Silence fell between them. There was only touch and taste and sight—and something so much bigger it had to remain unspoken.
She didn’t kiss him. Didn’t initiate any foreplay. There was only one thing that was right in this moment.
Slowly, holding that intense eye contact, she slid down on him, joining with him, taking him deep inside her—heartache, worry, everything.
She quivered. Her breathing quickened and she felt him tense in response. She tried to relax, but the feeling of him full and deep inside her overwhelmed her.
So intense. So big. So good.
He didn’t buck upwards. She didn’t ride. There was just a long appreciation of that sublime sensation of being locked together so tightly nothing could come between them.
Nothing but peace. Nothing but profound joy.
She looked into his eyes for a long, quiet moment of communication—unable to break away, unable to move. Utterly lost in the bliss of the moment.
Slowly his hands swept up her sides to cup her breasts. His thumbs teased in decadent slow circles around her tight nipples until eventually she had to move. Her dance began slowly enough, but his fingers forced the tempo until she had to writhe above him, her desperation to feel the pleasure of his hardness beneath her, within her, increasing insanely quickly.
Always with him she was so quick.
She gasped as he worked a hand between them to help her. Only a few strokes had her hurtling too quickly towards orgasm.
‘Not yet…’ she breathed, breaking the wordless joy. ‘Please.’
‘You’re not ready?’
‘I want to enjoy this longer… You feel so good. You make me feel so good.’
She saw the flash of his smile in the starlight.
‘Anything,’ he muttered, a rusted steel thread in the darkness. ‘I’ll do anything you want.’
‘Feel me,’ she whispered.
She wanted to touch, to be touched. She wanted not to be alone. She wanted to be with him. And she wanted it to last.
‘I do. I am,’ he promised.
He kissed her, used his teeth to tease her lower lip so she opened for him.
She couldn’t not open for him. She immersed herself in his kisses. And she tried to give—letting the desire she felt for him flow, releasing it all in the way she kissed and touched and clutched. She couldn’t get near enough, couldn’t adore him enough. She kissed and kissed and kissed him—with her mouth, with her body, she took him deeper every way she could.
He suddenly tightened his hold on her and stood up. He took the few paces inside to lay her on the bed, falling with her so their connection wasn’t lost.
‘Nothing has ever felt as good as this,’ he muttered against her mouth.
‘Then why have you stopped?’ she asked.
‘Sweetheart, I haven’t even started…’
Jack let his fingers trail the length of her spine, gently stroking down, then up, then down again. He loved the feel of her warm, smooth skin. He loved her generosity, her untrammelled passion. He’d given her what she’d wanted—he’d touched her, felt her, drawn out the pleasure for them both, holding off that inevitable conclusion until she’d been almost in tears and begging. He’d never been so determined to satisfy someone—to be with someone in that way. So open. And then they’d come together.
Bonded together.
Tomorrow he would be meeting the man who was his birth father. Finding out answers he was terrified of. But maybe meeting him wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe with a fairy princess at his side anything might be possible.
In her arms, in this moment, he realised he actually didn’t care any more. That aching hole inside him—the one usually filled with fears, doubts and distressing imaginings—was gone.
All that mattered was being here with her. Seeing her smile and knowing she felt as close to him as he did to her. Feeling her relax against his body, blanketing him with her softness. Her fresh scent. With her silken flame-threaded hair trailing across his chest.
She’d fallen asleep. He hadn’t. But now it didn’t bother him and he refused to rouse her again. His body was replete, his soul soothed, just by holding her.
She’d given him something no one else ever had. He’d never felt as close to another person as he had in those moments with her. As if she understood the worry, the fear. She’d absorbed them and somehow they’d disappeared.
None of it mattered any more. Not now. He felt peace.
His eyelids lowered as finally sleep caught him in its clutches. On the very brink, he tightened his arms instinctively, holding her close.
And, like a talisman, she kept the nightmares at bay.
CHAPTER NINE
‘JACK.’ STEPHANIE LEANED over him. ‘Jack, I think we need to get up.’