Page 33 of The Gathering Storm

He jerked the tie over his head, ripped open his shirt, popping buttons off, and tugged at the belt holding his slacks in place. As soon as it was undone, he unfastened his slacks and crawled back onto the bed, still half dressed, settling himself between her thighs.

“Next time,” he breathed into her skin, and a moment later, he curled his hand around her thong and yanked hard, breaking the fragile fabric, and then the tip of his erection prodded her core and he eased into her, stretching her with every delicious thrust of his hips against hers as he worked himself into her.

“Sorry, baby,” he murmured. “Waited too long.”

She wrapped herself around him, cradling him to her. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

The words were lost to him, she thought, lost in the sensual heat carrying them both along the music drifting into the bedroom.

He thrust once more, grunted as he seated himself fully, then propped up on one forearm beside her and captured her gaze with his. “Ok, I can think now.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “We must be doing it wrong, then.”

“Oh, we’re doing it very right.” As if to prove exactly how right they were, he eased his hips back and thrust into her, hard. “I was desperate to be in you, and then that dress and the stockings and the garter belt.”

“Too much?” she asked archly.

His mouth curved into the dimpled smile she was beginning to love. “Just right. Ready, love?”

Yes, she thought, but he was already there, moving his hips in a slow rhythm, echoing the gymnopédie they’d begun their dance with. His gaze never faltered on hers and his hand slid down her arm and captured her hand, and pinned it above her head, holding her in place as the storm built quickly around them, lifting her so high so fast, her breath faltered. She clung to him, arching into each of his thrusts, and tightened her body around him, willing him to go faster, harder, more, always more with him, every moment better than the last.

And it was, so much better, so good. He shifted above her, resettling himself, and let go of her hand only to find her thigh and pin it high against his side.

“Sigrid,” he whispered, and his mouth found hers again, unerringly, and all the need he’d roused joined the centuries of loneliness within her, tangling into a desperate knot only he could unwind.

“Will, please,” she cried, and he complied, pushing her up and over the edge in three, swift shoves. Her body pulsed around him, begging for his own release, and there, too, he willingly followed, releasing into her in hot waves she rode until he pushed himself into her one last time, giving her everything he had, and more.

Will’s breath panted out of him and his heart raced beneath his undershirt.

Which he still had on, along with his pants and shoes and every other stitch of clothing he’d worn for his dinner with Sigrid.

Except the tie, of course. That he’d had the foresight to remove.

He laughed into her hair and eased to her side, slipping out of her delicious heat into the cooler air of her bedroom. “Should I apologize?”

She curled into him and tucked herself against him, and her lips twitched into a smile beneath the smudged mess he’d made of her lipstick. “Do you regret what we did?”

“Never.” He kissed her once, hard on the mouth, and smoothed her skirt down over the wicked silk stockings she’d worn. “As long as you’re ok. Did I hurt you?”

Her smile melted into low, husky laughter. “No, dearest Will.”

The endearment shot straight to his heart, piercing it with a hope he’d only rarely dared to indulge in. “Let me get a cloth.”

“I’m fine.”

He shushed her with another kiss, gentle this time, tender, like a lover should be, in the beginning anyway. Later, maybe they could be rough, but for now, he wanted to show her something different, something better. He wasn’t a mundane mortal to lose control the way he had. A Son knew better. Discipline always, even in the bedroom when passion drove a man into primal behavior.

He knew how to treat a woman. The need to prove that to her burned within him as brightly as the desire she stirred so easily.

Why had his heart had to settle on a battle-hardened Daughter?

He shrugged the question off and eased away from her, careful of her lying so calmly beside him. Her bathroom was a reflection of her bedroom, warm yellows and reds, and precisely arranged to suit her exact needs. Will snagged a washcloth out of the tiny linen closet beside the toilet, ran it under hot water, and trudged back into her bedroom, ignoring the loose sag of his own clothing.

She’d turned over on her back while he was gone, and watched him now through the narrowed slits of her eyelids. One hand rested flat on her stomach. The other fell toward him, palm up. She shifted her legs restlessly against the bedspread, and the soft shush of silk on silk brushed along his dick as if she’d stroked it.

Blessed Ki, he had it bad.

He sat beside her on the edge of the bed and nudged her thighs apart, rubbed the warm, wet cloth over her sex, cleaning her, and checked to make sure that no, he really hadn’t hurt her.

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