They lay, for all intents and purposes, in the man’s backyard, a party in full swing well within earshot. Not to mention she was pretty sure she could see her breath out here.
Oh, she had every intention of enjoying the whole of the night, but act 1, “Love Under the Stars,” would be only a prologue. A short, quick prologue.
She pushed her body against his, and he rolled with her, grasping her waist with his hands as she sat on his midsection.
The erection pressing against her leg was every bit as good as she’d hoped.
Maybe it was more appropriate to think of this as an appetizer to a banquet.
She covered his mouth with hers, letting her tongue dance across his lips before sitting back up astride him and opening the laces he had been fumbling with.
Cold peaked her nipples instantly. Cold or want. Not that it mattered which. His hands covered them immediately, the pads of his rough thumbs tracing circles of heat.
She was ready. She was more than ready.
Rising to her knees, she gathered her skirts out of her way before leaning forward to drive herself down on his jutting manhood.
“For the love of Freya,” he groaned, and flipped her to her back.
They stared into one another’s eyes for a long moment, his body poised above hers, him buried within her heat.
And the need overtook her again. The searing, driving want of him, pushing her over the edge. He tightened his grip as, beyond her control, her muscles pulsed in rhythmic contractions around his heat as if her very soul sought to draw him deep inside her for keeping.
His panting echoed hers and, as their eyes locked together, he began a slow withdrawal and reentry.
Slow at first, but his need matched her own, evidenced by his increasing tempo. She lifted her hips to meet him and he drove into her, crushing her against him, burying his face in the curve of her neck as he buried his pulsing shaft in the folds of her body.
They lay together, each breath a short, hard little pant, neither willing to move.
So this was what it was like making love with your SoulMate.
“Once is definitely not going to be enough,” she confided, tracing a finger over the contours of his cheek.
He kissed the tip of her nose, her forehead, and both her eyelids before pulling away to brush a curl away from her face.
“Yer right, it’s no, to that I will confess. But we agreed. Only this once.”
She shook her head, forcing a smile much brighter than she actually felt. “No. We agreed on only this one night. Surely a powerful warrior like you, descendant of the mighty Odin and the gods of Asgard, is good for more than just one time a night.”
He stared at her for a moment before throwing his head back, laughter bubbling up from his throat.
“Oh, aye, lassie. I’ll gladly be about proving my endurance to you.”
Twenty
HOW WRONG WASit to pray for an eclipse?
Dani lay in Malcolm’s arms, head on his chest, willing the sun not to rise and bring an end to her one night with him. But even now the abundance of candles they had lit in their exuberance to explore one another’s bodies burned low. And the fact that he’d been a man of his word, repeatedly proving his “endurance,” only made the approaching end of their time together that much harder to accept.
Her fingertip tingled as she traced the line of the tattoo over his heart, a perfect circle of what appeared to be spears, with runic writing at its center. Perfect except for a small bump of a scar across one of the spokes. It was meant for protection, he’d told her, a sign of Odin, from whose bloodline his family claimed descent. As the moment he would leave her to ride off to battle approached, she sent up prayers to her god and all of his that the protection ward would be effective.
“Would that the sun might slow its arrival this day. You were right, my love, I canna see how once will be enough.”
She smiled as his voice rumbled in his chest and tickled her ear, unwilling to allow herself to waste her last hours with him drowning in sorrow and self-pity. Instead she chose to concentrate on the wonder that allowed them both to have shared a single thought with regard to the sun’s arrival.
There would be time for sorrow after he’d gone.
“Losing you tears at my heart as wickedly as the knowledge that I canna countenance so much loss of life if I am able to prevent it.”