Page 68 of Spears and Shadows (Defenders of the Light)
Nora swallowed and couldn’t repress the shiver Adam’s words sent up her spine. Instead, she looked down at the white fur beneath her knees and joked, “Yeah, I don’t think a bearskin rug in front of the fireplace is quite your style.”
“I refuse to be that cliché.” Adam stood before scooping her up off the carpet and depositing her on the enormous bed. He crawled on top of her and kept to his promise, their next kiss slower and more intentional. His lips didn’t leave hers until she was shaking like a leaf in the stiff Chicago winds.
His hands and mouth began to explore her body at a torturous pace, divesting her of her clothing piece by piece. His lips mapped behind her ear and the hollow of her throat, painting her skin with the affection he had carried for so long. His breath ghosted over her breasts before teasing them with the flat of his tongue. If Adam noticed Nora’s fingernails digging into his shoulders, he gave no indication but to lavish even more attention on every inch of her. She yearned to urge him on faster, but she bit her lip to control herself, wanting this moment to be everything he had promised.
Then his mouth came to land between her legs, and she lost all ability for coherent thought. If Adam had seemed intent on his task before, it was nothing compared to how he took her apart now. Nora could only rock up into him, one hand coming to cover her mouth and contain the sounds now forcing their way past her lips. Adam reached up and pulled her wrist away from her face, and when she glanced down, his eyes were desperate, as if being deprived of the noises coming from her physically hurt him. So instead, Nora dug her fingers into his hair and let him have every groan and whimper she had to offer as curling fingers joined his artful tongue at her center.
Once Nora was hoarse, she pulled Adam back and flipped them over so he lay on his back and she was able to hover over him. She felt like she might shatter at any moment, but she was determined to hold out until she could be joined with Adam fully. He made a slight noise of protest, but a small smirk and a glint in his eye told her he was far from unhappy with her enthusiasm. His lips glistened from her, and Nora ran her thumb over them, only for Adam to dart his tongue out and make sure he had licked her there too.
She removed his clothing with much more haste than he had hers, knocking his glasses off as she ripped his sweater over his head. Once he was bare, though, she did pause to take him in, wanting to seal the way he looked in her mind, from the length emerging from the curls between his legs to the ruined look in his eyes. He humored her for a moment before it was his turn to get impatient and he pulled her down to kiss him again.
She didn’t make him wait, and when he slid inside her, Nora nearly cried with the satisfaction of it. She was reduced to a bundle of sensations—Adam’s hands on her hips, his breath on her neck, and the slight scratch of his stubble against her cheek. Their bodies fit together like they had been made to do so, which didn’t seem so farfetched anymore. Nora shuddered as her muscles were overcome with the pleasure of it all, but Adam took matters into his own hands. He flipped them over and drove into her, chasing after what they both needed.
As Nora’s back arched and she fell apart in Adam’s arms, she found the words to say what she had been trying to this whole time.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Adam said, breathless but without hesitation, as if it were as necessary for him to tell her this as it was to breathe. As if he burned with it.
Much later, when they were content and breathless in each other’s arms, Nora had the fleeting thought before she was claimed by sleep that this was worth waiting seven hundred years for.
