Boone kissed the top of her head as they both fell silent. A moment later, she groaned and rolled away from him, lying flat on the mattress beside him.
“Do you need more room?” he asked as he moved over.
“I think I left the heat on too high. Hold on.”
As she got to her feet and walked over to the thermostat on the wall, he admired the view of her shoulders, her waist . . . her beautiful lower half . . . and thought back to when he’d been kneeling between her legs, making love to her sex with his mouth. He had taken his time—and he couldn’t wait to go back there. To give her pleasure, to hear her say his name in that hoarse way, to feel her most intimate place against his lips . . . All he wanted was to return to that experience.
“It’s just on seventy,” she said with confusion in her voice. “Guess we create our own heat.”
“You can say that again.”
When she turned back around, his eyes went to her breasts. Her nipples were a deep rose color and very pronounced, the tips protruding out of their creamy swells, the swaying of her body as she walked toward him causing them to move.
Desire licked at his pelvis again, his cock jumping in response. But as much as he wanted to be with her again, the rest of his body was spent.
Helania stopped at the side of the bed and looked down at his arousal. “Don’t take this in the wrong way, but how are you still . . .”
“Hard?” he drawled. “It’s just what you do to me.”
Although actually, he couldn’t believe he was erect again, either. And then suddenly, he wasn’t worried about his stamina anymore: Helania got up on him, those soft thighs of hers spreading wide over his hips, that core of hers hovering just above his arousal.
“Be honest,” she said as she put her hands on either side of his torso. “And you can totally tell me no if you don’t want to—”
“I will never not want to be with you,” he groaned, his pelvis rolling, his well-used cock begging for more attention.
“If I do the work—”
“Please, fuck me.” He bit his lower lip with one of his fangs and arched up. “I will beg for it. I will beg you for—”
Leaning down to him, she kissed his mouth. “No need for that.”
Her hands went to his arousal and she stood him up. As she lowered her body down onto him, they started moving together, the sex resuming as if they hadn’t just been at it for two hours straight. And for some crazy reason, he didn’t last long. Neither did she.
It was the best kind of madness, wasn’t it.
After she collapsed on his chest again, they breathed together for a little bit and then she slid off of him, rolling onto her back once more. Skootching over, he made sure she had room both on the mattress and the pillow, and when her hand gripped his, he squeezed her palm in return.
And things were peaceful . . . for a little while. Blissful . . . for a time.
But the wolves that nipped at his heels eventually returned to him, reality intruding on the sacred space with Helania in a rush, as if it had resented being locked out by the passion: His father’s death. His father’s lover. His father’s will. And so many other things.
Closing his eyes, he resolved not to think about what had happened at the Audience House. Or about that woman he had saved in that alley. Or what he had done to that man—which he acknowledged had been wholly inappropriate, and which he would never do the likes of again.
And then there was Syn—
Resolutions to the contrary, Boone quickly became a live wire under his skin, the stress of it all spiking his adrenaline in a fresh surge, as if the quiet and peacefulness of Helania’s bedroom were top soil that helped a poisonous plant to grow.
But FFS, you’d think all those orgasms would have drained the energy out of him completely. Then again, he had had blood from that Chosen’s vein when he’d been injured out in the field. That was known to give a male superstrength—
“So I reached out to Isobel’s friends,” Helania murmured.
Boone’s lids popped back open, and he turned his head on the pillow. “You did?”