As she up-and-over’d the shirt, tossing it somewhere, she didn’t care, she had meant to show him her breasts. Instead, hello, Champion.
Duran didn’t seem to notice. He traced the wide straps and tight panel with his hot eyes, as if he were imagining the flesh underneath.
“Take it off for me,” she said in a throaty voice.
More with the trembling on his side, but he didn’t disobey the command. Hooking his thumbs under the lower edge of the wide band, he took the tight nylon upward—
Her breasts popped free, bouncing, the nipples tight and tingling thanks to the fabric’s hard stroke.
Duran didn’t get any further than that. He bailed on the removal job with the sports bra wedged under her armpits, her breasts compressed on top, extra full on the bottom. Sitting up, he put his mouth to her, sucking one of her nipples in, lapping at her with his warm, wet tongue.
Ahmare let her head fall back, and he caught her torso with a strong arm. Spearing into all that long hair of his, she moaned at the sweet tugging, the slip and slide and recapture, the switch to the other side. And even though the contact was only in one place, she felt it everywhere, all over her skin and throughout her body.
Especially between her legs.
Back with the kissing now, and positions were changing. He was moving them, shifting her as if she weighed nothing, laying her back against the hard floor that could have been a down mattress for all she knew. As he lay on top of her, a strange, hypersensitive numbness came over her, and she welcomed it just as she welcomed his body, now flush against her own, her clothing, and all of his, a total frustration.
She solved that problem quick.
Peeling the sports bra all the way off, she went for the buttons of his flak shirt. Her fingers were sloppy as she worked her way down the lineup, and then she was parting the two halves, finding smooth skin and hard muscle and volcanic warmth underneath.
Pants were supposed to be next on both sides, but she stayed awhile where they were, like a mountain climber enjoying a keyhole view that was not to be missed even though the summit was where they were headed. He was so different than she, the pads of muscles and thick, heavy bones the kind of thing that made her feel feminine, especially as her bare nipples met his torso.
The independent part of her, the fierce and strong part that had entered Chalen’s castle without weapons, carrying the head of a dead man, rankled at the idea that somewhere in her was an unevolved female who wanted a male to chase her and catch her and hold her down while he entered her and bit her hard on the neck. While he marked her as his own. While he established a dominance that she was hot for. While he left his scent all over her.
Inside of her.
Yup, the modern side of her could do without those kind of he-man antics. But what was happening between them now wasn’t modern; it was ancient. It was as old as the species itself. It was the basis of mortal existence, the door to immortality through the creation of a next generation.
Splitting her thighs, she pulled him even more fully on top of her, and Duran came readily, his body making its way between her legs, the ridge of his hard sex pushing into her core through their pants. As he started to roll into her and retreat, stroking them both, his hands, broad and warm and calloused, swept up to her breasts, learning her contours, caressing. Kissing deeply, they moved together, getting their rhythm down, a dress rehearsal for the naked penetration that was coming soon.
When she pushed her hands between them, he popped his hips up to create the space she needed to undo his fly, her fly. The shucking, inefficient and maddening, came next as they tried to keep kissing while kicking off everything south of the waist.
He had no underwear. Hers were no big deal.
And then they were fully naked.
Duran was magnificent skin to skin. And there were so many places to go with her hands and mouth . . .
But that would come later. First this essential union. Then the exploration.
17
DURAN HAD NEVER THOUGHT there could be anything more visceral, more consuming . . . more important . . . than revenge. Everything else he had ever experienced had been in the category of discardable distractions, the sights, smells, thoughts, or feelings like pennies spilled from his pockets, nothing valuable enough to make him stop and retrieve what he’d lost or ignored.
This, however . . . this consumed him even more than his revenge.
Tasting Ahmare, feeling her skin against his, hearing her breath catch and then explode on an exhale, all of it was, for the first time since he had become aware of his father’s cruelty and his mahmen’s suffering, a submersion of sense and sensation so complete that another need took the wheel of his intent and intentions and charted a course he was not going to argue with.
Hell, all he wanted to do was stomp on the gas.
And now was the moment.