Shadow's Edge (28 page)

Though his voice was hushed, muffled against her skin, she recognized the truth in it, the raw emotion, and she started with the abrupt realization that he would put himself in danger for her.

He was willing to release her, protect her, and take the consequences, with nothing in it for himself except pleasing her and inciting the rage of all those snarling dark beasts.

It pierced her in the center of her chest, an unfamiliar sweetness that brought a prick of tears to her eyes. She had forgotten sweetness, had forgotten what it was like
to be touched and held and cherished, and it opened something in her, it melted her like sunlight on snow. When she next exhaled, all her fears and hesitation sifted away with her breath, leaving only warmth and certainty behind.

She loosened her grip on the collar of the coat and slid her arms up around the hard strength of Leander’s shoulders. On their own, her fingers twined into the thick, silken strands of his hair.

He made a low sound in his throat as their bodies met. The coat slipped open to let skin meet heated skin. Her breasts pressed against his chest, his erection pressed hot and throbbing stiff against the slope of her hip.

“Don’t let me go,” she whispered, dizzy, delirious. “Not yet. Not tonight.”

He kissed her then, fiercely. His hands held both sides of her face, the friction of his tongue and lips against hers was so sweet and erotic she thought she would die with the sheer bliss of it. “Love,” he whispered, and kissed her again.

Just as she was convinced her knees would give out, he broke the kiss and bent in a half-crouch to nuzzle her chest. His hand rose to cup her breast, his thumb grazed her nipple. It hardened instantly under his touch. Jenna gasped as he pulled it into his mouth and suckled, a pull of teeth, a lap of tongue, a delicious, aching pleasure that spread through her body like a wash of sunlit honey.

His hand moved down over her belly, stroking its rounded softness, dropped lower to trace over her hipbone, then down to the flesh between her thighs.

He kneaded and pinched and stroked her skin, his fingers brushing against her mound, teasing lightly around it. She whimpered in her throat as he knelt down in front of
her, his mouth against her stomach. His hands lifted up to cup her breasts.

He dipped his tongue into her belly button, pressed his teeth into the flesh of her hip, slid one hand slowly down her body and found her center, damp and hot. She gasped and sunk her fingers into his shoulders as he pushed a finger inside her. He touched her and stroked her until his fingers were slick, until she moaned and slid her fingers into his hair.

Her eyes blinked open at the sound of something heavy slithering onto the floor with a muted rustle. Leander straightened, then captured her lips again as he pulled another plush overcoat from its hanger to fall at their feet, then another.

After four more, he gently pushed her down to the floor by her shoulders and watched as she lay back into the bed he’d made, a deep pool of wool and cashmere and silk to cushion her body.

He knelt beside her and pushed the wool overcoat away, leaving her naked and exposed on the floor before him, only her outflung arms still hidden by fabric. The light was nothing but indigo shadows and pale glimmering grays that melted to velvet black, yet she clearly saw his fevered gaze drinking her in, devouring her.

He brought his gaze back to her face and she saw the hunger raging through him, the same hunger that made it feel as if she was conducting fire through her veins.

“All I think about is you,” he said, husky, staring straight into her eyes. “All I’ve wanted is you, since the first second I saw you. I’ve never wanted anything else so much in my life.”

Jenna knew he saw the blood rise in her cheeks even in the spare, silvered light of the room. But now she didn’t care. Now she wanted him to see everything.

She sat up and shrugged out of his coat, letting it fall behind her, another warm blanket to pillow her body, to cushion his weight above her. She lay back again against the floor, spread her hair out in a fan behind her head, her body cocooned in luxury and filled with an aching that bit down deep into her core.

“Leander.” Her gaze never left his. She held her arms out. “Come here.”

Leander saw himself in her eyes. His thoughts, his moods, the unbridled need that tore through his blood, barely checked. Like him, she was vapor and fire, passion and smoke, headstrong and willful and bold. Like him, she was alone and accustomed to it, though not suited for loneliness. She needed a mate as much as he did, a strong and loyal partner to share a life with, to dream with, to love.

Mine
, he thought again as he stared in hunger at the glory of her naked body spread out before him.

He needed to taste her. He needed to feel her and claim her and hear her moans form the shape of his name. He felt hot and alive and inflamed, her eagerness for him tipping him over the edge of reason to a place where he would lose himself, a place where the urgency that raged through his blood would block out the rest of the world and leave only the two of them, joined at last.

But he made himself wait.

He restrained himself as the fire rose to boil his blood and simply put one hand out and skimmed it slowly over the velvet perfection of her skin. His fingers traced the curve of her breast, the shape of her ribcage, the dip of her waist, the creamy plush flesh of her thigh. Her lips parted as he
stroked her, her eyes fluttered closed. Her back arched to meet his touch. Her arms dropped to the floor behind her head.

He lowered himself over her, balanced his weight carefully on his elbows. She cradled him with knees and arms, turned her face toward his. He brushed a kiss over her cheekbone, her eyelids, the perfect arch of her brows.

Her palms stroked up his bare back to his arms, restless. She sighed, the smallest exhalation, her breath warm against his cheek, and his heart leapt at the sound. “Love,” he whispered again, everything he felt for her contained in that one word.

He bent his head to her neck; she tipped her jaw to allow him better access. He took it, stroking his tongue up the heated column of her neck, tasting her flowery skin and the barest hint of salt. He felt her move beneath him, her chest arching to meet his.

He lowered his head to her chest, to the satiny flesh of her breasts, the exquisite puckering of her nipples, dusky pink against her gleaming pale skin. His teeth bit her gently, and she breathed his name with a catch in her throat.

Leander smiled, his head lowered, his teeth bared against her skin. A fierce, savage joy scorched through him.

