‘What limo?’ he muttered and his eyes were dark with desire. ‘Where’s your bed?’
‘Down the hall, first door on the right.’
By the time they got there Ruby’s clothes were gone and so were his, two of the hallway pictures were askew and the walls had received a battering.
He gave himself so freely to pleasure, and Ruby did too, until they were both bathed in touch and taste and the heady scent of arousal, and then he rolled until she sat astride him and he positioned her for his entry and made it slow and glorious.
Ruby closed her eyes and wrapped her hands around his forearms while he sat up and worked his clever lips and tongue over her neck and throat. Piling distraction upon distraction and lacing it with an abandon she couldn’t resist.
There were no rules with this man. She wanted him at her breast, and he took it with a groan and paid attention and made her scream. He kissed his way down her body after that, and he turned her on her back and took her hands and wrapped her fingers around the wrought-iron bed bars above her head and told her to keep them there and then proceeded to string kisses across her stomach and her hip, her thigh and finally her core, and he knew what he was doing, heaven help her he did, and she entreated him and cursed him in the same breath as he took her to a land far, far away.
There’d been a magical quality to last night’s love-making that had taken Ruby unawares and turned the night golden, and today was no different.
He made her feel loved, and he made her feel beautiful as he let her ride out her climax and then entered her as if he couldn’t wait a moment longer.
‘Now you can touch me,’ he whispered, and touch him she did, only she could never quite get enough, and her need built again, he made damn sure of that.
Need over reason, for how could reason explain this?
‘Let go, Damon, just let go now. I’ll come with you, I swear I will.’
And it was as if her words released the leash he’d kept on himself and stripped away every barrier. He shuddered hard and clung to her as he spilled himself deep inside her, and Ruby flew with him this time, not even half a heartbeat behind as together they found oblivion.
Just as she’d promised.
‘The things you do to me,’ he murmured as they lay on the bed, both of them on their backs, their bodies spent and separate but the connection between them running stronger than ever. He lifted his arm from his elbow down, made a fist and then stretched his fingers wide, and Ruby raised her hand to his and he threaded his fingers through hers. ‘The concessions you wring from me.’
‘I’d hardly call a thimbleful of honesty between lovers a concession,’ she murmured lazily. ‘Although maybe in your case I should. Maybe you should favour me with another example of your concessions, just so I can identify them in future.’
‘Give me five minutes and I’ll get right onto it.’ He shot her a lazy, satisfied smile. ‘Maybe ten.’
‘Give me a memory from your childhood, something you don’t usually reveal, and I’ll give you anything you want.’
‘Big promises, Empress.’
‘Chances are I’ll never have to deliver, Concession Boy.’
He closed his eyes. He shut her out. ‘My mother died giving birth to me,’ he said quietly. ‘Not something I tell the world.’
Careful where your wishes take you, Ruby, she thought grimly, but it was too late to turn back now. ‘That’s understandable.’
Damon said nothing.
‘Did your family hold it against you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Never.’
Ruby let go of Damon’s hand, the better to prop herself up on one elbow and look at him. But she slid her other hand in his the minute she could and he didn’t pull away. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said simply.
‘Didn’t stop me from spending most of my teens trying to push them away.’
‘And then you got over yourself?’ she asked hopefully, and he smiled wryly and brought her hand to his chest.
‘Let’s just say I finally figured out how much I needed them. And how much they needed me to come good. To make their loss worthwhile. To make it mean something.’
‘Or, they could’ve just been waiting for you to stop beating yourself up over something you had no control over so that you could finally see how much they loved you. That’d work too. As an argument for persistence in the face of your rebellion.’
‘The lawyer speaks.’
‘Well, if reasoned argument isn’t working for you, I dare say I could always try kissing you better. Provided of course that you tell me where it hurts.’
‘My shoulder,’ he murmured, his eyes dark and guarded, and she kissed his shoulder and he took a shuddering breath.
‘My chest,’ he said next and she kissed him above his heart and then she took his nipple in her mouth and Damon loosened his hold on her hand and the next thing she knew his hand was in her hair, the better to hold her against him.
‘My side.’ Little more than a rumble, but she heard him and she kissed him there, as he started to stiffen against her once more, ten minutes to resurrection be damned.
‘Where else?’ she whispered.
‘You know where.’
‘Say it.’
But he didn’t say a word.
‘Why, Damon West,’ she said with a grin and slid her mouth another inch or two down his stupendous body. ‘I do believe you’re repressed. Who knew?’
‘I am not repr—’ he began warningly, and then she licked and made a meal out of him and he sucked in his breath and shut the hell up.
‘Something on your mind?’ she murmured long moments later. ‘Because you’d tell me if there was, right?’ ‘Right,’ he rasped.
‘Liar.’ She found the base of him and kissed him there and set her hand to him and he caught her hair up in his hands and strained within her grasp. ‘This, by the way, is my concession to you and I do hope you like it. Feel free to distract me whenever you’ve had enough.’ Damon groaned. Ruby licked.
‘Is my hand too tight?’ She slid it slowly up and down the generous length of him. ‘Mouth too warm?’ She slid that up and down the length of him too and interpreted his guttural groan as a no. ‘Because you’d tell me, right?’
‘Right.’
He let her pleasure him, for a time. And then he lifted her into his arms and slid inside her and Ruby could have cried at how right it felt to make love with this particular man, lose herself in him even.
But she didn’t cry and she didn’t say a word about how
