Page 52 of Angel's Smoke

Iron whirled them both around so fast, her thoughts and words had no time to catch up. The temperature shifted on her next breath, and then her back was against her bedroom window, her ass on top of the dresser. A sharp gasp was robbed from her throat. Then he was kissing her again, deeper than before. She was lost in the pleasure of it, of the frosted glass chilling her from behind while the heat from Iron scorched her front. It was impossible to keep it all straight, even as her body tried its former-gifted-student best to make sense of what was being asked of it.

Together, they slid their hands over each other, attacking and peeling off whatever got in their way. Iron’s heavy coat hit the floor first, followed by whatever remained of his flannel shirt and tank beneath it. She was about to lift off her T-shirt when his large hands covered hers. “No. Let me take care of you.”

She didn’t have a chance to object—though, c’mon, like she would have? For the first time since she’d been pregnant, all her body parts had finally gotten on the same page. Every nerve ending snapped into sync, standing up to take notice when Iron slid his hands gently beneath her shirt, then lifted it over her head, along with her lounge bra.

Bare before each other from the waist up, Anna breathed through the still moment between them while basking in the heated glory of Iron’s strength. If his face had been chiseled from the granite of the mountains around him, his chest had been carved from the boulders beneath. She sat forward, eager to slide her fingers down his wide chest just to memorize the paths each valley and divot charted. Thickly capped shoulders, sloping biceps, exquisite contours. She wanted to discover them all and experience what it felt like to be protectively wrapped in the armor of such a man. His physique was a curious wonder for the ages that her questing fingers couldn’t get enough of. And the heat.God!The stuff radiated off him like a furnace.

She was just about to say as much when he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her breastbone, then swept his lips over the sensitive skin of her breasts to toy with her nipples.

Damn. The bastard remembered.

“Oh god!” she cried, bucking against his head, pushing more of her into his mouth. When he pulled away, he blew cool air across one heated peak, before repeating the delicious torture to the other.

Anna’s smile was teased wider with the fade of the sting, and she sat up higher, eager to see what he’d do next with that wicked tongue.

Then a prism of colors landed on her belly, a byproduct of the sunlight beating through the window behind her. Iron noticed it too, then traced his fingers over the small rainbow, which was no bigger than her pinky. A knowing smile teased his lips. “The sun’s in on the secret, too.”

“What secret’s that?”

“Knowing how much the light suits you. It craves you, Anna. It would share with you all its beauty if you let it.”

“You can’t say stuff like that to a pregnant woman,” she replied, cupping her palm around his stony chin, fighting to speak through the tension in her throat.

He leaned into her caress. “Why not?”

“Because it messes with our brain chemistry. It’ll make me want to think of spending time in the light with you, and this is supposed to be transactional. Temporary. And that kind of talk feels more?—”

“Permanent.”

The word hovered around them, suspended above the flames that crackled unseen between their panting bodies. It charged the air and bolstered every breath feeding into Anna’s lungs. And like a volley of atoms reaching critical mass, the release was inevitable and one she knew she’d never come back from.

Iron spun her over, pushing her onto her knees on top of the dresser. Then he caressed her bare arms and positioned them out in front of her so her palms were flat on the frosty window glass. There was nowhere to hide from the sun. It draped over every part of her, from her exposed breasts to her quivering belly, bathing her in an existence that she’d not let herself dream of revisiting for fear of what it would reveal. A broken, discarded woman whose judgment think tank was always running on E.

“Keep your hands here,” Iron said, his words pushing back the fog of doubt creeping in, anchoring her to the present she craved. “The light needs all of you, Anna.Ineed all of you.”

The heart in her chest pumped wildly against her rib cage as he curled his fingers into the waistband of her pants and slowly slid them and her underwear down over her hips. Carefully, tenderly, he helped her out of them, including her socks, until she was completely stripped save for the goose bumps prickling her flesh.

Behind her, his belt buckle tinkled, clothing rustled, and the stiff denim that had abraded the backs of her thighs a moment ago was gone, replaced by a stolen kiss deposited at the base of her spine.

“Iron.” His name became a plea on her lips, a supplication to both begin and end the lives he’d uncovered inside her. She wanted her old one to die so she could be reborn with the knowledge of what it meant to be sustained by this man.

His fingers traced a path along her inner thighs, then stilled when they reached the slickness that waited for him. She could feel the virile heat spiraling from his body, urging every magnificent sensation that had yet to be fully realized between them higher. His knees hit the floor, and his mouth took her to heights she’d never dreamed of. He ravaged her wet heat with a devotion that could only be perceived by the absence of all else. With his mouth on her and his appreciative moans sending shivers everywhere throughout her body, she was lost and limp, tossed about a choppy sea of pleasure with only Iron’s strong hands on her hips as an anchor.

She came apart on his tongue in wave after wave of satiated bliss. But just when she thought to let her delicious exhaustion claim her and allow her to crumple to her bedroom floor in an orgasm-replete puddle, Iron stood and placed his hands on the backs of hers, holding her to the window. The dark leather wrist bracers he always wore were little more than smudges pressed against the bright canvas he’d created.

“I’m not done with you yet.”

It was ten kinds of exhilarating to be such a singular focus of his attention, to pant with need in time to the shivers he sent down her spine, knowing he’d make good on every promise he bestowed on her body.

“Please, Iron. I need you. It’s all too much.”

“Anything you want, it’s yours. Always.”

“I want you. All of you.”

“You have me.”

The tip of his cock pressed against her entrance, robbing the breath from both of them. He sank in farther, stretching and filling her with its exquisite invasion. The moan that left her lips fogged over the glass in front of her, creating a slick surface for Iron to interlock their fingers against.

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