Tears leaked from the corners of her shut eyelids. Feeling the lowest of creatures, Aidan inched out of her wet, tight sheath.
Her legs came up and clamped around his hips, keeping him in place. “It’s okay,” she whispered, opening her eyes. Eyes that reflected pain and sorrow. “It’s just that I-I haven’t done this in a while.”
He groaned her name, trying once more to pull out of her, but she kept him locked inside. He wasn’t going to last if she didn’t let him go. As it was he teetered on a sharp edge, barely keeping a leash on the beast.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you. No, that’s a lie. Part of me does want to hurt you.” He dropped his forehead to rest against hers, not wanting to see the shame added to the pain in her eyes. “But not like this. Never like this.”
“Aidan,” she said softly, her fingers brushing the hair back from the his face. “Look at me.”
He raised his head and steeled himself to meet the condemnation in her eyes, but what he saw made him catch his breath.
“I want you, this. I just wasn’t…prepared.” She arched her hips, and he slid deeper inside her. The sensation, the friction, was the most unbelievable pleasure, causing him to clench his teeth. “I’m ready now.” She lowered her eyes and licked her lips, causing the blood to leave his brain. “But if you need more time…”
She wasn’t shoving him away? With what he’d done, how he’d pushed, how he’d taken? His eyes never left hers as he slowly slid into her, his heart pounding as she gasped and bit her lip, her eyes shuttering closed in pleasure. That look had haunted him all these years. Showed up in his dreams, catching him unaware when his mind wandered.
A mad, twisted desire had started this, now wonder joined the mix, along with a need so great his body quaked with it. His hands trembled as they reverently caressed her breasts. Breasts so much softer and fuller than before. Lovely, beautiful, womanly. To touch her like this again after all these years had him choking on emotion. They had missed out on so much. He’d barely learned what she’d liked when they were eighteen. What had caused her to lean into his touch, gasp when he licked, moan and claw when he stroked deep inside her. He knew her, but he didn’t. There was so much that he wanted to learn about the woman she was now.
His chest rose and fell like bellows as he slowly stroked inside her, savoring each inch of penetration as her inner muscles clenched around his hardness, gripping him in a snare he never wanted to be released from. He’d come home. She was the one. Had always been the one. He settled deeper inside her and held her there, never wanting the moment to end. His eyes met hers, and he saw the emotions churning inside him reflected there. Slowly he leaned down and lightly kissed her lips, caressing the side of her face with his fingers, all the while continuing to stroke in and out. In and out.
Her hands trembled as they, in turn, traced the features of his face, his chest, the tight muscles of his abs. Her eyes searching his. “Make me fly,” she said, humbling him. “One more time, Aidan. Make me fly.”
Tears clogged his throat, and he had to swallow rapidly in order not to disgrace himself. He traced his hand down her side, until the heat of his palm covered her tattoo of the raven. His raven. Always his.
“Yes,” she hissed, her nails digging into the sun on his hip. Both images perfectly aligned, her raven carrying his sun, cradling him within her wings. She arched her hips, taking him deeper, meeting his thrusts as they quickened, hardened. Aidan reached out and grabbed her other hand, tightly lacing his fingers with hers, as he rocked into her again and again until she cried out and took flight.
He followed, carried on her wings.
The problem with flying, Raven decided, was that at some point you had to land. She’d never been good at smooth landings. More like crash landings. It didn’t take long for reality to raise its ugly head and demand to know what the hell she’d done.
The room was cast in shadows as the sun readied for its early bedtime. She hated the long, dark winters, the short hours the sun showed itself.
Raven lay on her side within Aidan’s protective embrace, his arm wrapped around her back as her head rested on his chest, her leg draped over his. What she would give to have nothing between them. To be able to lay with him like this every night, wake in his arms, soar in his arms.
Obviously she had no willpower around him. Hard to keep her barriers in place when she was the one widening the cracks between the mortar. She really needed to get dressed and get going, but lying next to Aidan felt so…so…right.