by Reina Torres
She took hold of his wrists to keep his hands still as her eyes searched his. “But I… I had already… we had already…”
“We did but I wanted more. He told me I- we needed more.” He saw the question in her eyes, and he wasn’t going to make her ask. “We needed to taste you. To sink our teeth into your skin. I couldn’t let my animal explain the rest. It seemed like he wanted me to kill you. I heard all of that and looked at you, asleep in my arms, and it felt like I had truly lost my mind.
“I didn’t understand that he meant to bond us together. To make us one, Tam. I didn’t know that until Mzamo took me to great grandfather’s house, and I read his own words about what had happened to him. All of a sudden, my curse didn’t seem so horrible.”
“So why didn’t you send for me? Why didn’t you tell me to come to you?”
“I called.” He watched the words make an impact with her as if it was a cold bucket of water shocking her. “I called several times. Every time I called the estate to speak to you my uncle answered the phone. He told me you were done with me. That when I left, you’d realized that you didn’t want to have any contact with me.”
“But I wasn’t at the estate anymore.” Her shoulders rose and fell as she struggled to catch her breath. “After you left, I went to stay with my cousins in Arizona for a while. I needed to get my feet firmly on the ground because what I really wanted to do was to run after you, but I thought you’d left me behind for good.”
“When I called, and my uncle said you were out, he made it sound like you were out.”
Her soft exhale sounded like it caused her pain. “You mean that I was out with a man.”
Donal nodded and then shook his head. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew that what I’d done… that leaving you behind like that… was a horrible thing. To abandon you without a real explanation. I didn’t blame you for moving on. It hurt like a knife in my chest, but I wanted you to be happy.”
“It sounds like you were the only one. Your uncle told me that he hadn’t heard from you at all. That you’d left us behind. That you were so intensely focused on your work that you didn’t even ask after me. You didn’t want to know how I was doing.” She shook her head, and he could feel the weight that pulled her shoulders down. “I can’t believe I didn’t question it back then.”
“I didn’t question it either.”
“It sounds like we were both too stupid to know better. Too young. Too ignorant to believe that things were just supposed to happen and fall into our laps.”
He watched the words slip into her mind, and he swore he could see her turn the words over and over as she sat there before him.
She had never looked so beautiful as she did in the firelight, absorbing the story he had never told anyone else in his life.
When Tamsin looked up into his eyes, her lips curved in a gentle smile that gave him hope. “Then it wasn’t because you didn’t want me.”
“No.” He shook his head and set his hands on her shoulders, smoothing his hands down her arms until they reached her hands. Donal lifted them together and touched his lips to the warm skin of her wrists, feeling the fluttering beat of her pulse under his lips. “You are everything to me, Tam. I left because I couldn’t bear to think of hurting you.”
Tamsin pulled her hands gently from his and took his hands in turn. “Do… do you have to stay here tonight? In camp?”
His heart, their heart, pounded in his chest, the rhythm echoing in his ears. “No. I don’t have to be back for almost a day.”
She stood, looking every inch a goddess wreathed in fire as she held her hand out to him. “Take me home.”
When they arrived at the house, it surprised Tamsin. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see in terms of architecture, but when Donal leaned forward to point through the windshield at the opening in the gate, it took her a moment to realize what she was seeing. The trees and plants seemed to enfold the two-story structure within the shadows of their boughs and leaves.
“I’m sorry it’s so dark,” his voice whispered to her in the near silent night, “I wasn’t planning to come home for a week or two.”
She reached out and blindly found his arm, lightly gripping his hand with her own. “You spend a lot of time with the Bandile.”
“They’re like family. We’ve been through so many things together after I got a hold of what was happening to me.”
He stopped the Jeep at the front of the house under the portico and turned to look at her. She could feel his eyes on her face. He probably had much better night vision than she did. He was likely more accustomed to the darkness.
“They’ll be your family too, if you decide to stay.”
She drew in a breath, and it seemed like the only sound for miles, as if the world understood how much that moment meant to her.
“If you want me to,” she took a breath, “then I’ll stay. I’m tired of wasting time waiting for my life to really begin.”
“All right.” He opened his door and pushed it closed as he made his way to her side of the vehicle. “Let’s go inside.”
Just inside, she started to take off her boots so she could leave them by the door. She heard his soft laughter reach her ears. “You don’t have to do that.”
Standing on one foot she peeled one sock off and then the other. “Don’t laugh at me, Donal. I can tell hardwood floors when I feel them, and I’m not tracking mud or dirt across your floors.” She managed to remove the other sock and draped them over the tops of her boots. “You’ll thank me later.”
Donal took her hand in his and pulled her closer until she felt his warmth from her knees to her belly and then through her chest as his hands roamed her back, fitting them together.
Tamsin felt his breath on her cheek a moment later.
“You forgot one thing about this house, Tam.”
She rubbed her cheek against his chest and breathed in the warm, spicy heat of his skin through the thin cotton shirt. “What’s that?”
