His voice rolled through her, turning her sharp edges into soft grassy slopes. She was sliding down a familiar path, but one she hadn’t taken in so long she’d forgotten all the twists and turns, and her breath was short with anticipation. She’d invited a man into her room. The wordssoundedimmoral, but she didn’t feel immoral. She felt fully righteous, actually. She had saved herself for her husband. She’d done what she was supposed to do. But now she saved herself for only her.
Marek was moving toward her, his eyes boring into her. “Are you certain, Hollis Honeycutt? This is not something you can easily return from.”
Perhaps he was trying to get her to see reason, but he only stoked the flames in her. She was well aware that this could be a calamity in more ways than one. God knew she and Percy hadn’t always been in perfect harmony. And there was always the after, those tender moments when one could only hope that expectations and feelings aligned. But she couldn’t think about that—Marek was looking at her as if he wanted to devour her, and it lit her on fire. “I am entirely certain.”
Marek groaned. “I thought you’d say that.” He reached where she stood with her back against the door. His gaze drank her in, and he lifted his hand and caressed her shoulder, traced a line across her collarbone to her other shoulder, and up her neck, curling around her ear.
Hollis leaned her head back and closed her eyes, feeling her skin turn to kindling in every place his fingers moved.
He bent his head and kissed the curve of her neck into her shoulder, then sank a hand into her hair, dislodging the ringlets and pulling them free. “I am mad for you,” he whispered, and followed that with something said breathlessly in Weslorian, before kissing her mouth.
She slid her arms around his neck and he pressed his mouth to her throat. She scraped her fingers through his hair, and he pushed her against the door, his mouth on hers again. The weight of his body was hard against hers. His kiss was impassioned, and hers was frantic with want. She was falling into these feelings and these sensations, and all she could think of was how she needed to feel his skin against hers, to feel his strength envelop her and take her to the heights she had not seen in a very long time.
Marek’s lips were agonizingly pleasurable, spreading desire through her so quickly there was nothing she could do to douse it. He turned her around and moved her backward as he worked the fastenings of her gown. The sleeves slid down her shoulders, and when she removed her arms, the gown slid down the chemise and to her waist, where a petticoat held it aloft.“Deo mea,”he murmured, and pushed her gown down and over her petticoat. With his eyes locked on hers, he pulled at the ribbon that held the petticoat around her waist. It slid down her legs along with her gown.
Hollis reached for his neckcloth as he shrugged out of his coat and began to unbutton his long waistcoat. When he’d discarded those items, he kicked off his boots, slipped his hand around her waist, and lay her down on the bed. He crawled over her, his lips kissing her from the hollow of her throat, to her collarbone, and down, taking her breast in his mouth.
A vortex of desire was gaining traction in her, spinning her around and around. She was losing herself in her yearning and his touch.
He tossed aside his shirt and kissed her breast again, murmuring something about her galloping heart. White-hot anticipation coursed down her spine and spilled into her groin. Marek pressed his erection against her leg; she pushed a lock of dark hair from his brow and stared into his eyes. His breathing was hard, his golden gaze the sun to her sea of desire. This moment was deeply erotic and profoundly evocative, filling the air around them. Their mutual regard wrapped them in a cocoon.
He hooked a finger under the hem of her chemise and slid it up, then used both hands to pull it over her head so that she lay bare before him. He sat up, removed his trousers, and returned to her. He skimmed his hand over the plane of her belly and down to her thighs. His body was dense and powerful, his hands strong. She relished the feel of a man beside her, on her. She kissed him, slipping her tongue into the seam of his lips at the same moment his fingers slipped into the seam of her.
Hollis was raging with unbridled desire. She had long believed she could never desire a man as she had desired Percy, but she’d been wrong. The desire she had for Marek was potent and hot—because this was her choosing and she had asked for what she wanted. In some ways, that made this more powerful than any intimate moment she’d ever experienced.
Marek was very deliberate in his caressing of her, stroking her body, kissing her, showing her how much he wanted her. She sank into the sensation of his touch, the feel of his body pressed hard against her own. She felt every beat of his heart against her breast. She surrendered to his hands and his mouth and, at last, to his body, when he slid into her with a sigh of bliss.
She was instantly transported. His body in hers was exquisite and unbearable and urgent and inescapable. She moved with him and against him, urging him to abandon. Their eyes were locked with a powerful current of mutual desire, each silently willing the other to crest the wave first.
Hollis was the first to fall, letting herself implode with a gasp and a whimper. With a strangled cry, Marek yanked free of her, spilling onto her thigh.
The heat of his body seeped into hers. It seemed forever before Hollis slowly floated back to earth. She had always feared that she would find love after Percy was solemn and heavy with grief. But this was nothing like that. This was freeing. She felt as if the last shackles of her grief were broken and she was free to love again.
She could still feel Marek’s heart beating against her breast. He slowly rolled onto his side and laced his fingers with hers.
Hollis rolled onto her side, cupped his face with her free hand and kissed him. He responded with several kisses to her face before gathering her in his arms and holding her to him.
“I think I am forever changed,” she said softly.
Marek said nothing. Hollis realized that she was on his deaf side. He hadn’t heard her. She caressed his ear and kissed it, then made him turn his head and kissed him once more. He smiled with such adoration that she couldn’t suppress a small shiver. His expression was warm and open, and he wrapped a dark tress of her hair around his finger.
Marek didn’t have to speak. He didn’t even have to hear her. A bond had been forged between them, and no matter what else came, she would be forever grateful to him for removing the mantle of mourning from her. Hollis felt vibrant, a star shooting across the sky of her life. Her blood still flowed hot in her veins, and she wanted to remain like this forever, the two of them in this bed, in a tangle of sheets, in a space where no one could touch them.
Rain began to fall again, pattering against the window. Hollis pushed herself up and propped the pillows behind her. Marek rolled onto his side to face her, his head resting on his fist.
“This might have been disastrous,” Hollis said.
“Why?”
“Two people are not always so compatible.”
He smiled and caressed her face. “Did you find us compatible?”
“Exceedingly compatible.” She traced her finger down his nose.
They lay like that for a very long time, talking quietly, caressing each other. Marek told her about his childhood. About fishing on the sea with the man he’d always thought was his uncle. He talked about the stark beauty of a remote land, and she imagined a tundra of sorts, rising into rocky mountains, then giving way to the sea. He talked about his farm, about his dogs that would lie at his feet each night, and Hollis imagined one of them putting his head on her lap. She imagined the warmth of the room with the fire he’d built. She imagined this rain pattering on a house far away.
Hollis told him about her favorite pets. She told him about the cats and dogs that had always lived in their house. And the rabbit she’d had as a girl. The rabbit had escaped the garden enclosure and had gone missing. Days later, a neighbor bragged about a most excellent dinner of rabbit.
