Pausing, he met her gaze. “Everything okay?”
Hell no, nothing was okay. He was taking her apart and remaking her, and he hadn’t even touched her again yet.
But he waited for her reply, and she wasn’t about to deny herself a moment of this singular experience, no matter what it did to her or who she became when she reached the other side of it.
Opening her arms to him, she said, “Everything is perfect.”
Nikolas was hard put to describe to himself or understand exactly why Sophie affected him so powerfully.
All he truly knew was that she did. Her insane courage, the way she thought, the way she laughed, the way her incredible eyes sparkled with so much lively humor or outrage, and how either emotion could change in an instant.
Her clever use of her magic and her fierce defense of her own boundaries—stitched together, all those characteristics created a person of such wholeness and appeal that in the course of a single day, she had moved effortlessly to take center stage in his thoughts.
He loved her curves. Loved them. They were so alien to his own body, so compelling. He touched her lips, the tips of her breasts, and ran his fingers lightly over the swell of her hips and felt her shiver underneath his touch.
Aside from the three ragged scars at shoulder, abdomen, and thigh, her creamy skin was flawless. She might disagree, but he thought those scars were beautiful. Each one was a badge honoring her courage and strength.
She had said she had lost muscle tone, but he didn’t see it. Her body was sleek and toned. Only the concave hollows at her stomach, under her collarbones and cheekbones gave any hint at the weight she had lost. Her breasts were generously rounded, the plump dusky nipples erect and inviting.
Her eyes gathered all the light in the room. For a moment he had the oddest feeling that they gathered all the light inside him too, however much had managed to survive these past several years, and they magnified all of it to shine as brilliant as stars in the bedroom’s muted lighting. He had always loved starlight’s cool, distant magic.
He needed to touch and taste her everywhere, badly enough that his hands shook with a fine tremor as he pulled her into his arms. The sensation of her body against his, bare skin to bare skin, reverberated through both of them, creating a vibration that was neither one nor the other but a combination of both.
There was nothing else in the entire universe, nothing but the two of them together. Her curves, his angles. Her light, his darkness. Her softness, his exquisitely aching hardness.
Male. Female.
Her head fell back against his arm as she stared at him, and her plump, delectable lips parted.
It was all the invitation he needed. He gave into the internal fire that burned so hot for her, and it consumed him.
Chapter Twelve
Yanking her body against him, he ravaged her mouth, succumbing to blind instinct as he plunged his tongue into her as deeply as he could. Her groan trembled against his lips. Unsure if she welcomed his onslaught, he paused, and in response, she gripped his shoulders and kissed him back with wild abandon.
Her transparent eagerness burned away the last of his restraint. Easing her back onto the bed, bringing the weight of his body over hers to pin her down, he ran a hand down her torso while he feasted on her mouth.
The soft, pliant responsiveness of her lips, the plump generosity of her breasts, the way her legs moved restlessly against his, every detail of the sensory input fed his hunger until he felt like his skin was nothing more than the thinnest of covers for the light and heat that roared inside him.
Ravenously he nipped and suckled at her skin as he moved down her body, her enticing lower lip, the delicate spot at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, the gorgeous round flesh of her breasts, oh gods, her breasts. He lost himself in teasing her nipples, biting gently at the turgid peaks until she cried out in incoherent pleasure, working her fingers restlessly against his scalp as she held his head to her.
He sucked harder, and she bucked underneath him, pushing off the bed as she arched into his touch. She was so perfectly, exquisitely responsive, the heavy spike of need that dangled between his legs grew even tighter, harder.
“I want to do everything to you, all at once,” he muttered. “I want to stroke you, fuck you, hold you down, lift you up, pin you, take you. I want you to take me. Lord and Lady, Sophie, I don’t know that I have any gentleness in me tonight.”
“You talk awfully sexy in bed.” She twisted to whisper unsteadily in his ear just before she bit his lobe hard enough to send a jolt of sensation all the way down to his cock. “But if you’re wanting to actually communicate something to me, you’re going to have to do it in English.”
Lifting his head, he stared down at her. He hadn’t even realized he had slipped into his native tongue. Running his hand down the slope of her stomach, he stroked along the gentle curve of her pelvis, fingering the black tuft of silken hair at the juncture between her legs.
He’d already forgotten what he had said before.
“I want to fuck you into tomorrow,” he said between his teeth. Probing carefully between her legs, he fingered the soft, delectable folds of flesh that grew slick with the evidence of her desire. “I want to fuck you so hard you can’t walk until next week.”
“Promises,” she gasped on an unsteady laugh.
As he explored her, she opened her legs and her expression twisted in a combination of pleasure and distress, and her breathing came harder and more raggedly. She pushed up with her hips, rubbing herself against his hand, while she raised her head and they both looked down at their bodies.
Their legs lay entwined. His were heavier, corded with muscle and sprinkled with dark hair, while her more delicate bone structure made her legs looked lighter and leaner. His thick, hard erection lay against her hip, the broad mushroom head exposed.
“Mmm,” she said in throaty welcome as she reached for it with both hands. When she touched him, the bolt of pleasure was so sharp he nearly spurted into her palm. She stroked her thumb along the small, sensitive slit at the tip, and in response a drop of moisture appeared. She rubbed it into his skin.
Then in his own exploration of her most sensitive flesh, he found the stiff, delicate little pearl hidden in her private folds, and as he rubbed it, she nearly came off the bed with a strangled scream.
Oh, he loved that. He loved her reaction. Fiercely clamping down on his self-control, he flicked and massaged her clitoris in teasing circles until she gripped his wrist and ripples of reaction shook visibly through her body.
Unable to hold back his own hunger, he bent to fill his mouth again with one of her luscious nipples, and he suckled at her while he flicked at her clit, and the tension in her body grew and grew until a fine sweat broke over her silken skin and she vibrated like the taut string on an archer’s bow.
Give it to me, he said in her head. Come for me.
I-I can’t. She gasped for air and shook harder. I love this, I love how it feels, but I can’t climax like this. Not during our first time together.
What was this? He lifted his head to frown down at her. “What do you mean, you cannot climax like this?”
Lifting one shoulder, she gave him a lopsided smile. “It takes me a while to grow to trust my partner enough to let go. It’s just a thing; it’s not a big deal. It’s just who I am.”
“Well, I do not accept that reasoning,” he growled. “You trust me. You would not be here with me now, unclothed in your bed, if you did not.”
“Well…” Her voice trailed away as she frowned.