It wasn’t the same as when he’d lain flat; although she experimented, she couldn’t find quite the right angle…

Desire had already burgeoned within her; she needed more, soon.

Drawing back from the kiss, dragging in a gasping breath, she clung and pressed closer; her head beside his brought their bodies even tighter against each other, but no…

“This”-she had to haul in another breath-“isn’t quite right.” She whispered the words beside his ear. Dragged in another breath. “Is it?”

She felt rather than heard a chuckle that came out more like a groan.

“You saw this in some book, didn’t you?”

She bit his earlobe-hard. “How else?”

“You’re too tall-there’s a better way for us.”

She licked the spot she’d bitten. Purred, “How?”

His hands, until then loose across her back, slid down to grip her bottom. He held her to him as he shifted, swinging his legs up, holding her against him as he came to his knees, then sank back to sit on his ankles.

Resettling her over him, straddling his hips, he resettled himself within her. Brushed back the veil of her hair and met her eyes. “How’s that?”

Her hands on his shoulders, she rose up, then slowly sank down. Her knees and thighs now at a different angle, she had much better purchase on the bed. Their bodies entire seemed much better aligned, at least for their present purpose. Sliding her hands up, she framed his face, smiled her answer-and kissed him.

Let go all restraint and gave herself over to the now driving need to love him, to meet him on the physical plane, match him and experience all that together they might know. That together they could share.

And he went with her, but still at her command, following not leading, letting her set the pace and the direction, letting her ride them both hard, furious, and unswerving toward the sun.

She reached it, and burned.

Charles let the conflagration take her, let it consume her. Watched it claim her. He found a strength he didn’t know he possessed and held back from the beckoning blaze.

And waited. Until release had swept through her and away.

My turn. He didn’t say the words; she wouldn’t have heard them if he had. Holding her to him, he fought to free enough of his mind from the heat of her slick sheath to direct his hands and rearrange her limbs.

Her limp arms he draped over his shoulders, her legs he straightened one at a time and wrapped them about his waist, then he took her bottom in both hands, supporting her weight, tipping her hips to him.

And smoothly drove into her. Embedded himself to the hilt, then gripped her bottom and moved her on him. Worked her hips over his. In this position, he only had to thrust a little to fill her, to penetrate her forcefully as deeply as he could. She was fully open to him, totally his, totally helpless to resist. Totally and completely in his power.

Penny awoke to that jolting reality on a rush of intense sensation. Surely he was deeper, farther inside her than he’d ever been?

She gasped, eyes closed, clung tight as she assimilated their new position-assimilated the devastating impact it was having on her already heightened senses. And at some deeper level, on her very being.

The rhythm he set was neither fast nor slow, but perfectly gauged and relentless. Her senses spun. She tried to squirm, to press ahead still faster, to gain even more delicious pressure for her suddenly clamorous nerves, but instead his fingers tightened; he held her immobile, suspended half-off him for a heartbeat, until she sobbed and clutched in desperation, then he filled her, deep and hard and shockingly thoroughly, again.

Oh, yes, her senses sobbed.

Her breasts, riding against his hair-dusted chest, had swollen until they ached, the nipples so tightly ruched and sensitive she longed to feel his mouth soothing them. In desperation, she clutched his shoulders, extended her arms, and leaned back so her breasts were no longer so excruciatingly abraded.

He bent his head and set his lips to one breast, found her nipple, took it into his hot mouth, and suckled.

Lightning streaked through her; she screamed, gasped, and arched in his arms. He held her easily, continued to work her hips, continued to thrust into her body, continued to feast on her breasts…until she shattered.

More completely than she ever had.

For long moments, she was floating, out of touch with any world but the sensate, aware only of him, his touch, his…worship.

There seemed no other word for it. Even now, he didn’t seek his own release, but sought to lengthen and heighten hers. She didn’t know the ways, but felt the results, felt the golden pleasure well and swell and buoy her on.

It seemed eons, but could only have been minutes before she drifted back to earth, and found herself wrapped in his arms, secure and safe against his chest, her head on his shoulder. He was still hard and rigid within her.

