Page 244 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Then trust your body. Stop thinking. Just feel. And watch. And taste.” At that, Pete’s mouth seized mine again, and he conveyed us to the feather mattress.
In all honesty, I was ready to get down to brass tacks before my summoning had concluded. Pete couldn’t pretend otherwise, his fingers delving between my dewy thighs the moment they had access, precise as heat-seeking missiles. Which made me squirm back against the rock-hard length barely contained by his pants. But he wasn’t keen on beginning the main event until I was a senseless, sweaty, shivering, panting puddle of goo in his arms, driven insane by that artful mouth of his, which seemed intent on tasting every inch of my blushing skin.
Mindlessness, though, was a blessing. Not even in disguise. Pete was right. I wasn’t capable of bashfulness when he peeled me out of my dress and bared me to his searing, feline gaze, his greedy hands. I couldn’t worry that my breasts were too small, my ass non-existent as I lay nude beneath him, being suckled, groped, and fingered at once. In fact, I had an out-of-body experience when those fingers, so rough and strong and dexterous, buried themselves inside me, and I didn’t give a damn what he might think of me when I moaned directives on how I wanted it—hard, slow, and now. He only chuckled against my ear, “That’s how I like it too,” before he untied his drawstring and offered his hot, tumescent, drool-worthy goods to my curious touch.
It was all just so easy, that scintillating leadup. Then, I suddenly found myself sprawled upon the rumpled mattress, my calves resting on Pete’s shoulders as he and his mouthwatering body rose over me. And then it just happened. Naturally, effortlessly, breathtakingly. There was no awkward bumping or gritting of teeth. Pete and I, we just breathed together and converged.
There was a word for what we did after that. A word I overused, for it could fit in almost any sentence. But in the context of sex—well, teehee. Just thinking it made me bashful. That didn’t make it any less fitting, of course. Because Pete didn’t cosset me like a porcelain doll. No, I was modeling clay to him, something that could take the weight of him and reform. And I reformed over and over as he drove into me, every impact like the punctuation of his name inside me—Pete, Pete, Pete, Pete, Pete, Pete,PETE!
I couldn’t get enough of his name.
Of knowing it was him.
Of knowing it was his voice murmuring in my ear.
“Oh, oh, oh, oh!” I cried, my pleasure coarsening my voice as I clutched Pete’s elbows, now straddling him. My head fell back as I arched into him, gooseflesh cording my neck. My breasts shivered in feverish exaltation as he licked them, nibbled them. Fire surged in my core as he clutched my ass, worked me back down on his pulsation. “Oh, Pete,YES, please!”
Feasting on my abandon, Pete wove his fingers through my hair. “Look at me, Shorty.” His bass brogue was like roasted honey, his smile lazy and dark when I assented. “I want to watch your eyes when this happens.”
I moaned, unbridled. Because,freaking motherabove, it was happening.
Thenithappened. With such piercing, euphoric power that I convulsed, my nerves haywire with sensation. Pete clenched me tight like he meant to hold me together. And he did watch in glazed voracity as rapture crested in my eyes. What color they turned, he didn’t say, but from his awe, they must’ve been something spectacular.
When I finally collapsed into him, twitching and panting, Pete kissed me with arresting tenderness. He bore me back upon the mattress and rocked me to euphoria again. He rocked himself there with me that time, his thrusts savage—echoing in my bones. And I happily submitted to his will, giving over to his predation like a lioness in season. I found myself just as transfixed with his surrender as he’d been with mine.
At once bestial and helpless, he gripped me so hard in those last crushing, sublime moments that I felt his fingerprints in my soul. I was moved by everything I’d ever felt for this glorious, kind, cranky, irreverent, honest man—for my Pete—and lost my hands in his fluffy brown hair, kissing him like an old school movie star, my heart igniting.
Afterward, we lay together, limp. Smoke tendrilling from my fingertips. Pete’s beard scratched my forehead as I hummed against his red hot, throbbing neck. I didn’t know what I was humming. I didn’t even know why. I just felt like I needed to, so I did.
His laugh a rumble in my nether bits, Pete groaned and rolled to his back. “Is that one of the travesties from your squat little music box?”
I snorted. “No, but I could hum you one if you’d prefer.”
“Quite all right, Shorty.” Smug, he smacked his lips together. “You’ve expended your voice enough on my account.”
I was rather hoarse, I’d give him that. But I was nowhere near expended.
I popped up in our love nest. Pete blinked as I climbed atop his ripples like a warrior on her mount. His sweat slicking my thighs, I pinned his wrists by his handsome, disheveled head. “You’re silly.” I nipped at his nose, my rosy nipples grazing his firm pecks. And lower—I could feel he was still game. “I’m not done with you yet.”
His molasses eyes blazing, Pete licked his reddened, smirking lips and folded one arm behind his head. “Go on then, Shorty. Ride me ‘til you set the bed afire.”
Now, I didn’t set the bed on fire. But I came damn close.
Forty
BeyondEden,thesunsmight’ve been rising by the time Pete and I succumbed to sleep. I dozed off first, one leg slung across Pete’s hips. Weary as I was, that tiny bit of contact was good enough for me. But Pete gathered my limp parts into him. “That’s more like it,” he grumbled once I lay nestled back within the spoon of his body, my head tucked under his chin and resting on his bicep. I fell asleep happy, tears pooling in my eyes.
Because I’d been searching my whole life for a man who’d hold me in my sleep.
Days passed. Maybe weeks. I lost track. Pete and I spent our waking hours choring, socializing, and training. At days’ end, we always retreated to the warden’s hut for another night ofoohs, ahhs, and oh, yes, theres!I was content for things to remain that way forever. As things could remain in Eden. And Pete—as relaxed as he seemed in his day-to-day with me—I wasnotjust imagining that he felt the same way.
Leave it to Myrrdin, though, to burst our bubble.
One night, as Pete and I were finishing up dinner with some of our closer friends, Myrrdin traipsed into our campfire ring. Just in time to overhear Imogen say cheekily to me, “Blimey, lovey, what have you been about these past few days, hm?” Her brown eyes sparkled with good humor. “Rolling about in a vat of orange rinds if your scent is to be believed.”
Everyone laughed, knowing Pete to be the vat of orange rinds in her playful jab. But Myrrdin barely cracked a smile as he asked Pete and I for a word.
“I’ve been having unsettling visions.” Myrddin was calm and measured when we’d convened with him and the clerics, though his crystalline gaze had clouded. “I don’t yet grasp what they’re telling me, butsomethingis happening in the world outside Eden. Some form of corruption has taken hold of the Spring Palace.”
