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Her stomach fluttered, and all the deep breathing exercises she drew upon couldn’t calm her as she drew steadily closer to the source of the noise.
She caught sight of him in a clearing before she broke through the trees, and she halted. Her mouth went dry as her heart slammed into overdrive.
Doljen had been well-muscled seven years before. Since then, he’d grown more defined, shedding any hint of fat. Despite the lingering morning chill that hadn’t been chased off by the climbing temperature, he wore nothing but shorts and slip-on shoes, putting that magnificent physique on display. He wielded the biggest ax she’d ever seen, chopping wood as she’d expected, his muscles rippling with liquid agility.
His hair was loose, swaying across his shoulders as he worked. It framed features grimmer than she remembered, but he was still handsome in a robust fashion.
After so long, there he was, the man she’d searched high and low for. A maelstrom of emotions flew through her: yearning, love, elation, terror, disbelief. She grabbed a tree for support. She wasn’t merely trembling. She quaked from head to toe.
She’d found Doljen.
Bernadette gathered herself with effort. She released the tree and stood up straight. Drawing a deep breath, she readied herself for whatever reaction she’d be met with and walked out of the woods.
He caught the movement and stopped chopping to acknowledge her as she stopped at the edge of the tree line. Their gazes locked, and Bernadette’s wildly galloping heart stopped in its tracks.
For an endless second, Doljen simply stared at her. Then shock began to spread over his face, his eyes widening slowly. His jaw dropped open.
“Bernadette?”
She couldn’t answer. She wasn’t sure she was even breathing.
She never saw him move. He was suddenly before her. He was there, there, rightthere. He cupped her face, his features filling her vision. His lips crushed against hers, bruising with the force of a mind-stealing kiss. He gathered her against himself.
Every cell woke, as if the most minute parts of her thirsted to drown themselves in him. She obeyed the violent clamor of desperate need and clung to him, arms and legs wrapping around his torso in a clutch that vowed she wouldn’t let go.
He broke the kiss. Barely tearing his gaze from her, he lifted her and raced across the clearing. They were suddenly inside a room of a building she hadn’t noted. She had an impression of log walls, a doorway, and little else before they descended onto the soft surface of a mattress.
Chapter Fourteen
He yanked at her clothes. He was rough and hurt her a little. Bernadette exulted in it as he stripped her. It took only seconds, but it felt like an eternity before her skin was flush to his andhis naked bulk was warm against her. She wasn’t sure when or how he’d gotten his shorts off, but he was abruptly impaling her on his twin shafts. He took her in a single thrust that drove the breath from her lungs.
Everything froze as they stared at each other, their gasps mingling.
“Bernadette.”
“Doljen.”
At last.
His next kiss was gentler; a soft caress of lips on lips, of delicate licks, and sinuous movement. As if for the first time. As if for the final time. For all time.
They lay that way as the minutes slipped past, him within her, on top of her, kissing and caressing. In that precious instant, there was nothing else and no reason to do anything beyond be together. The years of searching, of losing hope and grimly forging on, had been worth it.
Doljen began to move minutely, carefully, as if afraid to break the spell. His shafts eased through her, escaping until only the tips remained within, then creeped in again to fill her with himself. So cautiously, as if taking her virginity as he had years ago. Her fingertips traced the strong outlines of his features and the few new creases bracketing the corners of his lips and eyes. That he’d found reason to frown them into existence spoke to her heart, and she pulled his face close to kiss the evidence of his hurt.
He rocked within her. She moved to meet him. Neither was in any hurry to grasp the fire of culmination. Indeed, had Bernadette been told there would be no climax, only this quiet joining for all eternity, she would have wept in gratitude. She required nothing more than to be with Doljen as they were. Life owed her no other debt.
Even her usual demanding inclinations for exhibitionism, bondage, and a little hurt were unneeded. In his arms, she was where she wanted to be. He made love to her with perfection; leisurely thrusting, his hands wandering all over to rediscover her, lengthy gazes punctuated with the sweetest kisses.
The sunlight from the vid-simulating windows grew stronger as the morning stretched toward afternoon, and still they lay on Doljen’s sleeping mat, making love in slow motion. When climax arrived, almost simultaneously for them both, they announced it with sighs and whispery moans.
They held each other until desire rose again. Doljen rolled onto his back, allowing Bernadette to crouch over him, to love him as their breathing quickened. Lust was less gentle the second time around, with her rising and falling and aware of his gaze on the breasts he rubbed, the nipples he pinched, the clit he fondled, their sexes meeting again and again. She was reminded of his strength when he grasped her hips and yanked her up and down, forcing her to ride him hard until she shouted her pleasure and he filled her with his.
Then they lay side by side, their breath quieting, their heated bodies cooling. They watched each other, as if afraid the other would disappear. How long they might have remained that way had Bernadette’s com not gone off with its distinctive emergency alert could only have been guessed.
“Shit,” she swore and started to roll off the bed.
Doljen caught her, halting her escape. “Do you have to answer that?”
