Desperate—delirious—with desire, I start to move, settling into a rhythm that has Declan’s body arching beneath mine and his eyes rolling back in his head. One of his hands goes to my breast, pinching and plucking at my nipple, while the other fastens itself to my hip in a gesture so possessive it takes away what little breath I’ve managed to hold on to. And then he’s lifting his hips, driving himself deeper inside me.
The tension is building inside me, hotter and sweeter and more desperate than ever until nothing matters but Declan and the way he feels inside me, the pleasure that slams through me with every stroke, every touch, every breath.
Declan is close, too. I can feel it in the rock-hard thighs that have gone rigid beneath me and the strong fingers that clutch my hips so tightly that I may very well have new bruises when this is over. I don’t mind—it’s exhilarating, not to mention sexy as hell, to know that I’ve driven him to this—that I’ve brought a man of Declan’s strength to the brink of mindlessness.
Sensation swamps me at the thought and my eyes drift closed. I’m right there at the edge, my body poised to explode with just one more—
“Xandra.”
My eyes spring open at the dark command in Declan’s voice and once again lock onto his. It’s what he wanted, what he needed. And—I’m not surprised at all to realize—that it’s what I so desperately needed from him as well. Proof that there’s a connection between us.
Declan chooses that moment to slide his hand up from my breast to my collarbone, his long fingers circling my neck in a moment of utter domination, utter possession that might have felt threatening if it was anyone but him holding me like that. But it is Declan, and his touch feels both as hot as hell and as natural as breathing to me.
His thumb comes up, rubs over my lips again. This time I bite him, hard, and that’s all it takes. His hips slam into mine and I shatter. He’s right there with me, and as his body pulses against mine—as he empties himself into me—the pleasure swamps me, takes me over.
For long, endless seconds there is nothing but Declan and me and the soul-searing ecstasy we bring each other. And though I know better, though life has taught me better, I can’t help thinking that I want it to be like this between us forever.
Six
For long moments, I just lie there on top of Declan, too drained to move. Usually when we make love it energizes me, makes me feel like I can take on the world. But tonight I don’t want to move, don’t want to think, don’t want to do anything but lie here and pretend the whole world away. I want, just for a little while, for it to be only Declan and me.
No ACW. No Shelby. No worries about being soulbound. Just two people who like and respect each other—two people who just happen to catch fire the moment they touch.
Yet even as the wish flits through my head, I know it’s not to be. It’s been seven years since our first kiss, but only two weeks since we met again, even less than that since we’ve become an actual couple, and there is so much I don’t know about him. So much I don’t want to know. So many questions I’m afraid to ask.
But that’s on me, not on him. As are these overwhelming, all-encompassing feelings for him that well up inside me when I least expect them to. I can’t help the way I feel, though. I can’t help the hold he has over me any more than he can help the one I have over him. And it’s not just the soulbound thing. It’s the way he looks at me. The way he touches me, as if I’m fragile, important, precious. It’s the way he respects my strength and my right to do things on my own, but is always there to pick up the pieces when I hit the wall. And I’ve hit that wall a lot since my powers have kicked in. I can’t forget that Declan’s been there, every time, to put me back together.
Part of me knows it’s dangerous to feel so much for him, especially when things are so uncertain between us, when it would be easier for him to kill me than to live with this tie between us. Oh, deep inside, where logic has no place, I know he’ll never hurt me. I know he would rather die than let anything bad happen to me. After all, he’s saved me from death twice in the last two weeks. If he’d wanted me dead, it would have been easy enough to just walk away when I needed him most.
He didn’t do that, though.
And still, I’m afraid. Not of him so much as the forces that surround us and make my feelings for him so improbable, so impossible. There’s a darkness in him that I can’t touch, and though he keeps it under wraps, I know it’s there. I can feel it in him as surely as I can feel his skin hot and slick against mine.