That he wasn’t—wouldn’t be—finished with her, she knew. Even through the miasma of spent passion she could feel the familiar emptiness within. An emptiness she’d never felt except with him—an emptiness only he could fill.
She opened her eyes, through the shadows saw him walking toward her.
He’d shed his clothes, doused the guttering candle.
He was totally naked. Fully aroused.
He was hers.
She knew it—for the first time since they’d come together again, possibly the first time ever, she felt that in her bones.
She was too wrung out to move. She lay there and watched him come to her.
He reached the end of the bed, loomed over her, then he sank both fists into the coverlet on either side of her and leaned nearer to look into her face. He searched her eyes, then stated, “Don’t say a word. Don’t try to do anything.”
She simply blinked, and obediently held her tongue.
He eyed her suspiciously, but then drew back. Pressing his hands beneath her, he lifted her. Kneeling on the bed, he moved up it, then laid her back down with her head on the plump pillows.
He followed her down, and covered her.
Found her lips and covered them with his.
As his hands found her body and stroked.
She arched into him, inviting his touch—begging for it. He languidly traced, caressed, effortlessly possessed, and she sighed. She’d expected flames and their usual explosive passion, but this was loving of a different sort—strung out, nerves tense and aching—waiting for the next touch, the next kiss, the next act of communion.
Which always came. He was a dark, possessive male who loved her in the dark, who made her ache, then fed her, who commanded her senses, filled her mind, and took slow, unhurried possession.
Not just of her body. Not just of her mind.
He was familiar, yet not. He was different, and so was she. They were no longer the young lovers who’d found each other—their other halves, their soul mates—so easily. Too easily, perhaps.
Now they were older, wiser, now they both knew the value of what they’d had. Of what they’d lost.
Of what, she knew, he wanted to reclaim.
Find again, take again, hold again.
As she writhed beneath him, helpless and yearning, soothed by his hands, by his lips, by the slow build of heat that wrapped them about, that cocooned them in her bed, she honestly didn’t know if they would ever be that way again.
Only knew she would be with him in trying again.
In attempting to find their way forward again.
A different way, perhaps.
Like this.
Even though this was the bed she’d shared with Randall, he’d never been her lover. The man in her arms had been—still was—her one and only.
Her one and only love. If there was a way forward for them, she’d be a fool to turn away.
The moments rolled together as they tangled on her bed; she was no longer interested in rushing ahead. This enveloping, caressing warmth was new, precious; it held passion and desire, but also something deeper. Something finer.
She’d always been passionate, but this was passion on a different plane, a deeper desire, a stronger yearning.
Her hands spread on his back, she held him to her, shifted beneath him as she kissed him back—only to be overwhelmed by the kiss he returned, only to fall back and let him surge in and fill her mouth. Let him take it, mimicking the way he would take her body soon…