And he continued to take her higher.
Each stroke of his finger inside her, slow and sure, made her tremble, made her shiver in anticipation of what was to come.
He was a master at kissing, touching … teasing. The pleasure was too much to take when he swirled his thumb around her swollen clitoris.
Then a second finger was added to the first as he increased the tempo of his hand. She cried out from the desire turning her blood to molten heat.
Charon took her mouth in another fiery kiss. He couldn’t help himself. He had to have her, all of her. Her legs buckled, and he wrapped an arm around her to keep her up.
If he could stop time, he would linger in this moment, in the beautiful woman in his arms.
He pumped his fingers deeper all the while her nails sank into his shoulders. Charon didn’t feel the gouges, though. All his attention was on her moist heat, the walls of her sex clamping down on his fingers.
Even when her body began to tighten, he didn’t relent. He continued to stroke her, arouse her.
His breath quickened when she screamed her release. But even then he didn’t stop. He took her clitoris between two fingers and gave it a soft tug.
She screamed again, this time his name falling from her lips as she peaked. Charon rested his forehead against hers while he fought not to yank his jeans down and slide into her.
The need to be inside her was crushing. He knew if he gave in, he’d find peace. The same peace that had been his for a short time after he made love to her.
Laura’s head moved to his shoulder. With a soft curse, Charon lifted her in his arms and laid her on the bed. When he went to pull away, her arms constricted around him.
“Don’t go,” she whispered.
Charon had never been able to refuse Laura anything. Even with his doubts about her, he couldn’t stop wanting her. It frightened him, the depth of his longing.
“Charon, please,” she begged.
He looked into her moss green eyes and kicked off his shoes. She lifted the covers so he could crawl in beside her. The bed was tiny, which allowed little room for one person, much less two. But he enjoyed having her in his arms, her back against his chest.
“I’m not working for—or with—Jason,” she said into the silence.
“He has magic you couldna comprehend, Laura. He’s gotten into people’s heads before without them even knowing it.”
“You said the Druids here could tell if he’d used magic on me, or if I was colluding with him.”
“Aye.”
“Then why not let them? You’d have your answers and be able to trust me.”
Charon looked at the painting on the wall of the sun setting over the Highlands. “I might have my answers, but will you? You say I could trust you then, yet I know you wouldna trust me.”
“Let’s find out.”
“I betrayed those below before. I willna do it again. I’m protecting them as much as you by keeping you separated.”
“Yet you brought me here,” she whispered.
He swallowed and ran his thumb over her arm while he held her. “Aye. I wanted you safe from Wallace. I couldna bear it if he harmed you in any way.”
“But you worry now if I’m worth protecting.”
“I know you are,” he said more harshly than he intended. Charon let out a breath. “Tell me what happened to your magic.”
“My family. They syphoned my magic.”
He waited for her to continue, but when she didn’t, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“I left my family because they controlled me. I don’t mean rules or curfews. I mean they told me who I could talk to, what I could eat, where I could go. At all times they dictated my life.”
Charon was speechless. As stubborn as Laura was, he couldn’t imagine anyone trying to rule her. Now he understood why she had balked when he told her what to do. “Why did they do it?”
“I never knew. My mother didn’t do it to my older sister. My father was always away on business, so it was just my mother, Lacy, and me. I had no friends, except for the ones Mother told me I could have. I found out later those supposed friends spied on me for her. They told her when I went against her wishes.”
“And you were punished,” he guessed.
She nodded. “I tried to run. Both times I was locked in my room for two weeks with only bread and water. I wasn’t allowed electricity or to bathe.”
He wished he could see her face. Charon heard the pain in her words, but he knew her eyes would hold so much more. As furious as he was at her family, it just might send him over the edge to look into Laura’s eyes. “How did you get away?”
“I waited until my father came home. He took me to lunch, and I told him I had to leave. He’d always known I was unhappy, but he didn’t believe me when I told him what had been done. The lunch was interrupted by a business call, and while he was taking it, I left. I got on a train and never looked back. I’d been preparing for that day for years, so when the opportunity came, I had enough money to get me wherever I wanted to go.”