But even as his body settled down, hers as well, he could feel something massive waiting as though just offshore.
“Do you feel that?” she asked.
He nodded. “Like something’s coming.”
He leaned close, as though a magnet drew him to her. He placed his lips on hers.
He felt something click deep within, a lock turning and sliding into place. She was his, and he was hers. Truly one.
He drew back and looked at her. He moved inside her but there were two sensations now, not just one. He felt the small jolts of pleasure it gave her and then his own pleasure.
She gasped.
He withdrew then plunged.
The dual sensation caused him to shout.
“Do it,” she cried out.
He began to stroke her again. “Oh, my God. The way you feel me.”
“The way you feel me.” She added, “More.”
He became a hard, driving machine once more and pumped. The pleasure felt magnified a hundred times because he felt her pleasure as well as his own. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to become aroused so quickly again, but there he was.
He kissed her neck, only he felt what it was like for her to have his lips pressed against her skin, how moist they felt. The sensation was strange but exhilarating. He wanted to know the rest, what it would feel like for her to come.
All his efforts became focused on what she was experiencing, what his cock felt like deep inside her, all the pleasure building in a line, it seemed, from the outer part of her to areas almost indefinable inside.
All that sensation made him harder and readier, which increased her sensation, which made her grip him … and back and forth it went. Her nails dug into his shoulders and that made her cry out. He could feel all her external sensations. He couldn’t feel things like her heart beating, but anywhere that he could touch her, even with his cock, that he could feel.
He kissed her and slid his tongue into her mouth, and, yes, he could feel the way she experienced his tongue.
But that seemed to be what caused her to fly once more over the edge because she cried out, “Your tongue. Oh, God.” Her neck arched and she was coming. Her pleasure seemed infinite and it brought him, which increased her cries until she was screaming and screaming.
He started seeing black spots before his eyes as he came, as his cock jerked, as her pleasure finally began to recede, as her body grew lax and eased against the sheets. Her head lolled to one side, her eyes closed, her lips parted. She was breathing hard.
He breathed hard as well but now he was frozen above her, staring down at her.
She had become something new to him, wondrous, surprising, extraordinary. “Grace,” he whispered.
She shifted her head, then looked up at him. She smiled. “You’re so beautiful, Leto. Have I told you that?”
“I can feel your body everywhere, the way we’re connected, the feel of the sheet beneath your head, your arms, your bottom.”
She lifted a hand and rubbed her thumb across her lower lip. He turned and kissed her thumb. “Do you think it’s possible we’ll never leave this bed again?” she asked.
He laughed. “So this is what it’s like. It’s so strange.”
“It is. I can feel what it’s like for you to be inside me.”
He pressed a finger between her brows. “I can feel that frown, how it pinches together. What’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure. This has been wonderful, but I’m uneasy, even afraid. Leto, we weren’t really ready.”
“I know. But we both agreed it had to be done.”
She nodded. “This was amazing.”
He kissed her again, and she kissed him back. He felt her tension leave.
After a long moment, he withdrew from her body and was surprised at how empty she felt when he left her. He’d never imagined what that must be like for a woman, to be so filled up, then so empty.
He rolled onto his back and lay looking up at the arch of branches overhead. Grace turned on her side, lifted his arm, and settled her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her. It was heaven to have her so close.
“I wish this moment would never end,” he said.
He felt her sigh.
A well-trained army
Can overcome astonishing odds.
—Collected Proverbs, Beatrice of Fourth
CHAPTER 8
As dawn crested the McDowell Mountains in the east, Greaves stood on the round patio located in the middle of his famous peach orchard. The microclimates he had created in order to grow and ripen peaches every month of the year had won numerous horticultural awards. He had been pleased at the time to have been so honored.
Right now, however, he could not have cared less. What good was an award-winning peach orchard when his kingdom hung in the balance?
He moved in a slow circle, pondering the nightmare that, in a matter of just hours, had become his life.