Then she rose up to him, taking him deeper on the sigh of his name.
And he was strong as a god, randy as a stallion, mad as a hatter.
He thrust into her, again, again, again, crazed for all that heat, all that softness. She matched his frantic pace, her fingers twining with his, her hips slick pistons—driving and driven.
He felt himself flying—an arrow from a bow—the helpless glory of it. Heard her, dimly, let out a sobbing cry as she flew with him.
He collapsed, mindless of his weight on her. His mind still whirled; his lungs still labored. And something in his speeding heart pulsed like an ache.
She quivered beneath him, trembling limbs, pinging muscles. She wanted, badly, to wrap around him, to stroke and nuzzle. But she didn’t have the strength.
He’d just hulled her out.
She could only lie there, washed in heat, listening to his rapid breathing and the slow patter of rain.
“I’m smothering you.”
“Maybe.”
His own muscles shook as he pushed himself off, then just flopped over on his back. He’d never been so... caught up, he decided.
What did it mean?
She took a couple of deep drinks of air, then curled over to nestle her head on his chest. There was a simple sweetness in that he couldn’t resist, and he found himself drawing her in a bit closer.
“Are you cold then?”
“Are you kidding? We generated enough heat to melt the Arctic. I feel amazing.”
“You’re stronger than you look.”
She tipped her head up to smile at him. “Small but mighty.”
“I can’t argue.”
It would be easy, he realized, to just stay as they were, to just drift off into sleep awhile. Then take each other again. And what did it mean that he was thinking about it again when he’d barely gotten his breath back?
It meant, perhaps, easy was a mistake.
“I should take you home.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, and the hand lazily stroking his chest stilled.
“Branna’d be waiting, I’d think.”
“Oh.” He felt her breath go in, go out. “You’re right. She’ll want to know exactly what happened before. I forgot about all that for a minute. It seems like something outside all this. It’s a good thing one of us is practical.”
Turning her head, she brushed her lips over his skin, then sat up.
When he looked at her in that shadowed light, a glow against the coming dark, he wanted to draw her close again, close, and just hold on.
“We’d better get dressed,” she said.
***
BRANNA WAS WAITING, AND TRYING NOT TO PACE AND FRET.Shehatedonly having bits and pieces. Though Boyle had assured her no one was hurt, and he’d look after Iona until she was well settled again, it had been two hours now.
More, she realized.
