On his skin she smelled earth and fire, metal and rain. She embraced him and pulled him deeper into the well of herself. He growled and tipped up her chin and licked at her neck, said things she didn’t understand, but knew in her soul to be true.
The friction burned intimate places, the impact was nearly unbearable in its intensity, but she couldn’t get enough, couldn’t touch enough of him, hold him tight enough. She made her own wordless noises, primitive and feline, clenching in ecstasy while his strength held her in place for that relentless, thrilling pleasure. It was exquisite and agonizing and she wanted it to go on forever.
But she couldn’t subsist in this state of tension and acute sensations. She was going to suffocate or break or her heart would explode.
And then it did. Her entire world contracted to a fine dark point, then burst. She was flame and gold and joy. Naked and pure and new.
* * *
As the most powerful release of his life receded, and Luli’s sobs of culmination settled to soft, ragged breaths, an incredible sense of peace fell over him.
Gabriel somehow managed to withdraw and discard the condom, then pulled her across him, damp and sweet-smelling as the sheets beneath them. She made a contented noise and her lips touched his chest before she sighed and relaxed into a doze. He was aware of warmth and the pressure of her against him, the tickle of her hair against his naked arm, the weight of her thigh on his and an encroaching sense of regret.
His sifu would berate him for losing focus and letting his discipline lapse, for allowing his ego and bodily hungers to rule him. He was guilty of all those things. He’d been desperate to feast upon her. He had wanted the smug satisfaction in knowing he had initiated her to these pleasures and had done it well.
It had come at a cost. The walls he kept so impermeable around himself were weakening. The first knock had come when she had locked him out of his own software. Sections of mortar between the bricks had disintegrated under the tears she had shed against his chest that night in Paris. The winds of Africa had eroded those bricks further, as her joy at the beauty of the earth and earthly pleasures had reminded him that this world was more than greed and users and privilege.
Now she had rocked his foundation with such power he could feel the fissures extending through him.
Because she had wanted to know what it would feel like if someone loved her.
He worked his fingers into her thick hair and turned his mouth to press a kiss into the fragrant mass, wanting to shelter her even as he wanted to ravish her again.
For this privilege, he would give her almost anything.
Except his heart.
He hoped like hell it would be enough.
* * *
Luli lingered over her morning routine, feeling shy. Gabriel had woken her a few hours before dawn with kisses and caresses that had had her reaching for his turgid shape, so fascinating with velvety skin over hot iron. She had gloried in knowing how to touch him in a way he liked. They had fondled and kissed until she was burning and molten.
Then he’d slid sweetly into her and stayed there, rocking lazily.
Each time she climaxed he asked, More?
And she had greedily said, Yes.
The fourth time he had shattered with her.
She was sore, but not sorry. She felt languid and pleased and filled with mysterious knowledge.
She suspected she was in love.
It was such a new emotion, she had to pause and examine it, try to understand how its rough edges fit inside her and why it felt heavier than the ring he’d given her.
Most of all, she tried to understand how love was something she had wanted all her life and now, as she glimpsed it, it wasn’t something that nestled into her and made her feel safe. It wasn’t a state of being, like contentment. It was something to be given away. It was an active emotion, flowing outward, striving to reach the man who had sparked it, wherever he was at this moment.
She wanted him to love her, but strangely, even more than that, she wanted him to let her love him. She wanted him to welcome this overwhelming spill of feeling she wanted to pour over him.
She had tried that once, though. Her mother hadn’t had a use for her heart. She’d put it on a plane to Singapore and never asked for it back.
A wrenching pain went through her as she thought of Gabriel rejecting her love. Given his childhood, she understood his reservations. It made her want to throw herself further into the fire with him. Somehow heal his pain.