Dane's Storm(63)

I wrapped my leg around his, bringing our pelvises flush against each other. Dane gave a low growl of masculine pleasure and it shot straight between my legs like electricity. I answered Dane’s moan with one of my own, bringing my mouth to his. The kiss was slow and deep, a gentle dance of lips and tongue. It felt almost leisurely, but for the coiled tension I sensed in his body, in the way he pressed himself against me, hot and hard, his breathing ragged when he pulled his mouth away to kiss and nip at my throat. I leaned my head back, a smile on my lips, allowing myself to enjoy the physical expression of this man’s love for me.

“I’ve missed you,” I whispered. My voice caught, emotion pushing the words from my chest in a rush of joy, of gratitude, of so many feelings that had been trapped inside me for so long. In walling off the pain, I’d also walled off happiness and hope. I knew that now.

Dane paused, and I lowered my head, our eyes meeting as he gazed at me with adoration, the same look that had caught at my heart when I’d seen it in the groom’s eyes in Victor’s studio. Dane had looked at me like that on our wedding day, and he was looking at me like that now. I let out a sound that was part joy and part pain before Dane kissed me again, whispering, “I’ve missed you too, honey.”

For a time, we simply kissed and touched, delighting in the languorous joy of giving and receiving pleasure, of re-learning each other’s bodies, even though we hadn’t removed any clothes. My hand roamed under Dane’s shirt, his skin silky and warm, his heartbeat quickening beneath my palm. He pressed his erection between my legs, eliciting tingles of pleasure even through my jeans. Oh.

I closed my eyes, losing myself in the physical pleasure—the only one that hadn’t been taken from us in this unforgiving wilderness. Dane thrust slowly against me as we kissed again and I gasped, wanting more, wanting him inside me so badly I ached. “More,” I moaned.

Dane put his hand up my sweater, sliding over the skin of my belly slowly, torturously, his palm warm and slightly calloused. That felt so good, but when he reached my breasts and pulled one bra cup down to thumb my nipple, I cried out in bliss. He moaned against my neck as he continued to play with my nipples and I writhed against him. “Oh God, Audra, I’m so hard. I don’t think I can wait.”

“Don’t wait,” I begged, using my hands to unbutton my jeans, wriggling this way and that so I could pull them and my underwear down my thighs.

Dane reached under the blankets as well and I heard the zip of his jeans right before he came over me, adjusting the blankets so they were pulled over his back. He reached down with his hand and slipped a finger through my folds, our eyes locked in the dim light. When his finger dipped inside me, I sucked in a breath and his eyes went half-mast. He used his finger to bring the slippery proof of my arousal up, running his finger along my outer lips slowly and finally circling the spot that made me pant and cry out.

Dane leaned in to whisper in my ear as he pleasured me. “I’m going to make you come this way, honey, because there’s no way I’m going to last longer than about a minute once I get inside you.”

“Mmm,” I moaned, arching upward into that magical hand. He stroked me gently but with the perfect amount of pressure as if he’d never forgotten how to touch me so that my body spiraled toward climax. It made me feel cherished, adored, loved. “Dane,” I gasped as I soared up, up, finally tipping over the edge as I cried out his name once more. In the back of my pleasure-soaked brain, I heard his grunting sound of approval and before I’d even begun to come down, I felt the blunt tip of him at my entrance. He moaned as he pushed inside, easily entering on one quick thrust.

“Ah, Jesus,” he groaned as he started moving, slowly, his expression tensed, as if he wanted to make it last but was barely holding on. He clenched his eyes shut for a moment as his thrusts increased in pace. I closed my eyes, glorying in the fullness of his invasion. “Look at me,” he said, his thrusts becoming jerky.

I did as he said, opening my eyes and staring at his pleasure-tightened expression, seeing what was so clear in his eyes. This wasn’t only sex, not only the enjoyment of a physical encounter. Not like in San Francisco. This was a reclaiming. I knew it because I’d been claimed by Dane Townsend once before and it’d made my heart leap fiercely the first time just as it did now. “Tell me you’re mine,” he grunted.

“I’m yours,” I breathed. Forever.

That same expression of deep satisfaction came into his eyes, right before he pressed into me once, twice, and then tipped his head back, his expression contorting with the pleasure of his orgasm.

I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him to me as he shuddered one last time. Dane rolled off me slightly so I wasn’t taking on his full weight, but most of his body was draped over mine and I luxuriated in the hot, heavy mass of him covering me. He was even warmer now and for a moment, I drowsed, caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness as my body and mind drifted back down to earth.

Dane didn’t pull out of me. I noted lazily that he’d come inside me, but I couldn’t care about that now. Not when there were so many other things to worry about. That one seemed distant and unimportant, a worry, perhaps for another time, another place.

Here, there was nothing but the dictates of our hearts. Here, we grasped what pleasure could be found in the union of our bodies. There was nothing else—only us. And we either wandered away from one another, an unbearable, lonely suffering, or we clung together. And so this time, we clung. This time we forgave, for the alternative was far too bitter and we knew it well.