“But?” he asked, and he prayed that she wasn’t going to say that she wouldn’t touch him this time. He needed her touch, ached for it, didn’t know if he’d keep breathing without it. His skin still tingled from where she’d bound his wrists, and he wanted to burn like that everywhere. And he suspected that the same exhilarating near-orgasmic feeling that he experienced every time she touched him was reciprocated. He could tell by the way her skin instantly flushed when she touched him, by the way her eyes grew darker, more intense, filled with need.
“But I know now that every time I touch you, I’ll grow weaker, and while I don’t plan to let that stop me, I want you to know that if I’m pulled away again, that’s why.”
He focused on her words, and wrapped his brain around the biggest problem they were facing. “So that is what makes you leave,” he stated. “Touching me.”
“Growing weak makes me leave, and interacting with someone who is living makes me weak.” She smiled almost playfully. “But I want to interact with you, Dax, as closely as I possibly can.”
He smiled as well, but continued to try to figure out how they could make the most of their time together. He wanted her, there was no denying that, and he really didn’t want to wait to make it happen. But if touching him made her leave quicker…“Hell, this is going to be tough, but I want you here, for as long as you can stay.” He took a deep breath, thought about her hands caressing him, igniting him, burning. “How do you feel now?”
She brought her mouth close to his. “Excited.”
He laughed. “You’re not going to make this easy.”
“Make what easy?” she asked, and he could swear she was inhaling his scent as she spoke. But that wasn’t possible. Or it shouldn’t be. Ghosts shouldn’t inhale anything, but then again, ghosts shouldn’t sleep, either.
“My proposition. That we talk for a while first, before you touch me, and before you grow weaker.”
“That’s probably still considered interacting with someone who’s living, don’t you think?” she asked, and her eyes grew darker still as she tenderly put her tongue against his lower lip, then slid it inside.
Dax couldn’t stop her. And hell, he didn’t want to. He opened his mouth and accepted the sweet taste of her, sizzling and even more intense than the touches on his wrists. There was a living flame within her, hotter than anything he’d ever experienced with a breathing woman, and he couldn’t get enough. His tongue joined hers and they stroked against each other as she moved on top of him, the satin fabric of her gown and his thin sheet the only obstacles between her body and his.
Her gown. Memories of his conversation with Ryan invaded the moment, bringing with it the realization that he needed to try to control the sexual intensity of this, or she’d disappear again, and he’d have wasted a chance to find out how to hold on to this, hold on to her, for longer than a mere visit.
It took every ounce of willpower to break away from her kiss. “Celeste. Please.”
“Anything,” she whispered. “Just tell me what to do. I want to learn.”
Have mercy, she was going to be the death of him. “Trust me, you’re doing fine,” he said, then pulled against his restraints to move his head up on the pillow. She hadn’t bound him overly tight, and he suspected that if he pulled hard enough, both hands would be free. But hell, that’d really get him in hot water with the powers that be, wouldn’t it? And they had let her come back, even if only briefly, so he didn’t want to do anything to piss them off.
“Then what is it?” she asked, and Dax noticed the concern in her eyes. “Dax, I know I’ll get pulled away again, and I have no idea when that will happen. I don’t want to waste time.”
“Neither do I, believe me. But I also don’t want to lose you again without trying to figure out how to get you back. I know there’s got to be a way, and I’m thinking you can help me figure it out if we talk for a minute.” He smiled at her, and eased his body to the side so he couldn’t feel her through the sheet. He needed to make this last, and weakening her wasn’t the way to make that happen. “Let’s talk a little first.”
The pain in her eyes touched his heart. “Dax, if I cross without ever making love to you, I’ll never forgive myself for not taking advantage of this chance.”
He wanted to ask her so many questions-why she couldn’t control the time she came to him or the time she left, why she grew tired when no other ghost he’d ever known needed sleep, why she was wearing that nightgown again, if indeed she could change her clothes at will. And if she couldn’t change, then why couldn’t she, when Ryan had been able to? So many questions, but looking into her eyes, he realized-none of them mattered. What if they started talking, as he’d suggested, and then she was pulled away before they touched again? Could he forgive himself if he caused her to cross, completely, and never experienced making love with her?
“I don’t want to talk either,” he said honestly. “I want you, Celeste.”
She smiled and stood from the bed. Then she looked at him, and her gray eyes turned charcoal with desire. “In your dream, what was I wearing?”
“Nothing.”
She moved one finger to her shoulder and pushed the shiny fabric down, then she shifted slightly, and the other side also spilled down her arm, so the fabric rested at her elbows, and her breasts were bare.
His dream had been amazingly accurate. Full and lush and tipped with rose-tinted peaks, they were perfect. As in his dream, he ached to caress them with his mouth, and to learn the sweet sounds she’d make when he did. He wanted to learn what excited her, what aroused her, what ignited that slow burn within her until it exploded…around him.
She shifted her hips slightly and dropped her arms to her sides, and the fabric continued on its path to the floor.
Dax’s erection pushed high against the sheet, and he forced himself to breathe. She was naked, boldly, beautifully naked, and exceptional, from the tiny navel that centered her slim waist, to the curved hips, a little more than in his dream, and damn if he didn’t like the extra too. Her legs, as he’d imagined, were toned and well sculpted, perfect for nuzzling when they finally made love, and he would nuzzle them, kiss them, caress them, on his path to her core, hidden from his view with shimmering golden curls. He wanted to part those curls and taste her, feel the most heated part of her against his tongue, feel her pulse against his mouth as she came.
She turned toward the bed and he watched her attention move to the tented portion of the sheet, and the damp spot where he was already preparing to enter her. “You said it has been a long time,” she whispered, then her hands grasped the sheet, and she slowly slid it down his body, eyeing each revealed inch of his flesh. “How long has it been?”
Her eyes were nearly black as she looked up at him from the foot of the bed. In the back of his mind, he knew that something wasn’t right about that either. Her eyes had been lighter earlier, then darker, and now darker still. But he didn’t have time to analyze it, because she dropped the sheet to the floor, then climbed up on the bed, and took his breath away. Her hair fell wildly across his legs as she brought her face near his erection and asked again, “How long has it been, Dax?”
“I haven’t been with a woman since I met you,” he said, giving her the truth. “No one else would do.”
Her hands circled his penis, and then she brought her mouth to the tip and licked the first drops away.
The heat of Celeste’s mouth was even more potent, as though he were being flicked with hot coal…and he didn’t ever want it to stop. He’d never had any sexual encounter remotely like this, where he honestly felt as if his body couldn’t take it, but he prayed that it could.
“I’ve never done this before, Dax, and yet, I can sense exactly how this makes you feel, exactly where you want me to touch, exactly what you want me to do. It’s-it’s making me burn inside.”