“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Quinn, you are the most beautiful woman in the world to me, and I love you, but you look like you find your clothing in a homeless person’s trash can.”
“I guess you don’t want me to buy a red bra and panties, then,” she said, lowering her eyelashes and peeking up at him through them. “Am I seducing you yet?”
He groaned and flew faster. “I should have told them not to disturb us for forty-eight hours. Or three weeks.”
“You have to bring me food this time,” she said, practical to the last. “I’ll need my energy to keep up with you.”
Power flooded back into him as his magic recharged under the welcome sight of the moon over Atlantis, shining brightly on his people after so many thousands of years. His body began to glow again, and she smiled.
“You’re lighting up. Does that mean my feminine wiles are working? If I even have feminine wiles,” she said, laughing. “I think they got rusty over the past decade.”
“Your wiles are more than sufficient to make me want to drive my cock inside you and never stop until you scream,” he said sincerely, bending down to fasten his lips around her nipple right through her shirt. The power surged through him and into her body, and she moaned.
“Can’t you go any faster?”
He flew through the window, tossed her on his bed, and ripped her clothes from her lovely, perfect body, while she frantically tore at his pants, finally succeeding in pulling them off.
“Please, please,
It was his turn to moan.
He was thrusting into her body within seconds. She was screaming his name soon after.
He was going to be the happiest damn gardener in the history of the world.
Chapter 35
It wasn’t twenty-four hours, after all. It was more like three days. Every time Alaric touched Quinn, his mind rebelled at the idea of letting the outside world anywhere near them just yet.
When he kissed her, she tasted like hope. Hope for a future that didn’t involve swords or death. Hope for happiness and love.
He pulled her closer to him and stroked the curve of her hip, marveling anew at the texture of her skin. It was pale luminescence in the moonlight, softer than the finest Atlantean silk. Warm and delicate; tantalizing him with delight. His fingers traced the tip of her breast, and she shivered in response.
That had been a wondrous surprise to him—that his fierce rebel warrior woman would be so sensual in his bed. He lowered his head to kiss her nipple, and she gasped a little.
“Tell me you want me,” he demanded, raising his head to look into her eyes, his voice low and rough. He needed to hear the words, even though her body showed him the evidence. “Tell me again and again.”
“I do want you, you know I do,” she said, her eyes darkening. “I want you more than I ever knew was possible.”
She bit the curve of his neck, and need swamped him. Need and white-hot desire. He touched her cheek and wondered that this complex, enticing, incredible woman could truly be his.
He was
Quinn laughed a little as Alaric’s eyes began to glow a hot emerald green. She’d never have to wonder if he wanted her. He broadcast his passion as strongly as his other emotions. She wanted him again and again and always. He was refuge and respite and release. He was love.
She opened her lips and her body to him and kissed him, tasting his mouth and tongue, and teasing him by nibbling at his bottom lip gently. His hard body shook in her arms, and she gloried in the feel of knowing he was losing control, even as she herself began to tremble.
Any remaining barriers between them dissolved as the magic of the soul-meld and the simpler, far older magic of love swirled around and through them, adding an edge of fierce intensity to their touch. She caressed the muscular line of his shoulder and then his chest, and he caught his breath when she traced her tongue over one flat nipple.
“I cannot get enough of your touch,” he said. “Never. I might not ever let you leave my bed.”
She laughed a little, but then she allowed her hand to roam lower until she grasped the hard length of his erection. “I may never let
His body tensed, and he pulled her even closer. “You have an hour to stop touching me like that,” he said, grinning that deliciously wicked grin.
“I never knew it could be like this,” she blurted out, honesty making her clumsy. “I never knew.”
“Nor did I,” he said, and then he kissed her until she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel anything but the whirlwind of passion between them.
“But if I had known, I would have come after you a lot sooner,” he said firmly.
Her laughter faded as he rolled over and settled his body over her.
“I find that I need to be inside you now. Do you agree?”
She wrapped her legs around him and guided him to her, sighing as he slowly entered her, inch by glorious inch. “I agree.”
He thrust ever so slowly in and out of her, over and over, until she thought she’d go mad with frustrated desire.
“More,” she urged, digging her fingers into his lovely, firm butt.
He grinned down at her, but the strain of maintaining control was showing on his face. “More what? I’m a simple warrior. You’ll have to tell me what you want. Explicitly.”
She felt her cheeks flame hot, but she was a rebel leader. A fighter. A strong woman. She could surely be a little brazen. She whispered in his ear exactly what she wanted him to do, and she made sure to use the words “hard” and “strong” and “deep.”
Alaric lost all restraint, and he almost lost his mind. To hear such delightfully raunchy talk from his beautiful mate was an unexpected gift. He drove into her, harder and harder, claiming her in the most basic and primal way possible.
“I love you. You are mine, and you will never, ever leave me,” he told her, desperate to make sure she understood.
“I love you, too, and you will never leave me, either,” she replied, gasping, her beautiful face rosy with passion, and then she cried out as she crested, her body pulsing and clenching around his cock.
He couldn’t resist the force of her climax; it took him over the edge to his own, and he raised his head and roared out her name while he came inside her.
“Mine. Forever,” he whispered, as he kissed her cheeks and nose and forehead and lips, over and over and over. His mind was frantic to make sure she understood, even as his body was sated and replete.
“Forever won’t be long enough,” she murmured, nestling closer to him, and the final barrier inside his heart. that had been terrified of a future without her, finally fell to the realization that she loved him.
She loved him. Forever. He held her close as she fell asleep, smiling as he noticed that, this time, they were both glowing.
Quinn had never in her life spent three solid days doing nothing but engaging in utter hedonism. She felt drunk on pleasure. Anytime she wanted him, he was ready, and he always wanted her, so they spent most of their time making love and talking.
Making love and laughing together.
