feel like you did, Celia, from the first moment I saw you.”
Celia shook her head. She didn’t want to know he had thought of her. Not now. She wanted to remember how it had once been. She only wanted this, them together, now.
“Sometimes when I dreamed of you at night, John, I ached so much. I had to do this.” She closed her eyes and laid her hand lightly between her breasts. Slowly, slowly, she traced her touch down her body, over her abdomen, until her hand lay over the place that was so wet for him she ached with it all over again. He had taught her to do this, and she remembered how the sight of her hand there affected him. How it made him explode.
She slid one fingertip between her folds, and that was all it took.
“Hell, Celia!” he shouted, and his control snapped.
Her eyes flew open as his hands seized her hips. But he did not drag her under him to drive into her. He drew her body up along his until his mouth closed over her womanhood. She knelt over his face as his tongue plunged deep into her.
Celia screamed, and grabbed onto the carved wood of the bed as his mouth claimed every intimate part of her. His fingers dug hard into her buttocks as he kissed her, licked her, tasted her so deeply. She was no longer in control, but she didn’t care. She only wanted his mouth, his hands on her. Claiming her. Making her remember—and forget.
His tongue flicked on that tiny knot high inside her, and she moaned. One of his hands let go of her and slid around her hip, until he could drive one long finger inside of her, just below that talented tongue. He moved it in and out, pressing, sliding, until she cried out wordlessly. “John,” she moaned.
“Let go, my fairy queen,” he whispered against her. “I have you with me. You’re safe.”
And strangely she did feel safe, as she never had before. Another finger slid into her, and she felt pressure building low in her belly. Oh, sweet saints, but she had not felt like this in such a long time! Sex had come to mean only pain and humiliation, but now she remembered what it could be, what it had been—with John. Only John. That heat built and built, expanding inside of her until she couldn’t breathe. Her whole body was suffused with golden light.
“Let go!” he said, and his tongue pressed hard to that knot as his fingers curled inside her.
And she did let go. She shattered, that pressure exploding like a bonfire within her. She screamed again, her hands clutching at the bed to keep her from falling into the abyss below.
But John wasn’t finished with her. He lifted her trembling body off his mouth and pushed himself up to half-sit against the headboard. He drew her down until she straddled his hips again, her open, wet womanhood spread over the tip of his penis.
“Ride me, Celia,” he said hoarsely. “I am yours.”
She braced her hands on his slick, sweaty shoulders and tried to focus her pleasure-dazed mind. She stared down at him, at the way his lips glistened with her own essence, the way his eyes were so dark and wild with lust. She could smell herself on him, the scent of the two of them blended, and it made her want him all over again. Need him.
And she wanted him to need her just as much. To remember how they had once been together.
She raised herself slightly, until she felt his swollen tip at her opening, and then she held tightly to his shoulders and slid down. Lower, lower, until he was all the way inside of her, their hips pressed together.
His eyes suddenly went blurry, and his head fell back as his hands closed on her waist.
“Ah, curse it, Celia,” he groaned. “You’re so tight—so perfect. I can’t …”
She raised up again and sank back down, over and over, until she found her rhythm. His hips arched up to meet her. They moved together, harder, faster. Until she felt her climax building up all over again.
Her body fell back and she braced her hands on his thighs as he thrust up into her. She closed her eyes and saw whirling stars in the darkness, blue and green and white, exploding around her until she cried out his name.
“Celia!” he shouted, amid a flood of incoherent curses as his whole body went rigid. She felt him go still inside her, the hot rush of him against her as he too let go and soared free.
She let herself fall to the bed, her legs unable to hold her up any longer. She trembled as she felt a heavy, hot languor steal over her, a boneless exhaustion as she had never known before. The beamed ceiling spun above her as she tried to catch her breath.
John crawled up to collapse beside her. They didn’t touch, but she could feel the heat of his sweat-damp body close to hers, could hear the rough rush of his breath.
She rolled her head to look at him. His eyes were closed as he kicked his breeches away, his hair falling damply over his brow. She gently brushed it back, and he caught her hand in his to kiss her palm.
She sighed and closed her eyes, feeling the way he pressed her hand flat to his chest and held her there. She felt the brush of cold air over her heated skin. The fire had died away in the grate, but she didn’t care. She was too tired and replete to care about anything but John’s hand on hers.
“You still talk filthy in bed, John Brandon,” she whispered teasingly. “Where did you learn those words? In Paris?”
He gave a drowsy chuckle. “And you still remember everything that drives me insane. Did you really touch yourself when you thought of me?”
Celia smiled. “A lady must keep her secrets, John,” she said. And then she let herself tumble down into a deep, dreamless sleep.
A lady must keep her secrets.
John heard Celia’s words in his mind as he watched her sleeping in the bed they had shared. Cool grey light moved over her bare skin as she lay on her stomach, her arms around her pillow and her black hair spilling over the rumpled sheets. The coverings were low on her hips, leaving her slender, supple back bare to tempt him.
And, God’s teeth, but he was tempted. His muscles were coiled to send him striding across the chamber, to grab the sheets and tear them away until she was naked for him again.
Until she opened for him again, let him in, let him see every part of her, body and soul. Until she cried his name and needed him, as he needed her in that moment.
He braced his fists on the table and let his head drop between his shoulders, shutting out the sight of her. Shutting out the temptation. It had always been that way with Celia, even when they’d first met. She had been innocent then, more vulnerable, but there had always been that sharp intelligence behind her cool grey eyes. That edge to her words, that unwillingness to suffer fools.
That desire as she looked at him, that passion that matched his own and drove him higher and hotter.
The memory of her had haunted him for years, until he’d become sure he made her into something she had never really been. An elusive fairy queen who’d never existed except in his mind, his dreams.
But earlier
