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He glanced down at what he was wearing. “It’s cute that you thinkthiswas expensive.”
“Oh, it wasn’t? That’s a relief. Makes how bad it looks a little less embarrassing for you.”
“Ouch,” he allowed after a moment, nodding thoughtfully. “Point to you.”
“Come on, let’s get this over with.” She led the way down the forest path, headed for the spot they’d found a few weeks earlier. It was on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean—the patch at the end of the beach, in fact, where they’d had that awful conversation at the end of last term. Up above the rocks, though, the view was unobstructed clear to the horizon. The last few times they’d been out, they’d shared the spot with a handful of other pairs from astrology class who were diligently charting their own maps of the sky. This time, it seemed, they had the spot to themselves.
“That’s odd,” Archer mused, gazing around at the grassy clifftop. “It’s almost as though… everyone else agreed with me that it’s too cloudy for stargazing. Hmm.”
He was probably right, she thought, hiding a grimace. The clouds had gotten worse, not better, and even as they stood there she could feel the occasional raindrop striking her. But she couldn’t admit defeat now, could she? So she ignored him, settling into the grass and setting up the telescope they’d borrowed from the astrology tower without a backward glance.
“Really? This is how stubborn you’re going to be? You’re going to make us sit out here looking at clouds all night?”
“Maybe that’s why I failed three-quarters of my classes last term,” she called back, not looking around. “Oh, hang on, what am I getting wrong there—”
“Low blow, Morgan.” She listened closely to his voice, heard the rippling undercurrent of laughter, and exhaled. Not that she cared, she told herself quickly. She didn’t care at all about hurting his feelings. “It’s genuinely about to rain, you know.”
“Like I said, if you’re worried about it messing up your dye job, you can leave.”
“For the last time, I don’t dye my hair!”
Morgan hid a grin. That particular accusation had been Keli’s idea. It had seemed like a baffling insult when she’d first suggested it—why would anyone care whether people knew if their hair color was natural or not?—but it always got a rise out of him. He was sitting beside her now, frowning down at her, and before she could react, he reached down to grab the torch she was holding, yanking it up to hold it close to his head.
“Look. Look at my hair. Study the roots. Study the highlights. What kind of ten-hour salon ordeal do you think I’m putting myself through every week, exactly? I’m all for banter, Morgan, but these accusations are a bridge too far—”
But Morgan wasn’t listening to him. Her attention was taken up almost totally by the way his hand felt where it was gripping hers around the handle of the torch, and by the way his gesture had accidentally drawn their faces far closer together than she remembered them being since that night on the mountain’s peak. The tension seemed to catch up to him as the silence stretched further. Say something, Morgan told herself, her heartbeat accelerating. You have to say something, or this is going to become… something else.
Good, something whispered back. Let it.
When he kissed her this time, it was much less hesitant than she remembered, less gentle, less careful. The force of it surprised her, but not nearly as much as she surprised herself when she threw the torch aside and buried both her hands in his hair. Morgan tightened her grip on his hair as she yanked him down closer, holding back a laugh at the sound of surprise and alarm he made in response. But he wasn’t pulling away, was he? Of course not. No, he was kissing her harder, something desperate and angry in it, as though he was trying to win whatever strange new phase of the competition this was.
Well, he wasn’t going to. Morgan could feel the occasional raindrops that had been striking them getting more and more regular, but nothing could have been further from her mind than the distant grumble of thunder. She was busy—busy pushing Archer down flat on his back in the grass, pinning him down with her full weight, growling a warning in her throat when he tried to alter the position. His hands landed cautiously on her upper back, caressing her shoulders through her blouse. Too careful, she thought. Too polite. Did she have to show him everything? Rolling her eyes, she broke the kiss long enough to take the collar of his shirt in her hands, then held his breathless gaze as she tore the shirt open with all her strength. Buttons flew into the darkness, and she raised one challenging eyebrow, daring him to object.
Those golden-brown eyes glinted thoughtfully, and for a moment, she wondered if she might have made a mistake, here. He reclaimed her lips in a kiss that served to distract her completely… and then she opened her eyes, exclaiming in shock as she felt him pulling her blouse off her shoulders, every button neatly undone. She hadn’t felt a thing. How had he—
“It’s alright,” he leaned in close to murmur in her ear, sending a shiver down her back that was partly anger but mostly arousal. “I can teach you how to undo buttons later, if you like—”
“Shut up,” she snapped, ripping the rest of his shirt open and shoving it from his shoulders. Not her wittiest rejoinder to date, but could she really be blamed, with him lying there in the grass with his chest bare? She’d seen glimpses of the skin that lay beneath those stupid expensive shirts, of course—he had a vain tendency to leave the collars unbuttoned far lower than even the tropical heat really made necessary—but this was something else. That gorgeous tan, it seemed, wasn’t limited to his face and arms… she ran an appreciative hand down his well-muscled chest and across his stomach, hearing his breathing shudder and hitch a little at her touch. His eyes, when she looked up, were dark and intense, and she found herself wondering if absolutely every inch of him was the same sun-kissed shade…
And then, rather more abruptly than she was happy with, she felt his arms wrap around her and pull her down. The only thing that stopped her from objecting was the feeling of his lips against her throat, the shock waves of delicious pleasure that he was sending rocketing up and down her spine… she heard herself moan, felt a burst of acute embarrassment at the sound, then was immediately distracted from that by his hands ghosting across her back, tracing up her ribcage, caressing her breasts… the liberties he was taking, she thought faintly. How absolutely dare he. She ought to… why, in just a moment she was going to… she pressed herself against him as he kissed her again, groaning against his lips, and as their legs tangled she heard him utter a choked sound of need and buck his hips almost involuntarily against her.
