Kiss of Snow

Teeth nibbling at her shoulder, a wolfish tease. “Orgasm. I think that’s the word you’re looking for.” His fingers dipped just below the waistband of her pajama bottoms, making her pulse jump. He licked over the spot on her neck.

She clenched around his thigh. “Hawke.”

“Say stop and we’ll stop.” Words spoken against the flush of her skin, but they held a serious undertone.

It turned a key inside of her to realize he was doing exactly as he’d said he’d do—respecting her decision when it came to her abilities. “Not yet,” she whispered, keeping a rigid psychic grip on the reins of the cold fire.

Murmuring in approval, he withdrew his fingers, shifting their positions until he was braced on his side beside her as she lay on her back. Throwing a leg over her own, he said, “Wouldn’t want you to escape,” as he bent to kiss her.

It was slow, lazy, as if he had nowhere to be, though she knew he had a thousand calls on his time. Curling her arms around his neck, she drank in the warm masculinity of him as he continued to play his fingers over her skin. “Yes?” he asked into her mouth when she broke off to catch her breath.

Her stomach held a thousand frantic, trapped butterflies. It scared her how much he made her feel—and that angered her. Sienna Lauren, Cardinal X, was never scared. It wasn’t who she was. “Yes,” she said.

He chuckled, pressing affectionate little kisses on the corners of her mouth. “So stubborn.” Another kiss, a little bite of her lower lip as he slid his hand a fraction lower. “Exactly like I like you.”

She felt her abdomen quiver, was powerless to stop it. Gripping his arm with one hand, the other on his shoulder, she luxuriated in the sensation of the muscle and tendon of him moving under her touch as he drew more of those languid circles low on her navel.

Lower.

A gasp escaped her, smothered against the skin of his neck. He smelled of warmth and man and Hawke. Just Hawke. Always Hawke. So when he slipped his hand under the waistband of her panties to run his finger down the center of her, she arched her body toward him in instinctive response.

He liked that. She knew because he kissed her jaw, murmured, “You’re damp. I can smell you, all luscious and ready. Makes my mouth water.” His finger stroked back up, and then he used two to spear through her, trapping her clitoris in between.





SO responsive, Hawke thought as her body arched again, so sweetly responsive. It was all he could do not to pull down the pajama bottoms and panties she’d worn to bed with a faded red tank and lick her up like his own personal dessert banquet. The sole thing stopping him was the fact that he knew he’d have to rush it.

“That’s it,” he murmured against those lush lips he loved to kiss, to bite, to suck, “let me pet you. Let me please you.” Circling one finger at the slick entrance of her body, he pushed in gentle demand.

Her hands clenched on him again, but he tasted no fear in her scent—only the earthy, intoxicating musk of feminine arousal. Still, he kissed and stroked and nuzzled until she relaxed, until she let him in. God, she was tight. Her cry was a breathy sound against his senses, her hips motionless for two long seconds before she began to shift them in experimental little moves on the intrusion of his finger.

He shuddered, kissed his way back up her throat to capture her mouth. “Damn, you’re beautiful,” he said when she gasped for breath.

Using his thumb to rub at the tight bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs even as he continued to thrust in and out of her with his finger, he bent his head and very carefully bit her nipple through the soft fabric of her tank.

“Hawke!” Her body fractured around his hand, the slick heat of her such wicked temptation that he continued to stroke inside her as she trembled down from the orgasm, inciting tiny aftershocks of pleasure and indulging himself in the silken tightness of her at the same time.

Withdrawing his finger only when she moaned, her body limp, he cupped her with possessive intimacy and took her mouth again, nipping and licking and tasting. “Good morning.”

That cardinal gaze was a soft, hazy black when her lashes lifted. “Good morning.” Kiss-swollen lips shaping the words, the skin of her face marked red from the roughness of his stubble.

He should’ve been sorry he supposed, but he wasn’t. He liked seeing his marks on her. Playing with the damp curls between her legs, careful not to touch her oversensitized clit, he simply watched her for long moments. His cock was a hard ridge in his sweats, his need painful, but no way in hell was he going to settle for a quickie their first time together.

Then she reached down to close her fingers over him.





Chapter 37


CHRIST. SLIDING HIS hand out from between her legs to press against the bed, he allowed himself to push into her touch. Once. Twice. “Enough.” Grabbing her wrist, he pinned it by her head.

Lazy, sated eyes smiled at him. “You felt so hard and hot and—”