And then, he tore away from her with a warrior’s fierce roar. He rose on his knees, gripped his cock—so magnificent, so engorged—and positioned it at her entrance. The aftershocks of her release were still tremoring through her but she wanted more. She wanted everything. All of him. Everything he had to give.
She moved beneath him, bringing the tip of him inside her.
They sighed as one.
Clay lowered his large body over hers, his face hovering above. Dark eyes seared hers with unabashed heat. “Is this what you want, Ara?”
She did not think she could manage a coherent word, so she made a sound of approval low in her throat and undulated her hips, bringing him deeper inside her.
“Say it,” he commanded, his expression as intense as his gaze. “I need to hear you.”
“Yes,” she forced out, and it was natural, so natural for her to wrap her legs around him. It was as if time had never passed. As if they were back to the Clay and Ara they had been. Back in the hunting cabin. Back when they had been free. When they had been young and desperate for each other. When everything had seemed possible. “I want you. Only you.”
It had only ever been him.
Would only ever be him.
Damn him, what was it about Clayton Ludlow?
He thrust inside her, his cock sliding deep and slow. His movements were controlled. “Only me?”
“Always,” she promised before she could think better of what she’d said. Her arms locked around him, holding his huge, powerful body tight to hers. He was so large and she was so small. She loved their dichotomy. “You are my fate, Clay, and I am yours.”
Right or wrong, it was the truth. They were inevitable. Years and betrayal could not keep them apart. They still wanted each other as much, if not more, than they ever had.
“Yes,” he hissed, taking her deep, withdrawing, and then sliding home inside her again.
His mouth found hers. Their kiss was as frantic as it had been earlier, just as hungry, every bit as ferocious. She tasted herself on his tongue. Ran her fingers down the strong planes of his back. Marked him. Taunted him. Met him thrust for thrust.
And then they were flying together. It was elemental. Give and take, bodies pumping, tongues mating, hands roaming every inch of skin they could find. They slammed together, moved as one. Harder, faster, his strokes growing more deliberate, more prolonged.
She fractured again, splintering into a thousand different shards of herself, coming over him, around him, milking his cock as stars and light flashed through her. She cried out into his mouth, and he swallowed them, took them, made them his just as he made her body his. Wetness gushed from her.
She was lost. Helpless. This was not just pleasure. It was not just release. It was all-encompassing. It was as if she had found herself, here and now, with his body planted over hers, his rigid cock inside her.
As the shudders of pleasure wracked through her, he stiffened and withdrew, gripping his cock as he spent all over her skin. He painted her belly, her abdomen, and even her breasts with streaks of his seed. Groaning and rolling away from her, he fell onto his back, his breath emerging in heavy pants.
Heart hammering, she lay alongside him, reluctant to move. Reluctant to wash the traces of him away from her skin.
“You should never have come here tonight,” he said again into the silence.
She stared at the ceiling, her fingers trailing through the evidence of their latest sin, rubbing it into her skin. “No,” she agreed. “I should not have.”
But she had, and theyhad.
And nothing would ever be the same.
Chapter Seventeen
Eight years earlier
Two days afterhe had watched her slip away from him beneath the full moon, Clay was waiting for Ara again. Those bloody days had stretched into an eternity. Because he did not want to risk their discovery, he had been forced to temper his need for her, which only seemed to grow with each hour he was not at her side.
He had punished his body by running until his lungs ached. He had sparred with Leo and bloodied his knuckles and bruised his jaw. He had performed every exercise he knew until his muscles shook, until he was covered in sweat. Until his heart threatened to pound straight through his chest. But using his body as a weapon to fight his tension had failed.
In between attempts to work the nerves from his body, he had applied for and acquired a marriage license. He had also spent a good portion of his time with pen and paper at hand, planning. He had funds at his disposal: meager, but enough for several months at least.
After they were wed, he would seek employment at the Home Office. His father had wished to settle Marchmont on him, a property that wasn’t part of the entail. Though his pride had forced him to decline Marchmont previously, he would accept it for Ara. It would not be as fine as Brixton Hall or Kingswood Manor, but it would suffice, and he would do anything for her.
