“Piece of cake, right?” she said breathlessly. “Mmn, what I wouldn’t give for a piece of cake right now.”
It surprised a chuckle out of him. Never mind all the gourmet foods she had generous access to – she always had been a fiend for chocolate cake made from a box mix, with sour cream frosting.
“When we get out of here, I’ll bake a cake for you, myself,” he promised. “One with a file in it.”
Her flat stomach flexed as she snorted. “Now, that I would have to see, although I don’t know about eating any of it. You don’t know the first thing about how to bake a cake, or for that matter, how to bake anything else.”
“Don’t be too sure,” he murmured. “Baking is just chemistry, and the directions are printed on the box, right? Besides, I watched you do it a couple of times.”
“Sure you did,” she retorted. “You watched me all of twenty years ago, and you never had a vested interest in the process.”
She was wrong. He’d had a vested interest in everything she did. What she wore, the way she moved, the things she loved. The times they had spent in the kitchen, as she fixed herself something to eat and he opened a bottle of wine for them to share, were some of his favorite memories of when they had been together.
He hadn’t let himself think of those times in years, but he did so now, immersing himself in the memories. The way she had thrown back her head to laugh. The time she had teased him into dancing while her pasta water boiled away, forgotten, and the pan had burned.
After they had put out the small kitchen fire, he had growled, “To hell with it.”
With one sweep of his arm, he had cleared the kitchen table and lifted her onto it. Laughing, she had lain back, her arms over her head, while he knelt between her legs to feast on her gorgeous, delicate flesh. When he had risen at last to sink his aching erection into her, she had clasped him tight in wholehearted welcome, with her arms and legs, body and soul.
As he thought of how she had hugged him, his eyes grew damp.
The last manacle fell from his wrist.
“There,” she whispered, her breath catching on another sob. “Oh thank God, there.”
Eight
F
inally free, he wrapped both arms around her and sank to his knees, only loosening his hold just enough so that she could slide onto his lap. Then he clenched her against his chest again. Her arms slid around his neck, and she held him just as tightly.
“I’ve got you, Melisande,” he whispered.
Her quick, ragged breathing sounded in his ear. “I’ve been so, so scared.”
“I know. I’ve been scared too.” Without fully being aware of what he did, he sank one fist into the back of her curly, tangled hair and pulled her head back so that he could look deep into her eyes. He whispered, “Jesus, he was going to rape you, and I couldn’t have done anything to prevent it.”
“Don’t think like that,” she said, as she framed his face between her hands. “It didn’t happen. I didn’t let it happen. But oh God, Julian, when she was cutting you, I went half out of my mind. I thought it would never end – and when she let the ferals into your cell, I was so afraid they were going to kill you.”
“Stop it.” His voice turned harsh. “It was nothing, and it’s over with now. It’s all done.”
She opened her eyes very wide. “I. Can’t. Stop. This. And I’m not even going to try. I’ve been promising myself this meltdown for two damn hellish hellish HELLISH days, and nothing’s going to keep me from it now.”
He stared at her in utter perplexity. She looked terrible. She looked adorable.
She looked stripped down, totally raw, like she didn’t have a single barrier left between her and the world, and he couldn’t take it any longer.
He covered her shaking mouth with his, and when he felt the soft curve of her lips move in response to his, it felt so damn good, just as he had remembered it, just as he had always known it would.
No, it didn’t feel just as he remembered – it felt better. It felt like a vital, necessary part of his life had come back to him. Ravenously he parted her lips with his tongue and conquered the private recesses of her luscious mouth.
And she kissed him back.
Her active, eager involvement, the sensation of her tongue colliding with his, set fire to all of his nerve endings. After having been so parched for so many years, he drowned himself in her.
She gripped him at the back of his head with both hands while she wrapped those long, slender legs around his waist, and in response, he growled low in his throat while his cock swelled to stiff attention, pushing at the restraints of his jeans.