And for a change, logic and reason didnt have a damn thing to say.
He stayed locked against her while the pleasure leveled off and then faded, and the world around them started to come back into focus. She heard the hiss-pop of the fire, saw the brightness of the sunny day outside through her closed lids and felt the shift of the mattress when he levered up onto his elbows, taking his weight off her.
Though she would have liked to linger a moment more, she opened her eyes and met his emerald gaze. And for the first time since meeting himand she didnt for a second want to count the hours, considering what had just passed between themhis expression was open and unshadowed. It made him look younger and a little naughty, bringing to mind the kind of man who would go for a gallop to blow off some steam, little knowing that the morning would change his life forever.
She, too, felt changed, but she didnt want to look at it too closely. Not now. Maybe not ever.
He cleared his throat. I, uh, feel like I should say something. But I havent a clue what.
A tension she hadnt even been aware of melted away, easing her neck and shoulders. Me, too, and me, neither. So how about we say thank you and set it aside for now?
His face softened. Then I thank you, dear sweet Reda, for teaching me about showers, for taking me into your bed, for touching me and for sharing your lovely, lovely body with me.
Her heart shuddered in her chest, her eyes threatened to fill, her throat to lock, and she knew she didnt dare say anything now; that if she did, she would make an idiot out of herself and make them both supremely uncomfortable. So, although it made her the coward, she just nodded jerkily and reached up to kiss his cheek.
Dayn, bless his noble heart, seemed to understand. He brushed his fingers over her cheeks as if brushing away the tears she hadnt let herself shed, then said, Stay here and see if you can sleep. Im going to double-check the wards.
She nodded, feeling a blush form at the strange intimacy of the moment, with the two of them strangers except in their dreams. He rose from the bed and padded, gloriously naked, to the bathroom, where he pulled on his pants and boots, then threw on his shirt without buttoning it. When he came back over to her, he had one of his short swords tucked in his belt.
That shouldnt have made him even more appealing than before. She was a modern woman, an evolved human being. But apparently that modern, evolved woman liked men with swords.
Not men, she thought, just Dayn. And that wasnt logic, reason or practicality talking. It was a fact. And if that put her on the fast track to heartache, maybe that wasnt the worst thing that could happen to her. Because at least she wouldnt be sleepwalking through life anymore.
He snagged one of the waterskins as he returned to the main room, and crossed to the bed and offered it to her first. Thirsty?
Parched. The act of accepting water from him shouldnt have felt profound, just as the satisfied look in his eyes as he watched her drink shouldnt have kindled new sparks of arousal. Flustered, she handed it back. Thank you.
Rest. Ill be back in a few minutes.
Nodding, she lay back and curled onto her side with her back to the fire. With her eyes closed, the noises around her seemed amplified. She tracked Dayns movements by the thud of his boots, the close of the door at his back, the crunch of gravel outside and the annoyed call of a bird disturbed by his circuit of the cabin.
He returned within a few minutes, as promised, and his clothing rustled and boots thudded as he stripped back down before sliding into the bed with her. He curled around her, his front to her back, and folded their hands together over her heart.
And as she drifted off to sleep with his warmth surrounding her, she found herself doubly grateful that he wasnt a wolfyn. Because if he was, she would surely be enthralled.
DAYN AWOKE NEAR NOON, when his internal clock warned that they didnt dare rest much longer, in case their pursuers were still on the road.
In her sleep, Reda had turned toward him. Now, she was nestled close to his side, her head pillowed on the arm he had curled around her. Her breath was warm on his skin, tightening his nipples and sending tendrils of reaction lower down in his body. But those physical responses were tiny trickles compared to the deep wellspring of emotion that even now threatened to fill him up and spill over.
Affection, gratitude, relief, disquietthere was all of that and more, a complicated mix that said he probably shouldnt have made love with her, and definitely not as intensely as things had wound up gettingbut at the same time he couldnt regret the decision, or his eventual loss of control.
They had well and thoroughly loved each other with no pretenses, no expectations and the knowledge that they would go their separate ways at the arch, taking with them only good memories. And if that thought brought a twinge, he ignored it and focused on how damn good he felt suddenlyrefreshed and recharged, and ready to take on the world.
