Page 42 of Claimed

She blinked. It was the dizzy of falling in love.

Oh, no you don’t, she willed herself as Stefan leaned forward to nuzzle her shoulder. No, no, no. This wasn’t real, what she had with Stefan. This wasn’t long term. It couldn’t be. Stefan wasn’t lovestruck. She’d caught his fancy and she was certain he was earnest in all of his compliments, but she was a moment’s fascination with him. The same way he was a moment’s fascination for her.

Yeah. Exactly like that.

She schooled her breath to slow, her legs to unkink, and reaching her point of relaxation was easier than she thought it would be.

When she unbent enough for his satisfaction, Stefan spoke again.

“Had enough? Or would you—” His thick shaft nudged against her back, and she turned more fully to him, pulling him over onto her as she lay back on the bed again.

“Please,” she said, surprised at the brokenness of her voice as she realized he was already sheathed. “I want—yes.”

Fortunately, Stefan had apparently added “satisfied garble” to his list of foreign languages, and understood what she wanted perfectly. Slowly, with infinite gentleness, he leaned forward and nudged against her center, waiting until the next paroxysm of tremors subsided to ease himself into her. She sucked in a breath as he stretched her, but his gaze was locked on her face and when she met his stare, her body relaxed all at once, allowing him to slide into her with greater ease. He pressed forward, filling her, and her legs fell loosely to the side, her back arching.She savored the pure sensual pleasure of the two of them so intimately connected.

“Good?” Stefan asked, and she sensed the intensity of his stare—she’d closed her eyes again, and now she fluttered her lids open to meet his beautiful blue-gray eyes. He watched her with such infinite tenderness and unmistakable desire that her heart swelled with joy—it was so much—too much—yet she wouldn’t trade this moment for the world.

“Good,” she managed, her mouth wobbling into a smile. “So, so good.”

Thirty

Asurge of triumph surged through Stefan’s blood, quick and hot, thickening his shaft further and causing the muscles in his back to knot up, if only to keep his position steady over Nicki’s sweat and oil-slicked body. She surrounded him with heat and need, and he pulsed inside her, glorying in the wonder of her strength, her intensity, her passion.

Her lids drifted shut again, but he knew she was struggling to focus, to store up every touch, every twitch, every pressure of his body against hers. She was no stranger to sex—no stranger to him anymore—but with her headlong race through life, he suspected she didn’t often take the time to truly indulge herself. He would give her that time, though he could almost hear the crash and clank of her thoughts banging around in her head. She couldn’t rest for thirty seconds before her mind started up all the fervor usually reserved for her body.

He wasn’t unfamiliar with the condition.

Now he rocked into her with gradually increasing speed. He could afford to let the pressure build within him, secure that Nicki was beneath him, surrounding him, willing to ride this tide of pleasure for as long as it might last. He watched as her body relaxed further, the reaction allowing him to bury himselffurther with each thrust. At some point the tide of his urgency woke an echoing response within her, and her lids fluttered open again, her sex-glazed stare meeting his, flickering with renewed desire. Her mouth curved into a grin as her hands came up, curling around his forearms.

“You’re the one who’s perfect,” she said, her words a purely feminine purr. “You’re built exactly—right. You are.”

The words seemed oddly truncated to him, like half of what she’d meant to say, but at that moment Nicki tightened around him, and Stefan’s brain short-circuited briefly before coming back online. She continued to roll her muscles along the straining length of his cock, and she smiled up with him with clear knowledge of what she was doing.

“Showing off?” he murmured, dipping down to kiss her.

“It’s important to exercise your muscles whenever you can,” she said. “Especially your core.”

“My compliments to your physical trainer. On second thought, he’s a dead man. I’ll happily cart him to Hades myself.”

As Nicki laughed, Stefan lifted himself to his knees, bracing her hips on his thighs as her legs stretched to accommodate the movement. He went further still, though, bringing her ankles up until her legs formed a vee in front of his face, her ankles bracketing his jaw.

“What are you doing—” Nicki gasped as he bent into her, and her thighs tensed even as they accepted the gentle pressure he was applying.

“Every complete workout demands stretching as well,” he said, sinking into her as her body accepted the different pose.

“You’re so good to me,” Nicki said wryly, but her head tilted back and she sighed, her legs lengthening into the stretch. “That feels…unreasonably awesome.”

It was the expression on her face that did him in. She watched him with pure, unfiltered pleasure lighting her features,her eyes half-lidded, her face creased with a slight smile, and that was all it took. The need built up within him, quick and hot, and his grip firmed on her ankles, urging her knees to bend and allow her legs to relax as he rocked into her.

“Ohhh—” Nicki’s gaze was fixed on his face, her eyes alert, searching, and once again he sensed she was tracking his movements, his reactions, cataloging his every shift to play it back later. He didn’t plan on letting the experience fade into memory, and the thought of that ratcheted him up further, until he hissed her name through his teeth. She grabbed his forearms, moving with him, rocking with him, experiencing the explosion that jolted through him as he felt it shatter him completely, everything he wanted, yearned for, needed suddenly releasing in a swift and fiery rush.

A blast of awareness punched through him, another flash of understanding of that light, that too-bright light, bursting into a supernova and then winking out into nothing. All the breath rushed out of him, and he felt suddenly—strangely—impossibly bereft. As if the long, cold fingers of the Underworld had reached out to drift along his skin.

Then it was gone again, so quickly he couldn’t quite recall what he’d seen. His mind a jumble, Stefan collapsed to the side, rolling away from Nicki briefly as she moved as well—then froze. “I’m covered in oil,” she announced, staring down at herself. “I think if I move I’m going to destroy these sheets.”

“You worry too much.”

She snorted. “You’re the absolute first person to ever accuse me of that.” But she remained on the bed as he fetched towels, and the cleanup of her body required another shower, and then an extensive drying-off period that filled the room with laughter and teasing and the kind of kisses that alternated between long and slow and fast and hard. And Stefan watched the hours slipby too quickly, until suddenly it was three p.m.—which he knew only by Nicki’s reaction.