Free Dark Enchantment by Janine Ashbless

turned to look her in the eye at last, his own eyes full of storm and sorrow and yearning without hope. ‘Whatever you want, Charlotte.’
    And it came to Charlotte that his burden was to be on the far side of a gulf so vast that no matter how loud he shouted at her, it only reached her as a whisper.
    ‘Oh.’ She started to tremble. There was only one thing that spanned that abyss. ‘Gentle, I think,’ she breathed.
    There was a yard of carpet and an infinite void between them; they reached across together and he took her in his arms and pulled her into his lap to kiss her. His mouth was gentle this time, just as he’d promised, but no less hungry. His arms were no less strong. His touch burned through the leather of her suit and set her body aflame. He tasted of ginger and endurance and disbelieving joy. He pulled her astride his thighs and she kicked over the bottle so that ginger beer fizzed across the scarlet carpet.
    ‘You are … a little white hawk … I release … from my hands … in the dawn,’ he murmured, kissing her throat. ‘And you come back … back to me … You smell of the clean sky … and the clouds.’
    She was shocked that he owned such words and tears brimmed in her eyes even as she whimpered with desire and writhed upon his lap. ‘I always come home to you,’ she whispered. ‘I want to come back.’
    Then he took hold of the front of her flying suit and unhooked it all the way from neck to crotch. He kissed her through the pearly-grey silk she wore there – much daintier than her wartime flying chemise – and his hot mouth left cold patches on the thin material. He pulled her right up over him, so that her breasts were in his face and she was leaning on him, her bottom cradled in his arms. She could almost see over the balcony but she shut her eyes and lowered her face over his head, smelling the spicy pomade in his hair, stirring the untidy curls at the back of his neck with her fingers, feeling his lips and his teeth on her as he pushed her chemise up over her breasts and nuzzled upon the bare flesh. He teased her nipples with his tongue, his suckling an exquisite pleasure. She pressed her pubic mound against the hard wall of his torso and groaned unrestrainedly. She was burning. The sheath of leather about her body was an unbearable frustration.
    Just as she was beginning to think she might come if only he would bite her nipple properly, he let her slide down into his lap again. They kissed, breathless, open-eyed; not in wonder or hunger this time but knowing, and almost afraid of what was going to happen. She sought the thick bulge of his cock through the wool of his trousers and felt it heave against the pressure of her hand.
    ‘You’re sure?’ he whispered, so softly the cherubs could not have heard him.
    She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Their lips met in melting union. She broke away first, so that she could look down and watch her hands open the buttons of his fly. His erection beat like a heart under its caul of fine cotton. He helped her draw it out into the light and she grasped it in both hands, stroking the velvet skin that slid so enticingly over such hardness.
    He slipped one hand carefully down the front of her flying suit, cupping her pubic area, fingertips sliding into wetness. It was a tight fit.
    I will stroke him till he spends, she thought. He will come in my hands just as I come on his.
    But she had no chance. He was much, much better than her – either that or more versed in self-control. His hand squeezed and his fingers stirred and she lost concentration, forgot to stroke, swayed on his thighs and sagged against him. He had to hold her upright with his other hand as within brief minutes he rubbed her slipperiness into squirming, gasping, flushing crisis and tipped her into a defeat she regretted not one whit.
    ‘Does that make up for what I did before?’ he asked, brushing his lips across her scarred cheek as she opened her eyes and tried to