He paused for an instant, and a look that was a stunning blend of intensity, agony, and yearning swept across his handsome features. “We can abide by our agreement and keep from truly consummating our temporary union, but I am asking if you will allow me to love you in the ways that I can, right now…if only you desire it as much as I do.”
In the dim light, she held Damien’s gaze, his eyes so beautiful and earnest, and yet at the same time flaming with the very desires she felt scorching her from the inside out. Her body ached for him, it was true, but she could not deny feeling the gentle lurch of her heart as well then, as he spoke. A fluttering sensation that made her throat close and her eyes sting.
God help her, for it could come to naught. He could never commit to her—to them—by virtue of the damage done to him in the past and the wrenching events he had endured. Neither could she, for she knew the darker side of love now and feared she would never survive the loss if she allowed herself to be consumed so in him again. The unshakeable truth was that Damien would leave her in less than six months, and then she would be alone.
That realization cut too deeply to bear, and so she pushed it aside for now, subduing it in a burst of defiance and yearning for whatwaspossible right now, for what she wanted more than anything, whether or not it was selfish or foolish or could not last. It would be enough, she told herself. She clung to that hope with a kind of desperation. In the long, empty years ahead, she would be able to remember this time with Damien and take comfort in it. Aye, she would…
Her hand trembling, Alissende reached up as she had a thousand times before with him in their other life together and stroked her fingers over his cheek. She endued that simple caress with all the emotion inside her, and he closed his eyes in response, leaning into her touch and taking in a long, slow breath, as if he wanted to soak in all the sweetness she was offering.
“I remember, too, Damien,” she whispered at last, the words catching a little in her throat, “and I long to share them all with you again. But more than that, I want to make love with you. Truly make love, as we used to do.”
Damien stiffened slightly, the intensity of his gaze filling with shades of what he could not seem to give breath to…hope, uncertainty, passion, and fierce need all apparent at once. His voice seemed lower as he finally murmured, “But what of the babe that might result, Alissende? I could not in all conscience—”
She shook her head, blinking back the sudden heat in her eyes as she said huskily, “You need not worry over that, Damien. There will be no babe.”
His expression revealed his surprise and doubt, but she touched her fingers to his lips before he could speak. “The whys of it are best saved for another time and place, but in truth, there is naught you need fear in that matter.”
He remained silent, then, his eyes closing and the muscle in his jaw twitching, before he seemed to regain his composure enough to look at her once more. And then she was stunned by the utter yearning she saw there, mingled with the shadows of something darker at work inside him.
“But beyond that, even, you understand, Alissende, don’t you?…”
The aching, the vulnerability in his voice made her heart lurch anew, before he continued, “Naught can change what I have become or what must happen in the end…my leaving—”
He stopped, his voice suspiciously thick, his words laden with regret. “Do you understand?” he finished on a near whisper.
Unable to speak for the knot of tears blocking her own throat, Alissende simply nodded. She could say no more.
But then it did not seem to matter. She found herself closing her eyes, making a soft sound of combined need and pleasure as he pulled her into his arms, burying his face in her neck. He held her that way for a long time, close to him, and she reveled in the sensation of his powerful body pressed to hers, taking in his warmth and his tantalizing scent. Threading her fingers into the soft waves of hair at his nape, she held him close and kissed his brow, his temple and along his cheek, until she reached the temptation of his mouth…
And that unleashed the hunger that had been so long denied between them; their kiss tumbled them into the magnificent give and take of breath and passion.
Blindly, she slid her hands down his back, intending to free him of his braies, but Damien forestalled her in her effort. After another moment, he pulled back just enough to look at her, his gaze intense, his beautiful mouth quirking as he softly bid her wait just a little longer…that she would have her turn for that soon enough, after.
After what?she’d wanted to ask, but then all of her conscious thought fled as he resumed his delicious, expert caressing of her body. His fingers slid a warm, tingling path along her side and over the curve of her buttocks before slipping forward to the throbbing place between her thighs. With a low groan, he cupped his entire palm over her sex once more before slowly sliding his longest finger in a tantalizing sweep, up and down the slick and engorged folds of her most intimate flesh, causing her to arch up into him.
“For so long I have thought of touching you again like this, Alissende,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “Sweet mercy, but I cannot stop—”
“Don’t stop, Damien…please.”
She wanted to make this last, to feel every moment and soak it in, like the parched earth taking in the first sweet drops of rain. But she felt the crest building in her with each sweetly tormenting stroke of his fingers. It had been so long…so long…yet he seemed to remember every nuance of her, his knowledge of her body and his magnificent touch upon her so right, so perfect.
“By all that is holy, Alissende, in my whole life, I have never known anything as beautiful as you are,” he whispered. He feathered kisses around the shell of her ear as he spoke, the renewed tingling making her tilt her head back and to the side for more of his caresses down the exposed length of her throat. The sensation of his mouth nibbling, tasting that delicate skin, made her shudder with longing and sent molten fire spiraling along her limbs and through to her very core.
The knowledge that he wanted her too, fully as much as she wanted him, was intoxicating. She felt his hand trembling as he brushed the hair back from her brow and knew it was desire restrained for so long that caused it. He continued to stroke along her cheek, his lips traveling from her neck to the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat, and she instinctively twisted so he might in turn feast upon the bounty of her breasts.
And all the while the fingers of his other hand, buried between her legs, kept moving more swiftly, the tip of the longest teasing, slipping, and jabbing into her lightly, an erotic rhythm that made her almost sob aloud. Closing her eyes, Alissende began to move in concert with his touch, thrusting against his strong fingers. Her own hands tensed in her passion, one splayed out on the bedsheet, the other gripping at Damien’s arm, feeling the delicious contractions of his muscles as he continued to work his fingers in and over her aroused sex.
“That’s it…only a little more now,” he breathed, as he eased another finger into her, at the same time continuing to rub in teasing circles the little pearl nestled just above, flicking and pressing with the pad of his thumb until she thought she might go senseless from the pleasure of it.
He coaxed her closer, closer to the edge of sweet oblivion—
Suddenly Alissende’s vision exploded with sparks of light, and she cried out as her body took over, tipping into the bliss of completion. The shudders of her climax rippled through her, so intense that she almost lost her hold on awareness.
When she floated back to earth, her body still quaking gently, it was to find herself cradled against Damien’s chest, the strength of his arms wound round her. Tipping her head up, she met his gaze for an instant before he slanted his mouth across hers again with a low growl of pleasure, and the sound of his desire set her own yearning blazing anew.
There was no denying his need for her; the jutting heat of him demanded attention, and Alissende reached down to his braies to untie them, finally, wanting him as naked as she, to see his magnificence again at long last. But he caught her hand, lacing her fingers with his and effectively stopping her from exposing the lower half of his body to her gaze.
“Nay, lady,” he murmured, pulling back enough to look into her eyes. “Hold for one moment more, if you would.”
