Chapter 39
Celeste stirred against the steady rise of his chest, her cheek pressed to warmth, her body tangled in his.
For one panicked instant, she feared she had overslept, that dawn had already stolen him away.
His arm weighed heavily on her waist, pinning her close, and his scent wrapped around her like a blanket.
It was the nightingale, not the lark, that tweeted softly. Relief broke over her in a tide so fierce she almost wept.
The room was quiet but for the guttering of candle stubs and the faint rasp of their breaths mingling. Time felt fragile, balanced on the edge of silence.
Hawk was watching her with his gray eyes dark.
“Love me again.”
His hand slid between them and found her entrance. She flinched at the sting.
He drew back, voice rough. “You’ll be sore.”
“I don’t care. If you are inside me, dawn won’t break. Please.”
They lay side by side, the fire crackling low, shadows gilding the planes of his chest. Hawk caught her thigh and guided it over his hip, easing her open. His erection nudged her belly as he shifted, then he reached down to angle himself at her entrance.
She dared a glance—and nearly forgot to breathe. He looked impossibly thick, impossibly long. How had he fit inside her?
Then he drove forward, the broad crown pushing at her folds. She felt the blunt intrusion, the catch of resistance, her body clenching tight around the first inch. A startled sound escaped her throat.
“Is it too much?” He rasped, his brow resting against hers.
She shook her head, gasping, and spread her knees wider, welcoming him. He groaned, pushing deeper. The stretch was fierce, filling every tender place inside until she thought she would burst. But beneath the ache came heat, a molten pull that made her arch into him, craving more.
When he was finally sheathed fully, she reveled in the rough cadence of his breath in her ear, the magnificence of a man who could have crushed her yet reined himself in for her alone.
Then he moved. A long glide, retreating only to roll back into her with devastating patience.
Her mouth fell open with a whimper. Every slow thrust pulled her tighter, wetter, the ache spreading until she felt full to the edge of breaking.
Her hands skimmed down his spine, tracing the ridges of muscle that flexed and released. Daring lower, she cupped the taut swell of his buttocks. He clenched beneath her fingers, each thrust a rhythm that drove him deeper, wringing gasps from her lips.
It was only flesh and bone, muscle and breath. No different, in truth, from the movements she had studied all her life. A pas de deux of straining.
How could it be transcendent? This was the scene Shakespeare never set down—the breathless interval between kiss and curtain call, the secret act that turned comedies into miracles.
It was love.
The magic that turned thrust into poetry, straining limbs into music. Love was the midsummer enchantment that made flesh feel like flight and turned a cry into a sonnet.
“What are you thinking?” he said, nibbling her lips.
“That you have no talent for writing poetry with a quill, but you certainly can do it with your hips.”
“Minx.”
He chuckled, and she reveled in the intimate, warm sound.
Her breasts pressed into the rough curl of his chest, his heat soaked into her thighs, and the soreness tangled with a hunger that would not abate. She gasped, toes curling, the ache already turning sweet.
He shifted, catching her wrists and sliding them above her head, their fingers laced against the pillow.
His weight held her pinned while his hips rocked, coaxing her to rise and meet him.
He kissed her eyelids, the damp corner of her mouth, the stray curl at her temple, each touch unhurried, as though they had all eternity.
This was what it meant to make love, she thought, tears pricking behind her eyes. Not Shakespeare’s verses, not fantasy, but the slow drowning in another’s body. The sweet ache of being remade by him, branded by him, belonging wholly to him.
She shattered. Pleasure unfurled through her in waves. He cried her name, release flooding deep, hot, endless. For a moment they were still, breath tangled, hearts racing, the world reduced to heat and wonder.
Then he began to ease back, breath harsh.
“Stay. Don’t leave me yet.”
He stilled, buried deep inside her. She pressed her face to his chest, tracing muscle and scar, memorizing every ridge and hollow as though she could carve him into her fingers, into her heart.
Then she spread her hand over his ribs, as if she could hold him there, keep him from vanishing. Please, nightingale. Keep singing. Drive the lark from her window.
She would not sleep. But the steady beat beneath her cheek, the warmth of his body cradling her—all conspired against her. Her eyelids sagged. She blinked, fought.
Sleep came anyway, stealing him from her before the dawn could.