She might not be able to make those choices for him, but she could ease him in the interim. They could ease each other, having each spent far too long alone.
He pinned her, pressed into her. She felt the hardness of his chest, his arms, his thighs, and the long length of him. Hooking a leg around his hips, she opened to him with no thought of subtlety or mystery. She wanted him; he wanted her. They didn’t need to make it any more complicated than that.
It was a freeing thought.
The mattress yielded at her back. He covered her with his body, pressing her into the bedding, kissing her the whole time, moving from her lips to her cheek to the line of her jaw, then the soft, sensitive spot behind her ear. She arched against him as heat roared, and behind it, the saber rattle of a military march that she now knew wasn’t his theme song; it was hers. The warrior’s march with the softness of strings. Awash in sensation, in the flow of ch’ul and life, she slid her hands down and tugged his shirt free of his waistband, and ran her hands beneath, this time without the constraints of body armor. His skin was soft and slick in places, roughened by masculine hair in others, and everywhere it covered the bunch and flow of muscles, the hardness of bone.
They twined together—touching, seeking, tasting—with a rawness she hadn’t expected, a primal possessiveness. When he kissed her, she felt consumed. When he ran his hands beneath her shirt, and up to touch the sides of her breasts, then inward to cup them, tease them, she felt branded, owned. And when he shifted to come down atop her, then held her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes, she felt his hands tremble, and saw a question in his eyes.
She caught his wrists, felt his pulse thrum beneath her thumbs, and was conscious that she was touching his marks, the stone and the warrior. “What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He leaned in and touched his lips to hers, softly. “This is where I want to be right now.”
It wasn’t a vow of forever, not even a hint of something beyond tonight. But somehow it was as romantic as the most fervent promise.
Keep it simple, she told herself, and forced her lips to curve in a smile. “This is where I want to be too.”
And then it was simple. Her body knew what it wanted, what felt good. Their magic knew pleasure, and how to seek it. The music added rather than distracting, an inner sound track that she suspected was hers alone. She eased his shirt up and off, and gloried in the feel of his masculine skin beneath her fingers, beneath her lips. They shifted together, then eased apart so she could slip out of her T-shirt and pants. Sasha moaned at the arousing contrast of the cool material of his pants against the sensitized skin of her inner thighs. They rolled across the wide expanse of mattress, feasting on each other, drawing ruthless pleasure.
Gentle turned inciting; tender turned demanding, and it became all about the heat and the flash, and the flare of magic. He moved down her body, nipping and touching, caressing and teasing. She moaned and arched against him, tried to touch him, but he shifted away. “Let me,” he said, his voice a rasp of passion as he moved between her legs. “Just let me.”
She would’ve argued, but then his tongue found her, and speech was lost to a low moan of surrender.
He gripped her thighs and spread them wide, then ran his hands up to cup her buttocks, lifting her, opening her to his mouth. He feasted, stroked, tasted, touched, all with a raw, carnal skill that brought incredible pleasure. She clutched his hair; she wasn’t sure whether she meant to hold him still or draw him up her body. Then there was no more plan, no more thought, nothing but the coil of pleasure that drew tighter and tighter still within her.
He worked her ruthlessly, artfully with his hands and mouth, his clever fingers and precise knowledge of the female form, stringing the wire tighter and tighter still within her. The humming within her became a melody. Then she was crying out and shattering, pulsing against him, around his thrusting fingers and low, exultant cry.
The orgasm went on and on, gripping her, keeping her splayed out in pleasure. He moved away from her, out of her, shimmying up her body and letting her feel his hardness, his desire. He drew his lips along her breasts, the underside of her jaw, the sensitive spot behind her ear, and then her mouth.
She poured herself into the kiss, putting into it her pleasure and desire, the need to have him within her. His breath rasping in his wide chest, his flesh tight and hard all over, he rose above her and paused there, the blunt head of his shaft nudging at her opening. “Open your eyes,” he ordered harshly.
She did, though part of her had wanted to hide in the darkness behind her eyelids.
Their gazes caught and held, and a dangerous, treacherous warmth kindled in her chest, warning her that this wasn’t just sex, couldn’t be, at least not for her. And a piece of her had to believe it wasn’t just sex for him, either. The look in his eyes, the open pride in his face, his total focus on her—that had to be more, had to be the same sort of connection she’d felt that first time, that she felt now.
Then he thrust within her and she arched on a cry of pleasure, of completion. The orgasm echoes that had left her flesh soft and pleased now reversed themselves and drew inward, coiling tight around the point where he invaded her, possessed her, drove her up and over another wave of orgasm, then followed her over the crest with a cry that might’ve been her name, might’ve been something else.
They came together, wrapped in each other, hearts hammering in unison, bodies shuddering. Sasha pressed her face against his hot throat, feeling his pulse against her cheek, feeling him throb within her. The humming melody became a song, familiar and lovely, but she didn’t need the music or the magic to know that this was it for her, that he was what she’d been meant to find, that despite—or perhaps because of—their mismatches, they were a match. It was fate, she thought, riding high on the buzz of pleasure and the magic she was only just beginning to touch. Destiny. And if that was the case, she thought, she was in deep shit, because she had a feeling Michael didn’t want to be anybody’s destiny. Not even his own.
Don’t, she told herself, derailing the negative thought train before it could fully form. Don’t make this more—or less—than it is. For once in your life, just enjoy the moment.
So she did. She enjoyed the moment that he eased away and kissed her again, enjoyed the moment when those kisses became more, when casual caresses gained purpose, when postcoital bliss morphed to foreplay almost without transition. And she enjoyed the moment he came deep inside her, not just because she was locked in the throes of her own long, shuddering orgasm, but because this time she was sure he called her name.
Later, much later that night, after they’d turned to each other a third time and were wrung limp with pleasure, she said softly, “Promise me one thing?”
“What?” To her surprise, he sounded more curious than wary.
“Promise me you won’t go into the scorpion spell alone. Promise you’ll tell me, or if you can’t tell me for some reason, you’ll tell Strike. Or Jox. One of the three of us.”
He nodded. “Yeah. Okay, yeah. I promise.” Then he leaned in and kissed her again, and again. Then he loved her again. And in that moment, she felt that she’d come home, at least for a while.