Rain Shadow(40)

"But-they're special."

Hands rough and warm on her hipbones, he spoke against her parted lips. "We'll buy more."

His mouth stilled further conversation. His tongue, making intimate  love, searched every crevice and discovered each nuance that drew a  feverish response from her. It was natural to twine her arms and legs  around him and feel him pressed intimately against her-intimate yet  immensely unsatisfying. Beneath her touch, his shoulders were sinewy and  strong. She explored his corded neck, hard biceps and the broad expanse  of his back.

His hands devoured her hips, the indentation at her waist, kneaded and  flattened her breasts. He spread suckling kisses along her collarbone.  Her whole being hummed with feelings, all vibrant fire and crystal-edged  responses. He'd unleashed a howling storm.

Rain Shadow threaded her fingers in his sandy hair and anticipated his  next kisses. Her heart pulsed erratically beneath the surface of her  skin. Every screaming nerve ending poised in expectation. Anton dipped  his head and took the hardened core of one breast into his mouth. She  dropped her head back and shuddered. Her body responded like a spring  thaw, melting and flooding in uncontrollable torrents.                       
       
           



       

She hadn't known, hadn't realized anything could feel like this. A  powerless sensation crept into her limbs, saturated her senses as his  strong hands and masculine scent filled her world until there was  nothing else. No one. Only him. Anton.

"Anton..." She couldn't raise her voice above a hoarse whisper. She'd had no idea. Had never anticipated...

He covered her damp breasts with his enormous palms and gazed into her eyes. "I know."

Blue eyes clouded with passion, he slid his fingers to the soft leather thong at her hip.

Rain Shadow ended his torment and exposed the slender strip tying it in  place. He tugged the tie free, his strong fingers trembling ever so  slightly. Her undergarment lay like a forgotten scrap on the table  beneath her. Both moved their hands to the waistband of his denims.  Anton was quicker. He unbuttoned, but she shoved them down his thighs,  glad he'd removed his wet boots at the door so he had only to kick free  of the restricting trousers.

He guided himself to her, pausing not to consider but in consideration,  and kissed her waiting mouth. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders,  and he offered himself slowly. Maddeningly slow. So slow she wrapped  her legs around his hips and drew him into her completely. Any  discomfort was forgotten in a few wondrous and swift strokes.

"Ah, Rain-Shadow...." Moisture glowed on his golden skin. She clung to him, riding the searing wave of mounting sensation.

Unleashed senses came into acute focus. Anton was aware of her fingers  gripping his shoulders, but so intense was the frenzied pleasure of  burying himself deep within her that he ignored the pain. He was aware  of his choppy breath, the heightened scent of her aroused body, the  strength of her thighs and the captivating sight of her arched throat.

Head thrown back in abandonment, her midnight-black hair caressed the  backs of his fingers on her hips. Her tongue slid across her swollen  lips in an unconscious gesture, and her closed eyelids trembled. Never  had he experienced this unexplainable connection. Never had his wife  taken him to these heights of arousal and pleasure.

He pulled back to watch. Her body fascinated him. Astounded him. Aroused  him more than he'd known was humanly possible. Her dark skin glowed  with passion, a sight he gloried in. Emily had ashamedly tried to keep  her pale, powdered body from him. Rain Shadow was physically strong, as  he'd known, but sleek, lithe and feminine, passion endowing her limbs  with an energy equal to his. Her heightened pulse beat visibly at the  base of her throat, the gold locket skittering jerkily against her skin.  Damp tendrils of hair spiraled at her neck and temples. Her expressions  were glorious, unaffected, and her high, honeyed breasts tight and  hard.

Her honest reaction was amazing. Her resplendent answers to his kiss,  his hands, the thrust of his unrelenting body were more than he'd ever  hoped for.

"You're beautiful," he said, and watched her eyelids flicker open.

