The Cold Between. Elizabeth Bonesteel

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ around her, and they swayed together, disoriented. He opened his eyes to look at her, and found all of the shyness gone.

      “My flat is a block away,” he told her, surprised at the unsteadiness of his voice. “Will you come home with me?”

      “Yes,” she said, breathless, and she let her fingers wander over his eyebrows and across his temples. He closed his eyes, savoring her touch, and after a moment he reached up to take her hands in his.

      “If you do not stop that,” he told her, smiling, “we will not make it that far.”

      She laughed, delighted. She was so open, and so lovely, and he wanted his hands on her more than he had wanted anything in a long time. He kept her right hand in his left and turned, and they walked down the sidewalk together. They did not speak again, but somehow he felt lighter and more comfortable than he had with anyone in the six months since he had returned to Volhynia.

      When they reached his building he led her up the front stairs. She looked around, curious, eyes darting from the steps to the window to the fingerprint lock on the door.

      “Old technology,” he said, following her eyes.

      “Still harder to hack than a voice lock,” she remarked, “and a lot cheaper.”

      She was right, but it was not a fact he would have expected her to have at her fingertips. He realized, then, that he did not know what she did on this ship of hers.

      He did not even know her name.

      He opened the door, finding the entryway lit by the moon shining through the skylight. The stairs did not bother her at all; she was not even winded when they reached the top. Instead she was looking up through the window in the ceiling. The moon lit her face in the dark, and she smiled. “It’s so beautiful,” she said softly. “I never miss the sun. But moonlight …”

      “This does not surprise me,” he said to her. “It suits you, the moonlight.”

      He stood aside for her and she moved into the flat, leaning against the wall by the alcove. The light of the moon turned the room blue-gray, casting cool shadows against the planes of her face. The door closed behind him and he stood opposite her, the kitchen at his back. He felt strangely formal, like he was missing part of a ritual. Like it would have been so much easier if they had stayed outside.

      “Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked.

      She shook her head. “No,” she said, and it crossed his mind that now she, having made up her mind, was more at ease than he was. “But you could come here. If you like.”

      She held out her hands, and he took them. “What is that scent in your hair?” he asked, longing to bury his hands in it again.

      “Lilac,” she told him. She let his hands go and laid her fingers at his waist, and he felt suddenly how thin his shirt was, how much he wanted to feel her fingers against his skin. “It’s Jessica’s,” she admitted, and looked briefly embarrassed.

      “It is lovely,” he told her. He pressed his lips to her forehead, then nuzzled her hair, inhaling the scent. “But what you are doing to me has nothing to do with flowers.” He moved his lips down her cheek, along her jaw, to the pulse on her neck. He heard her inhale sharply, and her head fell back, baring her throat to him. He kissed her smooth skin, then nipped at her; she moaned, just a little, at the touch of his teeth, and that was enough.

      He moved to kiss her lips, but this time there was no preamble of gentleness, no feeling each other out. The kiss was fierce, devouring, and he leaned against her, pushing her hard against the wall. Her arms reached around him, and her hands went to his head; she pulled the leather tie from his braid and let his heavy hair fall around her fingers. One of her hands trailed down, and he felt her pulling the tail of his shirt from his trousers. When her fingers touched the skin of his back, all reason disappeared. He unzipped her shirt, and she managed to let go of him long enough to shrug it off and toss it to the ground; he dispensed quickly with her undershirt, and then he had her breasts in his hands, and he kissed her over and over, pressing his hips against her, so hard his clothes were hopelessly uncomfortable.

      She moaned as he touched her, his thumbs brushing over her stiff nipples as she arched against him. On impulse he released her mouth long enough to drop his head and pull one nipple between his lips, tugging on it with his teeth. She held on to his head and pressed her breast to his mouth, and whispered harder, and he sucked as hard as he dared, biting down enough he would have thought it was painful. But she did not object. She said God, yes and please and anything you want and he could not wait any longer.

      Somehow they rid themselves of the rest of their clothes, and he took a breath, feeling the heat of her skin against his, painfully aware of his raging erection brushing against the cleft in her skin. She was wet and slick, and, he noticed, just the right height.

      “Here?” he asked her, and she beamed at him, a gorgeous, bright-eyed smile.

      “Oh, yes,” she said.

      He slid one hand over her ass and down one toned thigh, and pulled her knee up alongside his hip. She wrapped her leg around him, pulling him closer; and with little maneuvering, he pushed himself inside of her.

      She cried out, an unmistakable sound of pleasure, and he felt her muscles tighten around him. He found himself groaning as well. She was tight and warm and so lovely, so soft, and he drove into her again and again, grateful for the wall holding her up, riding the wave of pleasure higher and higher, and every moment he thought it was going to break, she pulled him in deeper, devoured his mouth, ran her hands over his back, into his hair … Good God, I would drown in her if I could, and that was his last coherent thought. When she finally gasped and called out, over and over, her body convulsing, clutching at him, inside and out, surrendered completely to pleasure, he went over the edge with her, pounding again and again, oblivious to everything else, letting the waves wash over him as she moved with him, hanging on for dear life, until all was spent into stillness.

      They stood, unmoving, wrapped around each other, for several minutes. Trey was not entirely sure he could do anything else. As he came back to himself he found her stroking his hair and nuzzling the inside of his neck. He glanced down at her and she smiled, her eyes light and contented.

      “I may fall down,” she confessed.

      He laughed. “Let us see what we can do about that.” He pushed away from her a little, testing his legs; they seemed to be willing, for the moment, to hold him up. He reached for her again, and she put her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her; she wrapped her legs around him, linking her ankles behind his knees. It seemed as practical a way as any to travel.

      He carried her past the bathroom door into the bedroom, enjoying the weight of her in his arms, her limbs so unself-consciously embracing him. Gently he deposited her on the blanket-covered bed, and managed to lie down next to her without letting her go.

      He closed his eyes, pleasure still warming his blood. It was not as if his recent life had been without women, he reflected. It had just been so long since he had been with one who had given herself over so completely. Since Valeria, perhaps. More than a year.

      He had no inclination to linger on the past.

      He pulled her closer, and she draped a long leg over him, tucking her head under his chin. “If I had known you were coming,” he told her, one hand skimming her waist to come to rest on her hip, “I СКАЧАТЬ