She shifted her head, found his ear, caressed it with her lips. Murmured, “Lay me down. Take me now.”

He drew back to look into her eyes. For a moment, their gazes locked, and she wondered what he saw, what he looked for when he searched her eyes…what he wanted from her.

She could sense his heartbeat, feel his tension, yet it wasn’t desire that stared at her from his eyes.

But then he shifted, lifted her from him, laid her on the pillows. His touch was assured as he settled her, flicked her hair out, laid it about her, then drew the covers from beneath her and let them fall where they would. She was suddenly aware of the flaring emptiness within her, the emptiness he’d filled, that when he was within her she was whole, in some way complete. His eyes, his hands, never left her; as he spread her thighs and loomed over her, that emptiness swelled to an ache.

Then he filled her.

Relief fell from her in a soft sob. Braced above her, he looked down at her as he moved, and started a slow ride of his own.

Long, slow-how a compulsion so fraught, so driven, could feel so languid in execution was something she couldn’t comprehend. He made it seem so, yet it wasn’t. He seemed almost relaxed as he rhythmically drove into her, yet he was very far from that.

Reaching up, she ran her hands over his chest, over the locked muscles in his upper arms, over the broad sweep of his shoulders, then she tugged, arched as he drove deeper, harder, then he groaned and obliged.

He lowered his body to hers, and she stopped thinking.

Her existence shrank to just him and her in the soft shadows of her bed, to shared breaths, gasps, to the wonder of swift shared glances in the dark, to their bodies flexing, merging to the dance they performed it seemed instinctively. She didn’t need to think to know what to do, but could simply let instinct guide her.

Could be with him in this way without thought or concern, or restraint, could simply give herself up to him. As he gave himself to her.

In the end, wholly, completely, without reserve. The wave reared, then crashed, and swept them both away.

They clung, held tight to the moment, to sensation, to each other.

The wave receded and left them, for a moment adrift on a sea of their own making, then they sank back to earth, to the earthly comfort of her bed.

Wrapped in each other’s arms, they slept.

She woke in the deep watches of the night with no idea what had roused her.

She lay still, and listened…realized as she registered her breathing and his that she hadn’t, not even in that fleeting moment of first awareness, felt surprised to find Charles beside her, to feel his arm lying over her waist.

The moon was now high; silvery light streamed through the open curtains, the bright shaft striking the floor beside the bed, throwing enough light for her night-adjusted eyes to see clearly.

No ripple of the unexpected disturbed the stillness about them.

All seemed peaceful. Comforting. Right.

As it should be.

She shifted just enough to look at him. He was slumped facedown in the bed beside her, deeply asleep. Even so, one arm lay flung over her, long fingers relaxed against her side; she wouldn’t give much for her chances of sliding from the bed. Of leaving him.

That odd look she’d seen and even more sensed in his eyes returned to haunt her. Frowning, she tried to fathom what it meant. In that moment, she was perfectly sure neither he nor she could have pretended anything. He’d sworn he was no longer capable of pretense, not in that sphere; she now understood enough of his past to believe him.

Sinking into the soft mattress, she thought back over the night…smiled at the success of her strategy.

That strange look floated once again across her mind.

She shook it aside. She knew what they were doing this time; it was a physical engagement, an affair with no emotional strings on either side. That was the mistake she’d made last time, imagining something that hadn’t been, not understanding how he saw it. He hadn’t felt for her as she’d thought-not as she’d felt for him-and that’s how he’d always see her. They were close friends indisputably, lovers in the physical sense, but nothing more.

This time she accepted that that was how it would be; she’d gone into this with her eyes open. They would share and indulge in physical pleasure as they would, until they grew tired of it; she had no doubt that whatever transpired they would remain forever friends. He would go off and do whatever he would do, and she would continue as she had been, but with a wealth of memories to warm her, to reassure her that she was as female, as feminine, as desirable as any of her sex.

She knew, this time, what she wanted from him; this time that matched what she could expect to receive. This time, she hadn’t put her heart on the table and expected to receive his in return.