Griffin couldn’t stand it any longer. Being this close to Keko, seeing her body and the way she gazed up at him with longing and magic and heart in her eyes, had shoved him right up to the edge and finally tipped him over and off. Now he was falling, and the only thing to stop him from crashing was her.
There would be no talking himself out of wanting her. There would be no rationalization. No thinking about why he’d come to Hawaii in the first place. Only her. Only Keko, and the torrent of desire and emotions she sent rocketing through him.
If she told him no, if she pushed him away now, he would go, but she’d never been one to tease. If she wanted something, she went after it, and right now he was sure she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
He stood there, waist deep in the pool, as she slowly turned around in the water. The dreaminess in her eyes slayed him, because he knew he’d been the one to put it there.
He gave his order. He told her his intent.
That mouth—that gorgeous, lush mouth—parted. He watched the rose glow painted over her skin start to fade as she toned down the Chimeran fire within. He didn’t want it too dampened, though. He loved her heat. He wanted her hot. So he reached out and grabbed her, yanking her away from the rock and up against him. Against the hard-on she hadn’t let die.
Pressed together, shoulders to knees, slippery and naked, one phrase played on a loop over and over in his mind:
I missed you.
I missed you.
I missed you.
The look in her eyes, the surrender drawn over her face, claimed the same. And this time she wasn’t trying to cover it up or push it aside. Neither was he. Not now, with her in his arms again.
Three years spent poring over every minute detail of their time together. Three years of discovering that the moments that resonated loudest to him were those when she’d let emotion enhance how she used her body. Those moments when he’d opened himself up and allowed himself to feel something bigger than physical pleasure. They’d created promise together, and even though that promise had been severed, it had never truly died.
He meant to take her arms to bring them around his neck, but they were already sliding up his chest and into his hair. Her breasts were already pressed to his skin. She’d always seemed to know what he wanted, although at this moment he had conjured up no fantasies. No expectations. He just wanted her, in any way, shape, or form.
Keko held tightly to his neck and pulled herself up, wrapping her legs around his waist. She was so strong as she held him, as though he’d been the one trying to run away. All that skin, tying him up in a beautiful Chimeran ribbon.
His legs gave out, not from weight, but from the sheer force of desire that barreled into him. He sank into the water, taking her with him, shattering the magical stillness of the pool. Releasing his control over his element, little waves slapped over their bodies. There was a sharp dig in his scalp, her fingers grinding as she pulled his mouth to hers.
The word for what happened next wasn’t kiss. No. A kiss was way too delicate, way too passionless.
Three years of frustration were built into this. Three years of missed chances and disconnected promise. Three years of continual longing, building and building despite the mind’s orders to let it go.
She was trembling in his arms, and that might have been the most startling and most fantastic discovery of alclass="underline" to know for sure that he affected her as much as she affected him.
He’d missed the sweet smoke on her tongue. He’d missed the pressure of her lips and the way she opened so wide for him. He’d missed the power of her body and how she barely knew her own strength when it came to him, because that meant he’d made her lose control.
He wanted her experiences to mirror his, for her to know exactly what she did to him in the way he fed his reactions back to her.
He had to be inside her. Now. No finesse, no preamble. They needed to take the edge off right now before it sawed them both in half. Later, he would show her with his hands and mouth and cock that when he thought of her, Makaha and the Senatus and a close call war didn’t exist. When he touched her, and claimed her mouth and body at this very moment, he wasn’t thinking of that exchange of information they were both dreading and wanting.
It was only about her. Only about them.
“Keko.”
He thought the name was only in his mind, but then it tumbled out with pure desperation and hard-driving need onto his tongue. He pressed the beautiful word back into her open mouth.
The water vibrated around them, their little liquid world gone to shaking. Desire rattled itself free from the cage in which he’d tossed it these long, long years, and his body joined hers in its trembling.
Keko’s body rolled, her spine rippling beneath his hands as she rubbed herself against him. Even in the water he could feel how wet she’d gotten for him.
Releasing his mouth, she pressed damp lips to his ear and whispered, “Get inside me.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Holding her tightly, he pushed to his feet, the water making them buoyant at first, then giving them up to the air with massive resistance. He completely forgot he was supposed to be physically wiped out and mentally fatigued from lack of sleep. At that moment he was as strong as a tsunami. Keko was still wrapped around him, her tongue licking up his neck, making him see his beloved stars when she got to the shell of his ear. Legs pushing hard through the water, he veered them toward the rock ledge and sat her perfect ass on the wet stone.
Slowly she peeled away from him, her hands loosening from around his neck, the separation of their chests giving him a lovely display of water trickling over her skin. He watched the trails of his element as they made curved lines across her flesh. Watched how his blatant, hungry stare made her breath quicken and her back arch.
Leaning back on her hands, she made for a brilliant image. A light tease of flame crossed her lust-blackened eyes. Slightly dangerous, completely sexy. He touched her face just below her left eye, drawn by the flame. She pressed into his touch.
Unlocking her ankles from around his back, she slowly spread her legs, the muscles in her abdomen flexing magnificently. Everything about her movements was as graceful as a dancer. Her heels came to rest on the lip of the rock.
She looked up at him, his hand still pressed to her cheek. “Please.”
That was all she said. It was all she had to.
The hand on her cheek now curled around her head, past her ear, to clutch at the back of her skull. Pure possession. He came forward so the tops of his thighs grazed rock and the tip of his hard-on finally touched the hot, lovely place she was giving him.
Keeping a grip on the back of her neck—keeping her eyes on his—he used his other hand to draw a finger up the seam of her body, between her legs. Watched her shudder while trying to hold still, to be strong and resistant. She was beyond swollen, more slick than he ever thought possible.
He started to slowly push inside. Every centimeter made her eyelids flicker. Every centimeter coated him with surmounting pleasure. Then, as he finally drove all the way in, her eyelids fluttered closed and her inner muscles clenched him in the fist of heaven.
He gave her neck a soft squeeze and swirled a finger under her hair. “Open your eyes,” he whispered. “Look at me.”
When she did, warrior ferocity had replaced the feminine surrender. No fire magic dancing across her irises this time. Just Keko, connecting with him.
He withdrew a little, the grip and slide of her body making it exquisite, making it deliciously painful. But drawing back was the best, in his mind, because it just meant he got to go back in. That’s what he loved most. Entering her. Claiming her. Watching her control be dismantled piece by piece. It was the most freeing sensation when the world disappeared and all he knew was her.