Beautiful. The word flashed in Lexi’s mind as he shed his jeans. He was so magnificently, violently masculine. There was an eternity of pain in his eyes and marked across his body, so clear she shuddered on a rush of tenderness. The wounds he had endured in that alley were nearly healed, and when he came to her she traced fingers across his face, then into the dark silk of his hair, finding him where he had been lost.
“Come home,” she whispered, drew her fingers downward. He hissed as her nails scored his skin and it was such a feral sound she arched beneath it. She found his shoulders, ran her fingers down his arms, then back to circle his dark, flat nipples. His chest was massive. She flattened her palms, pressed the solid muscle that tightened beneath her touch. Tattooed lines of black and bronze were alive beneath her palms. She applied pressure and he understood what she meant, sliding his heavy weight to the side and rolling over on his back.
“Mine,” she whispered, coming to her knees and straddling him. His skin was volcanic. She bent down to trace her tongue across his throat, feeling as pagan as he looked when she drew back enough to see his face.
Part of her understood the dark emotions driving him because she burned with the same savage need. Part of her understood the forgiveness he craved but would never request. She ached for it, too, for her sins were as grave as his, if not worse, and she was the addict rolling on the floor, desperate without redemption. But to demand forgiveness that could not be freely given was something neither one would ever do. They took each other as they were this night, raw and exposed and brutal. This fire that raged between them was not seduction, not a resurrection of something that had once been. This was two sinners colliding in the night, torn apart by passion and regret until they both lay bloody at the other’s feet.
Her fingers were kneading against him as he lifted one strand of pale-gold hair and tucked it over her shoulder, then cupped her breast and rubbed hard against her nipple. She arched beneath the pressure. Hissed in a breath. She was power. He was seduction. Her body shimmered with desire, the insides of her thighs gripping him.
He shifted her, and she could feel the length of his erection pressing hotly between her legs. But not yet. She had missed his hard body for so long, missed the taste and smell of him. She was lost in touching his skin, pressing her lips to his chest, finding his nipple and biting gently. Dragging in the wild, clean scent of sunshine and deserts painted ocher and rose. When she heard his soft moan she slid down, tracing his stomach with her tongue, searching for what she could have until he rolled them both, coming down on top of her heavy and hard and aroused.
His mouth was hot, unyielding as he slid wet kisses across her throat. Strong hands held her still as he moved from collarbone to breast, licking and biting across her nipple, down her ribs to the outside of her waist. His hands found her knees, circled them, his mouth plundering, working down until she was writhing in his hold. His thumbs pressed against the soft flesh and she cried out as he lifted her to his wicked mouth, her hands reaching for his wrists. She was so wet and ready, but he continued his assault with such furious greed she feared nothing would be left.
It was almost too much, too much and she told him so, but he wouldn’t listen. His tongue was stroking, licking, until he found the sensitive hard bud, working her until she was shaking. Higher, he pushed her higher until she broke apart in his arms. He slid one finger in, and then a second, built a steady thrusting rhythm until she was panting, her golden hair spread around her face. She pushed up on her elbows and begged him for relief.
“Come for me,” he whispered, the command so erotic she felt her body clench down to her very soul and she slid over the edge. She pulsed with a strength so catastrophic it didn’t leave her sated but demanding more. She reached desperately, wanting him inside. But he pressed his palm against her stomach and continued his assault, licking and sucking until her flesh became so sensitive she wanted out of her skin. His fingers moved inside her and she flew over the edge again, and it still wasn’t enough for him as his mouth consumed her.
“Please, Christan.”
Her back arched, grinding her hips into the bed, feeling so empty and open and needing the penetration he would not give. She was completely lost in the sensations, swept up in what he was doing, the way he touched with such deep male need. They were snared, a siren and the drowning sailor, desperate in a stormy sea. Her mouth opened, the scream in her throat soundless as the wave crushed her beneath a churning strength.
And then he was crawling up with that predatory strength, his muscles bunched and trembling. She held out her arms and welcomed him home.
Her fingers slid down, cupped his heavy sac and then scraped back up again, circling the blunt head and finding moisture there. She lifted her knees and guided him, her fingers possessive. Her eyes locked on his face. Her breath caught on the expression that flared in his eyes as he touched her, drove in all the way to the root. It was such an exquisite fullness, a stretching invasion extending to her senses. For so long she’d waited, died inside at her loneliness. Nails curled into his back and scored a path around his waist as she arched up, wanting more of this man she had once loved, everything he would give.
He moved, his arms holding his body poised above her as he plunged with hot, heavy strokes, claiming her, owning her body and soul. She wrapped her legs around him and it was a ferocious mating, a devastation of the physical senses as she met him stroke for stroke. The sounds of their movements, the choked breath and desperate touches were a cleansing. Their anger became ashes, this coming together a new beginning, and with a convulsive sound she joined him when he threw back his head with a feral scream.
She held him while he trembled. He held her, and then he moved again, pulling out and flipping her onto her stomach. One powerful arm wrenched beneath her hips and pulled her up onto her knees, and he was inside again. She welcomed it as he gripped her hips and lifted her higher. The change in angle allowed him to push deeper, harder. Words tumbled from her lips as she urged him on, heavy, hot words of carnal need. She didn’t recognize herself. She was being reborn. It was primal and so beautiful she thrust backward and matched his pace as he bent over her back and drove toward this final release, whispering words that never stopped. “Cara, anima mia, sei la mia vita…”
CHAPTER 29
It took a long time for her breathing to slow. Christan leaned against the headboard and held her, pushing back the weight of her hair, stroking down the length of her spine until he could ease her back against his chest. The fire had died down to embers, and with a quick flare he brought it back to life.
Lexi turned her head into the curve of his shoulder, was holding on to his arms where they crossed at her waist. She’d been trembling earlier, and he’d worried that he pushed her too far. But when she asked him to come home, he’d been lost to her husky demand. She burned him, rescued him, made him a better man, and she was the only one beside Gaia who had known most of what he was. In all the other lifetimes, he’d kept his secret from her. And like a poison seed in fertile ground that secret always destroyed. But not in this lifetime. Something was different. When he drove deep into her, it was as if a phantom limb had become flesh and bone, and he was whole again.
She moved restlessly and he soothed her. “Hush,” he whispered. “I’m sorry that I frightened you.”
“You didn’t.” She traced her finger across his chest, following one of the amber memories. Christan felt something dark begin to vibrate, sucked in a deep breath as he moved her hand.
“What do you remember of your life as Gemma?”
“That you were right about Nico.” She was drawing little circles against the back of his arm. “I still think of him that way, even though I know he’s Kace. I was foolish in that life. I’m half embarrassed by myself, actually. I’m not that way now.”