Her senses focused on the place where they joined. She heard Devil groan. Blinking, she looked up; his eyes were shut, his features like stone. Under her hands, the muscles of his shoulders were taut, locked in some phantom battle. Inside her, the steady throb of him radiated heat and a sense of barely reined urgency. Her pain had gone. On the thought, the last of her tension ebbed; the last vestiges of resistance fell away. Tentatively, her gaze on his face, she eased from his hold, and rose slowly on her knees.
"Yes." The single word was heavy with encouragement.
He stopped her at the precise point beyond which their contact would break. She sensed his eagerness, the same compelling urgency that welled within her; she needed no direction to sink slowly down, enthralled by the feel of his steely hardness sliding, slick and hot, deep into her.
She did it again, and again, head falling back as she slid sensuously down, opening her senses completely, savoring every drawn-out second. Their guidance no longer required, his hands roved, reclaiming her breasts, the full curves of her bottom, the sensitive backs of her thighs. All awkwardness, all reticence, had vanished; lifting her head, Honoria draped her arms about his neck and sought his lips with hers. The glide of their bodies, uniting in a rhythm as old as the moon, felt exquisitely right. She gave him her mouth; as he claimed it, she tightened her arms, pressing herself to him, drawn to the promise contained within his powerful body, flagrantly demanding more.
He drew back from the kiss; under his lashes, she saw his eyes gleam.
"Are you all right?"
His hands traced mesmerizing circles over her bottom. At the peak of her rise, Honoria held his gaze-and slowly, concentrating on the rigid hardness invading her, sank down.
She felt his rippling shudder and saw his jaw firm. His eyes flashed. Greatly daring, she licked the vein pulsing at the base of his throat. "Actually, I find this quite…" She was so far past breathless her words shook.
"Surprising?" His voice was a rumble almost too low to be heard.
Catching a desperate breath, Honoria closed her eyes. "Enthralling."
His laugh was so deep she felt it in her marrow. "Trust me." His lips traced the curve of her ear. "There's a great deal more pleasure to come."
"Ah, yes," Honoria murmured, trying desperately to cling to sanity. "I believe you claim to be a past master at this exercise." Dragging in a tight breath, she rose upon him. "Does that make me your mistress?"
"No." Devil held his breath as she sank, excruciatingly slowly, down. "That makes you my pupil." It would make her his slave, but he'd no intention of telling her that, nor that, if she applied herself diligently, the connection might just work both ways.
On her next downward slide, she pressed lower; he nudged deeper. Her breath hitched; instinctively, she tightened about him. Devil set his teeth against a groan.
Eyes wide, she looked up at him, her breathing shallow and fast. "It feels… very strange… to have you… inside me." Breasts rising and falling, brushing his chest, she moistened her lips. "I really didn't think… you'd fit."
Devil locked his jaw-along with every other muscle he possessed. After a moment of fraught silence, he managed to say: "I'll fit-eventually."
"Event…?"
Her eyes grew round-he didn't wait for more. He caught her lips in a ravishing kiss and, anchoring her hips against him, tumbled her back onto the pillows.
He'd chosen their earlier position to breach her, placing a limit on how deep he could go, helpful given the force of his instincts. But the time for limits had passed; his swift rearrangement landed her on her back among the pillows, his hips between her thighs, his staff still within her.
She tensed as his weight trapped her; instantly, he lifted his chest and shoulders from her, straightening his arms, his hands sinking into the down on either side. Their kiss broken, her eyes flew open.
He trapped her gaze in his. Slowly, deliberately, he withdrew from her, then, fluidly flexing his spine, he entered her.
Inexorably, inch by inch, he claimed her; heated and slick, her body welcomed him, stretching to take him in. He watched her eyes widen, the blue-grey transmuting to silver, then fracturing as he surged deeper. He sheathed himself in her softness, sinking into her to the hilt, nudging her womb. He came to rest embedded within her; she held him in a scorching silken vice.
Gazes locked, they both held still.
Honoria couldn't breathe, he filled her so completely; she could feel the steady beat of him at the base of her throat. Staring up at his face, she saw the hard planes shift, sharp-edged with reined passion. A conqueror looked down on her, green eyes dark, ringed with silver-the conqueror she'd given herself to. A sense of possession swamped her; her heart swelled, then soared.
He was waiting-for what? Some sign of surrender? On the thought, certainty bloomed within her; a glorious confidence filled her. She smiled-slowly, fully. Her hands had come to rest on his forearms; lifting them, she reached up and drew his face to hers. She heard him groan in the instant their lips met. He came down on his elbows, his hands flicking her hair aside, then framing her face.
He deepened their kiss and her senses went spinning; his body moved on her, within her, and pleasure bloomed.
Like waves piling on the shore, they surged together. Sensations swelled like the incoming tide, rolling ever higher. She caught the rhythm and matched him, letting her body welcome him, holding him tight for a heartbeat before reluctantly releasing him. Again and again they formed that intimate embrace; each time, each devastatingly thorough thrust pushed her higher, further, onward toward some beckoning shore she could only barely perceive. Her mind and senses merged, then soared, locked in dizzying flight. Heat and light spread through her, running down each vein, irradiating each nerve. Then heat changed to fire and light to incandescent glory.
Fed by their striving bodies, by each panting breath, by each soft moan, each guttural groan, the sunburst swelled, larger, brighter, more intense.
It exploded between them-Honoria lost herself in the primal energy, all fire and light and glorious, heart-stopping sensation. Blind, she couldn't see; deaf, she couldn't hear. All she could do was feel-feel him under her hands and know he was with her, feel the warmth that filled her and know she was his, feel the emotion that held them, forged strong in the sunburst's fire-and know nothing on earth could ever change it.
The sunburst died and they drifted back to earth, to the earthly pleasures of silk sheets and soft pillows, to sleepy murmurs and sated kisses, and the comfort of each other's arms.
Devil stirred as the last candle guttered. Even before he lifted his head, he'd assimilated the fact that there was a woman, sleeping the sleep of the sated, more or less beneath him. Before he levered his shoulders away from her and looked down, he'd recalled who that woman was.
The knowledge swelled the emotion that gripped him; his gaze roved her face, gently flushed, swollen lips slightly parted. Her bare breasts rose and fell; she was deeply asleep. Triumph roared through him; smug self-satisfaction swaggered in its wake. With a grin she would probably have taken exception to, had she been in any condition to see it, he lifted from her, careful not to wake her. He'd tried to withdraw from her earlier, before he'd succumbed, but she'd clung to him fiercely and muttered an injuction he'd had insufficient strength to disobey. Despite his weight, she'd wanted to prolong their intimacy, not an aim he could argue against with any conviction.
Their intimacy had been spectacular. Superb. Sufficiently remarkable to startle even him.
He settled on his stomach, feeling her soft weight against his side. The sensation had its inevitable effect; determinedly, he ignored it. He had time and more to explore the possibilities-the rest of his life, in fact. Anticipation had replaced frustration; from the first, he'd sensed in her an underlying awareness, a sensual propensity rare in women of her kind. Now he knew it was real, he would take care to nuture it; under his tutelage, it would blossom. Then he would have time and more to reap the rewards of his control, his care, his expertise, to slake his senses in her, with her-to make her his slave.