“This,” his nose lightly trailed along the side of her cheek until his lips brushed against the lobe of her ear, “is our house.”
Tamsin turned toward him and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was gentle and tentative for a moment as she tried to avoid comparing it to their last kiss years ago.
She didn’t want to think about that kiss, given to him as she fell asleep in his arms. The last kiss she gave him before he left her behind to go to Africa.
But it wasn’t that he left her, she had to remind herself. He did it for her. For her safety.
While her mind understood the thought, and admired him for what he thought he was doing, she could still feel the ghost of pain in her chest.
“I can hear you thinking, Tam.”
“I don’t want to think,” she confided in him, “I want to remember what it feels like to touch you. To feel you touch me.”
“Good,” she heard the deep, rumbling tone of his voice, “because that’s what I want to do, Tam.” She felt his hands smooth down her back and slide down over the rounded curve of her backside. His fingers dug into the fold where her thighs began. “I want to touch every inch of you again and again before I bury myself inside you.”
She clung to him. She had to.
If she didn’t wrap her arms around him and squeeze tight, she might have fallen to the floor at that very moment.
“I’d never let you fall, Tam. Not you. Not now that you’re here.”
And then, as if to prove his point, Donal swept her up into his arms and carried her up the stairs as if she weighed no more than air.
Was he that strong?
He looked human, but the strength she felt under his skin, warming her in his arms, made it feel like she was being held by Superman.
“This is our room, Tamsin.” He nudged the door open with his shoulder and walked inside. “You can see some of what it looks like because the moon gives us plenty of light.”
She followed his gaze up toward the ceiling and
understood what he was saying. A long, narrow window followed along one wall and let in the light from the moon overhead.
“Perfect timing.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips before he set her down. “The moon doesn’t always bless us with her light, but it feels like the whole world knew you were coming and decided to welcome you.”
When he fell silent, she heard the night come alive with sound. Closing her eyes, it seemed like she could hear for miles. Sounds she couldn’t even identify cut through the darkness and soothed away the last remnants of her worries.
“It’s so beautiful here.”
His laughter was a caress adding to the sensations of his hands on her body. Donal’s hands peeled her clothing away, dropping each piece gently to the floor near their feet.
When he released the clasp at the front of her bra, she heard his deep intake of breath. “I agree, Tam. So beautiful.”
She swallowed, trying not to let herself fall apart as he bared her body to his eyes.
“Yes.”
To his hands.
“So beautiful.”
He held her breasts in his hands, testing their weight and size against his palms. Tamsin couldn’t begin to know how to hold back her instinctive reaction.
She stood there and felt his heat against her bare skin. Felt the tingling caress of his callused hands and the way her nipples tightened as her blood flushed her skin, chasing away any last reservations.
“I dreamed of this, you know.” She lifted her hands and covered his as he closed his fingers around the tender points of her nipples. Tamsin held him there as he pinched and pulled at her flesh, learning how to tease her skin and draw her breath from her lungs.
“I imagined you late at night, coming into my room, laying me down on my bed and showing me again and again that you loved me. That what we had was more than just a night. That it wasn’t a mistake.”
“Nothing that happened that night was a mistake, Tam. I dreamed of you, too. Dreamed of having you in my arms when I wake, and dreamed of loving you in the late night hours as the world outside reminds us that what we do, how we love each other, is as old as time and as ageless as truth.”
He reached down and peeled the rest of her clothes from her body. When he was done, he wrapped his hands around her waist, lifted her from the ground and set her on the bed, kneeling at the side.
A quick look in either direction showed her that the bed was brass with four ornate posts, one at each corner. An antique if she was any judge. And the feeling as she knelt there, bare on his sheets, was decadent. The sight of Donal removing his clothes was an intimate show, a seduction.
His buttons seemed to disappear under his blunt-tipped fingers and as he pulled the pale cotton from his arms she was mesmerized by the difference in the tan of his skin and the fabric.
And his eyes. They never left her face.
That was the best part of all.
He could look at her naked breasts, or her dark curls at the apex of her thighs, but his hungry eyes were focused on her face.
She wasn’t as noble.
No, her eyes took him in as if she was alone in the room with the statue of a god carved in marble. Her gaze ate up every inch of skin that he revealed, and as he peeled off his pants, she found herself biting so deep into her bottom lip that she knew she’d drawn blood.
Tamsin tried not to follow the descent of his pants to the floor, tried to remind herself that she had seen him before, and felt his thickness inside of her body, but her curiosity got the better of her.
When she lifted her gaze, she followed the muscled curves of his thighs that were so much stronger than he’d been before. There was so much strength in his gorgeous body.
And then she saw his hands as they hung loosely at his sides, knowing the way they felt on her breasts, and the way they teased her nipples into tight, painful points.
She loved those hands.
And she loved the man who stood before her as he took his thick cock into his hand, his tanned fingers a contrast to the thick dark hairs at its base.
