She watched him, so confident in his body, standing naked and proud, ready, but not rushing, and there was no doubt in her mind. “Yes.”
That was all it took and then he was on her. His hard, heavy body between her legs, his mouth on hers. He held himself up on one elbow, lifting her hips with his free hand, her body was still quivering from the intensity of her earlier orgasm as he slowly sank into her.
She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him closer, desperate for more, and then, when he was finally seated deep inside her, she ran a trail of sensual feather-like Shadows up his back, raising goose bumps on his hot skin as she met him at every stroke.
They moved together, skin gliding against skin while their Shadows swelled and pulsed in powerful waves all around them, amplifying every sensation a hundred-fold into glittering explosions of ecstasy.
He was on her skin, in her body, in her Shadows, filling her with heat and light and pleasure.
Ethan reached between them, stroking her throbbing clit until she whimpered, arching and panting. She pressed her hand against the wall for leverage, and pushed down on him as he thrust harder, deeper into her.
Ethan whispered against her ear, telling her how beautiful she was. How strong. Her Shadows meshed more deeply into his in a whirling crescendo of sensation, and she shattered, her body spasming and fluttering around his.
Her orgasm threw him over the edge, and he lost control, pushing himself onto his elbows to look down, deep into her eyes. He pumped heavily into her again and again before he grunted out her name on a last powerful thrust, shuddering, as he came.
They stayed like that for a long, glorious moment. Eventually, Ethan rolled to his side, pulling her over with him, and they lay together in a sultry tangle of salt and sweat. Then, when their breathing had finally settled, he slipped from the bed to get rid of the condom.
Kay lay boneless and satiated until he came back with a warm towel and helped her clean up, and then he turned off the light and climbed into the bed beside her, wrapping her in his arms. Even then, she could hardly move. She had known it would be intense, but what they’d shared was something else entirely. A searing connection that she’d felt all the way into her soul.
“Wow,” she whispered against his skin, and he chuckled, sounding as dazed as she was.
Ethan kissed her gently as he pulled the blanket over their bodies, holding her tightly against his chest, the sound of his heart beating steadily under her ear, their Shadows still moving slowly together as if reluctant to separate.
“Why do our Shadows do that?” Ethan asked quietly. “Is this normal? Have you…?” His voice faded away, as if he didn’t want to ask.
Kay smiled sleepily against his skin. “No… I haven’t.”
“What do you mean?”
She lifted her head so she could look into his eyes as she replied. “My Shadows have never done that before.”
“Really? Why are they doing it now then?”
God. She couldn’t keep this from him, but she didn’t want him to run either. She laid her head back down over his heart and answered carefully. “Our Shadows recognized each other. They chose each other. It’s rare, maybe once in a lifetime. For some people, it never happens.”
He was silent for a long moment, but then he tightened his arms around her. “I’m glad my Shadows chose you.”
ChapterThirteen
This time,he did kick something.
How was it even possible? He had been leaning against a deeply shadowed wall, his face hidden in the darkness of his hood—close enough to manage the boys but far enough away not to be associated with them—when he had seen Kayleigh Stewart walk past.
She had been joking around with some random man—a norm for fuck’s sake—her eyes on the crowds and scanning the buildings, and he’d had to slowly sink into a deep crouch behind a parked car, pulling his Shadows tightly over his face as he worked to control his horrified outrage. Thank God, he’d already warded himself.
The computer had only just sent out the plan a couple of hours before. No one—absolutely no one—should have been able to predict it. And then she walked into the garage full of boys as if she had always known they were there.
Those boys had been easy to nudge into an illegal and dangerous activity, but there had still been six of them. Wrapping his mind around all six—however gullible and malicious they were in their own right—took a phenomenal degree of skill and concentration. And then she had started to pick his control apart.
By the time the fight became physical, he was sweating with the intensity of it, his hands shaking and his stomach rolling with nausea as he kept his control. When he realized she was going to win if he didn’t get control of her, he’d had to throw everything he had at the Shadows, forcing them to inch out past the boys and onto her.
The extra force had broken some kind of barrier inside him, and something dark and malevolent had unfurled, boosting his Shadows enough that he had been able to force the darkness onto her. He had pushed further, deeper, the power vibrating inside him as it gathered force.
The boys’ rage had flowed down their connection, and he’d embraced it. Used it to push his Shadows forward. He’d closed his eyes, lost to everything except controlling the slippery, churning Shadows as he swept them forward. And he’d almost had her.
But then she’d somehow turned it around. He’d been flung back in a tsunami of his own Shadows, roiling with darkness, and he had collapsed, shaking and nauseous from the backlash. All these years he’d known her, and he had never realized how powerful she was.
He’d followed her and the norm all the way back to a small block of flats near Hammersmith, wishing there was some way he could force her to stay the hell away.
