Helena bit her lip, trying to redistribute the discomfort. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. She made a whimpering noise.
Declan began to nuzzle, moving his nose to her neck. He sucked her earlobe. He kissed his way across her jaw to her mouth. He held his body perfectly still.
Slowly, he began to kiss her, working around her bit lip. In time, she loosened her teeth and heswiped her with his tongue. She kissed back. He swiped again, deeper and deeper, until the pain and pressure subsided. She forgot it or it went away, but it was less important than all the lovely things he did to her mouth, and her ear, and her mouth again.
Gently, without realizing she moved, Helena’s hips began to rock upward, seeking. Declan’s mouth froze against her lips, and she whimpered ano, don’t stopsound.
She rocked again and Declan made a strangling noise.
He moved a leg, dropping his knee beside her leg.
Helena tried again to engage the kiss. He followed, although without focus, or intent or even much skill.
She rocked her hips a third time and he answered her with a small thrust of his own, and Helena understood.
Now her kisses fell off, and she turned her head to the side. “Yes,” she said, and he growled.
“Truly?” he gasped, and she repeated the word.
“Yes.”Not an answer, an affirmation.
Declan made a vague sound of praise and relief combined. He resumed kissing her, really kissing her, and rocking into her.
Helena gasped at the pounding, pressing shock of it all, but then she laughed, delighted—this was so lovely—and she kissed him back, meeting him thrust for thrust.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted her knees, first to his haunches. He reachedback and took one ankle, showing her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.
Declan rolled them, flipping her on top, and then rolled them again, driving into her when she landed on the bottom again.
“More,” she huffed, and he flipped them again, rolling and rolling, tangling the fabric, fusing himself to her.
Her climax took her by surprise. One moment she was kissing him, pressing against him, and the next she thought,Wait, wait, wait, I will—
But she couldn’t say what she would, because she didn’t know—but then she did. Her world imploded from the junction of their bodies, pleasure radiating like a star, like a thousand stars, through every limb, shimmering and buzzing. She felt it under her skin, inside her belly, up her spine. She even felt it in her toenails.
She cried out and Declan matched her cry, pumping into her once more, twice more, and then collapsing on her with a groan.
For a moment they lay there, hovering somewhere between the soft fabric beneath them and the transcendental realm of glowing, pulsing pleasure mingled with pure, selfless love.
Finally, Declan raised up. “Are you well?”
She nodded.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Have I pounded the voice from your lips?”
“Yes,” she whispered, and she turned her head away. Without warning, tears filled her eyes. “Please do not go back to prison,” she whispered.
He sighed wearily. “We shall make every effort.”
She nodded. “Considering the threat of it, I can’t believe we waited so long to do this.”
“Liked that, did you, my lady?”
Another nod.
