As they lay entangled, she gradually floated back to herself enough to become aware of his erection against her hip. He was still hard, still wanting, while she was one of the steam clouds, shapeless and drifting.
His hands tenderly arranged her on top. He took his time kissing her. She sank into his lips, met his tongue and danced with him, and then she felt more of him than his tongue slide into her when the head of his cock breached where his fingers and mouth had already graced. He pushed into her slick readiness, pushed her back to the precipice, but flat on top of him her body didn’t angle enough for what she wanted. To feel him deeper, to connect harder, required her to abandon the pleasure of his kisses, but there would be more if she pushed herself up.
The loss of his lips under hers was instantly compensated by the depth of his penetration when their bodies finally fully merged. Up and down, her thighs pushed her those inches that drove her pleasure. Under her hands, his chest shuddered. He gripped her hips tighter and bucked in a lover’s rhythm of thrusts and pulls, punctuated by the slapping sounds of their sweat-slicked bodies. At the moment she quivered, ready to collapse onto his chest, he lifted her nearly off the bench as he drove deeply and shouted her name.
For a long time, neither of them spoke or moved. She breathed against his shoulder. He stroked her hair. They had no strength to do more.
“I’ll miss you.” His voice sounded thick and sleepy.
“Hmm?” It took a moment for his words to penetrate her lethargy. “What’d you say?”
“I’m flying to Copenhagen tomorrow. To find the sword hilt.”
Her stepfather had given her a passport, but she didn’t know if her ankle charger would work with European voltage and outlets. She might need an adapter.
“You’ll be safe here with Ivar.”
“What?” No way was she waiting in New York while he shot off to Copenhagen. She pushed away from his damp chest, but in the absolute dark, she couldn’t see his expression. “Finding the sword hilt was my idea. You’re not going without me.”
“But—” He stopped.
“But what?” Had he learned nothing about her?
“Ahh, I like your butt?” His voice rose while his hand stroked until he found the ticklish crease above the back of her thigh, making her giggle while he stalled. “A lot.”
“You can’t wiggle out of this.” The conviction she managed to put in her voice was completely undermined by the reflexive way her lower body rubbed against his.
“It’s much better when you wiggle—” he gripped her waist and shifted her to where she could rub on his erect cock, “—on this.”
“I’m going with you to Copennnn—”
His teeth found her nipple in the dark and tugged with exactly the right pressure, sending her head back and her whole body arching into the pull, but she wouldn’t give up.
“—haaaahh—”
He guided himself to her entrance and pushed in again, gliding past an ultrasensitive spot as he filled her.
“—gen.” His smooth withdrawal and slow return were so pleasurable on her twice-primed body that she wondered if she’d survive a third.
No way she’d let him disappear without her, not after this.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When Wulf spotted Cruz, earbuds in and eyes half-closed as if napping in the airport waiting area, he whispered to Theresa, “If you recognize anyone, don’t acknowledge.”
“Should I recognize someone?” she whispered back. Even his arguments about other immortals had failed to talk her out of joining him on the trip to Denmark. When Ivar supported her position by saying she added balance, he’d given in to her insistence, but he’d need his team more than ever to keep her safe. Maybe he should have invited Deavers and Kahananui.
“Forgot to tell you.” The first class boarding announcement for their flight momentarily interrupted him. “I called in the team.”
Her mouth made a little O of surprise, but she recovered while he grabbed both carry-ons. He was prepared to steady her if she stumbled on the inclined jet bridge, but she stepped smoothly over the gap from the gangway and moved briskly to their spacious leather seats. It was a good beginning, one that kindled hope that, with her research and his friends at their backs, they’d pull this off.
Near the end of boarding, a man dressed in anonymous khakis and an unzipped ski parka eased sideways up the aisle behind a Hindi-speaking family. Wulf didn’t need to see his face to know his former commander. He coughed hard into his hand, intentionally making a sound that resembled a profanity, but he didn’t care who he offended. Deavers deserved to be called a bastard for this stunt, and if Deavers was here, no doubt Wulf would also catch a mountain wearing a flowered shirt squeezing past all the people stuffing duty-free bags in the bins.
As Deavers shuffled past, he also sneezed. It sounded remarkably like he’d said, You too.
Confirmation that they hadn’t listened to his warnings didn’t anger him as much as he’d vowed. Since he’d erased himself in that Afghan river, every day had felt like he was missing a lung that never grew back. He’d sweated through Morocco alone, although he needed a pack as much as his namesake. So he was a selfish man, and he felt guilty too, but in his gut he’d known how this would roll even before he’d dialed. A truthful man would also admit that he wanted friends at his back because he was scared of winding up like Ivar.
Two hours into the eight-hour flight, dessert had been cleared from their tray tables and the lights dimmed. He lifted Theresa’s hand to his lips. “You know the seats recline almost flat in first class? And there’s a privacy partition.”
With her chin tucked to her chest and her eyebrows raised, she glanced left and right and then shot him a dubious look. “You can’t be serious.”
He adopted a puppy face. “We could just cuddle?”
Her lips twitched and her nose flared, as if she was fighting to hold in laughter. “Right.”
Just cuddle. At least Cruz was too far in the back to hear how low he’d sunk.
She focused on her paperback, but all he could process was the word Licking written in glowing type on the cover. It reminded him of their sojourn in the sauna, and he let his eyes settle on the rise and fall of her breasts under her pink sweater. The sweater looked soft, and her skin underneath would be smooth and warm. Perhaps if he put his hand on her thigh—
“Quit staring,” she muttered without removing her eyes from the page. “Do you need something to read?”
“No, thanks.” He retrieved The Face of Battle. If anything could compete with the scent of oranges surrounding the woman next to him, it would be John Keegan’s three hundred fifty pages.
“How much longer?”
Theresa’s question pulled him away from the screaming horses at Waterloo and the stinking mud of the Somme. Surprised by how long they’d been reading, he double-checked his answer. “Less than two hours. With the time difference, we land in Copenhagen about 0730.”