Then he slowed. Continued moving heavily, powerfully surging within her, but not hard enough, not fast enough.
His head, until then alongside hers, lifted; he drew back enough to look into her eyes. With an effort she opened them, knowing he would wait….
He caught her gaze. Moved once, twice, within her. Leaned closer. Their breaths mingled, their breathing
ragged and harsh. His gaze dropped to her lips, then his lashes lifted and their eyes locked again.
“I will never, ever, turn from you.” The words were guttural, low, resonant with the weight of a vow. “Not tonight, not tomorrow, not in fifty years.” He continued to move within her, his thrusts punctuating his words. “Don’t ask it of me. Don’t expect it to happen, don’t imagine it ever will. It won’t. I won’t.”
His gaze fell; her lips throbbed.
He covered them.
And the firestorm took them. Melded them. Fused them.
Yet when, driven far beyond the world, she shattered, fractured by the pulsing glory, he didn’t follow. He hung back, anchoring her, driving rhythmically into her—drawing her back.
When she finally drew in a shuddering breath and lifted her head, bracing her arms, straightening her spine, opening her eyes to look at him in disoriented puzzlement, Michael clamped a desperate hold on his raging passions, felt her contract about him, confirming he’d yet to seek his release.
Before she could speak, he withdrew from her, slowly lowered her. “First act.” His voice was so gravelly he wondered if she would even make out the words. He waited while she unwound her legs, then swept her up into his arms. Carrying her to the bed, he caught her gaze. “Tonight, I want more.”
Much more.
Her widening eyes suggested his meaning—primitive, basic, less than civilized—had reached her. He didn’t feel anything like his smoothly sophisticated self as he tumbled her onto the bed. As he followed her and swiftly arranged her as he wished, bent over her knees before him.
His facade, his mask, had long gone as he pushed her nightgown up to her waist, as he ran his hands over the dewed globes of her bottom, then opened her and eased his throbbing staff into the hot haven between her thighs.
He heard her sob, catch her breath, felt her silent gasp as she instinctively tightened, then surrendered and let him in. He pushed further; her sheath stretched, easing in welcome, then clasped about him, a scalding lover’s caress. Closing his hands about her hips, anchoring her before him, he adjusted her position as he worked deep and filled her.
Then he rode her.
As he had told her, demanding more, wanting more, needing more. And she gave without reservation. Her already sensitized nerves leapt to every explicit caress; her nightgown simply added another layer of sensual taunting.
Her hips rocked as he rhythmically thrust, angling to penetrate as deeply as he could—and she met him. Sensuously shifted, wanton in her passion, riding each movement, taking him in, pressing her bottom into his groin as he joined with her.
He heard her pants, heard the soft moans she struggled to suppress, then surrendered and let free. The sound of female abandonment added yet more impetus to the primal passion driving him. He could no longer think. Didn’t need to. Instinct had claimed him, decisive, urgent, and commanding.
Reaching forward, he filled his hands with her breasts, ripe and sumptuous, the nipples hard pebbles he rubbed and taunted, then squeezed. She cried out, lifted, and felt his hand on her back holding her down, only then realized her inherent helplessness.
With a gasp understood, then gave herself over to it.
Let go as he’d asked, gave herself up to the turbulent tide, let it and him sweep her where they would. Let him take all he wished of her—give all he wished to her. Show her all.
He employed no restraint, no finesse, simply dropped all pretense and let her feel what she was to him, feel the primitive urges that whipped through him, that she and only she evoked.
Let her sense through him, through the power that drove him, all she meant to him, all she called forth in him. All that she controlled in him.
Whether she recognized that last or not, he didn’t care. His need for her transcended any logic, any consideration of self-protection. There was no longer any existence for him but with her.
The driving, pumping rhythm had escalated beyond his control or hers. Desire roared; passion lashed out and caught them in its fiery embrace.
And they burned.
When she fell from the peak, she took him with her—this time, he went willingly. Surrendering to the glory. Surrendering to her.
Surrendering to the power that bound them, now and forever.
He stirred her again in the deep watches of the night.