HeartsAflameCollectionV (10 page)

Mads
was still after that, and Tara stared out of the
window. There was so much in the air between them, and she thought that if she
looked at him too long, she might simply fall back into his arms. She couldn't
afford to do that, not when her child was lost, perhaps frightened, perhaps
hurt.

They stopped for the night at a hotel in the middle
of nowhere. The sign said that they were in Indiana, but to her, the Midwest
simply flowed from one flat field to another. She didn't flinch when
Mads
signed them in as man and wife, but the single bed
gave her a pause.

“
They didn't have anything else,”
Mads
said stiffly. “I'll take the floor.”

Silently, she made her way to the bathroom to
bathe, and when she was clean, she looked at herself in the mirror. She looked
delicate, even frail. She looked foreign to herself, and for a long moment,
Tara wasn't sure that she recognized herself at all.

“
What do you want?” she whispered to her own
reflection, and the answer was there. It was simple, and she realized that in
some ways, nothing was simpler. She took off the towel and hung it up, and
then, stark naked as the day she was born, she walked back into the hotel room.

Mads
looked up when she came out, and his eyes widened.
He climbed to his feet, watching her warily, but she could see the immediate
flame of desire in his eyes and the sudden tenseness of his body.

“
What are you playing at, Tara?” he asked roughly.
“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“
What I want,” she said raggedly. “What we both
want. It's been so long,
Mads
. I've missed you. I
want you.”

Mads
closed the space between them in a few long
strides, and though she expected to be crushed to him in a passionate embrace,
he held her gently, as if certain she would break.

“
Tara, I thought you were dead,” he whispered. “I
grieved for so long.”

She bit her tongue on an apology, but he didn't
need one. He tilted her face up with his finger on her chin, and the kiss he
gave her was deep and restrained. His tongue pressed between her lips, and she
opened to him willingly. She could feel his hard cock between them, and when
she pressed herself closer to him, he groaned.

“
Don't tempt me if you don't mean it,” he whispered.
“I couldn't stand that.”

“
I'm not teasing you,” she said, looking deeply into
his eyes. “I want you. I don't know much, but I know that.”

With aching tenderness, he scooped her up and
deposited her in the middle of the enormous bed. She had slept in a scavenged
twin bed for so long that this felt like an unspeakable luxury, and as she
watched through heavy-lidded eyes,
Mads
stripped down
to his skin. She flinched to see that there were more scars there, and where
there had been five triangular tattoos over his hear when they first met, now
there were seven.

“
More lost friends,” she said as he came to rest
next to her.

He dropped his gaze when she brushed her fingers
across them and nodded.

“
Niall and
Hild
,” he
answered.
“Lost in battle.”

She considered and then leaned down to kiss each
mark, one for each companion he had lost.

He shivered under her touch, and though his hands
came up to clasp her shoulders, he did not pull her away. Inquisitive, she
lapped her tongue over his skin, tasting the salt of his flesh and reveling in
the way his muscles responded so completely to her.

She nuzzled first one small flat nipple and then
the other, and when he made a pleased sound, she pressed her thigh against his
cock, feeling its weight and its heat.

“
You want me,” she murmured.

“
Never doubt it.”

She kissed and lapped at his neck. The taste of him
was so familiar on her tongue that she purred, and she stroked his flanks
gently, running the tips of her fingers up and down.

“
You've always called me beautiful, but I don't know
if I've ever said the same to you,” she mused. “You are, you know. Perfect,
scars and all, and I have missed you.”

Mads
groaned as if something was being drawn out of
him, and he palmed her belly, stroking the soft and tender skin there.

“
There are marks here now,” he said softly. “And
you're softer. It only makes you more beautiful to me, and more sorrowful that
I could not be here.”

She quieted him with her mouth over his, and they
passed long minutes like that, simply kissing and relearning each other. When
Tara would have leaned up to kiss him more thoroughly, he pressed her to the
bed.

“
Let me,” he said thickly. “It's been too long.”

With no more warning than that, he started to kiss
her, starting with the curve of her forehead, down her cheeks and stopping to
press sweetly passionate kisses to her mouth. When she would have kept him
there, he moved on to her neck and her collarbones, and then he pressed his
mouth to her aching breasts, bigger now, with nipples that were lovely and
dark.

He pulled on first one and then the other, lapping
at the tip with care, and when she threatened to arch off of the bed, he only
laughed and told her to be patient. He trailed kisses down her ribs and over
her belly, pausing to bite her hip bones with the
tenderest
care.

It occurred to her that he was relearning her,
finding what was different and what had changed over the course of the year
they had been apart. There was such longing in his touch that tears came to her
eyes, and she cradled his head in her hands, tangling her fingers in his hair.

There was something tender about the way he kissed
her hips and her legs, and though his hands ghosted over the hair of her legs,
he only planted the softest kiss there before moving on. She squirmed when his
mouth ended up on the ticklish part behind her knees, but she sighed when he
laved his tongue over the bump of her heel and the curve of her foot.

Slowly he worked his way back up, and somewhere in
that timeless while, she could feel herself grow wet and wanting. It had been
so long, and she felt like a different person now. Some trace of her unease
must have shown on her face, because he reached up to stroke her face.

