Page 54 of From the Darkness

She couldn’t speak. She could only nod, because that was the truth. Walking away from him back then had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Yet she’d put duty before her own happiness.

“Let me love you. Let me love you now.”

“Yes!” she gasped out. She had wanted him for so long, and now he was giving himself to her.

He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. With one hand, he pulled aside the covers, laying her on the crisp white sheet. Then he followed her down.

Her hands plucked at his shirt. “Troy, please. Take your clothes off.”

He rolled away long enough to rid himself of the shirt. Then he gathered her to him again, pressing her against his body. She reached up to pull his mouth to hers in a kiss that was sweeter than any they had exchanged before. The underlying passion sent heat shimmering through her.

As she kissed him, she tried to show him the depths of her feelings. She had given up any hope of getting together with him when she’d learned about his marriage. But she had never forgotten him, never stopped wondering what might have been between them.

She knew deep down that was the real reason she had come to Ravencrest so eagerly—so recklessly. She was stronger than she’d been when she first knew him. Surer of what she wanted—no matter the risks. Which was why she’d come back to this room that she’d been forbidden to enter. Helen had given her a chance to find Troy again, and she had seized the opportunity—and damn the consequences.

She was incapable of considering any consequences now. She had been unsure of him. Afraid of him, even.

But none of that mattered at this moment. She could only kiss him and stroke his strong back and shoulders and lose herself in the building ecstasy of making love with him.

Finally. Finally, it was their time.

When he dipped his head and drew one of her pebble-hard nipples into his mouth, she moaned her pleasure and clasped him to her.

He brought her up, up to heights she had hardly imagined. His fingers stroked down her body, playing with the thatch of blond hair below her abdomen before slipping lower and parting her hot, slick feminine flesh.

“Troy. Oh Lord, Troy,” she gasped out, clinging to him, almost overcome by the pleasure he was giving her.

Yet she needed to know he was sharing that pleasure as fully as she.

She reached for him, starting to slide her hand down the front of his body to the fly of his jeans. But he caught her fingers, stopped her downward progress.

“Troy, I want you with me,” she gasped.

“I am with you. I’m right here. All the way.” As he spoke, he grasped her small hands in one of his large ones, pulling them up and over her head, trapping her so that he could work his will.

“Hold on to the headboard,” he murmured.

She did as he asked, her hands clenching and unclenching on the brass bars.

He kissed her then as he began to stroke her once more, drinking in her little cries.

She was swept along on the tide of sensuality he had created. Unconsciously, her hips rocked against his clever fingers as she sought maximum contact, maximum sensation.

Her reward was a surge of ecstasy that could only be sustained for a measured space of time—physical pleasure that built and built to an incredible peak of tension.

“Let go, sweetheart. Show me how good it feels.” Two of his fingers slipped inside her, triggering a burst of erotic intensity that sent her spinning out of control into a wild, shattering climax.

She called out his name, her hands clenching tightly onto the bars of the headboard, even as small aftershocks rippled through her inner muscles.

“Troy. Please. I want to give you that pleasure, too,” she gasped out, lowering her arms and reaching for him.

He bent, stopping her words with a long deep kiss that seemed to say he was ready to allow her to return the joy he had given her. Then, just as she relaxed into the kiss, he pulled away from her.

She cried out at the sudden loss, even as she reached for him again, trying to bring him back. But she knew in the next moment that she was alone on the bed, alone in the room.

Totally alone.

She lay there breathing hard, trying to come back to herself, knowing there was no use calling out to the man who had just given her so much physical pleasure—and then left her. The way he always left her. Now that she thought back over what had happened between them, she could see he had planned what he wanted to do. Carry her away in ecstasy—then disappear.

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