“I want you to take what I give you tonight. Just take, just let me give. I’ve missed seeing the shape of you,” he continued, and drew her shirt off her shoulders. “Missed the feel of your skin under my hands.”
He circled her nipples with his thumbs, then gently brushed the pads over them, over them until the tremble came.
He took his hands over her, took her mouth with his—everything slow, everything dreamy, even the thick thud of her heart against him.
“Take what I give.” He backed her to the bed, brushing, stroking, eased her onto it. Watched her in the candlelight as he drew off her boots, set them down.
“Come lie with me.”
“Oh, I will. In time.”
He unbuttoned her jeans, drew the zipper down. Slow. Followed its path with his lips.
What was he doing to her? She found herself clutching at the bed covers one minute, going limp as water the next. He undressed her so slowly, inch-by-inch torture. And yet the pleasure was sumptuous, a banquet of exotic delicacies. The heat of it enervated. The weight of it left her arms too heavy to lift.
She knew nothing but the feel of his hands, his lips, the sound of his voice, his scent. Him. Him. Him.
Once, twice, a third time he guided her to the shuddering edge, held her there, poised, desperate for the leap, only to ease her back again until her breath sobbed with need, with the speechless desire for the next.
Then with lips, tongue, ruthlessly patient hands he slid her over that edge.
Not a leap, but a fall—breathless, endless, a tumble of senses and sensations. And the world revolved.
“Oh God. God. Please.”
“What do you please?”
“Don’t stop.”
His mouth, on her breast, her belly, her thigh. Then his tongue, sliding over her, into her until she fell yet again, then mindlessly craved the next climb.
He hadn’t known he’d wanted her helpless, or what it would do to him to know he’d made her so. But to see her alight—she couldn’t know she glimmered like one of the candles—to feel her body rise up to take what he offered, to feel it fall again as she grasped that pleasure. It was more than he’d known, more than he’d imagined.
And the wanting of her filled every part of him—mind, body, spirit.
“Look at me now, Iona. Would you look at me now?”
She opened her eyes, saw his in the candle glow. Saw nothing else.
“I’m with you,” he said as he slipped into her. “I’m with you.”
They climbed again, eyes and bodies locked. Climbed until she swore the air thinned. And when her eyes gleamed with tears, they fell together.
21
TODAY, BOYLE THOUGHT AS HE DRANK BRUTALLY STRONG COFFEE AT HIS KITCHEN WINDOW.
He couldn’t stop it, or her. And in some part of himself he knew, even accepted that he, that she, that all of them had prepared for this day all of their lives.
Hard enough, it had always been hard enough to understand what his closest friends in the world might face one day—today—but with Iona it was only harder.
Whatever he could do he would to see her safely through it, to help her and the rest end it.
And then?
Once this day was done there would be a great deal more to do, if only he could figure out the hows of it all.
Sure how could he figure out anything when the day was to be filled with magick and violence, struggle and destinies? And very likely life and death.
