She lifted her head and watched as he drifted lower still. He glanced up at her as he moved into the apex of her thighs, his irises swamped with amber, swallowing the thin vertical lines of his pupils. That otherworldly, predatory gaze stayed locked on her, the tips of his fangs stretching longer, sharper as his broad mouth spread into a carnal smile. Then he parted her legs and sank down between them.
He kissed the triangle of light curls at the mound of her sex. Mira held her breath, pulse racing, veins filled with liquid fire. Another kiss, this one lingering much longer, the tip of his tongue cleaving into the sensitive folds. He licked her slowly, suckling her, drawing the tender bud against the wet heat of his tongue. His approving growl vibrated against her quivering sex as he went deeper. "So sweet and juicy. This is what I thirst for. You, Mira."
He went down on her again. The air shuddered out of her lungs on a ragged sigh, sensation shooting through her like tiny lightning bolts, the coming of a storm. He played with her, teasing her clit, tonguing her, making the petals of her body weep for him.
"I need you," she gasped, rising up to reach for him, fingers digging into the hard bulk of his shoulders. "Please, Kellan. I don't want to wait. I'm afraid to wait another second . . ."
Afraid the moment would somehow shatter and reality would toss them both back where they'd been just a few minutes ago: Enemies, not lovers. Strangers, not friends.
Back to a man and woman with a distant, shared past, an uneasy present, and a dubious, uncertain future.
Mira couldn't let go of him, not now. "Come up here. I need to feel you against me again. I want you inside me."
Whatever he said was lost in a deep, rumbling growl. He moved back up on the bed, shucking his pants along the way. Mira drank in the sight of him, naked and lean and beautiful. So strong and powerful.
So alive.
How long had she dreamed of this moment - being with Kellan again, having him back from the dead?
It made her greedy for him now. Desperate to hold him close, as close as their bodies possibly could be.
Kellan covered her, every inch of him pulsing with warmth and masculinity. He kissed her again, deep and long and possessive. His thighs were wedged between hers, his arousal heavy and hard, the thick shaft nestled upright in the moist cleft of her sex.
Not close enough.
Mira shifted her hips, seating him for his first thrust. She sucked on his tongue, and his cock gave a little kick in response. Kellan moaned into her mouth, a raw sound of need. He broke their kiss with a curse and stared down at her, propped up on his fists.
"I want to go slow with you, but . . ." His voice trailed off, and he shook his head, giving a slight press of his pelvis. The head of his penis nudged into her, testing. "Ah, Christ . . . you feel too good."
Mira's heart was banging in her chest like a caged bird, every nerve ending quivering with an urgent need. "I don't want to go slow. There's been too much time standing between us. No more, Kellan. Not right now."
He nodded, eyes rooted on her as he gave another experimental thrust. "You're so tight. Just like the first time we were together."
She'd been a virgin that first time - the only time - she and Kellan made love. He had been too. Although their desire had been mutual, undeniable for years before that night, they'd never taken it so far. She'd been too young at first, then, later, when she was a woman, Kellan had thrown himself into his duty with the Order, taking on missions that sent him away for weeks, sometimes months at a time. But he always came back to her, and when he did, it never took long for them to end up in a tangle of arms and legs and questing mouths.
They'd learned to pleasure each other in other ways before that moment eight years ago until, finally, need had proven greater than any amount of denial or restraint. Mira had given herself to Kellan and he to her.
It had been magical. Miraculous. Until a few hours later, when a rebel's bomb took all of that away.
She gazed up at Kellan, poised above her in the soft quiet of his bed. Her heart was still broken from everything that had happened that night and in the time since. But this moment was real. It was now. It was theirs.
She smiled at the feel of his nakedness all over her, moaned in pleasured pain as the head of his cock stretched her impossibly tight around him. He was so careful with her. Too careful. She reached up, stroked his handsome face. "There's been no other for me either, Kellan. Not in all this time."
A flash of bewilderment raced across his features. "No one?"
She shook her head. "Only you."
"Ah, God." He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, they were blazing with a newer, fiercer light. He wasn't happy. Not at all. "Ah, Christ, Mouse. Damn you for that. Damn both of us for not having the sense to let go."
With a growl through gritted teeth and fangs, he pushed inside her on a swift, deep thrust. Mira cried out as he filled her, biting her lip as the sharp, initial sting of his invasion gave way to a glorious completion.
Oh, fuck.
He felt so good.
She felt so good, holding him buried within her.
She knew this dance with him, every instinct within her responding like it had been only yesterday that she'd last kissed him like this - naked and breathless, skin on skin, melting with pleasure and hungry for more. Their first time together had been branded into her senses, a memory she'd carried all this time. It had been all she'd had left of him, and she'd clung to it as she would her own soul.