Shadow’s Edge

heated palm. He angled her head to his with his thumbs under her jaw.

“...all along you’ve given me what I’ve wanted...”

She felt so strange, like a dreamer wandering through a beautiful fairy tale, never wanting to wake. A coil of new pleasure unwound in her core as he lowered his head to her neck, inhaled deeply against her throat. He pulled her head back with his fingers twisted in her hair and stared at her.

“Have I?” There was something challenging now in his tone, something disbelieving. His eyes grew dark.

Jenna opened her mouth to answer him, but Leander slid his hand down her back, over her waist, shoved it without preliminaries between her legs. He found her center, the damp folds of her flesh parting under his invading fingers.

“And this?” he said, suddenly rough, demanding. “Is this something you want?”

23

He pushed a finger inside her—God, so hot and wet—and caught her jaw in his hand, forcing her to look at him. He pushed his finger deeper, in and out—and in—and she made a wordless sound, her eyelids fluttering with every stroke, her brows knit.

His voice dropped, his tone becoming astringent. “Or will this just be another unfortunate accident?”

Her tongue flicked out to lick her lower lip, and he nearly lost himself to a rush of pagan lust, wanting to lift her up in his arms to spread her legs open and bring her roughly back down, impaled.

His blood beat a thunderous call of Jenna, Jenna, Jenna, so loud he wondered she couldn’t hear it herself. But he held himself back, concentrated fiercely on containing the animal that wanted to force her, here and now, that wanted to take her in this open air temple, whether she gave her permission or not.

He needed this to be her decision. He needed very desperately to know that she wanted this as much as he did, that she felt the same agonizing need for him that he felt for her, that she had surrendered her heart and soul—and not just her body—as he had.

Her offhand rebuff this morning had caused him surprising, swift pain. It was a sensation he didn’t care to revisit, nor one he needed to interpret. It put everything into crystal-clear perspective.

He was in love with her.

Hopelessly, awfully, violently in love.

Without answering, without taking her eyes from his, Jenna dropped one arm from his shoulders, reached down between their bodies, and closed her hand around his stiff shaft.

He sucked in a breath and froze. His heart stopped, then restarted with a painful throb as she rubbed her thumb over the tip, feeling the ridges and satiny skin. She spread her fingers down his hardness, exploring his shape, his heat, her nails lightly scoring his skin.

She slid her fingers down to the base, turned her hand, and brought it back up over throbbing veins and rock-hard flesh, stroking and squeezing, listening to his breath grow ragged and watching his eyes grow hot.

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe. He could barely stand upright under the magical agony of her soft, sorceress hand.

“Jenna,” he warned, checking himself from savaging her with a thread-thin resolve. He dipped his head and brought his mouth back to the poem of her throat, feeling her pulse warm and vital against his lips. He inhaled the perfume of her skin, allowing the animal inside him a swift jubilation, then slid another finger inside the tight velvet of her body.

A tiny cry of pleasure wrung from her throat. Her hips made small, excruciating circles against him.

“I can’t have you regretting this, regretting me.” He felt his own will fracturing away, chunk by chunk, falling down into oblivion as she moved against him, sensual and enticing. “No matter how much I want you, no matter how much I want this to go on forever, you need to be sure this is what you want...I won’t coerce you. I won’t force you. This needs to be your decision.”

Sweet, hungry lips found his neck, his jaw, his earlobe. His fingers pushed deeper inside her, earning him a soft, ardent moan that reverberated all the way through him.

“Is this what you want? Am I what you want?” he rasped against her neck.

She slid one thigh up to his hip, her muscles taught and supple against his. Her knee came up to his waist and she opened to him like a rose in bloom. It took him to the very edge of reason.

Still she said nothing.

“Jenna, God, Jenna...tell me what you want...say yes or say stop...say anything...” he demanded. He heard the raw emotion in his voice, all pretense stripped away, the scent of her hair and her skin and her hot, ready sex driving him quickly insane.

“Please,” she said softly against his neck. He pulled back to look at her face, her velvet soft eyes, her lips so ripe and red like a plucked cherry. A small, mischievous smile stole over her cherry mouth and she tightened her hand around his erection.

“Please...?” Leander repeated tightly, rigid and barely able to speak.

Her voice dropped to a throaty, amused whisper. “Please stop talking.”

And she kissed him.

Every thought fell away at once.

He turned without breaking their kiss and pressed her back against the rough bark of their ancient tree. Her arms encircled his shoulders, her legs encircled his waist. He helped her, lifted her, grasping her bottom, sinking his fingers deep into her tender flesh. She was light in his arms, hardly a weight at all. She arched her back, and for one beautiful moment he saw her bowed in the dappled light, raindrops scattered over her chest and throat like glittering jewels.

He found her entrance, shoved himself into her heat with a chest-deep groan. She answered it with her own visceral sound of pleasure and tightened her legs around him, slender muscles held taut, pressing her heels into his spine.

They held still, unmoving for long breathless moments, wrapped in each other. Their blood pumped together, their hearts beat as one, while the sounds of the living forest and the slackening storm filled the world around them.

She softly exhaled and tightened her arms around him. Like a man sprung from prison, he was suddenly, exquisitely free.

They began to move together, rocking in their perfect embrace, his sex hard and impaling, hers wet and stretched around him. He’d never known anything like this, never known he could make love to a goddess in a forest, high up on the limbs of a tree, and lose himself to her and to the rain-swept sky and to the forest so dark and vast around them.

Mine, the animal inside him hissed. Mine!

“Tell me you’re mine,” he whispered, rough, into her ear. He pumped deep into her, spreading her wider. His skin began to tighten. Every inch of his body began to ache with such intensity his chest hurt with piercing exhilaration and a dark flame of secret fear. Fear he would lose her and lose himself, fear for what would happen to him if she turned away.

“Say it,” he panted, burying himself in her, lost and ablaze. “Say you’ll stay with me. Say you belong to me, Jenna.”

She clenched her fingers into the muscles of his shoulders and shuddered. A soft moan escaped her lips. Her hair blew in golden ripples across the lichen-covered bark and he felt her body tighten, felt the coming of her release. He tangled his fingers into her hair, forcing her face to his, forcing her to look into his eyes as he thrust inside her and claimed her as his own.

“For the love of God, woman,” he groaned. The air had turned to fire. “Say it.”

She stared deep into his eyes, her pupils wide and black, then tilted her head forward. She brushed rose