My own breath brushed his erection and he leaped. My lips curved as I raised my head, pressed a kiss to the soft skin, pulled hard and tight over his pelvis. I hovered, centimeters away from where he wanted me to be, his penis rising higher and higher, nearly brushing my chin, and then I pounced, running my tongue over the vein in his thigh as he’d run his over mine.
His back arched—pleasure or pain?—and his fingernails scraped the carpet as he clenched his hands. I rested my head against one thigh and smoothed my palm down the length of the other, swirling my index finger over the scattering of black hair. He had very little body hair, like most full-blooded Native Americans, or so I’d heard. There aren’t many left to ask.
I explored his knees, pressing first my thumbs, then my tongue into the valleys. When I licked the seam at the back, then took a fold into my mouth and suckled, his breath caught as if he might come.
I raised my head, a brow, and watched as he breathed deeply—once, twice, again—before some of the tension slid away.
“Almost,” I said, and gave the same attention to his feet, pressing my fingers here and there, testing his toes with my teeth until he moaned.
Then I shimmied my way back up his body and licked the rattlesnake tattooed on his dick. I’d never been sure if that was a joke—if so, it had Sawyer’s name all over it—or a way to keep a dangerous predator under wraps, so to speak.
I meant to take more time, give him a reward for being so patient, but I’d waited too long, touched him too much, and after that one leisurely lick and a single dip of my mouth over the head, he grabbed me by the elbows and dragged my lips to meet his.
He was wild now—his teeth nipping, catching, and pulling—first at my mouth, then at my neck, my breasts. The sharp draw on first one nipple then the next caused an answering tug much lower. I was so empty, and I desperately needed to be full.
As if he knew, his hands slid from my arms to my hips, over the curve until they rested at the backs of my thighs, then he lifted and separated, sliding within the warm, wet place that waited.
He stretched and filled me, claimed and completed me. Clenching my knees to his sides, I rode the tide. I reached for him and met his hands reaching for mine. We strove toward the place where we would splinter and then fall.
Thrusting together—almost—sliding apart—not quite. Together, apart, almost, not quite. And then—
At last.
Our hands clenched palm-to-palm, fingers grasping, thumbs caressing. I collapsed onto his chest, pressed my face into his neck, breathed in the desert mountain scent of him, felt his warmth, his breath, his touch. Exhaustion hovered, my eyes so heavy, my limbs the same.
“I don’t want to go to sleep,” I whispered, and shifted so his hair cascaded over me, shielding me from the world.
If I slept, I’d wake up back there. I knew that as surely as I knew the taste of his skin. If I stayed awake would I remain here—wherever here was—forever?
What about the other side of that mirror? The world I’d pledged to protect. The other man I loved. The child I’d sworn to keep safe. Both places pulled at me, increasing the exhaustion I felt.
I resisted as long as I could. I listened to Sawyer breathing, focused on the steady in and out, the muffled thud of his heart—a heart I knew to be as silent now as Sawyer—beneath my own. I both wanted to stay and had to go.
Eventually, consciousness slipped away despite my efforts to fight it. When I opened my eyes, I lay face-down on the empty, lonely, cold motel bed—my head at the foot, my feet near the head—my hands clutching the sheets, my face hot and streaked with sweat, my body still trembling from the orgasm only he could give.
“Fuck,” I muttered, and turned over, my gaze drawn to the mirror.
Was I here or was I there?
But the mirror reflected this room exactly, the fading darkness behind the curtains, the coming dawn. I’d have thought the entire thing a dream, that I’d never gone into the mirror at all, except—
Near my feet stood a wolf in every shade of midnight-blue and black and purple—with eyes of so light a gray they appeared to blaze like silver stars. A nonexistent wind ruffled his fur and whirled the scent of water and trees and earth through the room.
He appeared as solid as I was. I couldn’t see through him; his paws made dents in the quilt; his weight lowered the bed below him.
Holding my breath, afraid to believe that he would still be there when I took my gaze from the mirror and turned, nevertheless I did.
The wolf remained—slick and solid as sin. I reached for him, and felt the silky sift of his coat, yet my fingers passed right through him.
And as they did, his body became smoke and disappeared.
CHAPTER 19
I swore I could still smell him—on the sheets, on my skin. I passed my hand over the bed where he’d stood, hoping to feel the warmth from where he’d lain, though that could easily be explained as my own body heat. What couldn’t be explained was the tiny icon I found there.