Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,95

of fingertips, like lips on my skin, down, down, down to where our bodies met and merged. But I wasn’t watching me; I was watching him. And the fascinating way his eyes got darker and darker, until I wasn’t sure if they were deep jade or pure black.

They stared at me as if he wasn’t sure he knew me anymore, and maybe he was right. I felt different, bolder, exhilarated, a little crazy. Maybe because I was moving easily now, riding him hard, sending pulses of pleasure through me and wringing out more of those sounds he kept making.

It was like the reverse of the touching game, like he was vocalizing for me. A shudder tore through me, but came out of his lips. A pulse of pleasure almost threw me off my rhythm, and he groaned in sympathy. My breath started coming faster, shallower, but he was the one panting.

A girl could get addicted to this, I thought dizzily.

“Cassie—” he finally gasped.

I tossed my hair saucily, and didn’t answer.

“Cassie.” It had been pleading a moment ago. Now it was an order.

I grinned; too bad I don’t take orders.

“Cassie—” It was desperate, hoarse and strained, and cords were standing out on the heavily muscled arms, as if he was having to grip the bed to stay still.

“One more minute,” I told him, and watched him shiver.

And defy me, although I’m not sure he knew it. The eyes were a little crazed, and he’d started bucking up to meet me, making me feel like I was an actual cowgirl, riding a barely controlled beast. A big one, with rough hands that freed themselves and then slid up my sides to grip bouncing softness, gently at first and then hard enough to bruise, although I was past caring.

Way past.

All I needed was a hat to wave around, I thought, feeling a strange urge to laugh.

Until I looked down at Pritkin’s face. He’d been laughing, too, a few moments ago, or as close to it as he ever got, joking and playful, almost like the boy he’d once been. But now, there was something leaking through the cracks, something he couldn’t seem to control. Something raw and real and—I didn’t know.

I wanted to see more of that look, wanted to see how far it went, wanted to know what he might be hiding in there. I wanted to see that perfect stoicism ruined and smoking on the ground. I wanted to see him laid bare as I was, as I had been when I sobbed in his arms. Not to hurt him but to heal.

Because whatever I had pent up inside me, Pritkin had far, far more.

But this wasn’t the time. Today wasn’t about reliving trauma, even to ease it. Today wasn’t about lessons to be learned or trials to be overcome. Today was about rediscovering pleasure, about ending a century-old fast, about the end of a very long road.

Today was about love.

“Now,” I said softly, bending over him—

And was on my back before I could blink, momentarily breathless from a move he made that shot sparks straight up my spine.

A purely wicked face looked down at me, flushed and panting and sweaty and strained, but wearing the tiniest of evil grins.

Uh-oh, I thought.

And uh-oh it was, because oh, how he made me pay!

He proved, really freaking fast, that he understood how to play this game better than I did. Way better. Oh God, so much better!

Every time my body started to shiver, every time I began to gasp with every stroke, every time I felt myself tightening helplessly around him, oh God, so good, so good, oh God—

The.

Bastard.

Eased.

Off.

Just as he knew how to drive me crazy, he knew how to make me wait for it, beg for it, demand it with flashing eyes and snarled speech, while he denied me again and again. Until I couldn’t think at all, except for oh and ahh and help and please. Until I was grabbing the bedsheets, gripping them in knotted fists, and thrashing and squirming and trying to hold on, because Pritkin hadn’t lied—he liked it rough. And so did I, judging from the way my body bucked and flailed and gripped and hung on.

And then practically convulsed when he finally whispered: “Now.”

I came screaming and crying and laughing and cursing. I came so hard I almost passed out. I came with his name on my lips and his body spilling into mine, his own cry of mingled pain and bliss and strange catharsis