Mine.

He drew his tongue down her body, between her breasts, over her belly, down to her thighs. He bit her there too, heard her make a small, restless moan as his teeth tested her succulent flesh.

He found her center, the slick ruby between her legs hot and wet under his tongue.

She gasped and stilled, her breath ragged. He dug his fingers into her bottom and reveled in her. Her musky-sweet
taste like maple syrup, the muscles of her legs smooth and flexed and feminine against his shoulders, her hips and bottom so round and soft in his hands.

He kissed her and stroked her with his tongue until she writhed beneath him, her hands twisting in his hair.

“Leander,” she gasped, her voice broken, breathless. He didn’t stop. He wanted—he
needed
to hear her say it again. Another lap of his tongue with his fingers stroking her now, teasing, probing inside her heat and tight wetness. She moaned, her back arched.

He pushed his fingers deeper, and she gave him what he wanted with a sharp intake of breath.

“
Leander!
”

In one swift motion, he drew himself up her body and sank deep into her.

She shattered around him.

Her climax was abrupt and gorgeous, a delicious, shuddering clench and throb that nearly sent him over the edge at once. She cried out, her thighs trembling, her body a lovely taut bow beneath him. He clenched his teeth, willing himself to hold back against the enormous tide of pleasure her orgasm gave him, willing himself to be still as she rocked and gasped beneath him, her head thrown back, her eyes squeezed shut, the sensation of her body so lush and warm and pleasing he had to bite his tongue against it.

In a moment she relaxed underneath him. Her head lolled to the side. She breathed out, sighing again, her legs and arms slackening around him.

Still ardent and throbbing inside her, barely controlled, Leander tipped Jenna’s face toward him with a finger. He kissed her tenderly and her eyes fluttered open.

“Better?” he asked, low, gently teasing.

She smiled at him, blinked slowly with half-lidded eyes, flushed cheeks. “Almost.”

She ran her hands down his back, palms open against his skin, urging him closer. Her knees slid up, her ankles crossed at his waist. Her smile now was something utterly feminine, knowing and sensual. She arched into him and drew him deep with an erotic, fluid motion of her pelvis.

He breathed out with a moan, all teasing gone.

She lifted her hips and sank her fingers into his buttocks, and now he could not stop. He thrust into her, agony burning through him with the feel of her, lustrous and hot against his skin.

She gave a soft moan, her head tipped back, the heat of her burning him to his core. He reveled in the sight of her beneath him, her beauty and flexed rapture, her hair a ripple of silken gilt tumbled over the pile of cashmere and wool, the dim gleam of milky skin, slender thighs wrapped tight around his waist.

“Jenna,” he gasped, caught between her pleasure and his own release.

She shuddered, said his name, formed other broken words that meant
yes
and
oh God, please
and
now
. She pulled his head down with both hands and kissed him hard. Her body strained against his, she met his every thrust with shivers and low, mewling noises in her throat that resonated all the way through him.

She gasped against his mouth and tilted her head back. Almond cat’s-eyes fixed on him with a look of pleasure and ardor so intense his heart spasmed within his chest.

“Come with me,” he commanded, hoarse, thrusting deep. He lowered his head and bit her on the neck, so hard he tasted the coppery tang of her blood on his tongue. He
closed his eyes and let his hips take over, the thrusts harder and faster, electricity snapping along his nerves, shooting up his spine.

“Yes,” she breathed, the faintest of sounds before her head fell back, before she stopped breathing entirely. Her whole body arched into his and he groaned, shuddering, feeling her clench around him as her orgasm hit. He pushed deep, so deep into her it must have hurt, but she only made a low, impassioned sound and tightened her legs around him. Her nails bit into his back.

His own orgasm began as a throbbing pulse that quickly expanded and exploded through his body, ripping another groan from him, this one deeper and more primal. He buried his face in her hair and put both hands under her bottom, squeezing and pumping and lost.

He gave himself to her.

His seed and his climax and things he had no name for, secret things deep in his heart he had never spoken aloud, love and longing and blazing desire knotted together as one, an upswell of pleasure and bliss fixed on this lovely creature beneath him, binding him to her.

She was his. She was his and nothing could change that now.

He thought for a brief, deranged second that were he to die at this moment, he would be the luckiest man he had ever known.

Against his chest, he felt the anthem of her heart, keeping time with his own, its frenzied beat not yet beginning to slow. They lay entwined together in the dark, upon the mess of coats, oblivious to the world for long, countless minutes. He let himself drift, let his panting slow, let the moment spin out to dreamy, lazy perfection.

When he could breathe again, he found her lips, kissed her gently. His hair trailed dark along her alabaster skin. He slid out of her and rolled her next to him, on her side, pulling her up hard to nestle in the warm space against his body, their chests and stomachs and thighs pressed together.

He stroked her face, pushed a lock of hair from her brow. A few bright strands caught the light like threads of gold. She burrowed down next to him, sighed prettily, her head cradled on his arm.

“
Now
I’m better,” she murmured, drowsy and lax against him.

He bent to kiss her, smiling another pagan, barbarian smile. Elation, triumph, and a piercing, fierce pride washed over him, relentless and dark as a hurricane.

Mine.

He’d carried her to his bed at some point during the night, though she hadn’t woken up for that, or anything else, until this very moment. She felt as if she hadn’t slept in years and was making up for lost time.

Jenna’s eyes came open to the dove-soft sheen of dawn beginning to lighten the sky through the windows of Leander’s bedroom. They were huge—like so much else in this manor house that was really more like a fortress—beveled panes of cut glass set in casements framed by heavy silk draperies showcasing the emerald-dark forest swathed in mist and shadows beyond.