Page 103 of Blood of the Thistle

Oh, she did. The flesh beneath his fingers pulsed with the need to be stroked. Her hips rolled against his hand of their own accord, a low moan breaking from her lips as she sought more of him, her body slick and wanting.

He rose over her, and she welcomed his kiss with wild abandon, her tongue stroking his as his fingers stroked her. Her legs fell open, and the hard heat of him pressed against her thigh.

She could not have named what she felt, but she knew she wanted more.

“Bram, please,” she begged.

Bram withdrew his fingers and rose from her, stripping his breeches down his hips with an impatience that matched her own. She had only a moment to take in the full, unguarded sight of him before he came back to her, his weight settling between her thighs. She gasped at the coarse hair of his chest grazing her nipples, at the broad heat of him pressing against her center, and then at the slow, inexorable push of him inside her, his mouth finding hers at the same moment, swallowing the sound she made.

He moved inside her, slow and deep, and she felt every inch of him.

His face drew tight, almost anguished, and she felt the rigid restraint in his arms where they bracketed her, holding himself in check.

She felt alive and wild, reckless with longing. “Do not hold back, Bram.”

He withdrew slightly and forged gently ahead. He watched her again, his gaze softening as he thrust inward and pulled out. Heat gathered where he touched her inside. His rhythm deepened, a hard, steady cadence that drove into her with a force that stole her breath.

Something cracked open in her chest, a tenderness so acute it frightened her, for being so connected to him right now.

Pleasure began to spiral inside her, coiling tighter with each deepening thrust. He drove into her with a new, relentless rhythm that made her body sing with a deep, craving ache, her back bowing off the bed to meet each thrust. Instinctively, she squeezed herself around him, eliciting a low growl. He lunged forward, towering over her, pumping steadily, driving deeper. Anna hooked her feet onto his back, opening herself to him. She heard them together, the sounds of their bodies meeting, and felt a deep, animal heat move through her.

Pleasure seized her, sharp and merciless, and she shattered—undone by the exquisite beauty of it.

She covered her mouth with her hand, attempting to stifle her cries.

Bram pulled her hand away. “Nae. Dinna cover your mouth. That is mine, every sound I draw from ye.”

She gave herself up wholly, and the world narrowed to the heat of him, the weight of him, the sound of her own voice saying his name.

Nothing else mattered.

He claimed her mouth in a slow, thorough kiss, swallowing the small, breathless sounds she made as he drove into her. His body went rigid above her, every corded muscle straining. He thrust once more, deep and hard, and a long, low groan tore from him as he spilled his warmth inside her. His head dropped heavily to her chest, his breath hot against her skin.

“Well, God bless America,” tumbled from her lips in her exhausted astonishment.

For several moments neither moved, save for the gradual slowing of Bram’s breath against her breast and Anna’s fingers passing restlessly through the damp hair at the back of his neck. His weight was considerable, but she welcomed it, holding him close when he might otherwise have shifted away, one hand moving slowly over the broad expanse of his back.

She felt wonderfully spent, almost boneless beneath him, her heart still giving the occasional hard thump as her body settled from everything he had awakened in it. Yet beneath the lingering pleasure was something quieter and infinitely more dangerous, a fullness in her chest that had nothing at all to do with what they’d just done and everything to do with the man still lying in her arms.

Anna closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against his hair.

She had told herself she could do this. That wanting Bram was physical, that attraction did not have to become love, that two people could share a bed simply because they desired each other and allow it to be nothing more than that.

God! How easily she’d lied to herself.

What had just happened had not felt meaningless to her. It had felt enormous. Beautiful and intimate and frighteningly tender in ways that had very little to do with pleasure, and she knew she would remember it long after she remembered individual kisses or touches. She would remember the way he had looked at her, the way he’d said her name, the care he’d taken with her even when she’d begged him not to hold back.

She tightened her arms around him when he stirred, unwilling yet to surrender the warmth and weight of him.

Whatever tomorrow brought, whatever explanation Bram might give this or whatever distance he might put between them again, Anna refused to borrow the hurt of it tonight. She wanted him, had chosen him with her eyes wide open, and for these few precious moments afterward, he was still here in her arms.

And if this was all Bram could ever give her, she would let herself have all of it tonight.

***

Bram had been awake for some time before the first suggestion of dawn lightened the window.

Anastasia remained asleep beside him, turned partly toward him with one hand tucked beneath her cheek and her fair hair scattered across the pillow between them. At some point in the night she had drawn the coverlet nearly to her chin, though one bare shoulder remained exposed above it, pale in the thin gray light. Bram had spent an unreasonable length of time looking at that shoulder, and at the soft curve of her cheek, and had discovered that even after a night spent satisfying the want that had plagued him for weeks, he wanted her still.