Then he began to move, and there was no thought, no fear, only sensation. Within and without, as if this moment, and this man, were everything that was ever meant to be. On and on it went, until it felt as if the threads of my being were unraveling.
And then everything did unravel, and I was shuddering, shaking, and screaming in pleasure as his body stiffened against mine and his essence filled me, body and soul.
For several minutes afterward, neither of us moved. When I could finally breathe—think—I cleared my throat and said, “Well, I’m kind of glad you could only make love to me as a reaper in human form.”
He shifted enough to transfer his weight from me onto his elbows, and stared down at me with an odd sort of half smile. “Why is that?”
“Because if that’s an indication of what it would be like to have sex with you in reaper form, I don’t actually think I could survive it.”
He laughed softly, then bent and kissed my lips. It was soft and gentle, but nevertheless the connection between us stirred to life, shivering through me like a curtain of silver. Part of me wanted to step through it and see what lay on the other side, but most of me simply wasn’t willing to take that risk. So I just kept on kissing him. Hunger stirred between us, gathering speed and strength.
“You know what else I think?” I said after a while. Then I scowled. “Well, of course you do.”
He smiled. “No, I don’t. I was occupied with your lips, not your thoughts.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So to stop your following every thought, I simply have to kiss you?”
“It does raise interesting possibilities.”
“That,” I murmured, as I tensed myself around his erection, “is certainly true.”
His smile grew as he began to move inside me. “And this thought you had?”
“Ah yes,” I said, running my fingers down his back, enjoying the reaction of his body, the slight hitching of his breath. “I was thinking that the woman you used to catch your friend’s killer was a very fine teacher when it came to the art of lovemaking.”
“As I said, it was very enlightening.”
I snorted softly. “Enlightening? That really doesn’t seem an adequate word.”
“For this, it isn’t,” he agreed.
“And what would you call this?”
“This,” he said softly, his gaze holding mine, burning with an intensity I didn’t quite understand, “is everything that matters, and I intend to enjoy every second of it while it lasts.”
Just for a moment, that silver curtain parted, and I knew exactly what he was thinking—that it wouldn’t last beyond this day. Because he was determined to control the uncontrollable. “Azriel—”
“Don’t,” he said.
So I didn’t. I just enjoyed.
The sharp ringing of the phone woke me many hours later. I groaned and groped the bedside table blindly, but couldn’t find the damn phone.
It said a lot about both my mental state and my overall tiredness that it took me several more minutes to remember I’d left it in the bathroom.
“Here,” Azriel said.
I opened one eye and looked at him, my vision rather bleary. He seemed disgustingly refreshed. “It’s totally unfair that you look like you can go another six rounds and I feel exhausted.”>The smile that twisted his lips was a brief acknowledgment that he was still following my thoughts.
“But,” he said softly, lightly pressing his palm against my cheek, “I can share what it is like to be with a reaper in human form. And perhaps in the end that will be less dangerous for us both.”
He didn’t mean physically dangerous. He meant emotionally. And he was wrong on both counts. He was breaking all reaper rules, and I was risking my heart yet again—how could any form of relationship between us not be considered dangerous?
And yet, as he’d noted earlier, sometimes the gain was worth the punishment—or the broken heart, as I suspected might be the case for me if I wasn’t very, very careful.
“I don’t care what form you’re in, Azriel,” I said, meeting his gaze steadily. “I just want you. Here. Now.”
His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck, then gently tugged me closer.