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“Then say it again. If it’s possible for my love to fill your emptiness, perhaps yours can fill mine.”
Tenderly, Slayde framed her face between his palms. “I love you,” he stated simply. “Your pain is mine.”
Tears dampened Courtney’s lashes. “Stay with me. Don’t go.”
“I won’t.”
“I need you.”
A harsh tremor ran through him. “I need you, too.”
Slowly, their gazes met…and locked. Silent seconds ticked by as the full impact of what was happening, where they now hovered, sank in.
Without a trace of doubt, Courtney reached up, untying Slayde’s cravat and shoving it away. She leaned forward, kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. “Make love to me,” she breathed.
“No.” The word vibrated against her lips, more surrender than refusal. Fervently, he battled the inevitable, tugging her away, even as his fingers tangled in her hair, tilted her face toward his. “Courtney…no,” he refuted hoarsely, his body trembling, his stare fixed on her mouth.
“Yes.” Courtney’s arms entwined about his neck. “Oh—yes.”
Slayde’s mouth was on hers before she’d finished speaking, the struggle lost beneath the powerful feelings that surged between them, commanded him to take what was already his.
Her lips parted, welcoming what was already hers.
And the world exploded.
The kiss was frantic, urgent, pain and emptiness melding, clamoring to be assuaged by something far more potent. Slayde pressed Courtney back against the pillows, devouring her mouth with an unappeasable hunger.
“I’ve dreamed of you every night, burned for you every day,” he muttered. “God, I want you more than I want to breathe.”
“I want you, too.” She was equally urgent, bringing him closer, her fists knotting in the folds of his coat and attempting to push it aside. “So much that I ache with it.”
Slayde responded to her unspoken plea without pause or question. Impatiently, he shrugged out of his coat, nearly tearing his shirt and waistcoat in his haste to remove them. Bare-chested, he brought his torso back to Courtney’s.
They both moaned at the contact, a sensation too unbearable to withstand—even through the barrier of her chemise.
“More. I need more of you.” Planting burning kisses down her neck and throat, Slayde made quick work of her undergarment, untying the ribbons and dragging it away, flinging it to the floor. “You’re so bloody beautiful,” he rasped, his lips discovering all he’d been denying himself for weeks. “God, so beautiful.”
Courtney cried out when his lips surrounded her nipple. Heat poured through her in drenching waves, singeing her blood and filling every empty niche inside her. Her hands came up to cradle Slayde’s head, to prevent him from stopping the wondrous havoc he was wreaking on her senses.
Stopping wasn’t even a remote prospect.
Slayde was lost, beyond thought or reason, drunk on Courtney’s scent and taste, the warmth of her skin, the miracle of her response. Again and again, he drew the tight peak into his mouth, circling with his tongue as if to memorize her flavor. Finally, he moved to her other breast, lavishing it with the same exquisite torture, making Courtney twist restlessly on the sheets and cry out.
His hunger goaded him on. Lifting his head, he wrenched the bedcovers away, his greedy stare feasting on the remainder of her beauty. Tenderly, he traced the bruises on her ribs, pressing soft kisses against each one. “Not even these could mar such perfection,” he murmured, his lips shifting lower, to the hollow of her abdomen, the silkiness of her thighs. His palm covered the auburn curls between her legs, warming and possessing her all at once. “You’re a miracle,” he breathed, his fingers sliding lower, slipping into the warm wetness that beckoned him. “A miracle I thought didn’t exist.”
A dark roaring pounded in Courtney’s head, and she responded instinctively and without embarrassment, opening herself to the magic of his touch, her hips lifting in silent invitation. She heard his groan, felt the heat of his breath.
And then, his mouth.
Her eyes flew open, a wild shudder rippling through her at the first stroke of his tongue against her heated flesh. She whimpered his name, her fingers clenching in his hair, her thighs parting wider with a will all their own.
His possession was absolute, more consuming than she could bear. It scorched through her, sent streaks of lightning up her legs and into her core, made her scream and arch and beg for more. She blazed beneath his every caress: his tongue, his lips, and then his fingers, gliding into her, opening a passage that ached for him to fill it.
Slayde’s heart was thundering so savagely, he feared it might explode from his chest. His breath was coming in harsh gasps, his senses filled with Courtney’s scent and taste, the incredibly tight, hot feel of her. He was a stranger to this blinding, devouring passion, never imagined it existed. At this moment, nothing and no one mattered but Courtney—Courtney and what was happening between them.
His breeches were an unendurable barrier.
Tearing himself away from her, he vaulted to his feet, shoving his breeches off, kicking them aside.
