Alex wanted her lost, as mindless as himself, begging for what he burned to give.
She groaned in frustration when he pulled away and rose over her and he sucked in a steadying breath, fighting the need to spread her open and simply thrust into her. She incited him to mayhem, to madness. Instead, he slid into her so slowly, they both gasped. He ground his teeth until his jaw ached.
So good. So good. So good. She fit him like a glove.
He was dangerously close. He closed his eyes, determined to bring her to completion before reaching it himself, and was rewarded with a breathless cry as he rocked his hips. He repeated the move, building a rhythm that had her clawing at his back.
“Yes. That. More,” she cried.
Suddenly desperate, he cupped her face and kissed her deeply, his tongue probing in harmony with his thrusts. Sublime. She was with him, all around him, and he felt his climax building as she flung her head back and reached her own peak with a hoarse little cry.
The feel of her convulsing around him was enough to set him off. He pulled out of her at the very last second as stars exploded behind his closed eyelids and he was hit with a punch of pleasure so strong it almost knocked him senseless.
He collapsed against her in blissful, panting exhaustion and buried his face in her neck, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Bloody hell. What a woman.
Chapter 36.
Emmy held Alex against her as they both struggled to catch their breath. She stroked his back and broad shoulders and stared up at the canopy above her with a kind of dazed wonder.
Blissful lethargy suffused her body. She was boneless, and yet she hummed with a purring, contented energy. She felt invincible. As if she’d stolen fire from the heavens or conquered some impossible mountain peak.
Her heart turned over in her chest as the world came back into focus. Despite that final, frenzied climax, it hadn’t felt like mindless coupling. It had felt like making love. The teasing expression on Alex’s face, the gentle way he’d coaxed her toward pleasure, the ardency of his kisses all spoke of something deeper and more complicated than mere lust.
Or was it just wishful thinking on her part? Maybe he looked at every woman he bedded with that same tender, exasperated expression. Maybe he kissed all his lovers as if they were the only woman in the world.
And when had she started thinking of him as Alex, instead of Harland?
Emmy closed her eyes in despair at her own foolishness. She was in love, but she had no idea how to define their relationship. Theirs had been such a strange courtship. A wicked, flirtatious game of cat and mouse brimming with mistrust and reluctant admiration. Some wishful, stubborn part of her insisted they were becoming friends, as well as lovers, but the pragmatic side of her knew how ridiculous that was.
I don’t think we can really class ourselves as friends, he’d said.
It was true. Her crimes, though committed under duress, were inescapable, and Alex’s adherence to the law was strict. She couldn’t expect him to change, nor would she want him to. His loyalty to his profession, to seeing justice done, was one of the things she loved most about him.
She doubted her reluctance would count for anything in a court of law. The fact that she hadn’t wanted to steal those jewels would be of no interest to a judge.
She stroked Alex’s hair as he rolled off her with a mumbled apology and dragged the sheets over them both. He gathered her into his arms and pulled her back against his body in an embrace that brought bittersweet tears to her eyes.
She was well and truly caught, in a snare of her own making. Alex had no need for cuffs or physical restraints. He’d bound her with passion. With love. And like an opium addict, or a hardened gamester, she couldn’t stop craving more, even when she knew it would lead to ruin.
From her position, lying on her side, she could see the tin containing the jewels resting on the window seat. Time was running out. She could almost feel the noose tightening about her neck. A dreadful sense of finality weighed down upon her, and she felt the sudden, urgent need to wring out every precious moment that remained, to impress it upon her memory like