Her robe was undone, the halves spread wide. Her nightgown was rucked up, above her breasts in the front, to the middle of her back behind her, which was why she could feel…
She had to end this now , but she was too wise to try to wriggle away, even leap away. Either move left it up to him to let her go. And he might not. Not readily. He might try to make her plead.
Used to playing power games, chess of a sort, with men, she mentally girded her loins-dragged her senses in and shackled them-then stretched her arms up over her head, sinuously straightening her long body and turning within his hold to face him.
It didn’t go as she’d planned.
Instead of finding him smiling at her in lazy masculine triumph, ready to accept her surrender, she barely had time to register that his eyes were shut, his expression still blank-that even if she’d woken, he had not-before one hard hand slid into her unbound hair, palming her skull, and his bandaged head shifted and his lips closed on hers.
Ravenously.
Greedily.
As if he were a man starved and she all his succor.
Heat hit her in a crashing wave, passion and hunger and want and need all churning in that burning kiss. An instant conflagration erupted between them. She felt like she was melting, muscles taut yet turning passive, fluid and giving, emptiness-a hollow ache-burgeoning at her core, yearning to be filled.
Primal. Urgent. Demanding.
He was all that-and he made her feel the same.
Her hands skimmed his shoulders. Even as she battled to regain her mental feet, she registered the warmth spreading beneath his still cool skin.
If nothing else, the exchange was heating him up.
If he’d been awake, her turning would have made him pause long enough for her to douse his flame. Instead, his unconscious, his dream-mind, had read that sinuous slide to face him as encouragement and agreement. As surrender.
By the time she’d realized that, he’d laid claim to her mouth and every one of her senses with a primitive passion that curled her toes.
He plundered, his tongue mating with hers, and her body came alive as it never had before. Yet he was… dreaming?
Even as she wrestled with that conclusion-tried to think what it meant, what she should do-he tore his lips from hers, ducked his head, and set his mouth to her breasts.
Took a furled nipple into his mouth and suckled.
Hard.
Her body bowed; she fought to stifle a scream-the first of pure pleasure she’d ever uttered. He pushed her onto her back and loomed over her in the dark. She gripped his shoulders, gasps tangling in her throat as, head bowed, he continued to feast, to lave and suckle her breasts.
Even asleep, he knew exactly how to make her body come quickly, rapidly, roaringly alive. Make it sing, make it burn.
She’d had three lovers-had “made love” precisely three times, once with each. Those experiences had convinced her that the activity was not for her, not something she was suited for.
As she was never going to marry, she’d seen no reason to learn more.
Now she faced a choice she hadn’t expected. Even as pleasure lanced through her again and her body arched beneath him, evocatively into him, she knew she could stop him, her fallen angel, but she’d have to wake him up to do it. Even wounded and weakened, he was too damned strong for her to simply push him back and soothe him deeper into sleep. Yet her reasons for not indulging with him didn’t apply if he remained asleep. If he didn’t know-wouldn’t recall when he awoke…
His lips drifted down, his hands firmed about her sides, and her body thrummed-enthrallingly alive, hungry and needy. His hands, hard and callused, sculpted, shaped her curves, slid down and around to cradle the globes of her bottom, long fingers kneading, stroking, caressing.
For the first time in her life, she felt… overwhelmed. Just a touch helpless. Not truly so-not frighteningly so-but the strength of him surrounded her, managed her, controlled her… as far as she allowed.
And then he moved over her, fully atop her, his hard, muscled thighs spreading hers wide so he could settle his hips between.
Her breath hitched. She had to decide now . The heavy length of his erection brushed her inner thigh, sensation and promise, evoking a flaring curiosity, splintering and fracturing her earlier resolution.
Would it be different with a fallen angel?
Every nerve, every inch of her, wanted to know.
But would he wake? Was it possible for him to reach the inevitable end without breaking free of Morpheus’s hold?
Finding out… what a risk! But all her life she’d thrived on challenge-on taking calculated risks and winning.
He lifted his head, body surging over hers, and locked his lips on hers.
Invaded her mouth, reclaimed, reconquered-and she raised her hands, closed them about his bandaged head and kissed him back.
Deliberately plunging into the heat, into the fray, seizing the moment, taking the risk.
She kissed him as ravenously as he’d kissed her-as she’d never kissed any other man. No man before had dared to devour her, nor invited her to devour him.
For heated, frantic moments they dueled, then he shifted, his spine flexed, all reined power, and she felt the marble-hard head of his erection part her folds. He pressed inexorably in, through the slickness of an instinctive welcome.
He hadn’t even touched her there, yet she was ready-ready, willing, and wantonly eager to feel the length of him, to experience the strength of him, the sheer power and weight of him as he forged steadily into her, then, at the last, thrust deep to her core.
Stretching her, filling her as she never had been before. She’d never felt so invaded, so utterly posssessed.
So complete.
Then he moved, deep, sure thrusts that rocked her beneath him… within seconds, she’d never felt so taken, never felt taken before at all, yet he unquestionably took, took all she would give, could scramble to give, and give she did-he gave her no choice.
Then somehow the scales tipped, and it was she who sank her fingertips into his buttocks, gripped and clung, urgent and demanding. And he who gave, unstintingly lavishing all his power, his passion, driving sensation into her, through her, building the glory higher, and yet higher-forcefully riding deep within her until she shattered.
Until the glory imploded and sensation fractured into glimmering shards and she broke apart on a muted scream.
Logan heard it, that inexpressibly evocative sound of female completion, and let his reins fall. Let the dream sweep him on into the familiar heat and fire, surrendering to the primitive driving urge, jettisoning all hope of lingering to further savor the heated clasp of his lover’s slick sheath, the ripples of her release barely fading as he drove harder and harder into her body-his dream lover who clearly knew him so well.
Who had let him ride her, then ridden him. Who had met his demands, and matched them, countered them.
Who had led him to this-the pinnacle of erotic dreams.
He sensed release nearing, felt it catch him, sweep up and over him. With one last thrust, he sank deep within her, and surrendered. Let it take him.
Rake him.
Until, at the last, he shuddered, and sleep thickened and closed about him again, and pulled him down into a deeper realm, one where satisfaction and content blended and soothed, cradling him in earthly bliss.
Linnet lay beneath her fallen angel, his dead weight an odd comfort as she struggled, battled, to regain the use of anything-wits or limbs. Even her senses seemed frazzled beyond recall, as if she’d drawn too close to some flame and they’d singed.
Oh. My. God was her first coherent thought, the only one she could manage for several long minutes. Finally, when she’d regained sufficient control of her limbs and sufficient mental acuity, she gently nudged, eased, prodded, and managed to stir him into shifting enough to let her slide from beneath him.