This was Lorcan weary and uncertain.
And afraid.
It clawed at her heart even as it sang a dark little hosanna that he should feel such pain all for her.
She understood now, more clearly than ever, that this fearsome man had arranged and lived the entirety of his life to avoid feeling uncertain. To avoid feeling, or showing, weakness. Or fear.
He straightened suddenly. Then swiveled about and saw her.
He was on his feet at once. He straightened slowly, cautiously.
They regarded each other from across the room.
“I... don’t know why I’m standing here.” Her voice was little more than a broken whisper.
With startling speed he strode across the room and closed his hand around her arm.
A little tightly.
He loosened his grip at once.
She hadn’t minded his grip. She wanted to be held as though she was desperately wanted. As if she was a thing so precious letting her go would mean the end of his world.
His hand slid down, down, then moved to her waist. His arm curled around her. He drew her into his body, gently.
He tucked his face into her throat. And held her.
“Your heart, Daphne,” he said after a moment. “Oh, your heart. How fast it is beating.”
The frayed wonder in his voice. As if he could not believe her heart leaped all for him.
He threaded his hand through her hair and kissed her where her heart leaped in her throat.
She slid her hands up, and they lingered over the mighty thud of his heart before they locked around his neck.
His mouth was on her throat, her ear, her lips. Her lips. She fell into the kiss. Surrendered entirely. She was falling, falling. Falling so irrevocably she hardly noticed that her feet had indeed left the ground.
He carried her to her room.
He removed her dress with the same startling efficiency with which he’d peeled that orange. She lay shivering and naked. He was out of his clothes just as swiftly. She heard the muffled thump of trousers and waistcoat and shirt hitting the floor.
And for a second loomed, first shadow, then lamplit, then in filtered moonlight let in through the crack of the curtain. He was enormous, terrifyingly beautiful, infinitely stronger than her. Perhaps infinitely more vulnerable. She trembled with anticipation.
The bed sank when he joined her there and they turned to each other in a near frenzy of want.
She entwined her limbs around him, eager to feel his skin over the entire length of hers. Hecaged her with his arms. They grappled like two people who had tumbled down a cliff, mad with, greedy for, desperate for the feel of every inch of each other; their hands wandering, stroking, searching, while their mouths clung in a deep, hungry, nearly bruising kiss. She wanted to feel every sensation he could offer her. She wanted to touch and taste all of him. She scored her nails across his chest, tangling her fingertips in the curly hair; then pulled away to close her teeth lightly over his nipple. He hissed in a breath of pleasure, his hand rising to cover the back of her head. She rose up to gently bite the great curve of his shoulder; he took her earlobe between his teeth and she gasped. His hands were on her breasts, stroking, teasing her nipples, and she moaned her pleasure.
His hands splayed over her back, traced the nipped curve of her waist, followed it to her arse, spanned nearly the whole of her thigh, his fingers reaching beneath the petal-soft skin there, softly stroking, and she sighed. And then he swiftly rose up on two arms, bridging her. He hovered there, gazing down at her. She reached up to trace his lips, wonderingly. She arched up against his hard cock at the juncture of her legs, reveling in his growled oath, in teasing each other.
And then she escaped.
She slipped from beneath the bridge of his body and rolled away. Strictly for the primitive thrill of being captured again.
Knowing she would never escape him if he didn’t let her go.
He pulled her roughly back into his arms, then briefly pinned her, and the strength of him made her weak, weak with desire.
They smiled at each other.
