Between softer, less frenzied kisses he said, “Shocking.”
And she said, “Inevitable.”
That was the right of it. Inevitable because of who they were to each other, where they we
re. He wasn’t strong enough to fight it even though the wrongness of it was a pixelated prism at the edge of his vision, calling for his attention. He forced it out by filling his sight with her. Kiss reddened lips and wild tangle of hair, eyes diamond bright, seeing everything he was.
If there was a new life protected from the raw injustices of the world, it was in the curve of Rory’s cheek and the fine arch of her brows. It was in the hands that gripped his arms and her wrecked little murmurs.
He carried her from the door to the kitchen table where he hooked a chair and sat with her straddling his lap. He would kiss her, hold her till his heart gave out from the beauty of it and nothing would matter because she was the last mountain he’d ever climb, the largest wave he’d ever surf.
Where he’d been frenzied, now he was easier, making his lips gentler and his hands softer, touching her places never meant for him, in ways he never had. It was all the more exciting for what it did to her. She shivered and twitched, pushing into his hands and using her own to explore his body.
Time slowed, fell away, the world ended, there was only this sinking into the forbidden pleasure of her and being irrevocably changed by it. And they were both still completely dressed. If he had her naked, if he could lick the private parts of her, he would be reborn.
When she pulled at his shirt and put her lips to his collar bone he remembered how filthy he was, that his hands where grimy and rough, his nails blackened, his face scratchy, body too long unwashed and not fit for her.
A hand to her shoulder, he separated them.
“No,” she said. “Don’t make me stop.”
“Only till I can get clean.”
She dug her fingers into his arm. “I’m scared to let you go.”
“You’re never scared.”
“I didn’t know there was this to lose.”
He suspended time again with another decade of kissing her until they were both overheated and frantic.
She groaned when he pulled away again. The top of her head dropping to his chest. “I can’t stand. You’ve made my legs into noodles.”
His own legs were slow-shutter speed. His eyes reticent to look away from her. This new Aurora Rae who was truly his. Fired by the want to claim all of her, he picked her up and lay her back over the table.
“Christ, you’re beautiful.”
“I’m impatient and so horny if you don’t get a move on, bad things could happen.”
He smiled down at her, smoothing his hand from her ribs to her hip and over her thigh to cup her bent knee. She had a T-shirt and jeans on, still wore her kicks. He’d seen her in business suits and ball gowns and swimwear and never seen her look as lovely as she did now.
“What kind of bad things?” There was no room for anything bad here.
“It’s possible my senses are so overloaded I’ll short-circuit.”
He leaned down, so he was eye to eye with her. He slipped the hand that was on her knee along her inner thigh and pressed its heel to her pussy. She jerked and arched into his hand. She was hot there through layers of cotton and his cock was so hard he could barely speak. “Don’t even think about it.” He twisted his wrist against her until she grabbed for his hand and stilled him.
“Don’t start something you’re not intending to finish,” she hissed.
He laughed and pulled away. “I could look at you for a thousand years and never get tired of the view.”
She sat up abruptly. “If you make me cry before we get naked I’ll never forgive you.”
She’d already made him tear up. He couldn’t have both of them blubbering. Another decade might’ve passed in the time he took to kiss her thoroughly and then leave her complaining.
The cabin wasn’t stocked. He didn’t have a clean towel or soap or anything to shave with, but the shower water came on hot and strong and felt luxurious. He half expected her to follow him in. Rory didn’t like to wait for anything. Hard as he was, he wasn’t being with her for the first time anywhere but in a bed. This cabin was a replica of hers, two single beds but there was no linen. They’d make do. He didn’t have a condom, but they’d both had full medicals before coming in here and she had a contraceptive implant. He should set an alarm, so they could safely sneak out before it got light.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He couldn’t get properly clean. He had nothing to set an alarm with. He had no way to keep her safe. If he did this, took her body, made her come, there was no putting it back in the box. Those tears that’d leaked from him were shock and disbelief.