Key Of Valor - Key Trilogy 3 Part 49

He could feel her yield to him, to the pleasure, hear her breathing thicken as he took his time. Could she know what it meant to him to be with her like this, with the sun streaming through the windows and the house empty and quiet around them?

Could she know how much he needed her when he was only beginning to understand it himself?

He hadn't known until that moment just how much he had to give, so desperately wanted to give. What he was, what he had, what he felt, what he imagined. His mouth covered hers again, and he offered all.

Her heart bounded into her throat, her hands clutching his s.h.i.+rt as emotions engulfed her. More than pleasure, more than the promise of it flooded through those seductive sensations. Trembling, she slipped under.

This was what he needed-the utter surrender to each other. Where there was no one and nothing but the two of them. "I want to look at you." He rained kisses over her cheeks before easing her top over her head. "Just to look at you."

Watching her, looking into those heavy, dazed eyes, he slid the denim down.

Smooth skin and subtle curves, long, almost balletic limbs. Those slumberous eyes and that siren's mouth. She was, he thought, such a fascinating combination of the fragile and the exotic.

Bending, he pressed his lips to the top of her thigh, gliding them slowly down over sensitive flesh as she shuddered.

He teased closer to the heat with his tongue. "I want you to lie there. And let me do things to you."

She couldn't have stopped him. She was already steeped in need, awash in sensation. When the first shock of heat slammed through her, she wrapped her fingers around the iron bars of the bed and let him take her anywhere he wished.

Here was glory and wonder. Those hands, so exquisite in their patience, unlocking every secret. That mouth tender and thorough, devouring her by inches. She bowed up as the o.r.g.a.s.m catapulted through her, and still he didn't stop.

Emotion careened against emotion, feeling against feeling until it seemed her senses were alive with light, her skin s.h.i.+mmering with it. And each time the ache built again, she welcomed it.

He was lost in her, aware of nothing but what she gave, and what he was compelled to take. Each time her body shuddered, there was more.

He rose over her. She encircled. He slid into her. She surrounded.

Slowly, still slowly, to drain every drop of pleasure even as it drenched them. The rise and fall of bodies, the beat of blood, the trip of pulse locked the world outside of that sun-filled room.

Somewhere time ticked away, cars rumbled past on the street, a dog barked at squirrels in a backyard, but she knew nothing but him. Heard nothing as she teetered on the edge of the world but her name, spoken almost like a prayer.

Then her own cry of joy as she leaped with him.

No one, at any time or in any place, Zoe decided, had ever felt better than she did right here and now. No one had ever been more completely seduced or thoroughly pleasured.

Drifting in the afterglow, she stroked her fingers through Brad's hair.

His head rested between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and his hand covered hers at her side. It was the sweetest combination of sensations, she'd ever felt.

"I'm so glad you dropped by," she said sleepily, and smiled when she felt his lips curve against the side of her breast.

"Glad you happened to be home."

"This is all so...gorgeous . Lying here, all naked and satisfied at..." She turned her head to check the clock. "Mmm, ten minutes to eleven in the morning. Better than winning the lottery."

He lifted his head and grinned at her. "And then some."

"You're so handsome. I keep thinking you look like one of those slick-looking guys in my hairstyle magazines."

He grimaced. "Please."

"Really. You could use a trim, though." She spread her fingers in his hair. "I could take care of that for you."

"Ah... Maybe sometime. Or other."

She gave the hair she held a friendly tug. "I'm very good, you know, at what I do for a living."

"I'm sure you are. Absolutely." To distract her, he pressed a kiss to her collarbone, then rolled aside. "I really did come by to talk to you."

"You can talk while I give you a trim. Hairdressers are like bartenders. We're trained to talk and work at the same time."

"I bet. But this probably isn't the best time. We should get dressed."

"Coward." She sat up, wrapped her arms around her updrawn knees.

"I'll accept that for the moment." He rose to find his pants. "Zoe, last night-well, more accurately early this morning-I had an experience."

The playful mood vanished as she scrambled to her knees. "Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?"

"No." He picked up her top, held it out. "You're going to need to stay calm while I tell you."

He dressed while he related the story.

Her initial fear had abated. He was unhurt, she could see that for herself. And he was steady, G.o.d knew. Maybe just a little too steady.

"You think he was using Jordan and Flynn against you-or wanted you to think they were against you."

"That sums it up."

"He doesn't understand people, or love, or friends.h.i.+p. He doesn't understand you, that's for certain, if he thought that would make you feel isolated or frighten you off. It just made you more involved."

The faintest smile ghosted around his mouth. "You seem to understand me."

She studied his face. "I don't know that I do, but I do understand how you are with Jordan and Flynn. Why did he pick that night? Because you were young, because it was near the Peak? Everything means something now. We're so close everything means something."

He nodded, pleased that their thoughts were running along the same lines. "I think it was both. While we were young, and more easily molded. Before we knew you or Mai, before Jordan looked at Dana as someone other than Flynn's sister. That was the night Jordan saw Rowena walking on the parapet at the Peak."

He paused, smoothed the cuffs of his s.h.i.+rt. "I was sixteen that night, Zoe. The same age you were when you left home."

"Oh." She wrapped her arms around herself as if she'd just felt a chill. "You think that means something?"

"I don't think we can afford to discount anything as coincidence. It was an important night for me, and for Flynn and Jordan. Didn't seem like it at the time, really. Just one of those reckless summer nights. But we were on that brink where you step away from childhood, toward manhood. You were the same age when you took your step."

"It was different for me."

"Yeah. But maybe if Kane could have twisted what happened that night, at least in my mind, he could have twisted how I think about it now. And what I did after. How I feel about Flynn and Jordan has a lot to do with why I'm back here, and how I met you."

"So if he'd driven a wedge between you, even had them hurt you-well, not them but what you believed was them, it might have weakened what we all have. Or even destroyed it."