Page 43 of Enchanted
For an answer she stepped to him, rising onto her toes so that her mouth met his. The beauty of that, just that, had his arms coming hard around her. “Hold tight,” he murmured.
She felt the air shudder, heard a rustle of wind. There was a sensation of rising, spinning, then tumbling, all in the space of a single heartbeat. Before fear could fully form, before the gasp of it could shudder from her mouth to his, she was lying beneath him, dipped deep into a bed soft as clouds.
Her eyes flew open. She could see the polished beams of a wood ceiling, the stream of sunlight. “But how—”
“I’ve magic for you, Rowan.” His mouth moved to the vulnerable flesh of her throat. “All manner of magic.”
They were in his bed, she realized. In the blink of an eye they’d moved from one room to another. And now his hands … oh, sweet Lord, how could the simple touch of flesh to flesh cause suchfeeling?
“Give me your thoughts.” His voice was rough, his hands light as air. “Let me touch them, and show you.”
She opened her mind to him, gasping when she not only felt the heat of his body, the skim of his hands, but saw the images forming out of the mists in her mind, the two of them tangled together on a huge, yielding bed in a path of early-summer sunlight.
Every sensation now, every shimmering layer, was reflected back, as if a thousand silver mirrors shone out of her heart. And so, with a kiss only, one long, drugging kiss, he brought her softly to peak.
She moaned out the pleasure of it, the sheer wonder of having her body slide over a velvet edge. Her thoughts scattered, dimmed, re-formed in a mixed maze of colors, only to fly apart again as his teeth grazed her shoulder.
She was beyond price. An unexpected treasure in her openness, her utter surrender to him and to her own pleasures. Now, at last now, his hands could take, his mouth could feast. Soft, silky flesh, pale as the moon, delicate curves and subtle scents.
The animal that beat in his blood wanted to ravage, to grasp and plunge. She would not deny him. Knowingthat, he wrapped the chain tighter around his own pounding throat and offered only tenderness.
She moved beneath him, all quiet sighs and luxurious stretches. Her hands roamed over him freely, building and banking small fires. Dark and heavy, her eyes met his when he lifted his head.
And her lips curved slowly.
“I’ve waited so long to feel like this.” She lifted a hand to slide her fingers through his hair. “I never knew I was waiting.”
Love waits.
The words came back to him like a drumbeat, a warning, a whisper. Ignoring it, he lowered again to take her breast with his mouth. She arched, gave a little cry, as the movement had been sudden and just a bit rough.
Then she groaned, and the hand that had combed lazily through his hair fisted tight, pressing him urgently against her. Heat flashed, a quick bolt to the center. His tongue tormented, his teeth hinted of pain. She gave herself over to it, to him, trembling again as both mind and body steeped in pleasure.
No one had ever touched her this way, so deep it seemed he knew her needs and secrets better than she herself. Her heart quaked, then soared under his quietly ruthless mouth. And opened wide as love flooded it.
She clung to him now, murmuring mindlessly as they rolled over the bed, as flesh grew damp with desire and minds misted with delight.
She was … glory, he thought dimly while he tumbled to a depth he’d never explored with a woman. His keen senses were barraged with her. Scent like spice on the wind, taste like honeyed wine, texture like heated silk. Whatever he asked for she gave, a rose opening petal by petal.
She rose up when he reached for her, her body impossibly fluid, her lips like a flame on his shoulder, across his chest, against his greedy mouth.
Against his hand she was warm and wet, and her body arched back like a drawn bow when his fingers found her. Eyes sharp on her face, he watched that fresh rush of shock and pleasure and fear flicker over hers as he took her up, urged her over.
Her breath sobbed out, her body shook as that new arrow of sensation pinned her, left her quiveringhelplessly. Even as her head dropped limply on the shoulder her nails had just bitten into, he sent her spinning up again.
When they tumbled back, he gripped her hands, waited for his vision to clear, waited for her eyes to open and meet his. The air dragged in and out of his lungs. “Now.”
The word was nearly an oath as he drove into her.
Held there, held quivering to watch her eyes go wide and blind. Held there, held gasping while the thrill of filling her burned in his blood.
Then she began to move.
A lift of the hips, a falling away that drew him down. Slow, achingly slow, with a low moan for each long, deep thrust.
It was his eyes, only his eyes, she saw now, brilliantly gold, stunningly intense as they took each other to a secret space where the air fluttered like velvet on the skin. Her fingers clung to his, her eyes stayed open and aware. Every pulse that beat in her body gathered into one steady throb that filled the heart to bursting.
When it burst, and her mind and body with it, she arched high and hard against him, called out his name with a kind of wonder. Saying hers, he buried his face in her hair and dived with her.
