A buzz of fresh heat entered his bloodstream as he remembered. “Yeah, you did.” Along with the heat came a sense of inevitability. Join, the nahwal had said, or all is lost. She had wanted proof that their being together was part of the gods’ plan before she risked the winikin by becoming his lover for real. But… “I’m still the same guy, Cara. I can’t change who I am.”
“There’s a newsflash.” Brief humor lightened her expression; then it softened to something he didn’t remember seeing from her before: peace. “I’m okay with that. More than okay, really. I didn’t ask for a sign that we were destined mates or meant to be together forever. That’s not what I want. I just needed to know that we weren’t talking ourselves into something that’s not real.”
As much as he was dying to touch her, he held himself back. “The magic is real,” he said, the words coming from deep inside him. “The connection we made upstairs… that’s real, and it means something. But at the same time, the magic shouldn’t force you to do anything you don’t want.”
“It’s not forcing me; it’s giving me permission.” Her lips curved, her eyes lit, and she held out her hand, palm up, to show a thin scar where a scab should have been. “Will you be my lover until the end of the age? Will you stand with me, fight with me, and help me lead my people beside yours?”
Said that way, it somehow took on the weight of a spell. He hesitated, though not because of the magic. “What happens after?”
“We say good-bye.” Her smile didn’t waver. “I’m not trying to trap you into anything, Sven, and I’m not letting the magic trap me. We’ll do our duties and, gods willing, save the world. And after that, we’ll go out there and live our lives knowing that each day after the twenty-first of December is a blessing. What could be better than that?”
They were the right words but they somehow struck him wrong, making him want to argue the inarguable. Instead, he took her hand and cradled it for a moment in his, surprised anew that hers was so small in comparison, yet held such strength. “You’re sure? This is what you want?”
She nodded, then looked up at him. “Yeah. You?”
He let his body answer for him, leaning in and sliding his hand up her arm and down to her waist, skimming over the textures of the dress and the woman beneath. Her eyes darkened and her breath caught, and a primal response surged up from deep inside him. Suddenly he wanted to nip at her neck, herd her into the bedroom, cover her with his body, and thrust into her warmth, pounding hard and heavy. He could see it in that instant, not just through his eyes, but through her senses, as well. He could smell their mingled scents, hear her cries, feel the furious pleasure of taking her as his own.
Do it, his overheated system chanted. Do it!
Instead, he eased in and skimmed his lips over her cheek to the corner of her mouth, lingering there while her hand crept up his arm and her fingers curled around his shoulder. He waited until she softened against him, until her lashes fluttered shut and she murmured his name, and then he claimed her mouth in a deep and drugging kiss, one that said, I want you, and, I need you, and, We’re going to take our time and make this last. And if on some level he knew that by holding back those mating urges he was trying to prove to her that there was more to them than just magic and circumstances, more than the gods’ intentions, he tried to let that go for now.
After all, he had known from the moment he kissed her in the coyote cave that neither of them was going to walk away from this unscathed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They went through the door into the bedroom together, kissing and dragging at clothing with reckless abandon.
Sven slapped the switch near the door and the room came to life, with light fracturing from a central chandelier and a series of wall sconces. Cara got a glimpse of gilt, and a huge, crimson-covered bed overwhelming the small shipboard space. Then he slammed the door and spun her back against it, lifting her and then pinning her there. And instead of, Am I really doing this? all she could think was, Oh, gods, yes.
She didn’t need to think any further than that—she’d gotten her sign in the nahwal’s message, and even without it, she knew that this was right for her, here and now. She would lead the winikin but she wouldn’t live her life in fear of them. If the future was only a few short months, she wanted to live those months with all the pleasure and magic she could find. And if “after” went beyond that, she would have fully experienced passion for the first time in her life, giving her a benchmark for her next lover to meet and exceed.
Not that she wanted to think about that next lover now.
Instead, she found Sven’s mouth with hers and poured herself into the kiss, taking it dark and wicked with her palms and tongue. He groaned in answer and ran his hands up her legs to push the dress high, and she stretched to wrap her legs around him, arch into him, and ride the hard ridge of his erection. The move wrung a growl from deep within his chest, and he lifted her higher to feast on her throat while she wrapped her arms around his neck, needing to hold him, touch him, be close to him. Closer still.
His kisses were ardent, his breathing fast and furious, his body a solid, immovable wall that brought nerves and the breathless weight of panic flashing through her as one part of her knew it was trapped, but another said, Yes, please, more.
She gave herself up to it, gloried in the way he held her off the ground without effort, pinning her with his lower body so his hands were free to touch and take. The dress was bunched at her waist now, his mouth at her breasts as she remained trapped between the flat press of the door and the yielding hardness of her lover.
Her lover. Yes. Sven was about to become her lover for real. Gods.
She buried her fingers in his hair and tugged back his head. His eyes were wild and glazed, his focus entirely on her, and when she drove her lips onto his, he met her stroke for stroke, with a rattling groan that echoed from him to her and back again, seeming caught in the heat and the magic that thrummed just beyond her senses.
“Not here. Not this time.” He spun them away from the door, cupping her ass so she rode him, as he carried her to the bed, kissing her, needing her. His hands raced over her, nearly violent in their speed, yet gentle when they connected. She leaned away, unfastened her dress, and skimmed it up over her head to fling it wonderfully free, so she was wearing only stockings, panties, and heels, and was wanton with it.
He lowered her to the bed but kept his weight off her as he kissed her and then drew away to stand over her, strip off his jacket, and reach for the buttons of his shirt. Then he went suddenly still, his eyes darkening as he looked down at her.
She lay deliciously sprawled, letting him look his fill while the blood pumped through her, making every inch of her tingle.
“Gods,” he said, his voice raspy, the word seeming to come from deep down inside him. “Cara.”
“Yes,” she said. Yes to all of it: to having him, taking him and being taken. This mattered; the rest of the world didn’t, not now. She rose to her knees and reached for the studs of his shirt, nudging his hands away. “Let me.” She opened his shirt and trailed kisses along his center line as it was revealed, undid his cuffs and slid the material back to kiss his marks, because they were a part of him. Then she unfastened his belt and the placket of his pants, and tugged them down in a slippery slide of expensive material to bare the flesh beneath. The sight of him straining against the fabric of his boxers quickened her breath, gripping her with frantic desire.
His boxers were a quick yank and gone, his shaft hard and pulsing with the beat of his heart, his testicles a warm, yielding weight that she could trail kisses across while she stroked his thighs, his buttocks, the cleft between. He shuddered and slapped for a bedpost, clutching it as his legs and body went rigid. He caught her shoulder, tried to urge her up his body, but didn’t try very hard.