Or to take on a pissed-off pack and a countdown to the night after tomorrowthe fourth nightas the case might be.
At that sobering reminder, he touched her shoulder. Come, my sleeping beauty. Its time to waken.
He halfway expected her to jolt awake and panic at finding them in bed together. As responsive and exciting as his sweet Reda had been, he doubted shed ever before taken a lover mere hours after meeting him, doubted she was accustomed to waking in a near-strangers arms. Their relationship, though, had perforce been compressed, accelerated.
She must have been closer to waking than he had thought, though, because she didnt gasp or jump away from him. Instead, she smiled, eyes still closed, and said, If Im Sleeping Beauty, then my Prince Charming should wake me with a kiss.
You think Im charming, then? Without waiting for an answer, he leaned in and touched his lips to hers, a chaste press at first, then going deeper when her lips softened and parted beneath his.
Murmuring, she shifted closer to him and slid her arms around his neck, capturing him against her. The move tugged at him, reaching inside and filling a place he hadnt even known was empty. Fierce joy raced through him as he moved over her, into her, pressing her into the mattress as he kissed her thoroughly, his body awakening to the reality of a lover, his lover.
Her soft moan made him want to pull her up and dance her in a mad whirl around the cabin; the gentle tug of her fingers in his hair made him want to sing at the top of his lungs, though he couldnt hold a tune; and the feeling of her beneath him, her thighs cradling him as he swelled and hardened almost instantly despite having come inside her only a few hours before made him want to race out into the forest to hunt the most dangerous foe, solely so he could bring her a talisman of the kill. Though from what hed heard, humans could be squeamish about such things. So maybe he would pick her wildflowers instead.
The sheer ridiculousness of it was suddenly very appealing. As was the thought of slipping inside her once more and rocking them both to oblivion. He could feel the slick wetness of her cleft against him and the excited race of her pulse beneath her soft, feminine skin. And although they needed to leave the cabin, he was dying to lose himself in her, with her.
Then, suddenly, her fingers were wrapped around him, guiding him. He stiffened, broke the kiss and groaned as she teased the tip of his hard shaft along her wet folds.
Pulling his head from hers, he looked down at the spread of her coppery curls and the glint of her blue eyes. Gods, Reda. We dont have much time.
I know. She reached up and kissed his cheek. So be quick. And she curled a leg around his hips, and urged him home.
Groaning, he plunged into her, then hissed with pleasure as her heated wetness snugged around him, urging him on. He was already teetering at the edge of control when she arched up to meet him, and the liquid, heated friction snapped those last thin threads that said he needed to see to her pleasure before his own.
Grating her name, he caught her by the shoulder and hip, anchoring her as he thrust heavilyonce, twice, a third time was all it took before he felt the tingling, tightening sensation that presaged a climax. He didnt try to fight it, but rode it instead, pistoning twice more before the tingles became a roar of heat, the need to cut loose, and he bowed against her, thrust as deep as he could and releasing himself into her with a shattering groan.
He went blind and deaf, insensate to anything but the pleasure of coming inside her as his orgasm went on and on, seeming to last longer than the sex itself.
Slowly, he became aware of sharp prickles where her fingernails dug into his shoulders, the press of her heels into the backs of his thighs, where she had locked her ankles. And the fact that he was probably crushing her.
Gods. He levered himself up on arms that wobbled like the legs of a newborn beast-chaser foal, and looked down at her, expecting to see Hell, he didnt know what he expected. But it wasnt wide-eyed wonder tinged with fear.
But then again, he realized after a moment, that pretty much summed it up.
It wasnt just the drug, was it? she asked softly.
No. He shook his head. This is us, sweet Reda. He wanted to ask her if she had come, but couldnt bring himself to admit that he had been that far lost within himself. So instead he resolved that when they stopped next to rest, he would even things up. The thought put a burn of anticipation in his gut and made him look forward to that break and the next, and however many it took them to reach the Meriden Arch.
And after thatdamn it, he didnt know what came after that, except that he had a vow to keep and responsibilities to fulfill. He only hoped to hell he could do all that and do right by Reda, too.
Somehow.
CHAPTER NINE
FOR REDA, THE NEXT TWO days passed in a blur, yet at the same time there were moments that were imprinted so sharply in her mind that she knew she would remember them forever.