He caught her fingers, holding her hand still. She could feel his heart beneath her fingertips, pounding hard and fast. He was holding his breath, struggling to regulate his rapid heartbeat. “I know. You always were too kindhearted for your own good, Dalia.”
She thought it over and chuckled. “I’m a rogue hunter, Pierce. No one’s ever accused me of being softhearted.”
He threw her a feigned frown and then smote his head. “No wait! You’re right! That was another female.” Grinning, he rolled over onto his side, facing her. “You’re the one that used to look so smug every time you beat the shit out of me in training.”
“I never did!” Dalia said indignantly.
He laughed. “Ah ha! So you to admit you never beat me!”
The comment surprised a chuckle out of her. They’d only been paired off twice and she’d beaten him both times. “I was never smug about it. I knew I beat you because you couldn’t get your mind off of my breasts.” Smiling, she reached up and traced his laugh lines, wondering why it was that it had taken her so long to realize she loved him.
Shifting up on one arm, she pushed him onto his back once more and flicked the tip of her tongue back and forth across one male nipple a couple of times. Pierce sucked in his breath harshly, his fingers clenching in her hair. “Don’t.”
She lifted her head to look up at him.
He swallowed with an effort. “I don’t have that much self-control, Dally.”
Holding his gaze, she dipped her head once more and flicked her tongue across his other nipple.
He rolled, pushing her to her back, and lay half on top of her. There was no longer even a trace of amusement on his features. Dalia slipped her hands down to cup his buttocks and arched upward, grinding her mound against the hard ridge of flesh that lay across his belly. His face twisted with painful pleasure. “Dally!” he said breathlessly.
“I love you, Pierce,” she murmured throatily, arching against him again. “Make love to me.”
He stared down at her, obviously torn. “Don’t ask me to stop again, Dally. I don’t think I can,” he ground out between clenched teeth.
“I don’t want you to stop. I want to feel this inside of me,” she murmured, slipping her hand between them and delving beneath his trousers to curl her fingers around his hardened flesh.
He groaned. Leaning down, he covered her mouth with his. The moment he did, she thrust her tongue into his mouth. He made a muffled sound from deep in his chest and sucked it, sending a dizzying tide of heat through her. Massaging his phallus, she coaxed his tongue into her mouth and sucked it.
Shuddering, he broke the kiss and leaned slightly away from her, studying her face. She opened her eyes with an effort and looked up at him.
Rolling off of her, he pushed his trousers down his hips and nudged them off, then turned to her and stripped her gown off. Tossing it aside, he ran a shaking hand over her almost reverently from her shoulder to her hip and then up again, cupping one breast. Dalia moaned in pleasure as he kneaded it in his hand and finally leaned down and covered the tip with his mouth, teasing the sensitive bud of tight flesh until she was breathless before moving to its mate and teasing that nipple with equal thoroughness.
Moving restlessly beneath him she caressed his arm, his shoulders, his back, every part of him that she could reach. Closing her eyes tightly, she felt the smoothness of his flesh beneath her palm and fingertips, the hard ridges of muscle. The muscles in her passage quivered, tensed, clenching and unclenching as if reaching for him. “Now, Pierce.”
He lifted his head and looked at her, and then followed her gaze downward. Watching her hand as she parted her thighs wide and slipped it between her legs, parting the flesh for his gaze. He shifted down the bed. Sitting back on his heels, he caught her knees and pushed them upward, watching the movements of her fingers. After a moment, he grasped his sex and pushed the tip slowly inside of her, watching as her flesh parted for him, absorbed him. Leaning over her, he scooped an arm beneath her hips and pressed slowly inside her and then, just as slowly, withdrew.
Dalia leaned up to watch the joining of their flesh as well, felt her entire body tighten with desire as he continued to move slowly in and out, tantalizing her with the skate of his hard flesh inside of her. Groaning, she fell back, arched her head into the pillow. He released a harsh breath and drove deeply, grinding his hips against her, sending shards of exquisite pleasure through her as he rubbed against her clit. “Oh,” Dalia moaned. “Like that, Pierce.” She licked her lips, digging her fingers into his arms.
His arms began to shake with effort as he continued thrusting into her, pushing deeply and grinding his hips against her clit and then retreating. She caught his hips, urging him to move faster, to delve deeper as she hovered, suspended in a poignant torment of pleasure. A little cry escaped her as the first ripples of release shuddered through her. As if he’d been holding himself only for that, he settled his weight on top of her, opening his mouth over hers and absorbing her cries of delight as he pumped inside of her in short, hard thrusts.
Her release seemed to go on endlessly, the convulsions of her body so hard she felt blackness edge in on her. A thin sheen of sweat beaded his back when he shuddered once last time and fell still, lying heavily against her. She stroked his hair and back lovingly in appreciation, enjoying the feel of his weight.
Dragging in a final deep breath, he slid his arms around her and rolled over until she was lying on top of him. He stroked her back, her buttocks.
A shiver skated over her as her body cooled.
“Cold?”
“Only my back. My front’s warm,” she murmured, smiling against his shoulder, feeling far too lazy to move.
Chuckling, he dumped her onto the bed and dragged the covers down, pushing and pulling at her until he had her arranged beneath the covers. When he was finally situated to his satisfaction, he gathered her against his side once more. “Better?”
“Mmmm,” she said, almost purring.
He stroked her shoulder and back, slowly, mesmerizingly.
“Dally?”
