Captured them, swept them into a sea of whirling, greedy need that suddenly, abruptly, coalesed.
Their skin was alive, nerves tense and tight; their bodies fused, driven by primal urgency. She pulled back from the kiss, gasped, eyes closed as she struggled to breathe.
He pushed her faster, harder; she strained upward, and with a cry touched the sun. Clutched, held tight to him as she shattered, then melted, pulsing around him.
Her release called on his own; he followed her quickly, drove deeper, harder, emptying himself into her, with a long groan finally collapsing atop her, sated to his toes.
13
Caro lay beneath Michael and exulted. His hard body, his heavy muscles and even heavier bones, pressed her into the bed; she didn’t think she’d ever felt so comfortable, so…simply happy.
So connected, physically and otherwise, to any other person in her life.
Tremors of excitement still racked her; aftershocks of glory still slid through her veins, leaving an indescribable sense of joy in their wake.
This, then, was intimacy. Something far more profound than she’d imagined it to be. Also a great deal more…primitive was the word that leapt to mind.
She smiled; she wasn’t about to complain.
For long minutes, they simply lay entwined, trapped in each other’s arms, both aware the other was awake, yet both needing to catch their breath, mental as well as physical. Slowly, the realization that he had guessed her secret, knew and understood it, intruded.
Staring up at the ceiling, she searched for words, for the right thing to say, in the end simply said what she felt. His head lay across her shoulder. Gently, almost tentatively, for such tender touching was still new to her, she riffled her fingers through his hair. “Thank you.”
He dragged in a breath, his chest crushing her breasts, then shifted his head and kissed her shoulder. “For what? Having the best time of my life?”
So he was a politician even in bed. She smiled, wryly cynical. “You don’t have to pretend. I know I’m not particularly…” Words failed her; she gestured vaguely.
He lifted his shoulders, caught her waving hand, then pushed back enough so he could meet her eyes. He looked into them, then drew her hand to his lips. Turned it and placed a scorching kiss in her palm—caught her gaze as he did, then gently bit the mound at the base of her thumb.
She jerked. Realized he was still hard and solid within her…no…was again hard and solid within her. Puzzled, not quite sure, she refocused on his eyes.
His smile wasn’t humorous, more forbearing. “I don’t know what Camden’s problem was, but as you can feel, I patently don’t suffer from it.”
The more she thought about it, the more obvious that last became.
As if to further demonstrate, he moved a little, rocking rather than thrusting. Nerves that a minute ago had seemed dead with exhaustion sizzled back to life.
He shifted over her again, settling on his forearms, one on either side of her. “Remember”—he kept the gently rocking motion going—“what I said earlier about taking two hours?”
Somewhat stunned, her mouth drying anew as, to her considerable astonishment, her body responded—ardently, eagerly—to his, to the promise in that gently repe
titive motion and the rock-hard reality riding within her, she licked her lips, focused on his eyes. “Yes?”
His lips twisted; he lowered them to hers. “I thought I should warn you—I plan on taking three.”
He did. For three bliss-filled hours he held her captive in his bed, until they’d reduced the originally neat covers to a froth of silk and linen, a sensual battlefield.
On resuming their play, he spent the next half hour ensuring she understood that once was very definitely not enough—not enough to sate him, or her. While outside, the pulsing heat of afternoon forced even insects to drowsing silence, inside his bedchamber, intimately entwined with him on his bed, heat of a different sort drew gasps, moans, and passionate cries from her.
Until she tumbled headlong into glorious oblivion and he swiftly joined her.
He had no interest in any passive submission; when he stirred her a third time, the engagement extended into a journey of intimate exploration and discovery—for them both. He not only blatantly encouraged her to be as wanton as she felt, in her wildest dreams desired, but teased, even taunted her to go further, to forget any restriction she might have imagined might apply and respond to him as primitively as he did to her.
Not once did he seek to conceal his desire for her, not once did he fail to impress on her his hunger, the power of his lust, his driving need to slake it by joining his body with hers.
When at the last she convulsed in his arms, held tight against him as he knelt on the bed, her thighs spread wide over his, him sunk to the hilt within her, she had finally learned what mating was—a sharing of passions, a mutual giving and taking, a melding that went far beyond the physical, touching deeper things.
It was a lesson she had waited more than a decade to learn.