Her lips supped from his, then his from hers. Passion and desire swirled in the darkness, subtle flames licking over their skins, teasing their senses, tantalizing their nerves.
Tempting them.
Eventually, she drew back; breasts rising, she filled her lungs on a slow, deep inhalation, then, eyes locked with his, mere inches apart, she murmured, her tone low, a blatant, sultry, unequivocal invitation, “You are going to stay, aren’t you?”
His lips softened, fractionally curved. His eyes didn’t leave hers. “That would be my preferred option.”
She laughed soft and low, and drew him down to the bed.
Drew him into her arms as he tipped and they rolled, and passion swelled. But in instinctive accord they caught it, reined it back. Tonight was theirs—no threat could reach them, no would-be murderer touch them, not there. They had no need to rush, and much more reason to loiter.
To linger, and savor, and rejoice.
James had rolled to his back, had settled her atop him. Cradling her head in one large hand, he looked up into her eyes. “We’ll have to be careful not to hurt your head.”
“We will be, and we won’t.” Settling her elbows on his chest, she stared down into his eyes, then seductively smiled. “Just kiss me.” As she bent her head to teasingly brush her lips over his, she murmured, “Make love to me.”
He needed no further invitation; cupping the back of her head, he waited, let her play and script the kiss for several heartbeats, then he took over and let the kiss turn hungry.
Hungry, but leashed.
Tongues tangled, dueled; their lips parted only to meld and fuse again as the exchange grew more heated. More intent.
Their breathing grew ragged; soft sounds of passion floated in the air.
Clothes fell, flew, vanished. Hands grasped, then caressed and sculpted.
Weighed and flagrantly possessed.
Their lips parted only so they could savor the other’s skin, so they could taste the other’s passion.
So they could drive each other on.
They both knew what they wanted; they both wanted the same thing. Tonight even more than previously they were in perfect accord.
In perfect empathy.
What followed was a symphony, one orchestrated by them both, with first him directing, then her conducting, then, hand in hand, body to body, skin to skin, they let passion and desire and all that flowed from the physical and emotional conflagration sweep them up and away.
Together.
As one their hearts seized as he entered her and joined them; as one they paused, senses wide, to drain every last scintilla of heightened pleasure from that critical second . . . then with flawless rhythm they started the dance, their journey to completion.
They were as one in their grasping desperation, in their giddy, reckless, passionate joy, as one with their hoarse, rasping breaths as they rode, skins damp, senses burning, for the ultimate distant peak.
And found ecstasy waiting, powerful and sure, to embrace them, shatter them, and once again remold them. To once again fuse them, but at an even deeper level, in an even more unbreakable bond.
As they tumbled back to earth, to the dark bliss of the bed and the warmth of the other’s arms, even as the golden glow of satiation spread through them both, they found each other’s eyes.
Breaths mingling, gazes locked, neither needed to ask what the other thought.
They would defy hell for this. For this joy, this passion.
This unbounded togetherness.
No one—no murderer, no villain of any stripe—would take this from them. They wouldn’t let it go. Not willingly, not even if death threatened.
They read the truth in each other’s eyes, then let their lids fall. They needed no words to repledge their troth; for this, for their chance to live with this, to devote their lives to living the promise of this, they would, unhesitatingly, stake their lives.