she was in his arms as he mounted the stairs two at a time, with a speed that she would normally consider reckless but which now felt strangely necessary. Because she wanted him. Burned for him.
She didn’t know where he was taking her in the dark. She didn’t care whose bed it was he laid her down upon.
She only cared that soon he would soon quench this aching need. This burning desire.
Her fingers scrabbled with his jacket, protesting at the barrier, and without leaving her mouth he ripped it off and let it fall to the floor. He tugged loose her robe while her hands clawed at his shoulders, wanting him back, wanting to feel him against her. She forgave him when she felt his palms sliding from her thighs to her breasts, drawing her nightgown upwards with it. She lifted her head to let it go while his fingers trailed back down her body.
‘Beautiful,’ he growled, leaning over her, rolling one tight nipple under his thumb and making her back arch into the bed. ‘Do you know how much I want you?’
‘Please,’ she implored, desperate now. Nobody had ever called her beautiful. Nobody had ever told her they wanted her. And now his words fuelled a body already screaming for release. Her hands were at his waist and then below, until she gasped into his mouth as she discovered exactly how much he wanted her, her fingers marvelling, tracing his rigid length.
He groaned like an animal in distress and grabbed the offending wrist, pinning it to the bed while he freed himself with the other and ripped open protection with his teeth. Surely now!
But still she had to wait. ‘Please!’ she cried when his hand peeled away her panties, his fingers slipping between her folds and brushing that tiny nub that seemed the repository of every nerve-ending she’d ever possessed while his mouth suckled one peaked breast.
She bucked into the bed and cried out with the sheer ecstasy of it, cried out with the unfairness of it all when his fingers teased her cleft. It was something else she wanted, something else she needed.
She curled her fingers in his hair, dragged his head from her breast. ‘Please!’
And then she felt him there, at her entrance, felt his heated pressure and his power and wondered for just one second if she was dreaming and at any moment she was going to wake up alone in twisted sheets, feeling cheated and unsatisfied.
A bolt of lightning rent the skies above, turning night into day, and her body yearned with pleasure unbound. And he was there, poised above her. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he murmured in the storm-light, his voice so tight with longing that it hurt to hear the words—until he stilled and entered her on one long, deep thrust that stretched her, filling her so completely, so perfectly—so magically—that she cried out with the wonderment of it all.
He was inside her, part of her. Every cell in her body was aware of his presence, shimmering with sensation. And then he started to withdraw, and lights exploded behind her eyes.
He gasped at their joining, taking just a moment to savour the exquisite tightness around him. He could feel her pulse in the slick flesh that sheathed him, could feel her muscles stretching to accommodate him, and he feared he would not last. And then he moved inside her and felt her buck beneath him, her muscles tighten around him, and he knew he could not last.
Lightning flashed overhead, thunder rumbled, and he pounded into her as the hail pounded at the windows. His own storm was building, and the woman beneath him was like a cyclone herself, wild and unpredictable as she thrashed below, urging his storm to intensify with her slick heat and electric spasms, until with a booming cry he exploded into her.
The lightning captured the moment, and he saw her upturned face alight with wonderment, her blue eyes bright like stars. And even when the room was plunged into blackness again he felt the force of that light all around him.
It would not last. It could not last. She would go and once again the blackness and the bleakness would return. But for now he would live in the light.
He collapsed on top of her until his breathing was less ragged, his pounding heart quieted. Then he peeled himself away. ‘You cried out,’ he said. ‘Did I hurt you?’ He slipped her supine form in between the covers.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It was—amazing.’
And he could hear her face light up in her words. He leaned over and kissed her before ridding himself of his shoes and trousers and climbing in alongside her.
She snuggled into him when he joined her, sighing against his shoulder, her hand sliding over his shirt. ‘Why did you leave your shirt on?’
‘Because the lights will come on some time.’
‘You don’t want me to see you?’
He remembered the look of revulsion on the village woman’s face. ‘You don’t want to see me.’
Her fingers made lazy circles on his chest. ‘I see your face.’
He caught her hand then, squeezed it briefly and let it go. ‘You do. But this is much worse.’
Her hand skimmed his chest, drinking in the width and hardness of him, running down the length of his arm. She wanted to know everything about him. She wanted to be able to remember it all when she was gone. So soon she would be gone.
So little time.
Unless the storm continued? But the rain was no more than a sprinkle now against the windows, and the wind had blown itself out. The clouds were clearing enough for thin moonlight to slant over the bed.
‘What time will the boat come?’
Never, he wanted to say, wanting to keep her here for ever, to hold onto her light. But she had to go. She wanted to go and present the lost pages to the world. She wanted the fame the discovery and her theories would bring.
And he had no right to beauty.
‘Early,’ he said. Her trailing fingers were stirring him, making him hard, so he caught them and showed her, unaccustomedly delighted with her small mewl of pleasure and the tentative exploration of her fingers. ‘We’d better not waste any more time.’
He took much longer this time, none of it wasted. He took longer to pleasure every part of her with his hands and his mouth and his tongue, bringing her apart until she screamed with release before he pulled her astride him and lowered her slowly down his aching length.
God, she felt good as she rode him. Moonlight slanted across her body, turning her pale skin silver, her high breasts tipped with pink. She was a goddess and he was a monster.
And she was leaving in the morning.
She cried out as he flipped her onto her back, still inside her. She was leaving. He powered into her, pouring his frustrations and anger and desolation into every lunge, and she met him blow for blow, bucking under him, urging him on, her hips angled higher to take him deeper, her teeth at his shoulder, her hands clawing into his back and tangled in his shirt as the storm inside her built again. With one final thrust he sent her screaming into the abyss. She contracted around him, sparking and sizzling with electricity, and he had choice but to follow her as he pumped his own release.
They collapsed together as the first thin grey of dawn peeked through the windows. Vaguely he was aware of the buttons that had been wrenched away. Vaguely he knew he should do something before he fell asleep. But his arms were so heavy, and she was so warm and soft in his embrace, and the air was thick with the musky scent of their lovemaking. He would do something in just a while.
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