Free Affair of Honor by Unknown Page A

thighs.
    “Please. Ryder, please!”
    “My God, sweet lady!”
    He lifted himself, his shoulders looming briefly over her in the shadowy light, and then he settled himself along the length of her, fitting himself between her legs with a gentle aggression that sent shivers through Brenna’s nerve endings.
    She reached up, clinging to him as if he were all that mattered in the world, welcoming him completely.
    He came to her with a bold power that shocked her senses. Her nails raked the contour of his back and his name was a silent cry of desire and passion on her lips as he held her with a strength she couldn’t have defied even if she had been so inclined. Then he was surging against her body, taking it by storm and sweeping her along into a vortex of swirling color and sensation. Ryder Sterne made love as if he were staking a claim; tuning a fine instrument only to his personal touch; taming a wild creature. The experience overwhelmed and consumed Brenna’s senses.
    He established a rhythm to which she responded at once. She locked her arms and legs around his driving body, thrilling to the potent, sinewy feel of him. When her nails dug deeper in a convulsive reaction, he nipped passionately at the smooth flesh of her shoulder. The small, tingling pain only served to heighten her awareness to new levels.
    Together they spun through their own private universe, so tightly entwined they were as one as they made the sensual journey. When the coiling, flickering tension in Brenna’s loins began to flare out of control, she gulped for air and tensed in Ryder’s hold.
    “Ryder! Ryder, darling!”
    He must have heard the amazement and wonder and perhaps even an element of fear in her words as she faced the blazing conclusion of the trip.
    “Let yourself go, lady,” he rasped. “Give yourself to me!”
    As if his words were the last impulse her body needed to send her over the edge, Brenna went abruptly taut beneath him, and then the explosion took her in a series of tiny convulsions that swept her from head to toe.
    “Oh, Ryder!”
    As if he, in turn, only needed her finish to spark his own, Ryder swept into her body once more, filling her completely and holding her with total possession as he reached the end of his journey.
    Long moments later Brenna stirred beneath the heavy male body still covering her own. At the hint of movement Ryder lazily lifted his tousled, tawny head from her breast and looked down at her, the faintest of smiles edging his mouth. The molten silver in his eyes had cooled to be replaced by a warm satisfaction that pleased Brenna. She had fed the hunger in him.
    They stared wonderingly at each other in silence for a time, each absorbing the fullness of the moment, and then Ryder ducked his head briefly to drop a tiny kiss on her love-softened mouth.
    “I know this is going to sound ridiculous in the light of events, but when I picked you up at your door this evening, I honestly had no intention of winding up in your bed later,” he confessed.
    “Was it fate or free will?” she teased dreamily, playing with the perspiration-damp hair at the back of his neck.
    “I don’t know and I don’t particularly care. It happened. That’s all that matters now.”
    She opened her eyes a little wider at the forcefulness of the statement. “Are you upset about what happened, Ryder?” Please, no, she thought. She only wanted him to be happy!
    “Of course not,” he drawled, his expression softening at once. “It was a little too soon and involved some risks because of that, but perhaps there wasn’t any other way it could have gone. You’re mine now, Brenna. I’ve waited a long time to find you, lady, and now that I have I won’t be letting you go.”
    “I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight,” she soothed, uncertain of his meaning and unwilling to press for clarification. The night was too precious.
    He stroked back the dark hair from her damp forehead and smiled with incredible gentleness.