“Shut up.” His voice was not abrasive or cruel. The words were not pronounced angrily or menacingly. They reached her senses as a caress—holding her, enveloping her. Cloud placed his palms flat against the door on either side of her head.
His hands moved to her throat and Alexis’s breath constricted as if his fingers were pressing tightly against her flesh when actually he was doing no more than unclasping the frog of her cape. She leaned forward a fraction, letting the cloak slip from her shoulders and fall to the floor. He gently pushed her back against the door as if he realized she needed it for support. His fingers found the circle of silver at her neck. Then his hands moved lower, cupping her breasts, and slowly, expertly, he began to unfasten the buttons of her dress. He slid the material down her arms, over the curve of her hips, and allowed it to join the cape at her feet. He knelt in front of her and removed her shoes. His hands recoiled as they reached to touch the warm flesh of her calves and came in contact with the cold metal of her dagger. She heard his low chuckle as he unstrapped the weapon, then she felt the tip of the blade sliding upward along the length of her leg, lifting her slip as Cloud slowly began to rise.
“Raise your arms.”
Alexis responded, not to the edge of steel against her waist, but to his steel edged voice. He tossed the dagger aside and lifted the material over her breasts, over her head, and finally past her slender wrists and trembling fingers. Her arms started to fall, but he caught them in one hand and held them above her while his other hand removed the pins from her hair, freeing the golden mass to his inquiring fingers.
“I like your hair like this.”
It fell across her shoulders and breasts and he caught a section of it between his fingers. He fondled it lightly, rediscovering the texture, the thick richness of the gold he held. His eyes never left her face as he laid the ringlets against her skin and stroked the warm, yielding softness of her breasts.
Alexis heard a soft moan pass her parted lips as the naked flesh beneath his palm quivered and her nipples hardened and thrust forward to meet his caress. His hand dropped lower. The tips of his fingers brushed against the curve of her waist, across the flat plane of her stomach, and rested gently on the warm skin of her inner thigh.
He could see her amber eyes imploring him, begging him, to take her. Her eyes, with golden flecks of fire, spoke eloquently in place of the voice she did not have the strength to use. He pressed against her more tightly, forcing her back to the door, one hand still holding her wrists, the other at the junction of her legs, and now he added the pressure of his mouth on hers to push her head back. He sensed her momentary struggle, not to be free of him, but to be free to hold him, then her gradual acceptance when she realized he would not allow her this, and finally her willing response to his kiss.
Abruptly he removed his hands and his mouth and stepped back out of her reach. With the loss of support her arms fell limply to her sides and she thought it was only a matter of seconds before she collapsed entirely at his feet.
“Come here. I want you to come to me.”
Somehow she found her voice. “I don’t think I can,” she whispered.
“You can.”
And she did. When she reached him she collapsed in his arms, regaining her strength from the contact of his body close to hers. Her arms circled his neck. As her mouth sought his he lowered her to the deck. His kiss was hard. His hands were no longer tender in their stroking but fierce and demanding. Alexis accepted it all, knowing this was his way of regaining ownership over something he had almost lost this evening.
He tore his mouth away and released himself from the circle of her embrace. Standing, he took off his clothes. She watched, her breathing becoming more irregular with each article that drifted to the floor. She stroked his bare, muscular calf, and as he knelt beside her, her hand moved along the tight skin of his thigh. He pushed her hand aside and placed his hands beneath her shoulder blades, lifting her toward him, her head tilted back, and kissed the hollow of her throat.
His lips moved from her throat to her breasts, burning her skin, bruising her flesh. Her fingers held his head, caressed his temples, and lightly drew down the column of his neck.
Her nails raked across his back as his mouth fell on hers once more and his demands increased. He pressed her to the deck and moved between her parted thighs.
“You could have been killed tonight.” He thrust into her.
“Yes.” They both knew she was responding to his statement as well as his thrust.
“I could have lost you.” He moved powerfully again.
“Yes.” Her legs wrapped around him, holding him tightly, assuring him in his anguished pleasure he could not lose her now.
“And you’ll still go after Travers!” His stroking continued.
“I will. Yes!” She arched her back and matched his thrusts, answering him with her voice and her body.
Alexis felt herself being lifted higher and higher, supported by nothing but the rising wave of pleasure he was creating. She clung to him, unwilling to reach the crest without him or make the descent alone. She cried out at his final thrust as one explosion after another rocked her body.
A moan, a cry of helplessness, muffled against the warm skin of his shoulder, reached his ears as her mouth pressed its outline on his perspiring flesh. He fell beside her, her fingers gripping his arms tightly in a last effort to hold him to her. When the last of her strength was finally exhausted, her fingers opened, unfolding like the petals of a delicate flower, and slipped from his arms. She remained motionless except for the occasional tremors that spoke of the pleasure which had just passed between them.
His arm circled her waist and drew her close. He felt warm, uneven breathing against his chest, more intimate in its contact than the closeness of their bodies. When she quieted he made a move to pull away from her, wanting to carry her to bed.
“No. Don’t move,” she whispered. “I want to stay here…with you…just like this.” She heard his low, throaty laughter and sensed his smile as he settled beside her. A little later she said, “I was afraid, Cloud. For both of us.”
His arm tightened around her. “You shouldn’t have come.”
She shook her head. “Don’t say that. You released me. It was my choice to use my liberty as I did.”
“But you didn’t even know what you were facing.”
“I knew some of it. I knew I would lose you if I didn’t return.” She placed her hand on his chest, caressing it lightly. He felt the trembling of her voice through the trembling of the five slim fingertips that touched him. “I don’t want to be apart from you.”
