Chapter 21 #3
He let out a groan and ground against her. In swift, angry kicks, he peeled off his breeches. When he was naked, his mouth
slid from her lips and he dropped his face into her hair.
She wrapped her arms around him and raised her legs to his haunches. They were squarely aligned. The sensation was so rich
and heavy and pleasurable, her mind faded into a pearlescent white. Their breath was audible; little sounds of pleasure. Blindly,
he sought out her hands and entwined their fingers, stretching her arms above her head.
She wanted this. It wasn’t why she’d come into his room, but it was why she’d stayed. Was it entirely right or wholly wrong? She couldn’t remember. She knew only her desire for him—an urgent need for every part of him to join with every part of her. She wanted oneness.
His ear was beside her cheek and she turned her head to trace the whorl of it with her tongue.
“Kiss . . . ?” she begged softly.
He made a miserable sound.
“Kiss . . . ?” she repeated again.
Bannock dragged his face from her hair and did as she bade. While he kissed, he rocked against her. What before had felt so
very good, now felt essential.
“Danielle,” he huffed, sliding a hand in her hair. “M’étoile.”
“Please,” she whimpered. Whatever came next would incinerate her, she knew this, and she was ready to burn alive. “Now . . .”
“Danielle,” he ground out, a warning.
Dani closed her eyes, and canted her hips, and opened herself, pressing her legs wide. She hitched her thighs on his haunches.
Their bodies were wet and magnetic, on the cusp.
“Danielle,” he cried softly.
She bowed up, seeking.
“You’re killing me,” he moaned.
“How can you die on your rescue mission if you’ve been killed here first?”
“Mercy, please . . .” His face was creased with restraint.
“You said you wanted to give me pleasure,” she whispered. “This is the pleasure I want.”
“You don’t know all the ways,” he panted.
“You also claimed to have no goals beyond the rescue of your friend. Well, there’s a goal for you. Giving me pleasure in all
the ways.”
He gaped at her. She licked her lips and shimmied beneath him, sliding on his hardness.
She’d not fully understood her new boldness—not the source of it and not the result.
He’d been correct, she barely knew what she was doing in his bed.
And he’d made her no promises. He’d declared nothing.
He’d suggested . . . he’d hinted . . . but he’d promised only that he was going away. And yet . . .
And yet, she goaded and teased and urged him. His eyes fell closed. His head hung, and he propped his forehead against her
cheek. His breath sawed in and out. “I want you so desperately,” he said.
“Please?” she whimpered.
And that was enough.
He let out a growl, he coiled, lifting. He pushed himself inside of her in one, swift stroke. Dani cried out, tears shooting
to her eyes, but she was not afraid. She’d known there would be pain. There was a new burn, different from before; satisfying
in a more intimate, unifying way.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped into her neck. “Is it bad?”
“It’s very vivid.”
Holding his body still, he reached beside them and slowly drew her leg higher on his hip. First on one side, then the other.
This changed the angle and lessened the sting.
“Breathe,” he told her, and she breathed.
Still not moving, he began to kiss her neck, her jaw, her cheek.
Dani’s eyes fluttered open. She saw his face, slick with sweat, creased with endurance.
When he came to her lips, he paused. Instead of kissing her, he lightly licked the corner of her mouth.
She felt tiny, little intermittent flutters; there one second, gone the next.
She touched her own tongue to the edge of her mouth, trying to catch the next swipe, but he was too quick.
She whimpered. He licked the corner of her mouth again.
Again, she tried to catch him. Back and forth they went, all the while her body relaxed.
The uncomfortable tightness began to feel more like delicious fullness.
The previous burn, pleasurable and ravenous, came like gentle waves on a beach, lapping over the sting.
When she failed a fifth time to meet his tongue, she turned her head and captured his mouth in a proper kiss. He kissed her
back and slid a hand between them, lazily toying with her breast. The good burn flared; she felt a line of heat from her breast
to her center. Without thinking, she rocked her hips. It was one, searching pump. She sighed.
Bannock went very still. He stopped kissing. He stopped breathing.
Dani’s eyes flew open. “Sorry,” she offered.
He let out a painful laugh.
“What is it?”
“Are you . . . comfortable?” he rasped.
“Oh yes,” she admitted thoughtfully. “So very comfortable.”
“Can you . . . ?” he ventured.
She nodded. “I so very much can.”
He swallowed hard. He pressed his lips to hers. Slowly, gently, he moved his hips. The so-very-comfortableness endured. It
was more than so-very-comfortable. It was so-very-good. Dani let out a little whimper.
“Terrible?” he asked.
She lifted her hips and pressed into him. “Good,” she said with a sigh.
“Oh, thank God,” he hissed, and he moved into her again, watching her face. She purred, closing her eyes, and met him with another pump.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He responded with a proper thrust. Dani moaned and kissed him, rising up.
Luke made a hissing sound and began to ride her in earnest, thrusting faster, harder. Dani hitched her legs higher, taking
him deep, letting out little pants and whimpers and sounds of delight. She called to him, “Bannock . . .”
“Luke,” he corrected on a pant, and she was confused.
“Say my name?” he huffed.
“Luke,” she whispered on a smile. “Don’t stop, Luke. Please.”
The only thing that stopped was conversation. No questions or lies, no denials, no plans. Dani felt an escalating need, a
burn that led to more burning, a demanding, an urgent insistence. Whatever she required, she felt confident that Luke would
provide it.
She was not wrong. She could feel him working to satisfy her; every muscle flexed, his face creased with effort, hands gripping,
skin slick. And then . . . shimmers.
His pounding launched her from burn to spiraled flight. She wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck
and held on. She felt breathless. But also her lungs filled with air. And also she would never breathe again.
She floated.
“Luke,” she murmured, going taut, going limp, going and going and going.
“I have you,” he rasped, pumping into her, holding her close.
When, at last, her breath returned, she dropped her head onto the pillow.
She blinked her eyes open, seeking his face.
His expression was strained, a little bit agony, a little bit mindless.
He pumped into her once more, twice—and then he lifted off her with a guttural roar and collapsed next to her. He threw an arm over his eyes.
“Oh,” she said, not expecting him to go away.
“There cannot be a baby,” he rasped, “no matter what you say about the rest of it. I’m a selfish blaggard, but even I have
my limits.”
Dani felt a wetness between them, and she understood.
“Is it finished, then?” she whispered.
He lifted his arm and opened one eye. “Yes, you little minx. It’s finished.”
“Are you . . . well?” she asked.
“Oh yes, I’m very well. My mind is shattered. Blank as a February sky. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
“Shattered?”
“Vanquished of all thought,” he said, turning. He gathered her up, and she went to him, relieved at the return to closeness.
His arms had never felt so good, heavy and tired but so very strong. She nestled into him. Fatigue settled over her like a
light, crisp bedsheet.
“I’m so very tired,” she whispered, against his chest.
“Sleep,” he said.
“Will you sleep?”
“Yes.”
Heartbeats counted out the silence between them. Eventually, he said, “I have to go tomorrow, Danielle. I must try to recover
him.”
“Yes,” she said.
If he asked her to come with him, she would go. If he asked her to help him gain access to this French captain’s castle, to “dangle her” as he’d said, she would help him. But she wanted him to ask her. She wanted him to say the words.
He couldn’t see beyond this rescue, this she understood. He couldn’t or wouldn’t make any declarations. She understood this
less, but she was new to this.
What he could do was ask her for her help. She could be included in decisions about how they got on. And lived. And where. And when.
But he must stop making assumptions; he must ask.
From the beginning, all he’d had to do was ask.