Free The Edge of Desire by Stephanie Laurens

succor.
    So she reveled in the sensations of him, so rigid and heavy, so incontestably male, moving within her. She met him and matched him, wound her leg about his hips and drew him still deeper. Gloried at his moan, at his surrender as he took every last inch she offered and filled her.
    Opening her senses, she drank in, soaked up, every little pleasure—the weight of him pressing her to the floor, his hips pinning hers as he drove repetitively deep within her, his chest heavy against her aching breasts—a delicious ache she’d all but forgotten—his lips still locked over hers, his mouth still feasting on hers, his tongue mimicking his possession of her in a flagrantly erotic way.
    With joyous greed she grasped every chance to let her rejected, shriveled, almost moribund passionate soul milk all it could from the encounter, all it could of what he and circumstance had conspired to deny her for twelve long years.
    All his thirst for revenge and her dramatic temper had today, between them, unwittingly unleashed.
    So she strove for no control; she simply wanted.
    She made no effort to guide or direct; she simply urged him on. Urged him to ride her as hard as he would, as deeply as he wished, amazed to discover that he seemed as desperate, as driven, as she.
    To revisit all they’d had. To touch the heat, the incredible flaming peak, again.
    To at the end, all flushed skin and damp flesh, hands grasping, locking, fingers clenched, lungs so tight they burned, lips fused, mouths melded, blind and desperate searching for release, let desire wield its whip and drive them the last little way, to crest the peak together.
    To together soar over the edge and into the void.
    To fracture and fall, in passion’s embrace to let pleasure claim them.
    To shatter them, and fill them.
    With a golden glory she hadn’t felt for so long it made her weep.
    Spent, he slumped upon her. She could feel his heart still racing, pounding in his chest, feel the tempo echo where they joined.
    She drew a slow, shallow breath, then raised a hand, wiped the tear that had slid from beneath her lashes, paused. Then, hesitantly, driven by an urge she had no wish to name, she raised her hand to his hair and, tentatively, caressed. When he settled under the caress, her heart contracted. She continued, gently ruffling his hair, just as she used to.
    A quiet, tender minute ticked past. His heartbeat gradually slowed; his breathing eased.
    She wasn’t sure if what she felt was her parched heart shattering, or if the sensation in her chest was of that same parched heart, refreshed by the last moments, slowly swelling, returning to life.
    The latter was unwise, and would most likely prove self-destructive, at the very least exquisitely hurtful. He hadn’t loved her, not as she loved him, and never had, no matter what she’d thought. It would be foolish beyond permission to imagine that had changed, especially given how he now thought of her.
    Regardless, she could control her heart no more than she’d been able to control the passion of the last minutes.
    Any more than she’d been able to control it all those years ago.
    Finally, he stirred, withdrew and moved off her—only to slump heavily on his back alongside. Luckily, the silk rug was large.
    Reaching down with one hand, she flicked her skirts down over her knees, not out of any sense of modesty—withhim she had none—but because, with passion fading, the air felt cool.
    They lay side by side staring up at the ceiling.
    When he gave no sign of breaking the silence, she decided that, as his hostess, it fell to her to do so.
    “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” Her voice was low, sultry—even more raspy than it usually was.
    Christian felt more than heard the words, as if they were some damnable caress, stroking down his chest and lower. Inside, not outside; not stroking his skin but his very nerves.
    Nerves she’d—they’d—just sated to an extent he hadn’t recalled as possible.
    He felt