Page 118 of Beds and Blades

Skip’s desire reached me in a form I had never felt before. Relief sharpened it rather than softening it. He needed to touch me, to feel me respond, to confirm with every available sense that I was alive and still choosing him.

Everything I carried answered him: the remnants of adrenaline, the ache of my first kill, and the overwhelming love I felt for this man who had once seemed impossible.

He kissed me slowly and deeply. There was nothing tentative in it, but there was no urgency either. He tasted me as though committing the fact of me to memory.

His hands moved over my clothes, removing each layer until I stood bare before him. Then he allowed me to undress him. My fingers followed the familiar planes of his body—the heavy muscle, the old scars, the places I had learned by touch and now knew almost as well as my own.

He lifted me into his arms and carried me to the bed. I draped my arms over his shoulders while one of his hands cupped my ass and the other supported me beneath my thigh. He laid me against the blankets and remained standing between my parted legs.

I watched his cock harden as he looked at me.

The effect on my body was immediate. Heat gathered low in my belly, my pulse accelerated, and wetness spread between my thighs. His fear had not vanished. It had changed form, passing through relief and emerging as desire intense enough for both of us to feel.

He lay beside me and kissed me again. When he pulled back, he pressed his forehead to mine. Our eyes met. My heart pounded, and his breathing had lost its careful rhythm.

“I must never lose you,” he said, tracing his fingers along my arm.

“You won’t.” My voice thickened around the promise. “I’m here. I’m yours.”

His eyes closed for one brief moment as the words moved through him.

I shifted over him and rose onto my knees, straddling his hips. Reaching between us, I wrapped my hand around his cock and guided the broad head to my entrance. My other hand rested against his chest, directly over the hard beat of his heart.

He looked up at me.

I lowered myself slowly.

The first stretch drew a helpless sound from my throat. I continued inch by inch, taking him deeper until my body had opened around all of him. His hands closed around my hips, not directing me, only holding on.

When he was fully inside me, I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck. Our foreheads met again.

For several breaths, neither of us moved.

His cock twitched inside me. I felt the effort it cost him to remain still, along with the need beneath it.

Then I began to move.

I rode him slowly, rolling my hips and sinking deep on every descent. The pace was deliberate, each movement allowing me to feel the full length of him sliding through me.

There was no need to hurry. We had already spent the night believing time might be taken from us.

His hands traveled up my back. One settled between my shoulder blades while the other supported the base of my spine, holding me close as I moved.

Every slow rise and fall gave him another answer.

Alive.

Here.

His.

Mine.

“Look at me,” he murmured.

Our eyes remained locked as I rode him. Nothing between us was concealed or managed. I felt the last of his terror loosen its grip, replaced by relief so profound it bordered on pain.

“You feel so good,” I whispered.