She thought she might even have said his name.
But he didn’t stop. He kept going, and that explosion shifted as his thrusts grew harder, more demanding.
All that golden light turned to fire. And her whole body seemed to light up, burning red and hot from the inside out.
And he knew. She could tell he knew, because he gathered her beneath him, his hands gripping her hips, as he pounded into her.
Molly met him, reveled in him, and to her surprise, shattered once more.
And that time, heard her name on his mouth as he followed.
She could feel a kind of oblivion beckoning, but she fought it off, because she didn’t want to miss a moment of this. Of Constantine, his face next to hers and that remarkably powerful body of his laid out over her as if wanting her that much had made him weak.
How had she missed out on this for so long?
But on the heels of that thought came another one, and she almost made a sound in response. What if she had given in to one of the many invitations she’d received over the years and done that with anyone but Constantine?
She shuddered at the thought.
And nothing had been settled between them, but she didn’t care. Because Molly might have been lost as a sixteen-year-old girl, but she’d been perfectly clear about one thing. That it was him. That it had always been and would always be him.
And she’d been right.
“Come,” he said in a low voice.
Molly didn’t have time to think about how or why his voice was different, only that it was. Because he was lifting her up, hoisting her into his arms as if she was one of those dainty, tiny girls who men were always toting about as easily as they heaved pints to and fro.
She felt a delicious sort of softness everywhere. She liked it. And so she did nothing at all but tuck her head beneath his chin, the better to contemplate the gorgeous strength of his collarbone, his neck, the underside of his jaw as he moved.
He carried her into the bedroom he’d claimed in this penthouse when they’d arrived, then brought her to a large, ornate bed that looked like the sort of thing whole French revolutions had been fought to protest.
Fitting, really, for Constantine Skalas.
He placed her down on the grandiose bed, then straightened, looking at her with a dark, unreadable look on his face that probably should have made Molly feel self-conscious.
But it didn’t. Nothing could. Not when she felt like this, loose and beautiful and made entirely new.
His jaw tightened, and he turned, walking off into what she assumed was the en suite bathroom.
Sure enough, she heard the sound of water, and for once, was perfectly happy to simply stay where she was and wait to see what might happen.
Constantine was there at her side again in a moment, with a warm, damp cloth he pressed between her legs, and that was what made her suddenly feel...vulnerable.
“I had no idea that you were serious.” His voice was almost too low to hear, a thread of darkness between them. Almost. “It never occurred to me that you could possibly be an innocent.”
“Not anymore,” she said brightly, and she didn’t know what to do with that look in his eyes. She didn’t know what to do, so she got back onto her knees, and ran her hands over his chest where he stood beside the bed. She reveled in the feel of her palms against his skin, his muscles, him.
“Molly.”
Her name was a command, but she had no intention of heeding it. She let her hands wander where they would until one made its way down that fascinating arrow of hair to find his sex. Almost accidentally.
He was so hard, though not as hard as he had felt inside her. She wrapped her fingers around the width of him and he thickened, and Molly smiled. Because that, too, felt like a power she wished she’d known she’d had all this time.
“Molly,” he said again, now sounding very nearly stern. “I do not think—”
“Can we do that again?” she asked, smiling up at him. She tipped herself forward so she could rub her aching nipples against his chest and taste all the parts of him she’d admired on the walk here. His corded neck, his bold jaw. “Please? I’m begging.”
He made a low sound, but then his mouth was on hers again. And he was picking her up and turning her, rolling with her down onto that wide bed, until they were tangled up with each other again.
Constantine rolled to his back and let her explore him, but when she went to take his hardness in her mouth, he gripped her beneath her arms and hauled her up the length of his body.
“I want to,” she said.
“We do not always get what we want, Molly,” he told her, then kissed her until she melted against him once more.
He taught her how to sit astride him, then take him deep inside her from that different angle.
She rocked her hips against his, staring down at him in a kind of wonder. He looked up at her, his expression so fierce, his hands moving almost restlessly from her breasts to that place where they were joined.
He pressed a thumb down hard at her center and she dissolved, almost sobbing out at the sharp pleasure of it.
Then he flipped her over onto her belly and came into her from behind. He slid one arm beneath her hips to lift them at an angle so that he could pound his way into her, once again taking her from the middle of one explosion and throwing her like a catapult straight on into another. And another
