I clung to him, my arms tight around his neck, and started moving slowly, sliding up and down against his hard length—not letting him enter just yet, tormenting both of us. Each time I moved, his arousal pressed against me in just the right spot and brought me a little closer to the edge.
“You,” he murmured against my breasts, “are going to kill me.”
I smiled and started to reply—to tease him, to make him all the more ravenous for me—but then he flicked his tongue across one of my nipples and took it in his mouth, sucking gently, and my mind went blank.
“Keep doing that,” I whispered, and then I reached down to take hold of him—hot, eager, hard as iron and soft as velvet—and slowly sank onto him. Once I’d settled fully against him, he stilled and clutched my hips hard.
“Just a moment,” he said, his voice muffled against me.
I traced the line of his jaw and lifted his chin so I could see his eyes.
“Has the rogue librarian, master of sex and seducer of women, finally met his match?” I crooned.
“Absolutely,” he replied at once, fervently, “in every possible way.” His eyes, still locked on me, were dark with desire. I slid my arms back around his neck, my heart fluttering with anticipation, and started to move.
At first I was slow, deliberate, concentrating on memorizing every detail of this moment, of him, of us. His kisses on my breasts,tender one moment and ravenous the next. His hands on my thighs, the soft scrape of his teeth. The maddening drag of pleasure every time I lifted myself up his length and then sank slowly back down, letting him fill me.
“Gods, you feel good,” he whispered hoarsely. “You feel like all the light that exists in the world, and none of the shadows.”
His trembling voice melted me. I curled my fingers into his hair, kissed the nearest smooth lock of it. Then he slid one of his hands up to circle the back of my neck—insistent, questing, profoundly gentle—and that slight pressure left me completely undone. This was not enough—not fast enough, not hard enough. The ache between my legs was almost unbearable; I needed more.
I started moving faster, and immediately he tightened his grip on me, his fingers digging into me, helping me ride him. His skin was slick under my palms and blazingly hot, and with each wet slap of my hips against his, I felt like I was going a little more mad. His body ground against me in just the right spot, and gods, he was strong, tireless. Soon I barely had to move; it was all him, pulling me down again and again, slamming our hips together.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and tucked my head against his, bearing down on him as much as I could, desperate for more. I murmured it against his ear—more,more. I was rising, everything inside me was rising, building toward completion. I clenched around him, gasping, every inch of my body prickling, gathering, trembling. My sense of rhythm had disappeared. I was helpless in his arms, my hips spasming against his.
“Yes, Mara,” he groaned against my neck, “that’s it, darling. Move on me. Let it come. I’m right behind you.”
I began to shake, and he held me even more tightly to him, not letting me ease up on the breathless, blinding pleasure breaking open inside me. His thrusts grew erratic—sharper, harder. He murmuredover and over, each word rougher than the last, “Beautiful, you’re so beautiful, yes, Mara,yes, that’s it,” and when I finally came, the pleasure, the euphoric relief, was so overwhelming that I nearly blacked out. I held on to him and cried out into his hair, gasping for breath, and not long after, he buried his face in my neck and finished inside me with a groan, my name on his lips—an incantation, a prayer.
He was right: he couldn’t promise I wouldn’t lose him, nor could I promise him the same.
But this—this passion between us, this instinctive understanding, the glory of finding happiness and clinging to it, no matter the danger—that was a promise we both could make. Unspoken and unbreakable.
We held each other for so long that my soaked skin cooled and I started to shiver, but even then I didn’t want to let go of him.
“Lie down with me, Mara,” he said at last, tenderly. “Let me hold you.” Then he helped me off of his lap and guided me into bed beside him, and once we were settled and snug, I finally felt like it was safe enough to look at him—that he wouldn’t disappear, or be ripped away from me by some unnamed disaster waiting in the shadows.
I smoothed my thumb against his jaw. His stubble was coming in. I’d never seen it before. The last few days, I supposed, hadn’t allowed him the chance to shave. The sensation of it scraping against the pad of my thumb was unbearably sweet.
“What?” He smiled at me, soft and sleepy, his eyes shining as his gaze moved across my face. Then he turned his face to my palm and kissed it. “Gods, you’re an absolute love-mussed mess,” he murmured against my skin. “I’ve never seen anything so utterly beguiling in my entire life.”
“You and your clever tongue,” I whispered. “What can I say after that? After any of this?” I trailed my fingers softly through his hair, pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and lingered there, nuzzling my cheek against his.
“That, right there,” he said, drawing me gently against him. “That’s more than enough.”
He was deliciously warm, and he smelled of me, of us, of sex and sweat. I nestled against his chest, feeling small and safe in his arms, quiet in heart and mind for the first time in as long as I could remember. While the fire crackled on, I listened to the rise and fall of his breathing, basked in the caress of his fingers drawing lazy circles on my back—softly, softer, slowing—and let myself drift into sleep.
Chapter 22
When I woke, the fire was nothing but embers, and though snow and sleet still pattered lightly against the roof and the windows, the howling wind had died down. Through the shutters I could see only inky darkness: not yet morning. I’d never felt such relief in my life.
I lay there for a long time in Gareth’s arms, listening to him breathe. We’d hardly moved as we slept. I wished I never had to move again. His chest underneath my cheek, his thigh resting between my legs, his arm draped loosely across my back—every bit of him was solid and warm. I felt like a sated cat, curled up with a belly full of cream.
But if we awakened to a frigid room in the morning, leaving our little sanctuary would be even more unbearable. I carefully slipped out of his embrace and padded naked to the stove to rekindle the fire. The floor was like ice under my feet, but I waited until the flames had caught and were crackling steadily before I turned back to the bed.
Gareth was watching me with the dearest, dreamiest smile on his face. “I can’t see you that well without my glasses,” he said softly, “but even as a blur, you take my breath away. A very shapely blur, I should say.”
I retrieved his glasses from where they’d fallen and climbed backinto bed. Straddling him, I slid his glasses on, then sat back a little and grinned. “What about now?”
