Page 50 of Marked By Moonlight

His hands tightened on her breasts.

His thrusts grew harder. Faster. Fierce. This was no gentle joining. Her body demanded a desperate, furious union of flesh. Nothing less. She tilted her hips, clenching her inner muscles around his sliding heat, trying to get more, trying to reach that elusive hurdle.

His fingers slid from her breasts to dig into her hips. “Go on,” he rasped. “Come. Come for me.”

Whimpering, she dropped her head, letting herself relax into the steady build of tension tightening through her. The pressure increased, building. He swiped the hair from her shoulders again and dragged his mouth over the sensitive skin.

Every muscle in her body suddenly squeezed and contracted. She cried out as shudders racked her, took her soaring over that final precipice. Arched under him, she stilled, his chest a hard wall at her back, the only thing grounding her to earth.

His hands circled her waist and he bucked behind her, thrusting several more times, pouring his liquid heat inside her. His groan rumbled through him into her as if they were one. And in that moment, they were.

Panting, she collapsed into the bed bonelessly, the hot length of him still inside her.

His body came down over her, a crushing, delicious weight, the fan of his breath warm against her spine.

Never more sated or content, her eyes drifted shut.

The gentle tapping of rain on the window woke her. She stretched, spine arching, her hand seeking out the warm body beside her. Her palm flattened over the supple skin of his back. She could feel his lifeblood rushing just below skin and sinew.

He had held her a long while before rolling onto his side. She hadn’t known the rapture could last, that a man’s strong arms could feel so good around her. Better in some ways than the actual sex. With Brian there had been no cuddling after sex. To be honest, there’d hardly been sex.

Sighing, she slid her hand off his back and slipped out of bed, for some reason moved to do so. Guided by a force she could not identify, she stopped before the window, standing where the rug didn’t reach. Her feet shifted on the wood floor, absorbing the cold. Through the part of the curtains, she looked up at the night sky, at the object calling to her. Gray clouds scuttled across the black night, but the moon glowed a hole right through them. It loomed large and godlike overhead, its beam seeming to locate her specifically. Almost full. Only a sliver more and it would be a complete orb. She shivered and hugged herself.

“Come back to bed.” His voice sounded behind her, thick and scratchy with sleep.

Wordlessly, Claire turned and slid back into bed. He tucked her against his side and she marveled at the strangeness of it all. She’d shared a bed with a man before but not like this. She didn’t remember this intimacy, this—

Her mind shied away from the wordlove, but there it was, intruding and insinuating itself into her heart and head where it had no business being. Not without the possibility of a future.

She shifted beside him, smiling at the twinge of soreness between her legs, a tantalizing reminder of all that had occurred. Her smile slipped as a thought occurred to her.

“Gideon,” she began. “We didn’t use protection.”

“No worries. You can’t get pregnant. And I’m disease-free. NODEAL requires yearly physicals. They test for everything—from cancer to STDs. An agent has to be in peak physical condition.”

Claire nodded, tracing small circles over his chest. “And why aren’t you worried about getting me pregnant?”

“Lycans and humans cannot procreate. It’s like trying to breed two different species. A lycan and human can never produce offspring. If it were possible, it would already have happened. Sadly, plenty of lycans have raped humans. Such a savage act goes hand in hand with their vicious nature.”

“I see.” Hearing herself lumped into thenonhumancategory sent a chill to her heart. Her gaze drifted to the window, at the nearly full moon looking down on them.

“You can’t help but look at it, can you?” His deep voice, faintly sad, resigned, jarred her and it took a moment for his meaning to sink in.

“I feel like it’s calling me,” she confessed. “I want to wipe it from the sky.”

“I know,” he sighed. After a long moment, he added, “Crazy how we know next to nothing about the very thing that controls our lives.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the moon controls the tides, affects the weather, crops, our moods—”

“And now my soul,” she added bitterly.

“Yes.” He sighed. “Ironic that she only reveals herself to us in part, isn’t it? We only ever get to see one side of her. We never see the dark side of the moon. No one has.”

“The dark side of the moon,” Claire whispered. She didn’t even want to see the side visible—the side growing more visible with every passing moment. As far as she was concerned, the dark side could stay just that. Dark. Unknown.

Pushing thoughts of the moon away, she splayed a hand over his washboard belly, enjoying the way his muscles contracted beneath her fingers. Pressing her ear to his heart, she listened to the strong, steady beat and asked one of the questions that had plagued her. “Do you know how your mother got infected?”

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