“I need to feel you, Tam. I need to feel your body stretch around me and hold me tight inside of you. When I make you come, you’ll hold me close, tell me your dreams, and give me a chance to make them come true.”
Tam felt short of breath.
She hadn’t moved, but she felt like she’d run a marathon. Her lungs ached for air, her legs shook and trembled, and the core of her body felt empty and wet, all for him.
Her tongue swept over her bottom lip and the light tang of blood filled her senses, drew her up onto her knees.
“All I need is you, Donal. Please, don’t make me wait any more to have you inside me.”
The roar that she heard didn’t seem to come from his mouth, but the sound echoed in her head anyway, surprising her.
“Was that… was that him?”
He smiled as he stepped closer, stroking his hand slowly along the hard length of his cock. “You heard that?”
“Yes.”
A short volley of rapid-fire breaths huffed in her ears, dancing along her skin.
“And that?”
He smiled and nodded.
Donal approached the side of the bed and reached out, taking her wrist in his hand, drawing it closer until her fingers trailed along his skin, from the smooth, swollen tip and down over the thick veins along his shaft.
The hard exhales she heard could almost belong to a bull, ready to charge.
“He’s close.”
Even before she heard him say the words she knew it. She could feel his gorilla as if it was in the room with them, hidden in the shadows, but when her thumb swept over the tip of his cock and painted a curve of precum along his darkened skin she felt a different presence in the room.
As if her own soul was outside her body as well.
She smoothed her hand down his length and back again, squeezing a little tighter the second time around. When she reached the base of his cock, his hips pushed forward, bumping the side of her hand with a needy thrust.
“I wanted to love you, slowly.” His voice ground out from his mouth with a rough rush of sound. “I wanted to taste every inch of your skin and curl my tongue inside you, drink from your lips.”
“Later,” she begged him with her voice and her eyes. “Later, Donal. I want to take your body inside of mine and feel how wild you are for me.”
He gave her one chance to change her mind, but instead she swept her thumb over his head again, dipping her finger into the liquid heat of his body, and bringing it to her lips.
When she closed her mouth around her finger that was all it took.
He reached out for her, bracketing her hips with his hands. They were larger than before, stronger, and as he lifted her from her knees it took her a moment to realize what he was going to do.
Donal shifted his hands back, grasping the rounded curve of her ass and pulled her tight against his chest.
Heaven help her. He was so strong.
She set her hands on his shoulders, not because she needed to feel safe or secure, but because she wanted to trail her fingertips over his bare skin.
It felt like the sun was still on his skin instead of the cool light of the moon, and as soon as her hands settled on his shoulders, feeling the thick muscles under his skin, he lowered her an inch. Letting her feel the ridges of his muscles between her thighs and painting his stomach with her heat.
She groaned and her head tipped back as he lowered her down even more, sliding their skin together. It felt like they were so close that it seemed as if they were inside of each other’s skin.
“More.” She begged for him. Begged for that connection to him. Begged for him to fill the emptiness inside of herself. “Please.”
And then he was there. The tip of his erection fit snugly between her folds and that sensation alone sent a rush of arousal through her body, helping her ease down over him. Tamsin took him in, bringing him deeper and deeper until their bodies were flus
h against each other.
Donal rolled his hips forward and she gripped his biceps to hold tight.
“Did I hurt you?” His voice was rough with concern for her.
“No,” she let out a gasp, “it feels so good. It’s so different from before.”
His laughter was warm and rumbled through his body into hers. “It’s better.” His words were soft but she could hear the depth of his emotion. “I know I want to show you what could be between us. I need you to feel how right things can be.”
As he spoke, he moved, almost imperceptible shifts in his body, Tamsin wished there had been a mirror on the wall. She knew that each of those minute movements came from Donal flexing the muscles in his legs and yes, his sculpted backside.
“Hold onto my arms, Tam. Don’t let go.”
She shook her head. There was no way she was going to let him go. Not when she had his body buried deep inside of her, with his hips spreading her thighs until she felt completely open to his body’s invasion.
He leaned forward, bending a knee to brace against the bed and shifting one hand to the brass finial atop the bedpost.
Holding her against him with one hand, his fingers doing the most delicious things to her where they held her in place, he slid out of her warmth and pushed back in with a soft exhale.
Again, he held her still, pulling almost free before pushing forward to the hilt.
The first few strokes burned a little until her body stretched and eased around his thickness, but there was no pain beyond the need to have more of him.
Donal began a punishing pace, using the momentum of their bodies to plunge ever deeper. It should have been impossible. Tamsin felt like he was already tunneling into every cell of her body, merging their two straining bodies into one.
“So perfect.”
He wrapped his arm around the bedpost and somehow managed to sink just a little deeper. Tamsin leaned her head forward and felt her hair trail down over his chest as an indrawn breath filled her senses with his scent and the heavy humidity in the air.
She drew her knees up and touched her heels to the backs of his legs. The change in the angle of his thrusts stroked into her with the slap of his skin against hers.
