His Defiant Desert Queen(85)

                Even now she felt the rippling of emotion, like aftershocks. Something inside her felt aware, awake. Stirred.

                Was this love? It couldn’t be. She had to be feeling merely the side effect of seduction, and passion, all the result of his expert lovemaking.

                If that was the case, then why did her very heartbeat seem to repeat his name? Mik-ael. Mik-ael. Mik-ael.

                A moment later, he shifted, rolling on to his back, carrying her on top of him. His hand tangled in her long hair, and he parted her thighs, pushing her down against his hips. He was hard again, his erection rubbing against her. “Are you too sore to let me love you again?” he asked, his deep voice as husky and smoky as his dark eyes.

                “No.”

                He lifted her, drawing her down on him, and with his hands on her hips, he helped her ride him, slow and deep, and then faster as the pleasure built.

                After they both came, she tumbled forward onto his chest, and he held her. Her eyes closed. She listened to the thud of his heart and breathed him in.

                He felt so good. He made her feel safe. Happy.

                She was happy. This was the best place she’d been in months, emotionally, physically. In years.

                Silence stretched between them, silence and a tingling awareness that everything had changed.

                Mikael breathed in, out, and she traveled with his breath, his chest lifting her, carrying her.

                That’s how it’d been when they were joined. She’d felt lifted, carried, supported.

                It had been so intimate, and yet it wasn’t just sex. It felt like so much more, maybe because it had been so intense, and so physical, it’d demanded all of her, and she’d surrendered.

                Making love to him, she gave herself up to him, offering him everything—her body, her mind, her emotions...her heart.

                Why her heart? It made no sense. Jemma protected her heart. She’d learned it was necessary for survival. And yet in one morning of lovemaking, she’d dropped her defenses, lost her boundaries and become someone else. Or something else.

                Changed.

                There was that word again. She couldn’t help going back to it. Changed. Altered. Shattered.

                Confused.

                How could sex do that? How could sensation be so powerful? She didn’t understand and yet everything inside her felt open. Her heart felt open.

                She pressed her palm to his chest, savoring the steady thud of his heart. “Did you really buy my mother a house?” she asked huskily.

                His fingers played with her hair, twisting the long strands. “I will go check and see if the escrow has closed. I expect it will have.”

                “And then it will be hers?”

                “And hers alone,” he agreed.

                Jemma hesitated. “Even if I leave here in four days?”

                “No one can take it from her.”

                Jemma was profoundly moved, but also troubled. “I don’t know what to say. I know I should thank you—”

                “You don’t need to thank me. I didn’t buy it for you. I did it for her.”