He reared over her, big, powerful, dominating. She raised her knees to frame his narrow hips. He kissed her with a fierceness that made her arch against him. His hardness pressed into her stomach. Soon, all that masculine power would be inside her.
She could hardly wait.
“Hold on to my shoulders,” he said in a thick voice.
Wordlessly, she obeyed. His muscles tensed. His shoulders were as unrelenting as stone, as sleek as satin under her clinging hands.
Her heart thundering, she prepared to be conquered as he’d conquered her this morning. Only to discover he meant to woo her to rapture.
He tilted his hips forward. She felt sliding heat against her moist cleft. Then slow, delicious pressure.
At last…
She caught her breath and flexed her fingers against his damp skin. He breathed harshly, and a lock of hair tumbled over his forehead. The veins in his arms stood out in stark relief. She couldn’t doubt control cost every ounce of concentration.
There was something viscerally satisfying about being the object of that unwavering focus. Last time they’d made love, he’d been lost to passion. That had been exciting. This was deeper, purer, sweeter.
He penetrated farther. She gasped as still-tender flesh stretched to accommodate him.
Of course he heard her. He paused in his tormentingly gradual invasion.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
She raised her head and kissed him briefly, then returned for a longer foray. This morning she’d felt desired, and the knowledge had been heady. Tonight, she felt cherished.
“Charis?”
“Don’t stop,” she whispered, and dug her fingers harder into his shoulders.
He pushed forward. The feeling was strange. Uncomfortable. Exciting. With every incremental incursion, he took over her body. With her body, her soul.
She moaned and moved to ease the blinding pressure. He went deeper. She gasped for air as if she drowned. His shoulders under her hands were slick and his face was gaunt, the skin stretched over his bones.
The ferocious expression in his black eyes as they burned into hers should frighten her. Instead, it made her belly knot with arousal. He edged farther. Paused.
Had he reached his limit? She braced against him. Then something inside her relaxed, opened with sudden welcome.
The tension drained from his back. His muscles bunched again. And. with a deep groan, he seated himself fully.
The sensation was extraordinary. Indescribable. It was like her love took on solid expression, breath, life.
Time stretched to eternity before her. For all their previous lovemaking, she’d never felt so close to another person. The dark intimacy was all-encompassing.
His breathing was ragged. The eyes that met hers were glazed with passion. He withdrew in one smooth movement and plunged back. Heat streaked through her, brilliant as lightning.
As he changed the angle, her passage closed hard around him. The fresh sensation made her jerk and tremble. Twice tonight he’d shown her bliss. But what he did now was prelude to something infinitely more powerful.
He thrust again, and she clenched in barbaric possession. Every parting and joining jolted her body. Vaguely through the gathering storm, she felt him dip one hand between them. Then the press of his palm at the juncture of her legs, the flick of his fingers.
Her eyes fluttered shut as fire engulfed her world.
Consuming flame rushed along her veins. Every muscle tightened to an agony that was the greatest pleasure she’d ever known. Nothing existed except the roaring inferno.
Through it all, one thing alone anchored her. The man who thundered into her as she convulsed with ecstasy. She held on to Gideon while unshakable love filled her. Indelibly part of the shining bliss, but somehow separate, immortal, and immovable like the sun.
Gideon was her sun. Her moon. Her sky. He created her anew in the fiery kiln of his passion.
Love flooded every particle of her body with liquid gold. The connection was transcendent, eternal, unbreakable.