Page 53 of Until the Stars Fall

But even witches’ bodies have a limit to pleasure. The strongest one yet approached, twisting like springs low in my body. His thrusts became harder, deeper, faster, and I ground against him harder, sucking his kisses deeper. My body became electrified like fireworks, my climax bursting like a dam, shuddering through me. His release came right after, and I squeezed the still-spasming muscles inside my body around where he still penetrated me, squeezing my arms and legs around him to ride his final thrusts.

We stayed joined, wrapped up in each other, sweating chests pressed together for a long time afterwards, kissing, existing. When he lay back, I went with him, still in his arms.

“Gemma,” he panted, his voice muffled against my throat, his hand tangled in my hair at the base of my head. He kissed my lips and pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m all yours if you want me.” He kissed me again. “If you want me, I’m all in.”

“I want you, Beck,” I said, greedily sucking kisses into my mouth. “I’m all in.” I felt the truth of my words down to the core of my soul.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

We spent the next week and a half sneaking around the ship, acting around the others like we weren’t naked together every chance we got. I healed the beard burn on my face after every make-out session. He offered to shave it off, but it was far too sexy to let him get rid of it.

At lunch today, Hannah pressured me hard to join the girls for movie night, but I’d barely been able to get my hands on my big, sexy man over the past two days, between our kitchen and garden duties with the others. So I claimed a headache and begged off, and Beck met me in my room.

Stars around us—it was so good.

After making love, we lay in bed, talking about the fix he and Summer had come up with for entry onto Gaia. He’d laid it all out, but I still had questions.

“So this spell,” I said as he absentmindedly dropped kisses onto my fingers, “you’ll be in the engine room, and she’ll be on the bridge, and you think you can connect well enough to manage the deceleration for entry? What happens if our filter clogs again?”

“Mmm, I love it when you talk astro-engineering to me, baby,” he crooned, kissing my nose.

“Are you making fun of me, sir?” I teased, threading my fingers through his.

“Not at all. I love that I can share my love of astro-engineering and magic with you.”

I smiled, but my heart twisted. Why did he have to add “magic” at the end of that sentence? Since he’d been working with me, I’d had no problems holding onto my magic, keeping it in line, even at emotional moments. But that didn’t mean I’d changed my mind about meeting Madam Indigo.

He settled his head on top of mine, sighing contentedly. “If the feed assembly was clogged, you’re right, I think it’d prevent us from achieving the deceleration we need. So we’ll just have to be sure to clean it when we exit the Bifrost, or at latest, when we reach the solar system.”

“The fix is still theoretical, though, right? Shouldn’t we test—”

A knock at my door. My whole body tensed, but Beck snuggled deeper in.

“They’ll probably go away in a minute.”

A louder knock, and Hannah shouted, “Gemma! I know you’re in there, and I don’t care if you’re sleeping!”

I untangled my limbs from his and slipped on my robe. “What if something’s wrong?”

He sat up, his lower half covered by the blankets, but his torso beautifully bare. “I think they’d page us if they needed something important.”

Hannah continued to bang on the door.

“I’ll just go check and get rid of her.” My robe tied tight, I stepped to the door and opened it partway, trying my best to both look groggy and not look naked under my robe. Hannah stood there in her pajamas with a big bowl of popcorn.

“Hey you! I know you said you had a headache and wanted to go to sleep, but I’m worried about you. You’ve been saying that a lot lately, and I don’t want you isolating yourself in here. Please come to movie night?”

“Really, Hannah, I’m fine. Go have fun with your friends.”

“But I want them to be your friends too,” she insisted. “You know what? No. I’m not taking no for an answer.” Hannah pushed past me into my suite.

My heart pounding, I rushed after her, trying to walk on her left side so she’d look toward me and not Beck. “Hannah, this really isn’t a good time. I was about to go to bed, and I—”

“Gemma, you can’t spend your whole life holed up in your room!” She turned to me, gesticulating with her popcorn-bowl-free hand. Behind her, Beck sat relaxed in the bed, bare-chested, in full view, grinning. Why didn’t I make him hide in the bathroom?

“I swear, this is just like high school, all over again,” she continued. “It would mean so much to me if you’d just come. Please? Just one night?”

She started to turn, but I grabbed her arm to stop her. “If I promise to come tomorrow night, will you leave?”

---