My legs tensed, aching to move, to step over the threshold, but I forced myself to stay still. The urge to reach for him was strong. Despite everything that had happened, I wanted to feel him. I needed the weight of his body on top of mine.
That was not the velmoria flowers anymore.
“Right. You should,” I forced myself to say. “I’m glad everyone is safe.”
The strain and danger of the day had been too much. It likely reached that place of guilt in him.
Yet he didn’t move. He stared at me, his eyes a deep shade of blue, flecked with reflections from the candlelight. It was all I could do to lean against the door, to stop myself from getting closer.
I thought I heard the wood in the frame creak under his grip before he pushed himself off and stepped back.
“Go back to sleep,” Reagan said finally. “Don’t open your door for now.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Right.”
He trudged away, and I watched him leave, closing the door after he vanished.
I returned to the window. A few flakes of snow fluttered down.
I wouldn’t sleep. Maybe I could take another bath and—
A knock.
My heartbeat surged in response.
When I opened the door, Reagan stood there, his expression tight, hands gripping the doorframe. Saying nothing, juststaring. But the intensity in his gaze, the furrow in his strong brow—they might as well have made the floor shake.
An attack had just happened. The estate may have been rattled. And here we were.
My lips curved, and I pushed the door open wider, stepping back.
His shoulders relaxed, and Reagan crossed the threshold. One, two strides. A hand landed on the nape of my neck, the other on the small of my back. His mouth crashed onto mine, his powerful grip nearly stealing my balance.
I moaned into the kiss, unable to stop it, my fingers digging into his muscled back, clutching tightly.
“I’m selfish...so irredeemably selfish,” Reagan murmured roughly against my mouth. “But you were looking at me with that fire in your eyes, and I couldn’t walk away.”
He gripped a fistful of my hair, pulling it back gently before lowering his lips to my neck. Kissing. Nipping. Tasting my skin.
“Don’t,” I breathed.
He let out a low groan in response, his hand sliding down my lower back to grip my bottom, pulling me tighter against him. And I felt him against my stomach—hardening, banishing every coherent thought from my mind. Banishing the voice that whisperedprisonerinside my head.
But I couldn’t deny myself anymore. I moved my hips, grinding against his trousers, craving the friction. I started unbuttoning his shirt, my eyes roaming over the lean muscles of his stomach and the gleaming heartstone in his chest, bathed in candlelight.
This felt natural, easy.
Reagan pulled the cord of my robe, and the garment slipped to the floor, his mouth finding mine again as I tore his shirt off each shoulder.
His thigh moved between my legs as he stepped forward, the touch sending sparks of fire up my spine, drawing me with him until the backs of my knees met the edge of the bed. He pulled back, fingers curling beneath the hem of my nightgown and lifting it over my head.
Reagan’s gaze held me in a searing, all-consuming thrall as he drank in my bare skin. I was reminded of who he was by the way he lowered us onto the bed, guiding us together, pinning my wrists beside my head. A leader. A lord.
His mouth found mine, hands roaming my body as if determined to know every inch. He traced a path along my neck until my back arched, unwilling for it to end. Or afraid it would. But Reagan only smiled, gripping my waist as he captured the peak of my breast between his lips.
My breath came ragged, and I bit my lower lip to stifle the moan.
“So beautiful when you gasp for me. What other sounds will you make, Jane?”
