The rest of her made the first move. Or was it the third move? She’d lost count. It didn’t matter. It was too late to turn back.
She kissed him and he smiled into it, opening to her exploration with smooth ease, every inch her match.
For a woman who had always considered herself a solitary issue, it was a novel concept—to fit together with another human being so perfectly it seemed only divine design could have created it. Or at the very least, the longest odds the galaxy had ever seen, that random chance would construct two tiny specks, meant to join, in the infinite vastness of the entire universe.
With the exception of Queen Mina and her cousin, whose random stars had truly aligned, she didn’t even believe in love like that. To feel it, alive and beating, and turn away felt like sacrilege.
Though to call resisting what was between them—mired in murder and vengeance and dangerous gambles as it was—sacrilege felt a little self-aggrandizing, no matter that the pressure of her lips against his was exquisite torture she never wanted to end.
Her body was an unyielding weapon, her very form a tool she kept in smooth order, yet now it was in charge, begging for his touch in all the silent ways women’s bodies knew how...even when the woman did not.
Her breasts pressed into his chest, growing heavier, her nipples pebbling on contact. Her breath became erratic—deep, then shallow, then catching—as his fingertips trailed down her neck and farther to cup each soft peak in his hands.
She moaned when his thumbs found her nipples, running lazy circles around them while he took control of her mouth. Her breasts ached beneath his manipulations, the lightest touches making her gasp.
Her lips parted, her body yearning and straining toward him without her knowledge, a hot, heavy and needy siren song she didn’t know she was singing.
With a growl he swept her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Carrying her to his bed, he lay her down on her back, before pulling back from their kiss.
“I want to see you.”
His command was rough, but she only smiled, shaking her head, a teasing gleam lighting her eyes. Whatever controlled her now was more daring than she, because when she opened her mouth and spoke, her voice was thick and heavy and laden with things she had never done before, even if her honor insisted as she replied, “My vow.”
He leaned down over her, coming to kiss the sensitive spot behind her ear, and whispered, “There’s so much ground to explore between here and breaking it...”
She shivered beneath him—her curiosity was as piqued as her pleasure.
Kissing a trail down her neck, he found another treasure trove of nerve endings along her collarbone, his hand reaching for the hemline of her T-shirt. Lifting it, his knuckles brushed along the smooth, taut skin of her abdomen, and she shivered, the sensations rippling across her skin in erotic waves.
She wore no bra and he palmed her breast without a barrier. She arched into his hand with a breathless gasp. Pulling back, he made quick work of removing her top before taking off his own shirt. Her eyes widened, lighting with greedy hunger as the tip of her tongue moistened her lips.
No longer able to tolerate the space between them, Helene pressed into him, skin-to-skin, her body responsive and needy. And then his mouth returned to her breasts.
While he feasted, his hand traveled back down the plane of her belly and farther, reaching beneath the waistband of the shorts she wore.
She was as hot and wet as a tropical hurricane, and though she didn’t know where the knowledge came from, she knew that traveling through the eye of this storm would be one amazing ride.
But she was trusting him not to take them too far.
He slid his finger inside of her and her entire body clenched around him, motionless and tight for a moment, before she fell back in a heap of pulsing woman, her inner walls throbbing and squeezing around his finger, while she moaned and shuddered.
He showed her no mercy, pressing and circling the sensitive bud, overseeing it all every time the waves seemed to slow.
Only when she could truly take no more did she fall back against the bed, boneless.
He grinned down at her as she was lying there, catching her breath.
And then he set to work pulling her shorts down over her hips.
She remained boneless as he did, lifting her hips only when he was ready to slide them down. She smiled at him, the expression slightly askew and silly.
“I’m not sure you’re going to be able to get much more out of me.” Her words were giddy, dazed and confused.
Expression wolfish, he said, “Oh, I think you’ll be surprised.” His lips touched the supple skin of her stomach.
Tensing, her hand fluttered to his shoulder, and he smiled against her skin. He paused, kissing and teasing her torso, exploring the sensitive skin beneath her breasts and along her rib cage, experimenting with touch and sensation until she forgot all about her earlier tension. And when her mind was thoroughly lost in the chills undulating across her skin, he resumed his journey, gently kissing his way to her core.
When he arrived, she stilled, her senses intent and alert, desperate to know what would come next, but no longer hesitant. She was in too deep for that now.