“I can’t.” He breaks off, panting, his voice rough with passion. “If we don’t slow down—”
“I don’t want to slow down,” I demand. “More.Faster.”
He laughs. “Soli, I need to see you. Please. I feel like I’ve waited years to see you.”
I take a deep breath and roll over until I’m lying on my back and smile up at him. “Here I am. But if you can look at me, I can look at you.”
“Please,” he says, so fervently that I have to laugh.
“I didn’t know,” I whisper, reaching up to touch his face. The face that I’ll never, ever forget, no matter what happens. “I didn’t know there could be laughter and passion and tenderness and heat.”
“Neither did I,” he says flatly, his gaze suddenly on something far away, so far that I know he’s thinking of people who wanted to use himfor advancement or riches or his title.
“No.” I grab his hair with both hands and make him look at me again. “No thoughts of anything or anyone else allowed.”
“You’re very bossy,” he says, turning his head to nip at my fingers.
“Yes. I am. Isn’t it amazing?”
“You’reamazing.” His gaze travels down my body with such predatory hunger that my breath turns shaky and I tremble. “You’re so beautiful, my Solitude Grace. I have to touch you.”
I nod, beyond words, still trembling, and he sits up, pulling me with him until we’re kneeling, facing each other. He cups my breasts in his big hands, and my nipples harden almost to the point of pain beneath his touch.
“So lovely,” he murmurs, almost absently, before bending his head to kiss the slope of my breasts, first one, then the other, closer and closer to my nipple, until I put my hands in his hair and pull him to me, making small sounds that at first I don’t even realize are coming from my throat.
“Yes?” he asks, his lips against me. Finally.
“Yes,” I groan, and his laughter rumbles against my skin, but then he licks my nipple into his mouth and sucks on it, hard. I cry out and arch back, my body dissolving into pure desire. He holds me in place with one hand at my back and uses the other to toy with the breast not in his mouth, and a bolt of sheer lust sears through my body to make me so wet and hot between my thighs that I have to tighten my legs against the feeling.
When he raises his head, his eyes are purple flames in the moonlight. I pull his head to mine and plunge my tongue into his mouth, writhing against him, wanting and needing, making small, wordless sounds that mean nothing and everything all at once.
The emotions soaring through me are a revelation. Beyond desire, beyond passion.
Astonishment.
Awe.
Disbelief.
Gratitude.
I don’t know how to fit all of these wild feelings inside me withoutexpanding and floating up off the bed and out of the room and into the starry night.
“Oh, Kaelen,” I whisper.
“Still yes?” he asks, his voice daring me to deny him.
“Yes,” I gasp, laughing and trembling and touching him. When I reach down between us and grasp the hard length of him, it’s his turn to gasp, and I revel in the purely sensual power I have over this moment, over this man, who clearly wants me as much as I want him.
How is it possible to want so much and not die of it? When his hungry, wickedly sensual smile flashes, I know I spoke the words aloud.
“Still yes?” he asks, his hand sliding down my stomach until his fingers rest between my legs.
“Oh, yes,” I say, over and over and over, as his fingers slide into the heat and wetness of my longing for him. A feeling spears through me like nothing I’ve ever felt before, and I cry out again before falling back against the bed’s single pillow, my body bowed up, my thighs tightening around his wrist to hold him in place.
“Remember, Soli, bandits ravish,” he murmurs, then slides farther down on the bed. Gently pushing my legs apart, he puts his mouth on me. At the first touch of his tongue, my trembling turns to a tempest. I want more, want to hide, want to never, ever move away from this man, this place, this wonder.
“Kaelen,” I moan. “Please.”
