The Bond (Unbroken Raine Falling 4)

Raine buried her face in his neck as if she couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t inhale him enough, as Hammer carried her upstairs to their bedroom.

Just inside the door, she sank her fingers into his scalp and drew him to her lips again. Macen didn’t even make it to the bed before need seized him. He pressed her to the wall, sank into her mouth, and poured his heart into the kiss. He made love to her mouth—tasting, tormenting, teasing—as he stroked her tongue with a sensual surge and retreat. She dragged in a breath, grabbed his shirt, grinding softly against him as she cried out in supplication, a plea for all the love and passion he could give her.

Raine writhed against the erection tenting his trousers. She arched, tossing her head back. Through the barrier of their clothes, he could feel her taut nipples against his chest. The graceful line of her neck beckoned him. Hammer couldn’t resist. He feathered his lips up her skin, breathing her in, holding her tight as he worked his way back to her lips with a groan.

When he reached her, she was waiting. Their mouths melded. She felt so small but vital in his arms as he turned and carried her to the bed, then laid her across the middle, in the spill of silvery moonlight beaming through the window.

Braced above Raine, he looked down at her. Watched. Stared. She blinked up at him, lips swollen, eyes shimmering with devotion.

Hammer didn’t flinch or dilute the importance of the moment with a wolfish smile or wry smirk. Instead, he bared himself without removing a stitch, allowing her to see inside him, all the way to the bone.

To his soul.

He could barely fathom how he’d managed six years without showing her his heart. How would he ever survive the next thirty? He’d come to need Raine, to depend on the fact she was right beside him. He’d simply believed that she always would be. The utter shock that he might be the one leaving was almost more than he could bear.

Macen trailed a knuckle down her cheek, brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. He gazed into her questioning eyes. She wore every emotion she felt on her sweet face. He could read her so easily. She wanted to be everything to him, wanted to give him whatever he craved.

Somehow, she didn’t realize she already had.

“Tonight, I need your love far more than I want your power,” Hammer whispered against her lips. “Take whatever you want. You don’t need permission for anything.”

Her breath hitched. Raine took hold of his face. “I want all of you.”

“I’m yours. I have been for longer than I could even admit.”

Without a word, Raine sat up and unfastened the buttons of his shirt, pushing it off one shoulder, then the other, kissing the skin she uncovered with a gossamer press of her lips. Then she unfastened his belt, toyed with the button of his slacks. With a beseeching stare, she tempted him, igniting tingles not just in his cock but all over his body. As his zipper fell with a hushed purr in the room, goose bumps broke out across his skin. Usually, he was in control of everything. Now he couldn’t even control his breathing. He’d never felt anything like this wonder, the sense that her next touch could both soothe his need and wrench his heart.

Hammer suspected those weren’t the only new and foreign sensations she’d bestow on him tonight. He was ready and oh-so-fucking willing to drink them all in.

The neon numbers on the bedside clock flashed blue in the shadowed room. He was shocked to see that hours had passed since the O’Neill family departed. How could it feel as though he and Raine were cocooned in some perfect, timeless bubble while wondering if, at any moment, it was about to burst?

Raine skimmed her fingers over his chest, dragging a nail softly around his nipples, into his navel, before pushing his pants past his hips and freeing his shaft. Macen forgot the clock. Instead, he drew in a deep breath and let it out as he followed her every worshipping caress. The beast within him didn’t even rouse, as if knowing the man couldn’t survive anymore without her love.

“I never get tired of touching you,” Raine murmured. “The feel of your hard muscles beneath all that smooth, hot skin.”

He sucked in an agonized breath as she tempted him with skimming palms and grazing lips. “I melt every time you touch me.”

A tingling trail of awakening flesh spread until he swore his heart would split wide open.

“Take your pants off,” she murmured, nipping her way up his shoulder, to his neck, pressing her lips to his jaw.

God, he didn’t want to move, just stay and bask in her reverence and love.