The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,59
Only the two of them, here at this moment with the rest of the world far away. Mine, repeated his primal self.
She arched underneath him, urging him still deeper. He cupped the back of her head in one hand and slid the other along the length of her body. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “So incredibly beautiful.”
Her gaze found his again, glowing with passion. She kissed him, pulling him into her, gripping him harder with each stroke. Her breath came faster in his ear. A moan caught in her throat and drove him higher. Every nerve sang where she touched him. Her breath, her skin, her heat, the very smell of her struck him like a storm to a lightning rod.
She gasped out his name, and her body arched like a drawn bow. An electric hum seized him and burned along his spine. He buried his face in her hair and swept over the edge with a groan. The charge reverberated back up his spine, then faded.
****
Sara’s skin resonated with liquid flame. Yes, her body echoed, as if it had known all along that this moment was inevitable. This time, this place. Him.
Ian’s breath rasped in her ear. She drew her hands up his back, tracing her fingers along the sweat-slick skin.
He was shaking. So was she. “Are you all right?” she whispered.
He arched onto his elbow, still panting. “Your eyes are green. What did you just do?”
Her powers. “Oh, God, Ian, I’m sorry.”
He cupped her face and shushed her with a kiss. “No, don’t be sorry. Don’t be,” he urged, then kissed her again. “I’m fine.” He withdrew and rolled onto his back, curling an arm underneath her to pull her close again. He kissed her hair.
She let her hand hover a second before settling it on his chest, then she huddled in the hollow of his arm. “I think I might have let go of my power. I didn’t mean to.”
Ian rocked onto his elbow. “Is that what that was?”
“I think so.” Her face burned with guilt.
He flopped back down and grinned, scraping a hand through his sweaty hair. “Jesus. Do that whenever you want.”
“Are you sure I didn’t—”
He rolled on top of her. “Whenever. You. Want,” he repeated, punctuating the words with kisses. “You didn’t hurt me. In fact, you adamantly didn’t hurt me.”
Another blushing wave heated her cheeks and she smiled, somehow shy after what they’d just done. It had never been like that before. But there was no before, now. No after. Just Ian, here in her arms.
She must have been staring, because he chuckled and stroked her cheek with his thumb. He rolled to his back once more, and slipped an arm around her. One-handed, he reached up and put the lantern out.
Sara laid her head against his chest. She drew a long sigh, and he pulled her close against him. His hands stroked her cooling skin, warm and rough and pleasant. He pressed his lips to her hair. And for the first time in twenty years, she felt at peace with herself.
****
Against her will, Sara’s eyes fluttered open. The gray of pre-dawn had stolen into Ian’s tent, shattering the veneer of sanctuary in which she had slept. She wanted to go back to it. Back to believing she could shut the world out and lie there in his embrace. Reluctant, she shifted toward the edge of the cot.
Ian’s arm tightened around her. “Not yet.”
She burrowed into the warm hollow of his arm and stretched her own across his belly. “They’ll be up soon.”
“I know.” He rubbed her back. “How did you get up here last night without them knowing?”
“The wolf,” she answered, tracing her fingers through the dusting of hair on his chest. “It’s faster and quieter, and I can see better in the dark.”
They lay still for a few minutes more while the traitorous light increased.
“So, with the shapeshifting,” he said at last.
She tensed, wondering for a moment whether he would bring up her accusation that he was using her.
He shook under her fingertips, and she realized he was holding in laughter. “This has been killing me. How do you do that with clothes on?”
Startled into giggles, herself, she answered, “I don’t know. I’ve always been able to do it either way. Whatever I’m wearing just becomes part of the change. It’s all matter.”
He laughed now, and it rumbled against her cheek. “I guess I thought it would be more like in the comics, with shredding clothes and stuff.”