When she grasped his cock, he shook all over. Obeying her silent urging, he fell back against the pillows and she came up to straddle him. He cupped her breasts again as she guided him between her legs, and she rubbed the tip of his erection back and forth on her, moistening the head.
Then she eased down, taking his stiff, hard length inside of her, and she felt so good, so tight, so absolutely, utterly perfect, he arched up to her, driving in as deeply as he could go.
She threw back her head, flexing her torso as she braced herself with both flattened hands on his chest. Her face was flushed, her eyes closed, as she lost herself in the moment.
That was what pulled him out of his own pleasure. He stared at her, transfixed by the sight of her. Her hair was tangled, and her skin showed rosy patches where his mouth had been.
He had marked her, him. She would never give anyone else blood, but him. She was lost in pleasure that he gave her.
Lightness filled the well in his soul. No one else might be able to hear his thoughts in that deep place, or know the balance of his decisions, but she joined him there. She did join him there, and he was not alone.
He spread his hands along the tops of her thighs, bracing her as she rode him, and he used his thumbs to stroke along the point of his entry into her flesh. When he reached her clitoris, her expression twisted with the most delicious agony. She ground down hard on him and sobbed for breath.
Watching her climax filled him with the deepest kind of pleasure. He whispered to her, small, gentle things, and when a tear slid down her cheek, he stroked it away.
When she finished, she looked down at him with such clear intent.
Then she bent forward and bit his lip, and he went crazy. Growling, he snatched her tight against him, one arm around her waist, the other gripping the back of her head, and he pistoned up into her tight, tight passage.
Truly, he couldn’t stand it—the pressure was driving him insane. He gasped in her ear, “You are so fucking mine.”
She lifted her head, with a look of surprise. “You said that in English.”
He paused, just for a moment, and surfaced somewhat from the passionate haze. “Well,” he said, even as he still moved inside her, “you really needed to know that.”
Her face lit with such beautiful luminosity. “I love you.”
Now, that was a gift he hadn’t seen coming. He pumped once, twice, three more times, and gave everything he had into her. It rode him hard, that climax, and he shuddered with the force of it.
Stroking his face, she rocked with him gently, until it had passed.
Me encantas, he whispered, kissing her temple. Te amo, querida. Te amo.
Sprawling across him, she laid her head on his shoulder with a sigh so deep, it shook down her entire length. He laced his fingers with hers, buried his face in her tangled hair and drifted into peaceful silence.
He could tell when she fell asleep. She did so suddenly, her body going completely lax. He could not quite join her. Once they stopped making love and the pleasure eased away, the dull, lingering ache from the poison kept him from truly resting.
He didn’t mind. He was too grateful to be alive, embodied and so intimately connected with her. Instead of trying to fight it, he surrendered to the experience, drifting with the ache, and relishing every moment of being with her.
They had survived. He would take her home. They would build something together. He didn’t know what. He didn’t really care. It would be some kind of definition that worked.
He would take her to his bed. They could sit on the veranda and listen to the wind play in the redwood forest.
And they would waltz. Yes, somehow they would waltz. Maybe she would like to join him sometimes in his study.
He remembered the book he had been reading when she had first come into his study, that old friend of his, Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy.
In his Meditations, Descartes had written one of the most famous tenets of modern Western philosophy.
Cogito ergo sum.
I think, therefore I am.
He had admired Descartes for many years, but while he stroked his fingers through Tess’s hair, patiently smoothing out every tangle, Xavier felt those words take an inevitable, gigantic shift into something profoundly different.
I love, he thought. Therefore I truly live.
Then he let it all go, gently, and was finally able to drift into a deep, dreamless sleep.
TWENTY
Tess slept for over thirty hours. When she woke up, she felt incredible. All of the myriad aches and pains she had accumulated over the last several weeks had vanished completely. She felt healthy, strong, fit and energetic.
Wow.
She rolled over to find Xavier sprawled on his stomach, fast asleep. Somehow he managed to take up most of the bed, while she had moved over to the edge of the mattress.