Free Dark Solstice by Kaitlyn O'Connor Page A

need. If the loss and pain were so deep inside him it was only his unconscious mind that allowed it to surface, then he needed her touch. Perhaps, she thought, it would soothe the pain if she allowed him his dream lover?
    She was willing to try, willing to ignore her own wound—which was surely superficial at best? A prick to her ego, nothing more.
    It had to be. She didn’t love him as his Amy must have to have captured his love for her and held it so long.
    It was just sex to her, welcome because it felt good.
    Dragging in a shuddering breath, she lifted her hands and sifted her fingers lightly through his hair, enjoying the silkiness of it. He shuddered at her light touch, leaving off his wondrous caress of her sensitive nipples and shifting upward to press open mouthed kisses along her throat until he reached her mouth. She allowed her hands to drift to his broad, muscular shoulders as he shifted upwards to match his lips to hers.
    A glorious madness overwhelmed her as his lips melded with her own and she felt the hungry caress of his tongue along hers, tasted him. Like a contented cat, she kneaded his shoulders and back with her fingers and skated her palms over the smooth, enticing flesh, undulating beneath him to brush every inch of flesh she could against his, to feel him everywhere at once.
    He skimmed a hand down her side to cup and knead one buttock before he followed the cleft to her thigh and dragged her leg over his hips, reaching between her thighs to grasp his engorged member and drag it along her cleft.
    Rhea gasped, breaking from his lips at the silken glide of the head of his cock, sucking in another quick breath as he found her opening and pressed inside of her. He rolled, taking her to her back, pressing into her insistently with short thrusts until he’d imbedded his thick flesh deeply inside of her.
    She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, relishing the feel of him, breathless with the feeling of pleasurable fullness and the wondrous comfort it gave her to feel him as a part of herself, connected so deeply it was almost sublime. She lifted her legs and wrapped them tightly around his waist, wanting nothing more in that moment than to hold him to her, to retain that sense of oneness.
    He began to move after a moment, however, slowly at first, drawing his flesh outward along her channel almost as if he relished it as much as she did before sinking deeply inside of her again. Heated currents began to stir to life, replacing the joy of before with a rush of impatience to feel more. Dropping her feet to the bed, she began to urge him to move faster, delve deeper as the urgency grew. She found herself rushing toward completion as his movements translated his own building needs to her. She sucked in a sharp breath at the first warning quake of the muscles along her channel, stilling, waiting expectantly, and then it hit her forcefully. She groaned as her climax lifted her, jolting through her. He groaned almost in unison, shuddered as his own body began to convulse with paroxysms of pleasure, and then moved faster, pumping his hot seed into her.
    The bliss abated slowly, leaving her with a contented warmth. As sluggish as she felt in the aftermath, she skimmed her hands over his broad back appreciatively, stroking him soothingly as he struggled to catch his breath. He was still sprawled limply across her when she drifted to sleep again.
    * * * *
     
     
     
     
     
    The moment they were turned loose after their return from their second stint on Mars, Kyle yielded to his gut instincts where Rhea was concerned without a hell of a lot of cunning—no great surprise since Rhea had reduced him to the intellect of a moron.
    “You said you’d consider a trade,” he said the moment he confronted Raathe, knowing the words came out as a challenge instead of the ‘only slightly interested’ proposition he’d intended. It sucked big time, but he didn’t think he’d be able to manage any better by waiting. He’d