To illustrate her seriousness, her legs wrapped around his waist, and he grabbed hold of one thigh as his movement gave over to the desperation inside him. Over and over, he penetrated her. It would have been punishing if she wasn’t so ready for it—so desperate for it. Together, they sought the edge and pushed it further out, seized by madness.
“You don’t know how I’ve wanted this,” he said, the words jagged and winded against her throat. “I’ve missed your cunny, Artemis. I’ve missedyou.”
His words streaked through her, reaching places too long left dark, illuminating them, bringing them life. No longer did she have the strength or will to repress and deny their lure. Instead, they expanded within her and swirled into a riot of sensation singing through her, all the emotional mixed with the physical, one the expression of the other.
A feeling at once dangerous andright.
She might repress and deny it later, when it felt less safe, but not now.
Tighter, she clung to him as, more forcefully, he took her. Even as she never wanted this to end, release began to pull at her, imploring her to give over, and she recognized the same struggle in his half-lidded eyes. “I’m about to—oh,” she gasped, the moan that followed reaching the high octave that signaled the approach of release.
Understanding lit within his eyes, and somehow he began moving even deeper inside her. The edge beckoned. It would push out no farther as it grabbed hold and pulled her over. An instant later, Bran was shouting with his climax, and together they tumbled into the exquisite ether of ecstasy.
Surely a dramatic notion, but not untrue, either. A feeling of body … of mind … of soul … being outside oneself and meeting another—him—there. This exquisite ether was singular and precious and no less real than the physical world the body spent most of its time inhabiting.Here, she met him and he met her and they felt themselves known at the level of elements.
His face tucked into the crook of her neck, he delivered a soft kiss that pulled her back into herself. He angled back to meet her gaze. “That was …” He shook his head and gave a dry chuckle. “Thatwasn’tunexpected.”
A smile pulled at her mouth. “It wasn’t.”
He took a step back and pulled her dress down over her knees, then buttoned his falls.
She liked that no lies were being spoken.
She was sick of lies.
Lies had once torn them apart—and she couldn’t let it happen again.
But now wasn’t the right time for the entire truth, either.
And for one very good reason.
She herself didn’t yet know the entire truth.
“What was it you wanted to tell me?” he asked.
Oh, how she liked the wicked smile pulling at his mouth.
A hard-won smile—and all the more appealing for it.
“Tell you?”
It was a weak attempt to buy time, but she had little choice.
“Before …well.”
Again, that smile.
Her resolve redoubled.
She wouldn’t lose him again.
“Are you …” She thought fast. “Are you attending Rake’s house party at Somerton?”
His head cocked subtly, his golden eyes assessing. “Will you be there?”
“Yes.”
“And do you want me to be there?”
