Sparks of temper had begun to flicker in those long almond-shaped Egyptian eyes of hers. Rune widened his own gaze. He was greedy to suck in every detail of this gorgeous deadly woman. He didn’t want to blink and miss a moment.
Somehow Carling managed to make the concepts of beauty and perfection seem mundane. He took in the long glossy dark hair that swung free to her slender waist. It had rich auburn glints in the sun, as though she burned with a deep internal fire. He contemplated the graceful length of her neck, plunging as it did to curvaceous collarbones that spread outward toward shapely shoulders like the wings on a dove. He sensed the ripe fullness of her unbound breasts moving underneath the loose black caftan, and snap, the shutter in his mind took him back to the river when he had stared at those bare round voluptuous globes, striped with white scars and crowned with dark nipples standing erotically erect, and when he had looked at her, he had felt a need so stark it had become a physical pain and a spiritual torment.
For as long as he could remember, Carling had been a singularity. Even though she was always accompanied by a retinue of tall, beautiful and deadly elegant Vampyres as attendants, and even though those attendants often included male companions, she outshone every other star in her constellation as she burned with the intensity of a supernova. Women viewed her as a threat, and males looked at her with avarice, and she taught them all the measure of their own limitations.
Rune’s need revved a high-end horsepower engine and took him on a Harley-Davidson ride. He rose to his feet, and her storm-filled imperious gaze lifted with him.
“Perhaps you have forgotten,” he said in a gentle voice. “Let me show you.”
Then it was his turn to frame the pure slender arc of her jaw between his large callused hands, and she let him. Her honey-colored skin was cool to the touch, and her Power thrummed against his palms. Good night, how did she hold all of it in and not fly apart at the seams?
He stroked her lips with the ball of one thumb. Her skin had a silken texture, the soft plump flesh giving way under the small pressure. His hands were too hardened from fighting and other manual labor. The only way he could truly know the depth of that exquisite softness was to cover it with his mouth.
“If I may,” he murmured.
He bent his head toward that incomparable face, giving her plenty of time to react and to tell him no. Then he fought to hide how he shuddered deep inside as he covered her lips with his own, stroking along the unique plush terrain of her mouth, focusing all of his attention on relishing the precious experience.
And she let him.
He took care with her. One should treat the rarest of treasures with respect. He coaxed the tilt of her head into the right angle and adjusted his stance in such a way that he just barely brushed against the front of her body. He laid the length of one of his hands at the juncture where the bottom of her skull curved into the slender flower-stalk of her graceful neck. His fingers were so long they cradled her effortlessly.
He invited her to lean back into his steady supporting hold, leading her into the first steps of an intimate dance. She followed him, shifting just that exquisite amount he coaxed from her and no more, letting her head rest in his hand, which made her spine arch with languorous intent. Holy hell, she would be an intelligent lover, the most ingenious of lovers that understood the intricate nuances of the dance, and when to listen and respond to the tiniest catch of a sigh, and when to let rip-roaring loose with everything one had.
Her flesh warmed beneath his mouth and between his hands, and she took a breath. It was the third breath she had taken since they had met that morning. Each useless, telltale one made him want to growl in triumph.
He dared to take the succulent swell of her lower lip between his teeth and suckle at it, ever so lightly.
Her lips trembled and fell open.
The gryphon inside him roared.
He took his time taking the internal private place of her mouth. He slanted his head sideways and curled his tongue into her. She made a low throaty noise that was so sensual it rocked his soul and shoved him into a paradigm shift. She wound her arms around his neck, leaned full against him and kissed him back.
Rune’s control jettisoned off the planet, leaving him behind to snatch at her in amazement. He crushed her to him, his arms around her waist, lifting her off the ground as he speared into her blindly. His heart pounded in massive sledgehammer strokes, and his skin became a thin veneer that cloaked a pillar of flame. He put a hand to her hip and gripped her hard, then ran his hand compulsively up the length of her torso to the weighted fullness of her breast. The plump round mound filled his greedy palm, and she fit, she just fucking fit, like some keystroke password to an unbreakable code. A sound came out of her. It sounded raw with surprise and he swallowed it down. His shaking fingers sought for and found her nipple jutting underneath the cloth.