Sensing her thoughts, he said, “Touch me, darling.”

She couldn’t refuse the dark, inviting words, and she set her hands to him, running them over his chest, and down to the part of him that made her so nervous. He flinched as she touched him softly, just lightly enough to drive him slightly mad. She pulled back immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” he said, his voice shaking with tightly leashed passion. “Do it again.” She did, wrapping her fingers around the hard, silken length of him and caressing him with an innocence that threatened to slay him. With a groan, he placed his hand on hers, and his strong, skilled fingers guided hers, showing her just how to hold him, just where to stroke him, just how to please him.

What she lacked in skill she more than made up for in eagerness, and Ralston soon found himself harder and heavier than he had ever been. Her warm hand moved more and more firmly as she gained confidence and he reveled in her touch until his breath was ragged and harsh and he realized that if her hot little fingers stayed upon him much longer, he would not be able to hold back.

And then she spoke, and he thought he might lose his mind. “May I…kiss you?”

He let out a harsh laugh and spoke through gritted teeth. “No.”

“But you have…with me.”

“Yes, Empress, and someday I will happily allow you to respond in kind. But tonight I cannot…for I already want you too much.”

“Oh,” she said, “I understand.” Her eyes revealed that she wasn’t entirely certain she did.

He lifted her hand from him and rolled to cover her with his body, settling between her silken thighs, the length of him pressing against the heart of her, where she was wet and willing and aching for him. “I want you too much to allow you such free rein. Your touch is already threatening my sanity.” His voice lowered as he began to rain kisses across her br**sts, suckling first one hard, waiting nipple, then the other, wringing a soft cry from her. “I would much rather spend the rest of the evening inside you, until neither one of us can think.”

He pressed against her again, rubbing against the hard, eager nub of her sex and sending a ripple of pleasure through her. “Don’t you agree?”

“Oh, yes,” she sighed, as he repeated the motion.

He nipped at her shoulder, his lips curving in a smile. “I thought you might.”

With a single, delicious thrust, he was inside her, and she belatedly realized that there was no pain, no discomfort as there had been the first time, but only a rich, welcome fullness that made her feel utterly complete.

He stopped, seated to the hilt. “Are you all right, lovely?”

“Yes, I’m quite wonderful,” she said, her tone a mix of pleasure and awe. She shifted beneath him, and he groaned, moving against her several times before retreating until nothing but the very tip of him remained inside her, and she thought the loss of him might make her mad.

“Gabriel,” she sighed. “Please.”

He rewarded her, filling her again, pushing her further, higher, shifting and moving until the angle of his movements was perfect, and she cried out.

He stopped, whispering in her ear teasingly, “Careful, Empress…you’ll get us caught.” Her eyes widened at his words, and he smiled. “It makes it even better, doesn’t it…the threat of discovery?”

As if to test her willpower, his fingers stroked just above where they were joined, skillfully playing in the nest of curls, finding the tight bud of pleasure there and stroking it until she was biting her lower lip to keep silent. And then he was moving again, building the sweet friction between them, coaxing her into abandon while whispering heated reminders to stay quiet. She couldn’t stop herself, and he captured her mouth in a soul-stealing kiss to keep her from calling out as she shattered beneath him, pulsing around him, giving him a taste of heaven.

And when she tore her lips from his to whisper “I love you,” over and over like a litany, he was lost, too, barely controlling his own cries of pleasure as he spilled inside of her.

After several long moments, he lifted his weight from her, and she gave a little sigh of protest at the loss of him. He lay next to her, immediately pulling her into his arms. When Callie rested her cheek upon his chest, she whispered her love one more time, so softly that he barely heard the words.

Gabriel lay there for a long time, watching her sleep, taking in her simple, powerful beauty and wondering at the intensity of the moment, of the evening. As he breathed her in, he was overcome with a ragged emotion—foreign and unsettling—and he wondered fleetingly what he had brought upon them.

Twenty-three

Callie woke to the sound of rustling paper.

She opened her eyes at the noise then, disoriented in the dim, gray light that marked the predawn hour, closed them once more. The fire in her room had gone out hours ago, and she cuddled closer to the source of heat next to her, stretching against the smooth, warm skin…before realizing precisely to whom the skin in question belonged.

Her eyes flew open, and she met Ralston’s bold, amused gaze.

“Good morning, Empress.” She felt more than heard the words as they rumbled in his chest, filled with sleep, and she blushed. After all, it wasn’t every day that she woke to a man in her bed. She wasn’t entirely sure how to respond, but she felt certain that ignoring him was highly improper. Pulling away from him in a desperate attempt to restore a semblance of ladylikeness to her person, she said, “Good morning. What time is it?”

“Just before five,” he answered, one arm snaking around her and pulling her back to her original position, pressed against his very warm, very hard, very naked body. “Altogether too early to leave this bed.”