Everything.
She lifted her hand. He winced before she touched him.
Very well, then.
She folded her hands in her lap.
“You are beautiful.” His face twisted. “Soft.”
“Soft as a lioness,” she replied. “And just as willing to defend her pride.”
Her words earned...if not a smile, at least a gentling of his features.
“Lioness,” he repeated.
“Will you remove your shirt?” she asked.
He did. His chest was a solid wall of muscle.
“I want to be close to you, Chev. What would you prefer?”
“What I prefer...”
He shook his head no. His face hardened again.
He made a sound of frustration. Latent power rippled through his muscles. He could crush her if he wished.
The Unknown—the unknowable slinked through her like a demon, weaving a trail of fear in the pit of her stomach.
Any thought she had, he seemed to know. She veiled her eyes with her lids.
There were pieces of him she did not know, might never know. She’d asked for his trust. And the cost had been higher than she’d expected.
The question was, did the man she knew and understood and loved still exist beneath all this rough water?
She’d made choices before and she would make choices again, none would matter as much as the choice that she made in this moment.
Could she be vulnerable?
Could she open to him now?
“Penelope.” He reached up and gripped the back of her neck, his fingers, so powerful, she couldn’t move her face.
She wet her lips and forced herself to be pliant.
This is a dance. I’ll move as he moves.They’d mirror one another—opposite but moving as one to the same tempo.
“Trust for trust,” she said.
Roughly, his mouth met hers.
His kiss ravaged—her lips would be raw. The rush that shot through her limbs was unlike any she felt before. He pushed forward in a kind of prowl until she lay back on the bed. Still they kissed—one long, unbroken kiss, strong enough to stoke a fire that could melt away the years.
She thrilled to his muscle, to his arousal, to his very scent.
A thrill so vibrant, the tingle could have been fear.
This was the man who’d ridden with her through the moonlight countless times. The man who’d danced with her in the dark. The man she’d trusted to lead her to worlds she had never known before.
