The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,76
all right,” he breathed, holding her face in his hands. “You have no idea how much I wanted to stay with you today.”
She threw her arms around his neck and held on, welcoming the feel of his mouth on hers and the way it erased the disquieting hum that had been plaguing her since Flintrop’s kiss. “Can we just stay here like this for a minute?”
He answered by holding her harder against his body. “You’re shaking. What happened?”
“I’m okay. I’m fine now.” She pressed against him, as much to ward off the chill of night as the chill that had settled along her spine.
****
Ian threaded his hand into her hair, letting the silken strands glide through his fingers. He kissed her again, pulling her with him as he leaned back against the rock. He’d known something was wrong the moment she appeared, but as soon as he touched her, everything except the feel of her against him swept out of his head.
She still shivered. God, she felt like ice. He opened his jacket to pull it around them both, willing his warmth into her.
Her hands slipped up the back of his thermal shirt to trail along the hollow of his lower back. Ian forgot his worries. He hissed softly at the touch, then louder when her nails grazed his skin. Urgency radiated from her.
His body reacted like a lightning strike. He dropped to the sand and pulled her down with him, needing to bury himself in her. They grappled at each other’s clothing in a mad rush. Jackets, shirts, and pants fell away unheeded. They came together in a surge that drowned out everything else. Ian rocked his hips against hers with a groan of satisfaction.
She gave a broken moan, pulling him into her, propelling him upward. “Please—Ian, please.”
He sensed the storm raging in her and answered it with a primal growl, meeting her thrust for thrust. A charge built at the base of his spine with each stroke until he could hardly take it, then it burst along his nerves in a shower of sparks. She sank her teeth into the skin of his shoulder, muffling a hoarse cry that echoed his own.
She went limber in his embrace, and drew a long sigh that seemed to come from the center of her being. He drifted back down with her in a tangle of arms and legs and rasping breath.
He kissed her, gently now, then breathed in the scent of her. “Hi,” he whispered.
She dimpled. Her gaze slid away from his to rove along his chest. “I’m sorry. I just…I wanted you so much...I needed...”
“This is me, not complaining.”
Her dimple deepened. He couldn’t resist kissing it.
Sara curled her arms around his neck, and then cringed. “There’s a rock digging into my back.”
With a grin, he rolled until she lay on top of him, then dragged his jacket over them. A rock jabbed him in the back. He flinched and dug it out. “Ouch. Christ. Sex on the beach isn’t everything it’s cracked it up to be.”
“It’s perfect,” she murmured into his neck. With a long sigh, she settled against him.
His body changed his mind for him, already responding to her again. Yep, he agreed. Perfect.
Circling her waist with his arms, he looked up at the blanket of stars. A thin slice of waning moon rode low overhead, spinning out the hours before sunrise.
His nightmare about the Viking’s wife barged in uninvited. In his mind, he heard Hakon’s wife scream as the hooded men broke into their house. A second scream, cut short as they slit her throat. Blood poured down the front of her dress.
Buzzkill, he told the image, but it persisted.
Someone was trying to reconstruct the ley line ritual. Someone who now needed gifted blood to perform it. What would happen if they found out about Sara?
He turned his face into Sara’s hair. Her warmth, the steadying beat of her heart against his, and the faintly musky, earthy scent of her urged him away from the nightmare.
Not her. Not while he breathed.
He must have tightened his hold on her. She tilted her head to look at him. “Something the matter?”
He grinned again, forced now. “Sand and rocks notwithstanding, a man could get used to this naked-woman-on-a-beach thing.”
She smiled, and the nightmare washed away as easy as that.
They lay silent for a long while. Ian let his blood cool while the sounds of surging waves and chirring insects filled the air. When her hands skimmed along his sides and down