“
It doesn't matter,” he started to say. “We can stop
if you want, we don't need to...”

Hearing his concern tore at her heart, and she
shook her head against the tears that stung her eyes.
“
No, no, it is only that I want you so much...”

His smile was sweet and gentle, and he leaned up to
place another kiss on her lips.
“
I want you like I want food and fire,”
he whispered. “This is coming home.”

He settled beside her, and though she could feel
his cock against her hip, there was no haste in his motions at all.

Instead, he swept his hand between her legs,
stroking gently until they parted for him, and then he traced his fingertips
long her damp slit. He circled her clit slowly, making her hips roll with
desire, and then he pressed a finger inside.

She flinched, and he halted, a look of concern on
his face.

“
No, it's just... it's been a while. Go slow?”

“
As slow as you like,” he promised

With gentle rocking motions and an infinite
patience, he eased a finger inside her. Even that felt like a stretch, and Tara
concentrated on looking into
Mads
' eyes as he opened
her.

“
There,” he whispered. “That's what you want, isn't
it?”

“
Yes, oh yes...”

He held his hand still while he kissed her, and
then he was edging a second finger in. It went easier than the first hand, and
the third went more easily still. He was thrusting his fingers into her slowly
and steadily, and before she knew it, she was frantic for more.

“
Please?” she asked plaintively. “Please now?”

“
You're tight, it might hurt you...”

Tara shook her head violently.
“
I don't care. I don't. All that matters to me right
now is being with you. Please,
Mads
?”

He searched her face, and then he nodded.

Instead of coming over her as she expected, he lay
down beside her and lifted her up instead. With that quick savage strength that
had protected her so well, he set her straddled on top of him, and pressed flat
between their bodies was his cock.

“
Put it in,” he whispered. “I want to know you want
it.”

Biting her lip, Tara reached down and stroked her
hand around his cock a few times. It was achingly hard, and there was already a
trickle of dampness from the tip. It was broader than she remembered, and she
knew that he would stretch her.

Just the tip was enough to make her gasp, and she
rocked for a moment, easing herself down further.

“
Don't make it hurt you,”
Mads
said. “I couldn't take that.”

She couldn't tell him that the slight ache and
sting only intensified the pleasure. She loved how large he was, how she could
barely take him, and the slow slide onto him made her faint with the sensations
it brought.

Finally, she pressed herself down on top of him
with one quick thrust, making both of them cry out. This feeling of completion,
of unity was what she had been missing for the past year, and she wanted to
weep with how perfect it was.

Mads
' hands came up around her hips, holding her
steady, and his body rolled underneath her.

“
Yes?” he asked through gritted teeth, and she
nodded wildly.

That was all the permission he needed to lift her
nearly entirely off of him and to bring her down again. The long slow stroke
pushed the pleasure inside her up to a fever pitch, and she writhed in his
grasp, wanting more and needing more as well.

He lifted her slowly a few more times, until the
sting of his entrance was nothing more than memory, and she was slippery with
need. She was desperate for him, starved for more, and she struggled against
the hands that were keeping her from taking him fully.

“
Please, please now,
Mads
,
I can't wait any more...”

She was ready to beg, but now she could tell that
he was as desperate for it as he was. He tightened his grip on her hips and
brought her down hard on top of him, making her feel every inch of his length,
and then he did it again. He pulled her to him with sharp, almost violent
motions, and when she was wailing with need, he stilled for a moment.

“
Touch
yourself
,” he
panted.
“Just like you would if you were alone.
I want
to see it.”

She groaned with embarrassment, aware that her
cheeks were flushed bright red, but her hand went eagerly between her legs. She
stroked her aching clit, and in less time than she thought possible, she was
exploding like a night sky full of firecrackers. The pleasure took her body
almost savagely, and she knew that she was tightening around him, thrashing
against him.

Mads
growled and thrust into her even harder, and when
he spilled in her, his hands tightened on her hips until she was sure he had left
bruises. After a long moment, he eased out of her carefully, bringing her to
lie by his side.

Tara felt as if she was boneless. All of the energy
had gone out of her, and after a long moment, she pressed her face to
Mads
' broad chest. She clung to him, and when the tears
came, she only shook her head when he asked her what was wrong.

The sobs shook her shoulders, and she felt as
helpless as she had when pleasure was wracking her body. Her climax was so
immense that she could barely keep her emotions under control, and now they
bubbled up, spilling out of her. She cried out all of the grief and the pain
that she felt she had hidden for the past year, and
Mads
only stroked her hair and muttered comforting things in her ear.

It felt like she had been crying for hours, but
then she finally pulled away, wiping at her eyes.

“
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry...” she began, but
Mads
touched her hand gently.

“
It's fine,” he said softly. “I want you to have
what you need, and just then, you needed to cry.”

He held her for a long moment, and then he rose to
go to the bathroom. He came back with a dampened cloth, and when she nodded, he
cleaned her face and her body. The warm wetness of the towel and his soft words
of love and comfort made her drowsy.