Page 125 of Lone Star

She made another sound – she was so vocal this time – and, when he was fully-seated, arched backward. Her head thumped lightly against the mirror, the long, elegant line of her throat offered up like a banquet, nipples pink, and tight, and glistening from his mouth.

Look at her, he’d said to Ten, and it hadn’t been a joke.

He did look at her, just a moment, poised and straining on the edge of movement. She should have looked vulnerable like this, he thought, but she didn’t, she never head. She looked graceful, and gorgeous, and unapologetically hungry, low-lidded and dangerous as a cat.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her, unbidden. The words slipped out before he could think them, his voice jarringly rough, and honest.

She froze a moment, eyes widening in surprise.

They didn’t do this: say honest, personal things to one another. It was either all work, or banter, ribbing each other, or desperate need. There weren’t confessions; no soft words.

The way she stared at him, utterly still, her pulse fluttering in her throat, told him that, though she’d never asked for those things, maybe she liked them. Maybe wanted them…maybe needed them.

He felt a sharp clenching in his chest that had nothing to do with sex. So he leaned forward, and kissed her. Felt her lashes against his skin as her eyes fluttered closed. Pulled his hips back a fraction, and thrust forward.

They both groaned, lips pressed together, breath hot and close between them.

They were in public, and had to hurry, and there were a dozen things they needed to do when they left. But for now, they could have this.

And maybe in future she could have more, if he kept telling her she was beautiful.

Thirty-Eight

Axelle couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken up beside someone else. She had a fleeting thought that that was embarrassing, and then decided it wasn’t, because she didn’t want to think about other guys right now, only the one spooned up behind her, his arm a reassuring weight around her waist.

She lay there a few minutes, utterly content, listening to the sounds of the clubhouse waking up around them. As she blinked the sleep from her eyes, she saw that dawn was breaking, a faint silver light creeping in at the window, painting stripes across the wall she faced. The scent of coffee reached her, just a hint, but it grew stronger moment to moment.

Albie took a deep breath behind her as he came awake, his fingers flexing lightly against her stomach.

They would have to get up, and soon. If not, someone would doubtless come knocking. But she wanted to savor their last few minutes alone. Their only minutes of the first morning after.

Rolling over left her aware of all the tender, newly-sore places where she’d carry last night with her for the next few days, whatever they held. A good, gentle kind of pain, a pleasant reminder when things got scary – because she knew they would.

She settled on her side facing him, sliding her foot between his ankles, the roughness of his leg hair causing a friction against her own smooth skin that left gooseflesh pebbling up her legs. His eyes seemed to glow in the early light, an underwater blue full of darker striations. His face was marked with a crease from the pillow, his gaze still sleepy, contented. She noted the mark on his neck, the place where she’d nipped him with her teeth in the throes, when she’d been on her back and he’d been inside her, his hips pistoning…

Her belly filled with warmth, and her nipples pebbled, and dampness welled between her legs. All that, just from looking at him.

She bit her lip, feeling stupid, trying to school her features before he could guess where her thoughts had drifted.

One corner of his mouth hitched upward in a knowing smile. “Morning.”

That was all he said, but her cheeks warmed, and she knew she was blushing. “Morning.”

“You look awfully pleased with yourself.”

She laughed and groaned at once, and tipped forward to rest her forehead on his shoulder. His skin was soft there, warm and smooth. He smelled like soap and sex.

His hand settled at the back of her neck, thumb sifting through her hair to find skin, a proprietary side-to-side sweep that, for some reason, felt nearly as intimate as everything they’d done last night. There was no such thing as a casual touch between them, she was learning. Each bit of skin-to-skin contact sparked, weight and meaning – sometimes unwanted, for her part – imbued in even the briefest of brushes.

In a softer, more serious voice, he said, “Are you okay?”

She couldn’t stop the little purr that built in the back of her throat, as his thumb circled the knob at the top of her spine, drawing more pleasant shivers across her skin. “Much better than okay.”

“Promise?”

She lifted her head so she could meet his gaze – closer now. She could see the grain of morning stubble on his jaw, and the lines around his eyes and mouth, the evidence of too many years in the sun, on the back of a bike. His hair was a wreck, a glossy dark lock fallen over his forehead. It wanted to curl, now, after the pillow, after her fingers.

She was struck again by the thought that this was him. This was Albie, here with her, without even clothes to warp her perception. She knew that he was one of ten half-siblings, and a Brit, and a furniture maker, and a gun dealer, and a Lean Dog, and a criminal, but this was him, without all the trappings. This was the part of him that she got to see – that he let her see. It was an honor.

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