They were the hands of a warrior, adorned with darkened scars.
She placed her palms against his. He was rough, calloused. “Your skin is beautiful,” she breathed. “Like art.” Sliding her fingers up, she intertwined them with his. She had to spread them wide to fill the spaces. Her hands looked so small in his yet so completely right. The deep ocean blue of his flesh meeting the sun-kissed earth of hers. She’d never seen anything so perfect in her life.
“I am yours to command,” he rasped.
She peered at him between their joined hands. This. This was where everything would change for her. She felt it as her tongue passed over her lips, and saw it in her reflection in the black shields of his helmet.
“Touch me, Ved.”
Chapter 24
Isobel
A primal noise left him. He pulled his hands away from hers, only to place them around her waist instead. Ved lifted her at the same time he pulled her forward.
“On either side,” he ordered.
She obeyed instantly, placing her legs over his huge thighs.
It was the closest, most intimate position she’d ever been in. The opening of her underlayers exposed her center to the fabric of his trousers. Upon contact, something hot and dangerous sparked in her core.
When he was satisfied with her position, he squeezed her hips before bringing his fingers up to hover over her neck and cheeks. The wait between contact held the infinite space between colliding planets.
And then he was touching her. He brushed his thumb over her cheek. Drew it hesitantly over her lips. They both inhaled, chests heaving. From each point of contact, the heat of him sank into her flesh.
“I don’t think I could have survived another minute not being touched by you,” she confessed against the rough pad of his thumb before planting a soft kiss upon it.
“I’ve imagined touching you,” he growled as he moved his hands over her cheek, down her neck, through her hair. “But I’m not sure once I start that I’ll be able to stop. You have a lot of rules, and they are not the ones that govern me.” He pulled his hands away with great effort, taking his heat with him.
It was her last chance to say no, to go no further. But the thought of stopping only left her reeling. “I’ve been breaking the rules since I met you. Please don’t stop,” she pleaded.
Before she even finished the sentence, he was touching her again. Pulling the towel from her with a low snarl, he tossed it somewhere behind her. Then his hands seemed to be everywhere at once—gripping her thighs, squeezing her backside, running up her spine, plunging into her hair. Each touch was feral yet reverent. Rough but restrained. Without thought, her hips rolled against his thighs, and that’s when she felt him.
His hard length strained against his trousers, pushing against the curves of her backside. “Oh,” she breathed.
He let out a soft grunt.
She placed her hands against his chest, and the hardness pressing into her center gave a noticeable throb against her. Liquid fire rushed through her veins and pooled in her core. She was feverish with want.
His hands wrapped around her ribs, just brushing the underside of her breasts. Her breathing was already uneven, but when he ran his thumbs over her nipples, she forgot how to breathe altogether. Even through the shift, his determined touch had her eyes closing in pleasure, her nipples pebbling.
“I want to see more of you,” he growled.
Her barely visible cleavage was tinged pink, her face heating as she leaned away from him. She should have bargained to see more of him first, but her mouth couldn’t form any words against what her body wanted.
He pulled at her shift exposing her shoulders and more of her collarbone until the fabric stretched dangerously over the swell of her chest.
Finally, she managed to say, “Don’t—don’t tear it. I can’t go home like that.”
His hold on the fabric seemed to hesitate as he balanced the consequences of taking what he wanted.
Then he ripped it, exposing her heaving bosom within a single heartbeat. “I’ll take you back.”
He paused, and she both wanted to see his face as he took her in and wanted to hide her own. Cupping one of her breasts, he rolled her hardened nipple between his thumb and pointer finger. The rough pads of his fingers sent jolts of pleasure through her rib cage and down. Closing her eyes, she arched into his hold.
“You are the most exceptional thing I have ever had the honor to behold.” He worked to get his hands beneath her shift, finding her thinly covered thighs and hips beneath. He grabbed her curves, then paused, but it was muscles tensing beneath her own exploring palms that let her know they were both lost to the moment. His hands were so large they covered most of the expanse of her hips; his fingers sank into her backside with only the thin layer of her undergarments separating them. He moved her against him, dragging her center against the impossible length of himself.
They both let out heavy, ragged breaths.
