Hidden Moon (Nightcreature 7)

He sank into me, slow but sure. Carefully he braced himself, keeping most of his weight off me. I ran my palms over his biceps, which quivered at my touch.

"I won't break," I whispered, wanting to feel that weight as much as I wanted to feel his heat and his hardness within.

He gave me what I wanted, what I needed, pushing into me, pulling out, slowly coming to rest against me until I didn't know where one of us ended and the other began.

Try as I might, I couldn't see him - not a flicker of movement, not a glint of a reflection in his eyes. Because of that, it seemed as if I were dreaming, as if he were a fantasy, a phantom, the mist.

I did things I never would have done in the light, reaching between us and cupping him, stroking and kneading until he said my name like a prayer or maybe a curse. I sucked on his tongue, scraped my teeth across the throbbing vein in his neck, and then grabbed his hips and pulled him even deeper.

I was in control, and I reveled in it, that power almost as arousing as he was.

He kissed my eyebrow, then leaned his cheek against my hair and whispered, "I canna wait any longer. " With nothing more than a catch in his breath, I felt him stiffen, pulse, come.

The rhythmic movements brought an answering response in me. I'd said I wouldn't break, but I hadn't counted on shattering. The best I'd hoped for was being able to get through this without fear.

I cried out, and he continued to move, drawing the tension tighter, making it last seemingly forever.

I ended up wrapped in his arms, the quilt over us both as he murmu

red words I didn't understand while I drifted away.

We awoke a few hours later and made love again; then I left him sleeping and went to check on Oprah. With the storm past, she had crept from beneath the couch and now snored lustily on top of it.

When I returned to my room, I pulled on a nightgown. Even though we'd touched each other in so many ways, I suddenly felt shy. Foolish, but I couldn't help it. I didn't want to wake up naked in his arms and have him stare at me as if he couldn't recall my name.

Did I really think that would happen? No. But better safe than sorry.

I crawled into bed, keeping to one side and leaving him on the other, fighting the urge to touch him, hold him, or have him hold me. I didn't need to become attached. Even if he remembered my name when the sun shone, he was still leaving in a few days.

So I lay there staring at the ceiling, and I couldn't fall asleep. Until Malachi turned and drew me against him, pressing his face into my hair.

At first I stiffened, waiting for the poke of his erection. Not that I wouldn't mind another round, unless he was so out of it he didn't know who that round was with.

However, his body was warm, soft, or as soft as a body that hard could be. He murmured, "Claire," against my neck, then "a chroi. "

"Malachi?" I said softly, but from the steady, deep rise and fall of his chest he was asleep. Snuggling into his embrace, I followed him there.

I awoke to bright sunlight across the bed. Mal's eyes were open. He smiled and touched my cheek.

"What does a chroi mean?"

His smile froze; he snatched his hand back. "Where did you hear that?"

"You murmured it in your sleep, after you said my name. Is it Gaelic?"

"Yes. "

He didn't elaborate. I started to wonder if a chroi meant "pig face. "

"Mal?"

His eyes met mine. "It means. . . 'beautiful one. '"

I laughed. "I'm not beautiful. "

"Who told you that?" He sat up, and the covers pooled at his waist.

I found myself distracted by the contrast of his copper skin with the white sheets, not to mention the ripples across his abdomen as he moved. He was the a chroi. Much more so than I could ever be.