As she absorbed the sensual impact of feeling his naked body flush against hers for the first time.
Her expression was all bliss.
Something in him shuddered.
Enough.
Easing her onto her back, parting her thighs, he slipped his hand between and touched her. Eyes on her face, drinking in her reactions, with fingers that trembled, he traced the slick folds, circled her entrance, then, as her hips lifted and her restlessness rose, and he glimpsed the intense violet of her eyes beneath her lashes, he eased one finger past her entrance, into the velvet slickness of her sheath, and stroked.
Her eyes glinted; he worked his hand and she writhed, softly panted. He pressed in, deeper still, then slid another finger in with the first, and readied her.
He’d intended giving her her first climax before entering her, but as desire flushed her skin and her need rose, and swelling urgency gripped her, she sank her nails into his forearm and, arching her hips, gasped, “Now. Please, Ryder—now.”
Denying her was beyond him; drawing his fingers from her scalding sheath, with hands that shook, he spread her thighs wide and settled his hips between. Fitted his erection to her tight passage, then he bent his head and took her mouth in one last, searingly passionate kiss.
Determinedly clinging to control, he thrust in—just as she arched up, impaling herself.
Shocking herself into a small scream.
He drank it in, used the spur to block his awareness of the hot, slick tightness that gripped him unbelievably powerfully, used the implication to lock his muscles and hold his body still; she’d succeeded in driving him in to the hilt, and—
Beneath him, she eased, then experimentally moved. Then drew back from the kiss enough to breathe, “Show me . . . just how does this go?”
Laughing, he discovered, was also beyond him. He grated, “Like this.”
He withdrew and thrust in again; after one repetition, she rose to the rhythm, caught it, matched it. Matched him as he allowed all reins to slide free and let the age-old dance take them.
Simple, straightforward, something he’d done countless times—there shouldn’t have been anything in the moment powerful enough to make him lose his mind.
To lose all contact with the here and now, to become so deeply immersed in the primitive give and take that he lost himself wholly in the pounding rhythm. In the indescribably evocative sensations of her body intimately caressing his, accepting his with such unalloyed passion.
The tempo escalated, then together they raced—hearts thundering, lungs laboring, will, intent, and focus all locked unrelentingly on reaching the shining peak.
He knew nothing beyond the primal drive, the compulsive friction. His breathing harsh and ragged, blind with desperation, arms braced, head hanging as his body plundered hers, he saw, felt, tasted nothing beyond the soaring passion that rose between them, answering their call—
It swamped them, caught them, tossed, wracked, and shattered them.
Dimly, distantly, he heard her scream, felt her body arch desperately, felt her nails sink into his arms, more than anything else felt the powerful contractions of her sheath as, unraveling, she tumbled from the peak—
Bodies, senses, and wills merged, locked so inextricably with her he had no choice but to follow, a roar ripping from him as release shuddered through him.
And together they fell—through searing ecstasy into a cataclysm of blinding glory. It surged through him, filled him to overflowing, then, slowly, faded, leaving him to sink into the familiar void.
Familiar, but not the same.
Deeper, fathoms deeper.
Satiation weightier than any he’d previously known rolled over him and dragged him down.
Some indefinable time later, sufficient consciousness resurfaced to shape his first coherent thought: Was he crushing her?
Even as the question formed, his senses registered the slow, gentle touch of her fingers stroking his hair. For long moments, eyes closed, he simply savored; if he’d been the lion most likened him to, he would have purred.
He couldn’t recall ever feeling this degree of postcoital glow.
He dwelled on the feeling for several smug seconds, but as his senses expanded and registered the glory of her very female body lying surrendered and thoroughly possessed beneath him, some part of him insisted he had to take his weight off her. Surrendering to the compulsion, he shifted his arms and eased up. Looking down at her face, he murmured, “Are you all right?”
She didn’t open her eyes, but her lips curved in a smile that reinforced the words. “I’m de-light-fully splendid.” Her hand resting on his shoulder gently squeezed. “Thank you.”