Page 84 of Storm Echo

The sun out on the street was a burn on her overheated, oversensitized flesh, her clothing suddenly too heavy, too rough against skin that wanted only to touch skin. “Ivan.” A husky plea.

He took her hand, the bag of food in his other. “We’re going home.” Cool, controlled words that crept over her skin like a caress from an assassin’s blade. “You can eat after.”

After.

She almost orgasmed then and there.

Chapter 40

Lover, lover

Die for me

In this sweet kiss

This carnal b—

—“Unfinished work 7” by Adina Mercant, poet (b. 1832, d. 1901)

IVAN DID HIS research before every operation. He liked plans, liked having worked out every possible scenario.

He’d have researched sexual contact with the same single-minded determination had he ever believed Soleil would come back into his life and want to interact that way with him. But he hadn’t, and so he had no plans, nothing but an urgent physical drive that threatened to wipe his mind of all rational thought.

He fought it long enough to say, “You’re sure? Even knowing—”

“I’m sure.” Her voice was breathless from the speed of their walk, her eyes no longer human … and the erotic images that kept flashing into his brain without warning an education.

He could do that. And that.

He hesitated. So many of the images were of her touchinghim, caressing him. As if she found him as much a compulsion as he found her. His penis threatened to go fully erect; the only reason it hadn’t already done so was that he’d thrown literally all his years of control into suffocating the reaction until they were in the apartment.

He still barely made it.

Slamming the door behind them with a force he’d never before shown, he used his palmprint to activate full security, then ran a telepathic scan as Soleil raced up the stairs ahead of him. He followed, his heart pounding and his skin so hot that he half expected to see steam coming off it.

No intruders detected in his telepathic scan.

He set it to run automatically in the background as he entered the bedroom behind Soleil and shut the door. First, he put the food carefully aside. She hadn’t eaten; he’d seen that. He’d feed her after, his need to look after her a driving force. But first, he had to touch her, the hunger inside him a new thing he didn’t have the language to describe.

As he pulled off his blazer, she threw off his jacket.

He was only three buttons into unbuttoning his shirt when she kicked off her trainers and tore her dress off over her head. Her bra joined the pile of clothing a heartbeat later. His brain just … shut down.

She was …

Mouth dry, he swallowed, unable to take his eyes off her as she walked toward him, her breasts bouncing a little with each step. She stopped when almost to him and raised her hands to squeeze her own breasts, her lips plump and her pupils dilated. “Ivan, I need your touch.”

Ivan needed no further instructions.

Snapping out of his frozen state, he covered the distance between them in a single stride and hauled her against him, one hand on the back of her neck, the other splayed on her lower back.

When she gasped, he fought to think. “Was I too rough?”

A small growl in answer, before his changeling lover hooked her legs around his waist with a single jump, her claws kneading lightly at his shoulders as she nipped at his throat. Ivan’s erection was a thing of stone by now, rigid almost beyond bearing, but her lips, her teeth, her mouth as she explored his throat threatened to push him over the edge.

“I don’t have control,” he gritted out.

Wild eyes holding his. “Neither do I.” A tearing sound, his shirt in shreds around them.

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