Darknight(31)

His mouth closed on my nipple, and I cried out then, arching against him, feeling the heat and the need build even further. He reached down and fumbled with the heavy concho belt, trying to get it undone.

“I’m regretting buying you this thing,” he muttered.

I laughed and unerringly found the latch on the buckle, let the belt drop away and fall with a metallic thud to the rug-covered floor. He let out a little growl, and undid the button and zipper of my jeans, pulled them down, taking my underwear with them.

Then I was naked beneath him, no embarrassment at being completely exposed to him like this, nothing at all except the need to have him be as naked as I was. I reached up and grabbed his sweater and the T-shirt he wore underneath it, and pulled them over his head. His body was as beautiful as I’d imagined it must be, firm with muscle, stomach flat, skin smooth and warm-toned, a gift from that long-ago Navajo ancestor, perhaps.

But I didn’t have any more of a chance to admire him, because he lowered himself to me, trailed kisses down my neck, swirled his tongue around one nipple, then the other. I gasped, burying my hands in his heavy hair, holding him against me, even as I felt his fingers trace their way up the inside of my thigh, caressing me, coming closer, closer….

There. A groan forced its way from my throat as he stroked me, touched the heat in my core and made it flare up higher, higher….

Even with the response he was able to evoke from my body, I hadn’t expected I would come that fast. But I did, wordlessly crying into the darkness as he gave me the release I’d been denied for so long.

And he didn’t stop there, but moved slowly down my stomach, kissing his way over my flesh, until his tongue found the dampness between my legs, kissed and suckled me there, as I whimpered and gasped and felt the pulsing need build in me again, heat rising, until yet another orgasm rocked its way through me. My fingers tightened in his hair, holding him there until the last little ripples had finally worked their way through to my fingers and toes.

Then I realized he was still wearing his jeans, which just seemed wrong, so I found his belt buckle and undid it, and went to the buttons of his Levi’s and more or less tore them free of their buttonholes. Just as he’d done with me, I grasped the waistband of his jeans and the boxer briefs he wore underneath and pulled them down as one. He sprang free, large and hard…ready.

I wrapped my fingers around him, felt the silky smoothness of his skin and the rigid strength of the flesh beneath. My hand moved up and down, and up and down again, and he moaned, letting me touch him, bring him to the brink.

“God, Angela, you’re killing me,” he groaned.

“That’s the last thing I want to do,” I whispered. I stopped, fingers still holding him, but not moving.

“I want to…be in you.”

“I know,” I replied. Beneath the waves of heat I felt the slightest shiver of apprehension. Or was that anticipation?

“And you’re — you’re ready?”

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.

He took in a breath, then shifted away from me. I let go of him, wondering what he was doing. The answer became clear as he yanked open the top drawer of his nightstand, pulled out a little foil packet.

I almost protested. After all, a witch didn’t really need that kind of protection; my Aunt Rachel had taught me a simple charm to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. It was something all young witches learned, although I hadn’t needed it up until this point.

But then I thought of all those young women Mary Mullen had mentioned, the ones who had been here before me…here in this very same bed. Probably Connor had been careful with them, too, but why take the risk? At least, not until he could get tested and we’d know for sure.

These thoughts flickered through my mind, oddly not killing the desire I felt for him, but only increasing it, as if I needed to forge this final bond with him so the specters of those girls who’d come before me could be banished forever. I waited, time seeming to hang, suspended, as he opened the packet and then slid the condom over his shaft.

He moved back toward me, slipped between my legs. Once there, though, he paused, staring down at me, as if to reassure himself that I wouldn’t stop him.

I knew I couldn’t do that, not now when we’d already come so far. This would change everything, and we would have to deal with that, but for now I wanted nothing else but Connor against me, inside me.

“Please,” I said.

The softest of sighs escaped his lips, and then I felt him moving against me, his tip pressing against me, and then into me. For the briefest second there was a flash of pain, and I shut my eyes. But then he was within me, moving slowly and steadily, pushing his length into my core, filling me. And the heat was there again, pulsing stronger and stronger, as we rocked together, breaths mingling, no sound at all except our ever-increasing gasps for air, driving into one another, taking our two halves and making them a whole.