin. He released his breath in a powerful gasp and closed his eyes, seeking triumph.
And found none.
He hadn’t won this war between them. Because her admission echoed the words ripping at his heart.
That if she was his, he was hers. Forever.
Chapter Twenty
Antonia firmed her hold on Nicholas’s sweat-sleeked back and felt the trembling tension in his muscles. She was overwhelmingly conscious of the throbbing, massive invasion of her body. His weight and hard power pinned her beneath him. He held preternaturally still as though her unwilling, broken confession turned him to stone.
Then with a desperation that both thrilled and terrified her, he began to move. The fierce purpose of his thrusts pounded her deep into the mattress and set the bed creaking. It was as though he struggled to hammer them together into a single entity, a pure infinity of passion forged from crackling flame. The wildness of his possession unleashed an answering wildness in her. Taut as a piano wire, she shuddered, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Hot need spiraled higher with every thrust.
His fury quickly tore Antonia from the world and flung her screaming into a fiery heaven. The climax threatened to rend her into tatters. For a long moment, she knew nothing except the dark fire lashing her.
For a blazing eternity, he held her quivering at the extremity of rapture. His hands tightened around her hips, hard enough to bruise, keeping her safe as lightning raged around her. She closed her eyes against blinding light and surrendered.
Through the violent, buffeting storm, she felt Nicholas jerk in uncontrollable release. He groaned and flung his head back, the tendons in his neck standing out as he pumped into her. Hot liquid spurted deep inside her, flooding her womb.
Even as she gradually slipped from the dazzling heights, the radiance remained. When she drifted back to reality, Nicholas was crushing her into the bed, forcing the breath from her lungs. Sticky tears drenched her cheeks and her belly quaked with the aftermath of bliss.
After this, how could she live without him?
Ranelaw buried his head in the curve of Antonia’s shoulder. The scent of strenuous sexual fulfillment surrounded him. His blood pulsed in heavy waves. Velvet oblivion beckoned.
In all his life, he’d never felt so good.
Too good to shatter the moment.
He still wandered among the stars, a lost explorer in the wide reaches of sky. He’d always considered himself a connoisseur of the sensual arts. A man who knew all about sex and its pleasures. How wrong he’d been. Hell, before tonight, he’d had no idea.
Eventually he snagged one of the jumbled thoughts drifting through his mind and realized he must be squashing Antonia. She was a tall, strong woman, perfectly formed for a man like him, but even so, he was a dead weight. He braced to slide free of her body, although he loved to rest inside her and feel the soft clasp of her muscles as she descended.
“No,” she murmured in drowsy protest when he shifted.
She was rubbing his back in circular movements. His heart skipped a beat every time she stopped and started again. She still had a lamentable ability to affect his pulse. Even now when desire was a slow simmer not a raging forest fire.
“I should move.” He didn’t budge in case he disrupted those languorous caresses. If he was a cat, he’d purr.