the canopy of the bed, the tapestry of purple roses and vines, and as he bent closer she allowed at last that small motion of her head, tipping toward him, and he leaned up and found her lips with his.
It was a gentle thing, so light and skimming, and yet it warmed her in a way that all the gold she'd ever worn never did. He savored her, faint, delicious kisses at the corners of her lips, her chin and nose and eyes, his cheek scraping hers, because he was still unshaven.
He began to lean more heavily against her. He drew one arm up by her head to support himself and allowed the other to slide along hers, his hand flexed, the warm skin of his biceps and forearm tracing the shape of hers through her sleeve. His leg lifted, angled across her stomach, gliding slowly up and down as he kissed her, and the hem of her gown rumpled upward until her bare knees and shins touched his.
She felt the whisper of his hair along her neck, that faint tickle of metallic silk. She reached up and wove her fingers through it, enjoying its heat and satiny weight as he closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek back to hers. He learned her without using his hands, exploring the delicate hollows and curves of her face with lips and eyelashes, his scent intoxicating. She was melting from it, melting from the inside out.
And he was changing too. She stroked her hands down his back to the sudden rougher edge of his breeches, traced the circumference of his waist from back to front. Wool and linen. Hard buttons. His hips finding a rhythm against hers, the leg curled over her scissoring tighter, aligning his body over hers, one knee between her own.
She'd seen him before without clothing, more than once, and if he could summon even a sliver of their time together in the house of
He had arched over her as she'd moved, allowing her the space to disrobe, but that was all. Now he lowered himself again, and she felt the fresh heat of his chest to hers, his mouth moving from her temple to her ear to her neck, to the winged curve of her collarbone. Lower, to the underside of her breast, his tongue drawing circles against her, smaller and smaller luxurious circles. Her pulse matched his circles, thumping and thumping in hard, anxious beats, and when he closed his lips on her nipple at last her heart skipped and the flutter of breath trapped in her throat became a moan.
He suckled her, a hard pull and a brightness that shot all the way through her like a comet. The gold of his claws scraped the gold of the bed, and the music of their clashing rose in her head; Rhys at her breast and the metal songs in her ears; she could not seem to drag in enough air. Her hands were working at his buttons, her leg lifted to bring him closer, and he broke off with a gasping that matched her own.
'No, no. Let me.'
His hand moved between them; the bone buttons popped free, one hitting the sheets and the rest bouncing to the floor. He rubbed his face between her breasts and his palm up and down her arm.
'Sweet Zee,' he said breathless, smiling. 'Lovely girl. I think I might need some help for this next part, actually.'
She put her hands upon his shoulders, pushed until he sat up. Zoe rose to her knees, kept her eyes on his —a faint gleam of color, framed with lashes darker than the night—and drew her palms down his chest, let her fingers catch against the loosened waistline. She tugged the breeches down to his hips, down to his thighs, pressed him back against the mattress lightly with one hand and finished the job, tugging the tan wool all the way down his legs.
When it was done she had a moment of dreamlike uncertainty: There he lay, beautiful still in his animal way, with his hair a dark-and-bright flag against the bedding, and his arms spread wide and his legs crooked around her hips. Rhys Langford. And he was looking back at her with that smile that was both knowing and aroused, as aroused as his body; Zoe lifted her hand and covered her eyes with her fingers.
She felt his legs encircle her waist, muscled warmth, strength that pulled her back down to him. His arms came up too, wrapped around her and held her pinned to the length of him. When he arched his hips into hers she opened her mouth to the hard curve of his shoulder; he tasted of salt. He made a low hum in his chest and used his wrist to guide her lips higher, to the bottom of his jaw, whiskers and the scar, all the while grinding against her. All the melting inside her seemed suddenly concentrated in her loins. Where she felt that male part of him, satiny and hard and demanding.
But she didn't know what to do next. Silly, spinster virgin—untouched for all her years, untouched despite all her best efforts—and she didn't know what to do.
Rhys did. Of course he did; there was nothing virginal about him, she'd known that forever. He wasn't smiling up at her any longer. He was watching her through those lowered lashes, breathing as if he'd just run a sprint. She moistened her lips and looked back at him, and he blinked once, a slow and lazy blink. 'Am I awake?' he asked.
'I hope so.' She sounded breathless herself, the shyness stealing her words. 'Or this is a very frustrating dream.'
'You are the most wondrous, miraculous—you know that; I know you do—but Zee, if this is a dream—'
She lost her nerve, hid her face against his shoulder.
'This is how I wanted it,' he murmured, holding her. 'When I was dead. This was all I wanted. You, with me. To touch you again. To do this ...'
He tensed, gathered her closer, and rolled them together, so now he was on top and she had the rumpled bedding beneath, and the mattress must have ripped anyway, because there were tiny feathers dusting them both, caught in the mess of their tangled hair.
'To do this,' he whispered, and cradled her head in his hands as he pushed into her, into the center of her heat, his eyes closed.
She stilled, feeling him, the strange and brilliant sensation of him filling her, stretching her to hurt: She couldn't move, she was afraid to move. He was inside her, and she'd never, ever thought it would feel like—
'This,' he breathed, moving in and out in slow, languorous thrusts, turning the hurt into the worst pleasure imaginable, an aching, throbbing pain that spread white fire through the core of her, that had her opening her legs wider and digging her fingers into his back.
'I love you.' She barely understood him; he'd buried his face into her hair. 'I love you. I love you.'
It was a chant, a song, rawly beautiful in his broken voice, a rhythm that matched his body's, and he moved more quickly now, plunging deeper, pulling that white fire within her into a taut coil. She was drawn thin with it, she was desperate for something she could not name. She turned her head from his, searching, held in place by her hair where he pinned it with his arms.
'Love,' he ground out between his teeth, and pressed at once so hard and so deep within her that her entire being lit and burned and she cried out in surprise, a soft startled sound that curled across the floor and walls to die in echo, just as she did.
Rhys collapsed against her. His skin was slick, his heart racing. She felt that, the pounding in his blood, just as she felt his legs against hers and his face and his talons that curved up and around her head like a spiked metal sunburst.
He did not lift himself from her; he felt heavy but not crushing, supple and warm and welcome.
She was floating, astonishingly relaxed, gliding into smooth liquid dreams before he moved, and even then it was only his lips, a bare kiss at the top of her ear, and words she could make out only because she was asleep now, she was finally dreaming .
'Someday you'll love me too.'
* * *
He'd hurt her. He knew that; in the morning he found the blood that marked him, and her, the small dark smears on the sheets and between her thighs.
Zee was a virgin. Naturally, she was. Ice and proper prim on the outside, she'd rebuffed more men of the tribe with just a single, level look than he'd been able to count. Yet her eyes kept betraying her. Poor Zoe; she'd probably never even realized it. No matter how cool her words or demeanor, those exotic black eyes always promised pure, wanton sensuality.
And last night that promise had transformed into truth.
He hadn't only hurt her. Rhys had given her pleasure as well. Even like this, even as a miserable scrap of
