Then she smiled that subtle, mysterious Mona Lisa smile of hers that tilted the corners of her lush mouth and caused the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes to crease, where that bastard mortality had stroked her velvet skin with skeletal fingers and carved his mark on her before she had kicked him in the balls.
And Rune’s brakes failed. He lunged at her and took her over the mountain cliff with him.
THIRTEEN
I don’t have to stay in love with you, Carling thought as she smiled at Rune. Falling in love is just a passing realization. Merely the by-product of some brain-cooking heat shared with a world-class, five-star sexy male. Passion is a choice, and staying in love is a decision. I can walk away from you like I have had to walk away from virtually everything and everyone else, because only one thing holds true over time.
Nothing ever lasts and everything always changes. . . .
As if he could hear her thoughts, Rune’s handsome, wild face hardened. Then suddenly he blurred as he moved so fast, and he tackled her to the floor, and hell’s siren bells, she did not know how she had ever thought he had handled her with such delicate care, because he tore her caftan off of her body with such savagery she cried out, a sharp wordless sound that was cut off as he slammed his mouth down onto hers.
And she found herself shocked all over again at her own naiveté. She had thought that what had happened before in the lobby was apocalyptic, but it didn’t hold a candle to what erupted inside of her now.
Rune drove his tongue into her mouth, as he yanked at the fastening of his jeans. Naked at last and pinned with his body weight, she widened her legs and arched up to him. She raked fingernails down his broad back, scoring him as he rubbed the broad head of his erection at her slick entrance. The rich, burning liqueur scent of his blood filled the air. It smelled so intoxicating her mouth tingled, almost as if her fangs would descend.
She wanted to bite him. She wanted to bite. She growled, confused at the predatory impulses that had been dormant for so long, and he growled back as he grabbed hold of her hips and surged inside.
His penis was huge and his abrupt invasion of her body was so outrageous, she screamed into his mouth. Her feral response shuddered through him. When he would have pulled back to look at her, to check to see if she was all right, she sank her fists into his hair and held him to her, kissing him with such ferocity he lost track of everything except for the overwhelming need to drive into her.
He had to hand it to her, with a bow and flourish. It really was never anything mundane with her.
He withdrew, the slide liquid smooth and torturously tight, and he slammed into her again, into that lush velvet sheath, and he couldn’t get far enough inside so he ground against her pelvis, pushing harder. She bucked underneath him as another climax skyrocketed through her.
He felt her inner muscles start to spasm as she groaned into his mouth, and it was so fucking perfect and somehow so much more than what he had imagined, he was already climaxing as well, climaxing too soon even as he pulled out to slam back in again. He snarled in frustration against her lips, a raw guttural sound as animalistic as everything else they had done to each other, as he spilled into the clenched, welcoming bowl of her body.
Then silence sprinkled around them like the drift of winter snowfall, as they gripped each other with shaking limbs and tried to come back from the alien place they had just taken each other. Rune pulled his mouth away to press his cheek against hers, his eyes closed. Carling stared at the ceiling blindly. There was no making sense of what had just happened. It was as far outside of sensible as a person could go.
Say something. Her mouth worked.
“That was classy,” Carling said.
He reared his head back, his expression arrested.
Rune said, “Just wait until you see what I can do with the fancy stuff, like a bed.”
Their eyes met. She quirked an eyebrow at him. His sexy mouth twitched. Then they both exploded. He hugged her tight and rolled around the floor with her, laughing.
Listen to us, she thought. We sound drunk. We sound like crazy people. She clung to his neck and wrapped her legs around his hips, and her emotions careened on a ride that was some kind of mash-up between a spook house and a roller coaster.
Underneath Rune’s amusement, he studied himself with sharp attention. The hook was still in his gut, still yanking him forward to a strange, undefined place. He was not sated. His body screamed that he was dying of starvation, that he had not had nearly enough, that he needed to take her again and again, until she had given everything she had to him, until he had spilled everything he had into her, until he had given her everything he was. Even though he was still hard, he fought a vicious battle for control and forced himself to pull out. He hissed as his cock came free of her body.