Putting her hand between them at length, she touched his mouth. He kissed her fingers, then let her trace his lips. “Make love to me,” she whispered. “Make me feel whole.”

He nodded, bent to her throat as she lifted her chin, offering it to him, a quiet, pleasurable surrender. He nuzzled her there, placed his mouth on the beating pulse, reveled in the way it felt when her hands found him under his shirt, slid up along his rib cage, fingers digging into his back.

Sliding off the cot reluctantly, he put his arms beneath her, lifting her. As she linked her arms around his neck, he returned her quizzical look with a wry smile. “Aware of us or not, I’m not sure I want to do this in front of our daughter.”

She smiled, but he wondered if she realized her eyes were wet. Wrapping her arms farther around his shoulders, she buried her face in his neck. He had to put her down so he could squeeze his bulk through the S-shaped fissure, but he held her hand throughout, and when they emerged, he lifted her again to carry her up the narrow stairs.

“I can walk if you need me to.”

“I like carrying you. It’s nice to have you depend on me to get around sometimes.”

“I didn’t think men liked needy, clingy women.”

“Girl, you are the least clingy and needy thing I’ve ever met. I’ve never known you to ask for help in all your life. That’s something you need to start fixing, because I’m going to give you all sorts of help from here on out.”

“You always have, even when I don’t ask.” Her fingers tangled in the hair at his nape. “This is getting a little long. I could cut it for you.”

“I’d like that.” He took her to that cheerless apartment upstairs, but at least there was a window that showed the early-evening star-filled sky, and the somewhat romantic view of streetlights and a band of asphalt winding away to places unseen. There’d been rain while they’d been belowground, so there was a black shine to the street, the streaked reflection of the streetlights. Laying her down on the bed, Derek slid off her shoes as she watched him with those beautiful hazel eyes. “Take down your hair, baby. Spread it over your shoulders.”

She’d pulled it up in a tail before they’d gone downstairs. Now she complied with his desire as he slid her jeans off her hips, then her panties, leaving her in his shirt. Before they’d gone downstairs, she’d put on a bra under it. Now he worked his hands up under the shirt, caressing her breasts through the cups, tracing the nipples when they came up hard against the padded foam. She undulated into his touch, her eyes getting hotter, mouth more taut with need. When he reached under her, she arched her back as he unhooked the undergarment with one deft hand. Pushing up the shirt then, he bent and found her breast, began to suckle a stimulated nipple. She made a sweet sigh of pleasure, curving her leg up over his denim-clad ass, and tightened there, trying to draw him closer. He complied, rubbing his cock against her wet core, making her gasp. He liked having her like this, half-naked, her hair swirling in disheveled array around her intent face, the pink mouth pursed, her tongue touching her lips.

“My wanton,” he said softly, looking at her, making sure she saw all she was doing to him, inside and out. “Roll over onto your hands and knees.”

Desire flared in her gaze. He’d rarely done that with her, but now he wanted the deep penetration of that angle. He wanted to cover her like a stallion on a mare, because they both sure as hell understood how it had become a stereotype.

She slid over to her belly, then pushed herself up, canting up her ass so it rubbed right against his groin, the little tease. She tossed her hair over her shoulders in a mouthwatering display. He wanted to tangle it in his hands, pull on it when he drove into her.

He unbuckled his belt, unzipped his jeans and got them pushed down and out of the way. When he guided his broad head into her, he had the additional pleasure of seeing the soaked pink flesh contracting, pulling him in. When he went to the hilt and his testicles rocked in a slap against her clit, she let out another gasp, her fingers digging into the bed.

“That feel the way you want it to feel?”

“Big…. you’re so big. Can feel you all the way…. in my womb. But it feels so good, too. Don’t stop.”

“Good. ’Cause I wasn’t going to.”

She shivered at the blatant dominance, and it fired him up further. He wasn’t giving that one to Mikhael. Maybe the Dark Guardian had exploited it, but it was as Derek had told her, when she was worried about that side of things. It had always been there between them, ever since she became sexually mature. Because of her age, he’d just taken it easy on her with it, little hints here and there. He’d given her her head, letting her feel that bit in her teeth, determine how much she wanted him to pull on the reins.

But now he was ready to take over the reins, see how far she wanted to go with it, tangled with the emotional depth that existed between them. She was the most stubbornly independent woman he’d ever met, and one of the most damaged, two things that often went together. In her case, the combination begged for a lover with a strong hand to help her drop those shields, find out how much more she could be if she trusted.

