Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(69)

Even though he moved so lightly that he made no noise, she felt him come up behind her, so close that she felt his body heat at her back.

Her hair was still bound back in the simple braid. He stroked the edge of her hairline, from her temple, around the delicate shell of her ear, to the nape of her neck. His light touch reverberated through her body and she shivered.

“I would love to see your hair loose, if I may.”

He sounded strange, unlike his usual self. He sounded wistful, and somehow that hurt, twisting the spike deeper. She raised her shaking hands to the back of her head to pull out the elastic band, as she whispered, “It’s a crazy mess at the best of times, you know. It’s even crazier without conditioner.”

He pulled his fingers through the loosened braid, and her hair sprang free. His quiet intake of breath sounded loud in the silent cabin. He sank both hands into the wild abundance and gently spread out the curls until they lay loose around her shoulders.

The sensation of his fingers moving through her hair was exotic, sensual, not just physically arousing but emotionally moving. Closing her eyes, she turned her head slightly toward him. He took such extraordinary care with her. She realized that he had not bruised her once, not even during the most violent part of their initial meeting.

“Thank you,” he said. His voice was a rough, bare thread of sound. “It’s beautiful.”

The physician in her realized something else, and she felt stricken. “We don’t have any condoms, do we? At least I don’t.” Carrying a condom in her purse. Taking birth control pills. What a ridiculously foreign concept to someone who once had no interest in sex.

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. His expression was flushed with heat yet filled with a kind of settled, mature patience that both astonished and moved her even more. “I took a chance and bought a pack of condoms at the store,” he said. “We can do anything we want, or nothing at all.”

She took a step forward. As his arms folded around her, she tucked her head into the crook of his neck. He stroked her hair and the sensitive skin along the side of her face, all with that light, gentle touch. He was bigger than she was everywhere, from the length and breadth of his chest and flat abdomen, to the muscled biceps that were so thick she couldn’t span them with both hands if she tried.

Sensual awareness had been a perpetual backdrop to all of their interactions with each other. It welled now inside of her, a dark, rich energy that was as life-giving as the earth. She rested against the strength of his body, inhaled his scent and savored the texture of his warm skin as she nuzzled into him. He murmured something and pressed his lips against her temple then simply held her, his mouth resting against her skin.

To experience desire now, after going a lifetime without it, seemed like a gorgeous and unearthly gift. How strange that it came at such a time. What did someone say in a situation like this? Honey, I’m going to war and I would like to spend the night with you?

She licked her lips and whispered, “I haven’t been with anybody in a long time. Justin was my last attempt at any real intimacy.”

His hand came under her chin. He tilted her face up and looked into her eyes. His gaze was somber, the lean, tough lines of his face filled with tenderness. “I don’t remember what making love is like. I would love to be with you, but only when you’re ready.”

Shock tightened her face. He was so masculine. He was at least thirty-five years old, and he had been that controlled, that cut off, his entire life? “You’ve never been with anyone? Ever?”

He shook his head, his gaze lowered as he watched his thumb stroke her lower lip. “My memory of you was so much stronger and brighter than anyone I met. Other women were pale shadows by comparison.”

Her eyes filled. Her mouth trembled, and so did her hands as she stroked his back, his cheek. “I didn’t know to wait,” she whispered. “I didn’t remember.”

“Of course you didn’t,” he murmured.

“I wish I had. None of them meant anything. Afterward, I always felt empty and more disconnected than ever, and I could never understand why.”

“Hush. Whoever you were with before—Justin or anyone else, it doesn’t matter.” He bent his head to lick the path along her lip that his thumb had taken. “This is what is real, not what happened in the past. This, right here and now.”

She stood on tiptoe, cupped his face and kissed him with everything she had. His arms clenched, his lips warm and responsive on hers. Urgency flared hot and bright between them, and he turned the kiss aggressive as his powerful body tightened.

They were flush against each other, torso to torso. She felt a heavy, thick length growing against her hip bone. Instead of feeling the usual revulsion that she’d always had to mask before, her body moistened in a sharp pulse of arousal.

As he grew harder, she softened, inviting him with her mouth and her body while she wrapped him in her energy. He slanted his lips over hers, driving his tongue deep into her mouth while he sank both fists into her hair. His breathing came hard, as if he had been running for miles. For uncounted years.

She slipped her hands under his shirt. They both groaned as her palms connected with his warm skin, and he arched with a gasp as she stroked the long, muscled length of his broad back.

She caught a glimpse of his expression. The bones and contours were the same, but he looked radically different, unleashed. The tiger that lived behind his face had finally escaped its confinement and leaped to freedom, and there was nothing at all human in those glittering, moonstone eyes.