Page 70 of Kiss Across the Universe
Kit didn’t spare her at all. She shuddered through three climaxes, the last making her scream, the sound tearing at her throat. Then he lifted himself up over her and slid inside her yet again.
His kiss seared her lips even as his cock heated her insides. He was a furnace against her.
Alannah sighed into his mouth.
This is right, she repeated to herself.This is the way it should be. Out here, in his world.
The approach of dawn wasturning the sky a beautiful shade of deep indigo tinged with rose red when Alannah thought that perhaps she might be able to relax. Just for a while.
Kit seemed to reach the same place at the same time, for he pulled her up against him, the sleeping bag over the two of them, tucked it in over her, and wrapped his arm over her. This time, though, his hand eased under her breast and his thumb rested against the underside. It wasn’t meant to arouse, she knew that. She didn’t think she had the capacity to be aroused right now, anyway.
Now her body was quiet, her mind seemed to roar to life. All the questions, doubts and concerns that her physical needs had been shunting aside once more demanded answers.
Kit’s breath was slow and easy, but she didn’t think he was asleep. Close to it, perhaps.
“How long have you wanted me?” she asked, her voice soft. If he was asleep, she didn’t want to wake him.
His breath didn’t change. His body didn’t shift, signaling wariness. “Does it matter?” His voice was just as soft.
“Whyme?” The question forced its way out. “Of anyone in our family, Marit is the brilliant one, the fiery redhead…”
He did stir then. His lips pressed against the back of her shoulder. “You’re not inadequate,” he said softly.
She jumped. “I never said I was….”
His thumb stroked. Softly. Reassuringly. “Your family is astonishing. Unique. Powerful. Veris by himself is overwhelming. But the sum total of everyone in your family who is considered family… It’s enough to make anyone feel small and insignificant. I felt that way for more than year. You’ve grown up with it, so the impact has been deeper for you.” He paused. “For me, too, with my family.”
She wanted to turn to look at him. But instinct told her to lay still, thatnotlooking at him was allowing him to talk. So she said with a near casual tone; “Your family is powerful, too?”
“Influential, especially across Alberta. Politicians litter my family. Obscenely successful businessmen, too. There are no poor reservation bums living off government handouts. I don’t think there’s a one of them would have the first clue how to go about doing nothing. It’s just not in the genes.”
“None of them live on the reservation?” she asked softly, marveling at how much that small speech revealed about Kit’s family…and Kit himself.
“Oh, they live on the reservation. Sometimes. My father has three houses there, to go along with the houses in Red Deer and Edmonton and Calgary. And Canmore. And Jasper, if he hasn’t sold that one yet. But that’s just geography, not a state of mind.”
“You’re not a politician. Or a businessman. Well, not the same as your family are businesspeople,” Alannah said. “Did that…bother them?”
“Oh, yes…” He let the confession out in a long, low sigh. “They were horrified when I said I was joining the Army. Becoming a warden at least put me back in the family arena, but wardens aren’t well paid….”
She could almost hear the pain in his voice. It was deep. Well hidden. But it was a pain that hadn’t gone away in years. So she held still once more, and stayed silent, because she wasn’t sure how to address such an old pain.
“You’re different from your family,” Kit said. “Like me.”
Ah…. Alannah let out a long slow breath. “Yes,” she admitted. “I always have been.”
“Like knows like.” His voice was even softer, heavy with sleep.
She could feel her own sleep slipping over her, like a heavy blanket, making her limbs heavy and her eyes to close.
Like knows like.
She almost jerked back to full wakefulness by a startling thought, and lay watching the sky grow even lighter, turning the idea over in her mind.
If this was Kit’s world, out here, was there any reason it couldn’t beherworld, too?
Sleep lingered out of reachfor Kit for a good long while after Alannah’s breath had slowed and deepened.
Had he been a colossal fool, giving into her like this? Had he ruined any chance at…anything at all, after this?