He wanted her trust. Hell, he wasn’t waiting anymore. He was demanding it. Pulling off his T-shirt, he came down on top of her, his long arms over her shoulders, pushing her down to her elbows, which shoved her ass farther back into the cradle of his hips, taking him deeper. “Jesus.” She was milking him, too, helpless little contractions around him, driving him crazy.

Sliding his hand underneath the loosened bra, he cupped her firm breast, her position making it a nice weight pressing into his hand, all that blessed gravity. Squeezing the generous curve, he flicked the nipple with his fingers, giving it a pinch. Her hips jolted up like electricity had struck, her internal muscles clutching on him. He set his teeth to her nape, nipping, teasing with his tongue as he withdrew his hips, then slammed them back in, hard enough to knock her elbows deeper into the bed.

“Oh Goddess….” Her plea drove him on. He kept it slow, small movements; then he’d surprise her with another series of those hard plows that had her body rocking, trembling on that cusp, so close….

“Derek…. please….”

“Beg some more,” he rasped in her ear, withdrawing so he was almost out of her, then slowly, slowly pushing back in. A long, guttural moan broke from her lips as he did it again. And again.

“Please…. let me come, Derek. I want to come for you.”

“Only me,” he said, biting the lobe of that perfect ear with sharp teeth, making her contract on him. “Now and always. You’re going to be my wife. Say it.”

“Now…. and always. Your…. wife. Yours.” A shudder went through her, and through the pleasure, he was aware of tears falling onto the pillow, tiny splotches. Pushing her hair out of the way, he pressed his mouth to her cheekbone now, making her eyes close, the lashes fanning his flesh. He was in her deep now, at all levels, and passion was subsumed in raw vulnerability. “I love you more than anything, baby. More than anything I’ve loved in my whole long life.”

He moved against her, slow, steady, built her up through tears and cries, and when he felt the perilous ripple of flesh against his cock, when she was about to go over, he whispered the command against her. “Come for me, girl. Come for me now.”

It started with a low series of cries that built into screams, into a hard clench on his cock as it plunged in and out of her slickness. He lifted up, his hand clamped on her shoulder, the other tangled in her hair, holding her steady as he slammed into her, over and over, that primal male desire to let her feel him, be marked by him, stretched to delicious soreness she’d feel in her thighs and sex for the next couple of days. And then the most primal marking of all, he released, spilling his seed inside her, driving her to another mini-climax with the sensation, goading him with her moans, the flush across her skin.

He’d never felt so content.

Chapter 19

RUBY SLIPPED OUT OF BED, WASHED HER FACE, PULLED her hair in a ponytail. Sliding on Derek’s shirt and one of her ankle length Sacred Thread skirts, she found some cash. The Dunkin’ Donuts around the corner, with its cake doughnuts and strong black coffee, would be just the thing to wake Derek up. The man had a sweet tooth. Hell, he had a salt tooth as well. The man just loved food, and the starchier, the better. It could make a woman hate him, seeing it all packed in that lean, muscular form, but since she’d had the pleasure of her mouth on about every inch of it last night, several times, she was feeling particularly magnanimous about that.

He slept light as a cat, such that he snagged her wrist when she came back to the bed, though his eyes remained closed.

“I’m going to go get you breakfast,” she murmured in his ear. “You worked hard for it. I’m feeling nice.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to interfere with a miracle,” he grunted. He made a half chuckle, half protest as she pressed a pillow over his face. Wrestling it off, he caught the back of her head for a morning kiss, taking her punches to his chest and shoulders, focusing on plundering her mouth instead. She smiled, feeling it all the way to her toes as he pulled her back into him, his arm around her waist, sprawling her half across his body.

It was hard to ignore the sizeable erection pressing against her thigh. God, they must have made love four, maybe five times, through the night, and she was still dampening for him, wanting that extra morning thickness to fill her once more.

Yeah, some of it might have been that needy edge that Mikhael had exploited, her body’s urges enhanced by Darkness. But this was all her, wanting him. Derek. She wanted to eat him alive, have him over and over again, and it was glorious, knowing that it was because she plain wanted him that much. While some of her needs and fantasies about him were dark and wicked, they weren’t of the Darkness. She was sure of it. She’d just missed the man and she’d been without him three damn years. She wanted him now.