“I’ll have my mobile if there’s a need.”
Iona bumped against Boyle as they climbed the stairs to his rooms. “Itisharder on you. But Fin’s got to be used to you bringing a date back with you now and then, and you with him doing the same.”
“I don’t bring women here. As a rule,” he said after a moment.
“Oh.” Privacy, she thought, and more. “If you go to their place, you can leave when you want.”
“There’s that.” He stepped inside.
“You need to tell me when you want me to go. I’d rather be told than tolerated.”
“I don’t tolerate much.” He tossed his keys in a bowl. “I’m not tolerating you.”
It made her smile. “Good. Don’t. It’s miserable to be tolerated.”
He set her little bag on a chair. “If I didn’t want you here, you’d be somewhere else. Do you want something to drink?”
“I thought I wasn’t company anymore.”
“You’re right.”
He grabbed her the way she liked, pulled her through to the bedroom. “You can get your own drink after.”
“I’ll get you one, too.” She yanked his jacket off his shoulders and away. “Boots,” she said and made him laugh.
“I’m aware of the order of things.”
And still they dived toward the bed. Pulling, tugging, then tossing boots.
“We broke something last time,” she remembered as she rushed to unbutton his shirt. “What was it?”
“My grandmother’s crystal vase.”
Her fingers stilled, her eyes widened in distress. Then he grinned.
“Oh! Liar!” She threw a leg over him, shoved him onto his back. “You’re going to pay for that.” Crossing her arms, she grabbed the hem of her sweater, pulled it over her head, winged it over her shoulder.
“I’ll pay more,” he told her. He slid his hands up her sides, over her breasts as she fought open the last buttons.
“You bet you will, buddy.” She lowered her head, catching his mouth in a crushing kiss before scraping her teeth over his bottom lip, ending with a nip.
He retaliated by flipping her over, doing the same.
They wrestled off clothes, wrestled each other in a rush of give-and-take.
So much the same, she thought, wonderfully the same, but now sheknewwhat they could bring to each other. All heat and demand and speed, like flying through fire—simmers and flashes and bursts.
She reveled in the thrill of skin sliding against skin—his to hers, hers to his—the heady friction of it. His mouth, dark with hunger, his hands, rough with greed, raced over her.
How had she lived without knowing what it was to be wanted so completely, so urgently, so thoroughly?
She needed to give him the same, to show him how the want for him flooded through her.
He couldn’t get enough of her. Whatever he took only sparked a bright hot need for more. When he had her like this, moving, moving in the dark, he couldn’t think, could only feel.
And she made him feel drunk, half-mad with it. Made him feel strong as a god, reckless as a cornered wolf.
The world outside dissolved; time spun away.
