Trap her there. Enmesh her in a web of desire that flamed hotter with every rasping stroke of his tongue over hers, filling her mouth and her senses with pure heat. With a shattering physical need to move faster and burn.
He surged higher, propping on one elbow, one hand spreading over her back, holding her close so his chest abraded her breasts. His other hand gripped her hip, holding her against him as slowly, countering her rocking rhythm, he thrust upward, into her.
Steadily. Surging powerfully. Harder. Higher. Ultimately faster.
Until she was spinning, until the world her senses knew c
ame apart, shards of sensation flying through her, slicing sharp with white-hot glory, burning, melting, until in the heat of the conflagration she was consumed.
And knew only ecstasy.
Michael caught her, turned and rolled her beneath him. Spread her thighs wide, wrapped her legs about his waist, and drove into her.
She was more open to him than before, more vulnerable, more his.
He took, driving solidly into her pulsing heat.
The steady pounding rhythm roused her, as he’d hoped it would. Her eyes gleamed, then a look of amazement, unfeigned and undisguised, crossed her features. Then she joined him.
Clutched his head and drew his lips down to hers, dueled with him for supremacy there even while their bodies did the same. She had a strength in her like flexing steel; she used it, not to challenge so much as to drive him on. Convince him to go further, to mate with her harder, deeper, to join with her without reserve.
He did. The result was something beyond his experience as surely as it was beyond hers, a gasping, clutching, frantic and desperate climb to an ecstasy greater, deeper, and infinitely more profound than either could have guessed, than either, when their eyes met in that last fraught moment before the maelstrom took them and whirled them from this world, had expected, or even imagined.
The cataclysm rocked them both. Fused them, seared them. Branded them with an awareness each of the other from which neither could ever shake free.
Finally, it released them. Exhausted, they collapsed. Gradually their senses returned, their surroundings reimpinged on their consciousness. Dimly. Neither had the strength to do more than settle into the other’s arms.
Still breathing deeply, his heart still thudding in his ears, Michael kissed Caro’s hand, laid it on his chest, and let his eyes close.
Never, not ever before, had he lost himself so completely, given himself so thoroughly. As he sank into beckoning oblivion, all he knew was that he wanted, desperately needed, to do it again.
That he needed to ensure that he had the chance.
Needed to ensure that she remained by his side.
Always. Forever.
When he awoke, the sun had moved on and shadows dappled the interior of the cottage. The day was warm; their lack of clothes posed no problem, yet the air within the cottage had grown sultry. Caro lay asleep, curled on her side, facing away from him, her bottom snug against his side. Smiling, he savored the sensation, locked it in his memory, then, easing away, rolled from the daybed.
Padding barefoot across tiles warmed by the sunshine, he quietly unlatched a window and set it wide. The sound of the stream gurgling and rushing drifted in; birdcalls added to the bucolic symphony.
He breathed in, then turned. A light breeze, warm and caressing, danced in, and followed him back to the daybed. He stood looking down at Caro, at the slender, shapely limbs relaxed in slumber, at the ripe swell of her hips, the lush curves of her breasts, at the delicate features lightly flushed with slumber. The breeze lifted strands of her fine hair, caressed and stirred them.
She slept on.
In the past two days, he’d spilled his seed inside her five times. He hadn’t taken any precautions, hadn’t tried to avoid it, and nor had she. Of course, the only interludes she until now had dreamed of had been with Camden, her husband. Instinct, distinctly primitive, urged him to leave the matter as was, leave that particular stone unturned. Yet…
Was it fair to simply let what might be—what was very likely to be—happen without her considered agreement? Without her consciously being aware of it and giving her consent?
Yet if he mentioned it…it would certainly break the spell, and he had no guarantee how she would react. He didn’t even know how she felt about children.
A vivid image of Caro with his son in her arms, with two daughters clinging to her skirts, filled his mind.
For long moments, he was blind, held captured, entranced. Then he blinked back to reality…stunned, unsettled. Suddenly wary.
Never had any conjured vision made him feel his heart was standing still—and would until he had it, until he’d secured the thing he’d seen and now so desperately, beyond thought or doubt, wanted.
That thing he now sensed was critical for him, for his continued existence, for his future.