Chapter 74
Allie
My back hit the closest stone column, breath catching. His hand cradled my head to protect it while his lips did wonderful things to mine.
He caught my waist, trapping me between his strong body and the stone; there was no other place in all of Malhaven I would have rather been than here.
The kiss continued as it had appeared.
Hard.
Fast.
Like neither of us had the patience left to build toward it after weeks of not tasting the other.
My hands raced all over his shoulders and neck, gripping, pulling, trying to burn through all that pent-up energy that blazed through me.
In a world that seemed to slip between my fingers, he was the only constant.
His body was coiled tight underneath my greedy palms with the kind of tension that needed to be released.
I was on the brink right alongside him. My mind had conjured him up more times than I could or wanted to count, leaving me breathless night after night.
But the real Ryker was so much more than anything my imagination could build.
His lips were relentless against mine, his hands snaking on my body as if he thought he’d never get the chance to embrace me again.
I matched his intensity, the connection between us burning with need. My fingers twined at the back of his neck.
In the next stolen breath, I coiled my legs around his waist, as if daring him to lose more of his control.
His grip tightened deliciously as his hands found my thighs.
Then he whispered against my mouth, making my breath hitch, “You haunted my dreams.”
In normal circumstances–when my heart wasn’t threatening to beat itself out of my chest and into his–I might have frozen. Blushed.
In this reality, I tensed my legs, pulling him impossibly close to me.
“I dreamt about you, too,” I muttered.
He gave a satisfied groan, mouth abandoning mine so he could trail a line of kisses and small bites down my neck that made my toes curl.
“What was I doing in those dreams?” he rasped against my skin, breath hot as he licked a line right up to my earlobe and caught it between his teeth.
I sucked in a breath. The moan that escaped my throat was impossible to stop. “Driving me wild. Like you’re doing now.”
His growl vibrated through me, settling in my chest.
Suddenly, each of my senses narrowed on him. His pulse raced through my veins, my breaths filled his lungs as the connection between us pulled taut.
The border of his mind brushed against mine.
We both stopped, staring into each other’s eyes, excited, but still unsure.
When his words had echoed in me, we’d been flowing through words.
Now, we were trapped in a rhythm once more. But this one was physical. Demanding. Claiming.
The wild side of me, now uncaged, wanted to stretch the limits–dance on the border and jump over it.
My heart in my throat and heat rising in my cheeks, I let my mind wander back to those dreams. Flashes of reddened skin. My tongue swirling around his fingers. His hands in my hair, pulling.
I let them infuse the edges of my thoughts and course through my body until the hairs on my arms stood up.
With a gulp in my throat, I gently, hesitantly pushed them against the pulse of him in my mind.
I didn’t truly know what I was doing–just that I wanted to try.
The groan which vibrated in his throat was all the answer I needed that Ryker had, indeed, received the message.
My fingers dug harder into the back of his neck.
More images invaded my mind.
These were new.
Raw.
Wild.
His.
My body bent over the table, ass in the air, his hand on my cheeks and his teeth sunken into my neck.
I didn’t think it was possible, but I melted even more in his arms.
“Gods,” I breathed out, eyelids fluttering.
“Would you like that?” he muttered against my skin, a hitch in his breath that felt like hesitation.
“Yes. Please,” I hissed, capturing his lips with mine. “But now I want you inside of me.”
Those decadent, languorous dreams could become a reality another day. A promise that we would survive whatever this world threw at us next.
Today was about urgency and need.
The armory melted away as our tongues danced together more fervently.
The first kiss had been a release.
This one was demanding.
Desperate.
The small breath of space between our bodies suddenly felt like too much.
My hands slid between us, playing with his buckle like I was some innocent novice who hadn’t already felt him inside of me. I blamed it on the burning need snatching the logic away.
Ryker took pity on me and covered my hand with his, guiding my fingers. In three quick moves, his leather pants fell with a satisfying thud.
Mine joined his only a moment later.
The cool air did nothing to soothe my heated flesh. Feeling Ryker against my center did.
Despite the frantic way we tugged on each other, the second we locked eyes, a serenity took over us.
We were here.
We were alive.
We were together and making the most of it.
He pressed his forehead against mine, stuttered breath ghosting across my lips as he pushed inside of me slowly. Gently, so at odds with the craving drumming through both of us.
The softest part of me exhaled in relief as our bodies melded together.
This was truly inevitable.
The both of us, together.
I felt protected in his arms.
He felt safe in mine.
I didn’t know who broke the spell first. Maybe it was the way he kissed me, like I was the air he needed to breathe. Or how I held on tightly to his shoulders, like I would collapse without him.
But that moment of gentleness burned away into a sea of craving.
More.
Faster.
Just like that.
Yes.
His mouth found that junction at the base of my neck that turned my limbs to mush.
My tongue darted out to coil around his ear, eliciting the most wonderful growls.
The strange connection between us bloomed and trembled with need.
I suddenly felt my own muscles clenching around him and how he heard the blood pumping through my veins.
Through my mind, he smelled his woodsy scent and how my mouth watered at it.
Our powers sizzled together, burning us hotter.
I was distantly aware of the sound of skin smacking against skin. How my moans came out unhinged and unrestrained.
I didn’t care.
As long as he kept rocking against me, nothing else mattered.
But even those sounds melted away as the whirlwind of senses fused us tighter together. The pressure built inside of me until my entire body tensed, unable to do anything but take it and enjoy everything Ryker wanted to do with me.
Feeling the brink, his hand slipped between us, fingers gliding over my heated flesh as if he’d done it a thousand different lifetimes already, but still couldn’t get enough.
His other hand cupped my cheek, thumb tilting my chin up until I looked into his eyes. Blue lights danced in them, as if they’d come from my own tendrils.
That was the last thing I saw before the world shattered around me in a decadent, wonderful wave. A moment later, Ryker gloriously sunk his teeth into my neck as he groaned his own release. Not hard enough to break the skin, sadly.
That was another promise for another day.