Chapter 275: Draeven...Kiss Me

She did.

The door swung shut behind her. It closed with a soft click.

Draeven bent his head.

He did not kiss her at once. He stopped a breath away, so close that his lips brushed hers when he spoke, and his voice came out ragged.

"Last chance."

"Draeven," she said, and she had never said his name like that, soft and low and sure. "Kiss me."

He did.

It was slow.

It was the slowest thing she had ever known. His mouth settled over hers with infinite care, warm and firm and almost reverent, as though he were setting down something that might break. For a heartbeat he only held it there, his body went still. Then he tilted his head, and the kiss deepened, and she felt the tremor run through him from head to foot.

Her hands came up and found his shirt.

She clutched it. The linen was warm. Under it his heart was pounding, hard and fast and thunderous, a drum beating against her fists. She pulled him closer and he came, one hand slid from her cheek into her hair, and the other settled at the small of her back and drew her flush against him.

Heat flooded her.

It poured through her from every place they touched, her mouth and her hands and her spine, a slow gold tide that rose from her toes to the crown of her head. She gasped into his kiss, and felt him smile against her lips, and kissed him harder.

Somewhere deep in his chest, something enormous rumbled.

It was low and long and vast, and it came up through his ribs and into hers, a sound that was not a sound at all. Not a growl. A purr, ancient and enormous, the sound of a great beast that has waited two hundred years in the dark and has at last, at last, been touched.

The room seemed to glow.

She felt it, rather than saw it. The lamp on the desk burned brighter. The candles in their sconces leaned, each of them, toward the place where they stood. The air shimmered and warmed and sang.

And in the circle of his arms, with her heart racing and her mouth on his, Morgana closed her eyes and let herself fall.

He didn’t break the kiss so much as lose it.

His mouth left hers for half a breath and came back harder, and the slow, careful man who had opened the door was gone. His hand tightened in her hair. His other arm locked around her waist and lifted her clean off the floor, and Morgana gasped into his mouth as her slippers left the stone.

"Draeven....."

"Hold on to me."

She did. Her arms went around his neck and her legs, without any instruction from her, wrapped around his waist. He turned and walked her three steps back and the oak door met her spine, solid and warm, and he pinned her there with his body.

The heat coming off his body was everywhere. It came through his shirt and through her thin nightgown, a deep dry heat like sun on stone, and it made her skin prickle and her thighs tighten.

He pulled back just far enough to look at her.

His eyes had changed. The gold had deepened until it burned, and a thin dark slit ran down the middle of each pupil. His chest was heaving. When he spoke, his voice had gone low and rough.

"Tell me to stop."

"I don’t want to stop."

"If you do. Say it, and I stop."

"I know." She dragged her fingers through his hair. "You said. I heard you. Stop talking."

A short, startled laugh broke out of him. It turned into a groan when she rolled her hips against him and felt how hard he was through his trousers, a thick, unmistakable ridge pressing right where she ached.

"Gods," he said, against her throat. "Morgana."

"Take it off."

"What?"

"My robe. The gown. Take them off." Her face was burning but she didn’t look away. "I want you to see me."

He went very still.

Then his hands moved to the belt of her robe, and he undid it with a slowness that made her want to scream. The heavy wool fell open. He pushed it off her shoulders and let it drop around his feet. The nightgown was next. He drew it up her thighs and over her hips, and she raised her arms, and it went over her head and away.

Cool air hit her bare skin and she shivered.

Draeven didn’t move.

He stood with her pinned against the door and her legs still hooked around him, and he looked. She had never been looked at like that. Not by Kaelen with his hunger or Thorne. His gaze went over her slowly, from her face to her throat to her collarbones, and then it dropped, and stopped.

On her breasts.

"Draeven?"

He didn’t answer. His throat worked. A muscle jumped in his jaw. His hands, which had been on her waist, slid slowly up her ribs and stopped just beneath the swell of them, as though he didn’t trust himself to go further.

"You are so beautiful," he said, hoarse. "I have wanted to see you for weeks. I didn’t think...." He stopped. "I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it."

"Then touch me."

"I intend to." His eyes lifted to hers, burning. "I’m going to take my time."

His palms closed around her breasts.

Morgana’s head hit the door with a soft thud. His hands were hot, hotter than any hands had a right to be, and they covered her completely, lifting and cupping and squeezing with a slow, reverent pressure that sent a bolt of sensation straight down between her legs. Her nipples were already hard. His thumbs touched them and rolled them in slow circles, and a sound came out of her that she didn’t recognize.

"There," he murmured. "That’s it. Let me hear you."

He bent his head.

His mouth closed over her left nipple, and she cried out.