She’d never done any of this, she reflected faintly as her hands, seemingly with a mind of their own, slid across his well-muscled shoulders and down the curve of his lower back towards the waistband of his trousers. She’d never so much as kissed someone before. She knew plenty of dragons played around with sexual intimacy even with people they knew weren’t their soulmates, but she’d never felt the inclination. Well, she was feeling it now. She didn’t think she couldstopfeeling it. What had gotten into her? She’d never been this impulsive in her life… and she’d certainly never been capable of faking this kind of confidence.
But was she really faking it? She felt confident. She felt more than confident—she felt utterly in control of the situation, even as Archer slid her pants down her legs, leaving her entire body bare against his. Well, so he should. The clothing was in the damn way. She clicked her tongue impatiently, tugging at the belt of his pants, too—and after a fractional hesitation, she felt him pull his pants off, too.
There. Finally. There was a new urgency to their kissing now as their bodies intertwined, every point of contact seeming to burn, every movement making delicious friction buzz between them. Was it Archer who was panting for breath like that, or was it her? Impossible to tell, and not important. All that was important was that they kept going, kept hurtling towards whatever mysterious and yet deeply necessary destination all of this was heading for. That was when she felt his hand slide down her abdomen, his knee nudging her thighs apart at the same time as if by coincidence… and she bit back a gasp as she felt his fingertips brush against her sex.
Gently, but with a certain assuredness that made her want to smack him if she wasn’t worried it might make him stop what he was doing, his fingers parted her folds, and she buried her face in his throat to stifle the sounds she was making as he began to stroke and caress the most intimate part of her. His fingers seemed to seek out the places she wanted them the most, and it took her a few minutes to realize he was reacting to the sounds she was making. By the time she’d figured out his game, she was far too absorbed by what he was doing to her to give it any further thought. Around them, the rain was falling in earnest now, but the low rumble of thunder and the cold, wet grass beneath them faded into the distant background. The fierce warmth between their bodies, the scorching heat of his breath as he kissed her… if anything, the rain was a welcome relief from the fire that was building in her with a speed that would have been alarming if it didn’t feel so good.
She felt Archer shift their bodies a little, his fingers trailing away from where she wanted them, but before she could voice her objection she felt a new sensation, head him choke back a moan as the tip of his cock brushed against her sex. Interesting, she thought, letting her own hand slide curiously down his chest. He shifted obligingly to allow her better access, and some distant part of her was stunned by her own boldness as she curled her fingers around his manhood, thrilled by the way he seemed to fall apart under her touch. All his bravado, all his arrogance, all his cocksure posturing over the time they’d known one another… and all it took to undo him was the faintest touch of her hand? She grinned as she felt him buck his hips in response to the slightest tightening of her grip, feeling the rush of power fill her with yet more arousal. She could hardly blame him for falling so completely under her spell, could she? A forest fire was powerful, but it stopped dead in its tracks once it reached the river.
She drew him close, claiming his lips in a bruising, possessive kiss, aligning their bodies to let the head of his cock part her folds and begin to slide deeper and deeper inside her. No hesitation, no pain… only the utterly delicious sense of friction and pressure deep within her as her body engulfed him. He was groaning against her lips, and she realized she was moaning, too, hardly audible over the sound of the rainstorm that was lashing the forest behind them and the ocean far below. How had she waited this long to try this? Had she ever felt anything this overwhelmingly pleasurable, this deeply powerful, this … transcendental? They moved together like one body, and she realized dizzily that even their breathing seemed to have synchronized in service of their joint effort. Every time she tightened her legs around him to draw him closer, he responded by thrusting himself more deeply inside of her, sending pleasure and delight dancing through her body like sparks.
She wanted to stay here forever, to savor this feeling all night, until the sun rose, and set again, and rose again… but that feeling was countered by an aching desperation to get to the peak they were clearly headed for, and by the low, insistent burn in her muscles that told her that there was a limit on how much she could put her body through. Archer was making low, guttural sounds against her throat as their pace increased, growing frenetic as they both sensed, somehow, the imminent edge they were heading towards with every passing second… she was digging her nails into his back hard enough to leave marks, howling his name into the stormy sky above them, and she felt her breath freeze in her chest completely when the peak finally came.
No thoughts. Nothing but that moment of release, so powerful it felt like her whole body was expanding… it was almost like the sensation that moved through her when she shifted, though she could feel that her body was still the same shape, her soft human skin hot against Archer’s. And when she opened her eyes, she saw not the gloomy sky above them, but a vibrant, glowing shower of golden sparks, so bright that it took her a disoriented moment to realize that it was an aura she was seeing, not some kind of bizarre natural event. But whose was it? Who did that glow of pure joy belong to?
Archer’s arms tightened around her and he claimed her lips in a tender kiss, the last aftershocks of pleasure tingling through her body as the two of them coasted out of the aftermath of their pleasure. Her eyes slid shut and she let herself sink into his arms, content to let the mystery rest.
