Shadow Spell (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy 2)

He touched where she ached to be touched, tasted where she longed for his lips. And found other secret places she hadn’t known longed for attention. The inside of her elbow, the back of her knee, the inside of her wrist. He murmured to her, sweet words that reached into her heart. Another light to glow.

He seemed to know when the glow became a pulse, and the pulse a throb of need. So he answered that need, drawing the pleasure up and up before spilling her over into release.

Weak from it, dazed by the flood and the flow, she clung to him, tried to right herself.

“A moment. Give me a moment.”

“It’s now,” he said. “It should be now.”

And slid inside her. Took her mouth as he took her, deep and slow.

It should be now, he thought again. For she was open for him to fill. Warm and wet for him.

Her moan, a sound of welcome; her arms strong ropes to bind him close.

She rose to him, wrapped those long legs around him. Moved with him as if they’d come together like this, just like this, over a hundred lifetimes. In the glow he’d made, in the glow that gleamed now from what they made together, he watched her.

Dubheasa. Dark beauty.

Watched her until what they made overwhelmed him, and the pleasure deepened dark as her eyes. In the dark and the light, he surrendered to her as she had to him. And let her take him with her.

* * *

SHE LAY, BASKING. SHE’D EXPECTED—ONCE SHE’D ACCEPTED she was having sex with Connor—a rollicking rough and tumble. Instead she’d been . . . tended, pleasured, even seduced, and with a delicate touch.

And had no complaints whatsoever.

Now her body felt all loose and soft and weak in the loveliest of ways.

She’d known he’d be good at it—God knew he’d had the practice—but she hadn’t known he’d be absolutely bloody brilliant.

So she could sigh now in utter satisfaction—with her hand resting on his very fine ass.

Just as she sighed, it occurred to her she couldn’t possibly have measured up. She’d been taken by surprise, she thought, and surely hadn’t done her best work—so to speak.

Was that why he was currently lying on her like a dead man?

She moved her hand, not quite sure now what to do or say.

He stirred.

“I suppose you’re wanting me to get off you.”

“Ah . . . Well.”

He rolled, sprawled on his back. When he said nothing at all, she cleared her throat.

“And what now?”

“I’m thinking,” he said. “That once we take a bit of a breather, we do it all over again.”

“I can do better.”

“Better than what?”

“Than I did. I was taken off-balance.”

He trailed a finger lazily down her side. “If you’d done better, I might need weeks of a breather.”