Angel’s ears with his hands.
„Dream on,“ she retorted, covering Hawk’s ears with her own small hands and then tugging gently, bring his face down to hers. She whispered something that made his eyebrows climb and then he laughed out loud.
„You’re on,“ he said, smiling down at her with sensual promise.
Janna had just finished undergoing the first part of her „sentence“ when she heard a knock on the front door.
„Is that you, Raven?“ she called out, reaching for a towel.
„In the flesh,“ he said, walking in the front door and shutting it behind him. „How about you? What are you in?“
„The same. Period. Are you early or am I late?“ she asked, peeking around the barely opened bathroom door.
Raven smiled as he nudged the door fully open. „I’d say I was just in time.“
The breath caught in Janna’s throat when she saw Raven’s slow, sensual appraisal of her body.
„God,“ he said thickly, „you’re too beautiful to be real.“
The visible shivers that coursed over Janna’s skin were the result of more than the cooler air coming into the steamy bathroom.
„Raven,“ she said huskily, but could say no more.
„Again,“ he murmured.
„What?“
„My name.“
Raven’s voice was so deep that Janna almost couldn’t understand the words. He bent over her, tasting her flushed skin with slow, sensual movements of his tongue.
„Raven,“ Janna said. She tried to say his name again, but his mouth was teasing her breast into a hard ruby peak. The contrast of his hair against her skin was like black satin against pearl. „Raven,“ she said, trembling and threading her fingers into his hair as he knelt before her.
„Yes,“ he growled softly against the taut curve of her belly. „Like that. Say it like that. Say it as though it were the only word in the only language that mattered.“
Janna felt the firm caress of Raven’s hands as he stroked her body from her high- arched feet to her rounded hips, memorizing her. His tongue traced a hot, sensuous line from her knee to the nest of dark hair at the apex of her thighs, drawing tiny gasps and cries from her, making heat swirl through her in a glittering diamond mist.
„Raven,“ Janna said raggedly, feeling his tongue in slow, honeyed caresses that unraveled her. „
„Yes,“ he said as triumph flared heavily through him. „Like that. Call my name while I love you. When you say it like that it makes me want – everything. With you. Here. Now. Forever.“
Janna clung to Raven and called his name in a husky, helpless litany of love while he cherished her. When she could no longer stand he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the small bedroom. Very gently he put her on the dark bedspread and then simply stood next to her, his clear black eyes watching her flushed body as though he had never seen a woman before.
„Raven?“ she asked in a trembling voice.
Without looking away from Janna, Raven began to undress. „I’m going to love you,“ he said deeply. „I’m going to love you until I’m the only thing in the world to you, until my name is the only word you can remember, until you’re crying for me with every breath you take. I’m going to watch your eyes change to silver when I slide into you and you come apart beneath me. Then I’m going to lick the tears from your face and begin all over again.“
The hot, nearly savage certainty in Raven’s eyes was reflected in his hard flesh as he knelt over her, touching her, loving her. Janna tried to speak but could not, for her body had been taken from her at his first intimate caress. She tried to speak again, but all that came out was a primitive sound of pleasure that made him smile.
And then the only sound in the room was Janna’s voice calling his name in a husky, helpless love song for the raven who did not love her in return.
Chapter 9
On the last day of August Janna awoke slowly, rubbing her cheek against the resilient wall of muscle that was Raven’s chest. He made a sound of sleepy contentment, cuddled her even closer and fell back asleep between one breath and the next. Janna nuzzled Raven’s warm skin contentedly but didn’t go back to sleep herself. She hadn’t wanted to sleep at all last night after they had come back from their trip to the Yakoon River. She hadn’t wanted to waste a single instant of what might be her last hours with Raven.
Today she was going to tell him that she loved him. Today she hoped that he would accept her love rather than tenderly denying it. Today he would either love her in return or she would have to leave – for Janna knew if she stayed any longer with Raven she wouldn’t be able to leave him. She wasn’t even sure that she could go now. She only knew that she had to try. She loved Raven far too much to burden him with a woman and an emotion that he didn’t want.
Raven made no secret of his pleasure in Janna’s company. Even though she had pointed out that Angel and Hawk had come to the Queen Charlottes to see Raven, not a strange woman, he had ignored Janna’s protests. He was rarely beyond her reach and was never beyond the sound of her voice. She fell asleep with the taste of him on her lips and the warmth of him within her, and she awoke to the feel of his heartbeat beneath her cheek and the heat of his body pressed full-length against hers.
She had sat in Raven’s lap and whispered frumious nonsense in his ear and had heard his deep laughter mingling with her own. She had gone to the legendary Tlell River and seen fishermen pull shining salmon from whiskey-colored water that was as clear and wild as a hawk’s eyes. She had seen gusts of wind swirl over river and sea, brushing the water’s surface with quicksilver designs. She had heard gulls wheel and keen on the leading edge of a storm, birds crying their need to the careless sky. She had stood on the banks of the Yakoon River and seen a spruce tree burning like a golden flame against the primeval green of the forest. There was no other tree of its kind on earth. Not one. Unique, alone, living in an untamed Eden. Janna had wept to see Raven and the golden spruce together, their power and their isolation complete.
And always, always, whether on the sea or in the forest, Janna had sensed in the primal silence the returning echoes of a raven’s lonely cry.
She knew only one way to reach into that isolation, to answer that searching cry. Yet each time she had tried to tell Raven of her love he had taken the words from her lips, the breath from her body and he had substituted his own sensual words, his own breath in her body until he became part of her once more and she could say only his name, feel only his power within her, know only him and the elemental ecstasy he brought to her.
The thought that she might never again know that shimmering flight in Raven’s arms made Janna close her eyes in silent pain. With a deep, slow breath she fought back the sadness, for she had promised herself that this day would be as perfect as she could make it. There would be no tears, no wounded dreams crying to be made whole. There would be only laughter and companionship and the haunting, bittersweet beauty of one final day in Eden.
And at the end of that day she would tell Raven that she loved him. At the end of that day she would know whether he loved her in return.
Janna kissed the muscular warmth of Raven’s chest, nuzzling the vaguely curly
