When, at last, she was completely naked, he staggered to a stand and hovered on the side of the bed, looking down at her.
She tried very hard to be shy; eyes downcast, arm draped across her breasts, knees together, tipping slightly to the side. But she was grinning; and her half-lidded eyes lit with delight.
“You’re remarkable,” he whispered.
Her head snapped up. “And now compliments suddenly spring to mind?”
“I’m sorry, Ryan; there are skies after a storm, and then there areskies after a storm. Looking at you is like seeing the most glorious blue illuminated by a golden sun. You areincredible.”
Her shyness dissolved after that, and she preened a little—she actually preened—and Gabriel, mindless again, stripped from his clothes and dove forher, scooping her up and pressing every glorious inch against his bare skin.
“What are we doing?” she whispered, trying to keep up with his mouth.
“We are mindless,” he whispered.
“Oh, good,” she said.
“In fact, I may never have a functioning mind, ever again.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“What do you want?” Gabriel whispered into her ear.
“I beg your pardon?” Ryan breathed.
“Que veux-tu que je te fasse, Princesse?”What do you want done to you, Princess?
Ryan opened her eyes. He’d never referred to her as “princess.” If he called her princess, he acknowledged not only his own title, but their union, as well.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I want what you did before. On the first night. In your cave.”
He kissed her. “So you do know what you want.”
“Well, is there more?”
He made a grumbling noise and dropped his lips to her neck. His beard tickled her cheek, and her jaw, and her throat. Oh, how she adored his beard.
“I would have your beard on me,” she said. “Everywhere. And I would touch you.”
“Is that all?” He’d draped himself against her, but now he stretched, aligning the long, muscled heft of him squarely on her body.
She moaned at the delicious pressure. “I don’t know.”
Try everything,she thought. And,It’s only for tonight.And,Remember it, cherish it.
“Don’t think,” he whispered in her ear. “We’ll not survive this if we think.”
She nodded, reaching for mindlessness. Now she would onlyfeel.
“When you were in my cave,” he said, “which, allow me to reveal to you, felt at the time like the most unbelievable good fortune that could befall any man. In case you couldn’t tell. A beautiful woman knocking about my cave half-dressed? Imploring me to lie with her, to touch her? I wanted every inch of you. From your smallest toe to the hair on top of your head. I wanted to memorize you.”
“Perhaps I might do that to you?”
He chuckled against her neck. “My good fortune does not run to that. Surely.”
“That’s what I want, Gabriel,” she said. “Will you lie back? Will you let me touch you? All of you? From your smallest toe to the top of your head?”
He let out a half laugh, have moan, squeezed her, but rolled to the side, flopping on the mattress next to the wall.
