“I’m not being careless. I’m being… distracted.” My voice is breathier than I intend. His proximity is a live wire. I can feel the heat coming off him, smell the rain and iron on his skin. “By a rather significant storm. And a rather significant… situation.”
He doesn’t let go of my arm. His eyes lock on mine, and the world narrows to this space between us, to the sound of our breathing and the fury outside. All the unspoken things—the fear, the protectiveness, the raw, terrifying pull—hang in the air, thick and charged as the lightning flashing behind the windows.
“This is a bad idea,” I whisper, but I’m not moving away.
“Almost all of my best ones are.”
And then his mouth is on mine.
It’s not gentle. It’s a collision. A claiming. The last vestige of control shatters between one heartbeat and the next. His hands slide into my hair, tilting my head back, and I melt into the solid wall of his chest. My fingers clutch at his wet vest, holding on asthe kiss deepens, turning desperate and hungry. It tastes of night rain and wild magic and a promise I’m terrified to believe in.
The storm rages on, but it’s just background noise to the tempest in my veins.
His hands are on the buttons of my flannel, fumbling for a second before the fabric gives way. He pushes it from my shoulders and it falls to the floor with a soft thud.
His breath hitches as his palms slide over my bare skin, warming me everywhere he touches. He makes quick work of my jeans, his fingers hooking into the waistband and pulling them down my hips along with my panties. I step out of the tangled pile, completely bare before him.
He lifts me then, his hands spanning my waist, and sets me on the worn edge of the heavy oak table. The wood is cool against my heated skin. He kneels, his broad shoulders between my thighs, and his mouth finds my center.
I cry out, my fingers tangling in his dark braid as he tastes me, his tongue a slow, deliberate stroke that unravels me completely. The world outside, the storm, the danger, it all fades into a dull roar behind the pounding of my own blood.
When I’m trembling on the edge, he rises, his own clothes discarded in a heap on the floor. He is magnificent, all powerful muscle and intent. He guides himself to my entrance, the head of his cock pressing against me.
“Is this yes?” he rasps, his voice raw.
“Yes.” I say in a gasp.
He pushes his cock inside, a slow, inexorable fill that steals the air from my lungs. I arch against him, my nails digging into the hard planes of his back. He stills, buried to the hilt, and we both just breathe, connected in the most fundamental way possible.
Then he moves. A slow, rolling withdrawal followed by a deep, perfect thrust. He sets a rhythm that is both claiming andworshipful. Each stroke builds the pressure inside me, a coiling, brilliant heat. My legs lock around his hips, pulling him deeper. His mouth finds my neck, his groan vibrating against my skin.
His rhythm is a deep, steady claiming that drives every other thought from my mind. My fingers slide from his back to his shoulders, gripping the solid muscle there as he moves inside me. Each thrust is a perfect, stretching fill that makes my breath catch. He shifts his angle slightly, and a low, broken sound escapes me as he brushes a spot deep within that sends sparks behind my eyelids.
A ragged groan tears from his chest. “Krista.” My name is a prayer on his lips, a raw, broken thing. He lowers his head, his forehead pressing against mine, our breath mingling in the small, heated space between us. The world has shrunk to this—the slick sound of our bodies joining, the shudder of the table beneath us, the storm a distant echo of the one he’s stirring in my blood.
His pace quickens, becoming less controlled, more urgent. His hips piston against mine, a relentless, driving force that pushes me higher, tighter. I can feel the tension coiling at the base of my spine again, a brilliant, unbearable pressure building with every plunge of his cock. My heels dig into the small of his back, urging him on, pulling him deeper.
“I’m close,” I gasp into the skin of his neck, my voice unrecognizable.
His answer is a guttural sound of pure need. One of his hands leaves my hip, his fingers finding my clit, and the dual sensation is too much. The coil snaps. My climax crashes over me, a silent, shattering wave that seizes every muscle. I convulse around him, my inner muscles clenching his cock in a series of relentless pulses.
The feeling wrings a roar from him. His thrusts become wild, frantic. He buries himself to the hilt with a final, shudderingdrive, and I feel the hot rush of his release as he comes inside me. His big body goes rigid above me, every corded muscle locked in ecstasy. A long, low groan is torn from him, a sound of pure, undiluted surrender.
He collapses against me, his weight a welcome anchor. His breath is hot and ragged against my throat.
His breathing slows, evens out. The rigid tension in his shoulders softens. For a handful of precious seconds, the weight of him is everything. My fingers trace the line of his spine through the damp leather of his vest, feeling the powerful muscles gone slack. This is peace. This is the eye of the storm.
Then, as if a switch is thrown, it’s over.
He pushes himself up, his movements stiff, efficient. He doesn’t look at me. His gaze is fixed on some point on the far wall, his expression shuttered, carved from stone. The vulnerability of a moment ago is gone, locked away behind a door I can’t even see.
He retrieves his clothes from the floor. The rustle of fabric is obscenely loud in the quiet. He dresses with a soldier’s precision, each motion deliberate, devoid of the raw passion that had just consumed us. He pulls his vest over his shoulders, the fabric doing nothing to hide the new, self-imposed distance.
“Hardin?” My voice is small, still thick with the aftermath. It sounds foolish in the new silence.
He finishes buttoning, his large fingers surprisingly deft. He finally glances at me, but his golden eyes are distant, seeing a battlefield I can’t access. “The wards need checking after a storm like that.”
It’s the flattest, most impersonal sentence ever uttered. An administrative report.