She pulled him close and pressed her lips against his collarbone, darted  her tongue along his throat, licked at the tangle of scars on his  shoulder. Anton ground his teeth, praying for endurance. Something  escaped her lips, not a gasp, not a hiccup, but a sound that enervated  and excited at the same time. She bit his chin hard enough to hurt.

He recognized the sudden added tension in her limbs, grasped her and  caught the tiny gasps escaping her lips with his own. In startled  wonderment, he felt her convulse around him.

Her response was too precious. Too good to be happening to him. And totally unexpected.

Rain Shadow was filled, body, soul and senses, and she returned the  possessive embrace. He was splendid, golden and beautiful, his eyes  darkened to a deep, sultry blue, the muscles of his arms and shoulders  flexing in smooth rhythm. With a throaty, rasping cry, he shuddered  against her.

His hands slipped over her satin-slick skin, long fingers caressing her spine. Much too quickly, the waves subsided.

Inevitable. From the first time their eyes met this had been inevitable.  She couldn't have stopped it any more than she could have stopped a  hurricane. Wouldn't have wanted to.

"Rain Shadow."

She lifted her gaze from the jagged pulse at his throat, past the teeth marks on his chin to his heart-reaching eyes.                       
       
           



       

"You're so beautiful," he whispered.

"So are you."

"Perfect."

She smiled.

Concern flicked across his heat-flushed face. "Did it-did I-hurt you?"

"Not so I noticed."

He pressed a kiss against her damp forehead.

She flexed her fingers, suddenly realizing how hard she'd gripped his shoulders. "Did I hurt you?"

"Yeah."

He laughed first, and she joined him.

He dropped his gaze to the locket and wondered for the first time if the  hard surface of the table was uncomfortable. "Sorry. The table wasn't  comfortable for you, was it?"

"Just the..."

"The what?"

She squirmed ever so slightly.

"The sugar."

Without surrendering their precious link, Anton raised her with one arm  and brushed the other palm over the grains on her satin-smooth buttocks,  his vow to resist her forgotten...forgetting who she was and  wasn't...who he was and the mistakes he'd made before. Still wrapped  around him, her breath caught in her throat, she made a tiny sound he  knew he'd remember forever, an intimate sound of surprise and pleasure  that devastated his senses.

With the slightest urge of his arms, she tightened her arms and legs  around him, and he held her against him, her hair sliding cool and  silken against his skin. Better than he'd imagined. How he wanted this  woman.

He crossed the room and carried her into the darkened bedroom, knelt on  the bed and fell forward heavily, burying her beneath him.

In the softness of the bed, Rain Shadow stretched out with a sigh and  gloried in his strength and weight, hoping he would take his time. She  felt a sense of security and belonging in his arms that she'd never  known. She wound her fingers through his golden hair, pressed her nose  against his damp neck and inhaled as if to draw all of him inside her  lungs. She tasted his skin, a salty, earthy taste, nourishment that  could easily feed her hungry soul indefinitely. He moved, simmering with  control, and her renewed enjoyment surprised her.

Anton sought her mouth in the darkness, touched his warm, damp lips to  hers gently this time, more gently than he'd ever kissed her before. She  framed his face with her hands, impressing this moment, these exquisite  feelings, scents and tastes into memories to carry with her for an  eternity.

Anton turned his head and nipped her thumb gently. Almost lazily, he  drew one of her knees up his side and caressed the sole of her foot, her  ankle, the back of her sensitive thigh, her hip and the base of her  spine. Intuitively his fingers returned to her thigh and drew slow  figure eights from behind her knee to her hip, matching her increased  movement. "Does that feel good?"

She groaned against his jaw, sought his mouth. "Yes," she assured him.  "Don't stop." Soon she would have to leave. Leave his arms, his home,  leave the only small measure of security she'd ever known. But for now,  for this minute, this hour, this night, he was hers. She ran her hands  over his strong shoulders, his hard biceps, down the smooth plane of his  back and dug her fingers into his hips, holding him as close as  possible for two people to be.