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She drew close to the windows and looked out. “This is the Mogollon Rim, isn’t it?”
Again, he moved in behind her. The view had never been more beautiful because she was here to see it with him, the blue sky overhead and the tree-studded red cliffs opposite. Hawks soared above what was the gorge carved out by Oak Creek who knew how many millennia before his time.
“I think I could look at this view forever,” she said.
How he wished that were true. His heavy sigh forced her to turn in his arms, look up at him, and stroke his cheek with her hand. “No sighing right now, Thorne. Please? Just be with me today, as though there is no other day, just you and me and the promise of a big bathtub.”
“I can do that.” But looking into her beautiful brown eyes, he suddenly felt so lost, so desperate that he kissed her hard.
She pulled back but still had her hands clasped at his nape. “So where’s your bedroom?”
He jerked his head to the doorway and long hall on the left. “Over here.”
She glanced in that direction and said, “Another flight of stairs?”
“I built this house on the hillside, so yeah, lots of stairs.”
She glanced at the stairs then to her right in the direction of the foyer. “I’ll bet this house looks beautiful from the front.”
“The elevation is very pretty.”
“Do all you warriors have big homes like this?”
He smiled. “Pretty much. We have to. We’re big men.”
Her hand found his groin and rubbed the length of him, all the way up. “I am so not going to state the obvious. How about you just show me your bedroom.”
* * *
Marguerite didn’t want to be feeling all that she was feeling: her absolute delight that she’d saved him the pain of damaged wings, her pleasure in his house and in his company, her wish that she could stay in this beautiful place for the rest of her life, as in forever.
But as he took her hand and drew her into the wood-paneled hallway, as she once more had an expansive view of the gorge and the rim and of the magnificent red monoliths everywhere, she slowed to again savor the view. This was one of those homes where every room had an astonishing vista.
She gave his hand a squeeze.
Maybe the design therefore was a perfect reflection of Thorne: The view from any perspective had always been amazing. Certainly on a physical level, the man didn’t have a bad angle, and over the decades she had most definitely seen him from every angle possible.
Now a bath with him, another first of many over the past two days. Sweet Christ had they been together for only two days? It seemed like weeks had passed. Months, maybe.
As she climbed the steps behind him, as he squeezed her hand, she felt like she was being drawn into another world. She had an uneasy sensation and asked, “Thorne, have you brought other women here before?”
He looked back at her as he climbed yet another short flight of polished wood stairs. “No, of course not. You know the year I built this house. During that whole time, just how often did I fail to get to the Convent?”
“A handful of mornings, I guess.”
“Exactly. So please tell me you know that I was faithful to you.”
Her heart seized, one giant fist inside her chest strangling.
She stopped dead on the middle step so that now he really towered above her.
When she didn’t budge, he turned to face her fully, releasing her hand. “What gives?”
“This feels like too much.”
“Would it have helped if I’d brought other women here?”
Her fingers shaped into cat’s claws so fast that even Thorne glanced at them and smiled.
“That’s not the point and you know it.” She lifted her hands to face him, still curled and ready for a fight. “This is the breh-hedden, nothing more.”
He stepped down one step, but he was still like a giant against her five feet five inches. It then occurred to her in the most unholy way that these stairs had real potential.
“I thought we were fighting and now all I can smell in this confined space is a heavy wave of rose. Not that I’m complaining.”
She was eye level with his stomach. She put her hand on his green sweater and looked up at him. “Get rid of this.”
His eyes flared.
Sweater gone.
She drifted her fingers over his abs, and he tightened his stomach for her. She hooked her finger in the top of his jeans. Maybe there were many things about this situation that distressed her, that made her want to run screaming into the hills, but this wasn’t one of them, the banquet that was Thorne.
His hand found her nape, one of his favorite places—and she knew why. He liked to exert control, or at least the appearance of it. And it turned her on as well. She rose to the next step, which put her exactly at pec level, one of her favorite places. He pushed on her nape, forcing her toward him.
She loved playing with him, playing with his body, touching him, sucking on him. His breath rose high in his chest, and that sweet cherry tobacco scent now clouded her senses and forced her mouth open to take in his nipple.
She descended on him like she hadn’t eaten in weeks, sucking hard and biting, using her fingers to push all the muscle into a bunch so she could take as much of him in her mouth as she could gather.
“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Jesus, what you do to me.”
She took a turn on his other pec and by the time she was done, she was satisfied at how red the skin was, at the various bite marks she’d left, and how stiff and puckered his ni**les were. She looked up at him. His hazel eyes were dark and seemed to flash in the dim hallway.
He stroked the back of her neck in quick rubs, up and down. She didn’t dare touch him low right now, or he’d come.
You work me up.
She smiled. You need to settle down, Thorne. We’re just getting started and I want you to last for me.
He narrowed his eyes. I’ll f**king last for you.
Oh, looked like she’d touched a sore spot, so she slid her hand low after all and stroked the length of his erection through his jeans, up and up, dipping her fingertips just below the crown before sliding off.
He arched forward and hissed.
She laughed. “I want my bath, Thorne. You said you’d suck me. You going to keep that promise or are you all talk?”
But he leaned down a little more, twisted sideways, and kissed her hard on the lips.
The thing was, she’d always loved his mouth. This time she put her hand on his nape and did some stroking of her own as he thrust his tongue against hers.
