Everlasting - Iris Johansen [38]
He slowly bent forward, his eyes never leaving hers. He nudged against her gently and she could see the wild drumming of the pulse in his temple. His lips moved in a gossamer-soft caress across her mouth. Sweetness, gentleness, a honeycomb of joy. “Open. Let me come in, love. We have to be together.”
She opened her mouth and his tongue plunged into it with a wild hardness that surprised her after his gentle overture. He groaned into her throat and she felt his entire body tense with unbearable strain. “Together.” He had lifted his lips a fraction from hers and each syllable of the word had been another kiss. His hips plunged forward as his tongue entered her mouth once again.
Pain. Sharp. Startling. Then it was gone, but the hunger was still there. Zack was moving slowly, carefully. What a beautiful fullness. Hot and heavy. Yet after the first moment it wasn't enough. There was something else waiting for her. Her palms moved restlessly on his hips. She loved the feel of his skin beneath her hands. She wanted to run them all over him and feel the textures. But not now. Now she had to find that something… She lunged upward and Zack gave a low cry, as if he had been stung by a whip.
“Kira, I don't want to hurt you…” She lunged again and his back arched in an agony of pleasure. He closed his eyes. “All right, but you must tell me if you want me to stop.” His husky laugh held a touch of desperation. “I only hope I can still hear you.”
He plunged forward with a power and passion that robbed her of breath and then unleashed a fiery rhythm that turned her mindless with sensation. How could anything be this tempest-driven? His hands were beneath her buttocks, lifting her to greater closeness, and his eyes opened to stare down at her blindly.
Together. The word was radiant with beauty. She hadn't realized it until this moment. Closeness and striving for greater unity. The rhythm breaking through barriers to emotion she never had known existed. For it was emotion and not just sensation, she realized dimly. They had passed the point of hunger and were reaching for something beyond. Mondava? Part of it, perhaps. She couldn't analyze anything when she was so close… Then she was there in a burst of radiance that illuminated the world. She heard his low, hoarse cry above her. Zack. Mondava. Together.
He was holding her with trembling arms, resting against her, his chest rising and falling heavily. He kissed her tenderly, a silent joining filled with peace, gratitude, sweetness. “I'm too heavy. I must be crushing you.” He moved off her with a smile that lit his face with gentleness. “Thank you.”
He sat up and a little away from her. He was framed against a dawn shot with pink and gold and magenta, and she wanted to keep looking at him forever. He was all sleek bronze power and rippling muscle and seemed to be an integral part of the sky and the forest of maple and beech trees wreathed in the scarlet and gold of autumn.
“You're not saying anything. Are you all right?”
“I'm wonderful.” She sat up with a grin. “And so are you.”
He frowned. “I hope your first time wasn't a disappointment. I wasn't that great, you know. I'll do better now that—” He broke off. “Do you know how beautiful you are sitting there? The sunlight is turning your hair the same shade as those maple leaves.” She reached for her sweater and he frowned again. “Don't you like me looking at you?”
She smiled. She had never imagined Zack could be even the slightest bit insecure. “I feel perfectly natural and at ease with you.” It was true. It was as though she had sat before him naked and joyously uninhibited a thousand times like this.
“Then why are you—”
She held up her hand to stop him. “For