But he wasn't thinking of any of that now. What was he thinking? He wasn't thinking. He only wanted…felt…needed.
With greedy hands he pulled her against him, and was shocked to discover that at some point he-or she-had divested her of her clothes-most of them, all but the thin scrap of nylon that still stood as a barrier to her most vulnerable and guarded places. Her nakedness in his arms was both a delight and a torment, his need to bury himself in her like a vast and terrible thirst.
And yet, though his skin felt feverish and his clothing an intolerable abrasion, though pulses hammered in every part of his body, he felt himself holding back. Why?
It stunned him to realize that it was she who was the brakes on his runaway passion-her need, her desire, her vulnerability. He understood that he wanted the same things for her that he wanted-needed-for himself, and he wanted to be the one to give them to her. Wanted to watch her face light with joy and her eyes grow hazy with sated passion, her lips curve with a smile of feminine mystery.
This, too, was something new-not that he cared for his partner's pleasure; he'd always made that a priority, and available evidence suggested he'd done it rather well. But this was different-he wasn't sure how. exactly, only that it was.
So he slowed himself down, even though there was urgency in his every heartbeat, and touched her with tenderness, even though his own skin felt on fire. He whispered to her passion words he didn't recognize and wouldn't remember, even though his own need was a screaming pressure behind his eyes. He held her gently from him while her clever hands stripped him naked and then traced patterns across his skin that left him all but blind and quivering like an infant.
It was then that he laid them both down. He ran his hands over her powder-soft skin, dipped them under the lacy edges of the last nylon barrier and pushed it away, and her gasp when his exploring fingers found her warm, protected places made him swell with a fierce masculine triumph, and at the same time, something like…awe.
He regretted, then, that he hadn't turned on the lights so he could see her, too. Regretted, but only a little. His senses were already on overload with the taste, the smell, the feel of her; adding sight to the feast would have been gluttony.
Besides, he already knew she was beautiful-though at the moment, strangely, that didn't seem important to him at all.
Sound, too, was muted, limited to breath sounds and sighs, and those passion-whispers that aren't really words. Both of them were lost in the wonder of discovery like small children on Christmas morning.
The rhythmic push of her body against his hand…the sweet, soft powder-scent of her breast, the bud-like tip blossoming in the warmth of his mouth…her quick lifting breaths, the momentary stopping of them when his fingers found her hidden depths…it all seemed new to him somehow. Her body in his arms, sleek and lithe as an otter's, her hands weaving pleasure-spells over his skin, her lips murmuring love words she probably didn't realize she was saying…it all seemed like a miracle to him. and at the same time as natural as the sounds of the river miming along its bed.
It felt natural, too, when passion had obliterated thought, when murmurs had become whimpers of desperate demand, that he should bring her to him, drape her over him so that her long, supple body covered his from chest to toes. Natural that her legs should move apart and her knees come up to straddle him, and her hair slip forward and fall around his face and hers like a curtain…natural as the rain falling.
He felt her body shaking as she lifted her head to look down at him in the darkness. "You really did mean it, didn't you?" She leaned down to him again, but it was her forehead that touched his lips and it was then he realized with a surge of dazed delight that she was laughing. Laughing in the broken, breathless way of someone overwhelmed. "About me being on top…"
"Always…" His tongue could barely form words. They were whispers, mere puffs of air. "You have the power…but I think…if you don't plan to let me inside you now…you should just kill me at once…put me out of my misery."
He heard her breath catch…felt her body shift…her hand gently encircle him…the first exquisite giving of her tenderest places. He gasped when he felt resistance. "Rhia-luv- are you-" But she silenced him with a quick, breathless kiss, and slowly, slowly her warm body accepted…adjusted…enfolded…welcomed him.
She drew a shuddering breath and whispered. "Are you still in misery?"
His hands held her hips as he set himself more deeply inside her, and his silent laughter jolted him…and her. "Misery? No…but did you kill me after all? Because I think…this must be Paradise."
Her shaken laughter joined his and then was extinguished in their merging mouths…in hungry, questing, greedy, heedless kisses. His arms encircled her. brought her down to him. held her as close to him as he dared-and then, almost before he knew what she was doing, she was leaning back, bringing him with her so that they were both sitting upright, still holding each other, still together, still entwined. She wrapped her legs around him and he felt himself nested deep inside her, as deep as he could possibly go. And he felt her mouth blossom into a smile.
"Now…neither one of us is on top," she murmured, teasing his moistened lips with the words. "That's the best way, isn't it?"
"The best way possible." he agreed, and bringing one hand up to cradle her head, brought her mouth deeply to his again.
She began to move then, a smooth undulation of spine and muscles, a sensuous rocking that stroked every part of him at once, and he was dizzy with the pleasure of it…lost in desire. He felt his mind leave him. aware only of building pressure, an urgency like nothing he'd ever known before. His hands moved over her back and his body thrust against her rocking, hard…and harder…and her breaths became frantic whimpers. She tore her mouth from his at last and he buried his face in the hollow of her throat and pressed his mouth against the leaping pulse there while her back arched and tightened like a bowstring.
He said something to her…he didn't know what. She gave a little sobbing cry and he felt the tension inside her break and her body ripple with the shock waves, waves that caught him up and carried him with her. helpless as a rag doll in a flood.
When his mind came back to him he was in a quiet, peaceful place, dazed and battered but exhilarated, too.
He lay back slowly, bringing her with him. Her body was still wracked with shivers, so he reached for the edge of the comforter that was folded across the foot of his bed and flipped it over them both, wrapping her in its warmth and his arms. Then he lay silently holding her. Unknown emotions were swelling inside him, making it impossible for him to speak. He wondered about her silence, wondered if it was because she felt the same emotions, and what she would call them if he asked. Knowing he wouldn't ever ask.
Finally, when her body had stopped quaking and the comforter's warmth became too much, he folded a corner of it back and kissed her damp forehead, and she stirred and slipped to one side, leaving her head pillowed on his shoulder, her arm across his torso and one leg companionably tucked between his.
"Sony, luv," he murmured as he stroked a hand idly up and down her back. "I hate to say it, but…I'm afraid the word that comes to mind, once again, is…unprecedented."
Her body rippled with laughter. "Works for me," she said in a sleepy purr that made him think, for the first time in a while, of a cat.