Cape Storm

“I’ll stay,” he said, and eased me down onto the bed. “I’ll stay as long as you’re awake.”

“Big promises, Mister Big Shot,” I said. “What if a cat gets stuck up a tree in Peoria? I bet you’d go ru

“You know how seriously I take a vow. Unless I made one to the cat, you’re my priority.” He tapped me gently on the nose, and there was humor in his face now. “Clothes off or on?”

“Oh God, off. Off off off.”

We were naked before our backs hit the mattress, thanks to David’s wondrous Dji

“Please,” I whispered. “Please make all this go away. Just for a while. Can you do that?”

“I’m only a Dji

His lips brushed their heat down, taking all the time in the world, pausing in unexpected and vulnerable places. The i

Oh, I forgot. I forgot everything.

Gradually, his mouth became demanding. Challenging. Nips of his teeth, strokes of his tongue. My control slipped, and I made a tortured sound in the back of my throat, rising up to meet him. I didn’t want seduction right now. I wanted to be ravished, and he could feel it echoing out of me like a ringing bell.

I could tell the exact second that his control slipped gears. His body language shifted, tensed, and he raised his head and looked at me. My already quickened pulse jumped, because the look in those Dji

When I pulled back, David’s eyes were no longer bronze. They were fire, with pupils of absolute darkness. Mine,I thought incoherently. Mine.I didn’t know if that came from me or from him. It had the force of a Dji

David growled and put a hand on my chest and pushed me all the way back full length on the bed. He followed, not quite putting his weight on me. Brushes of his hot skin teased and tortured us both. He ran his palm lightly over the rising tilt of my left nipple and flicked his tongue over the right, and the difference in sensations made me gasp. His hand was light, delicate, and burning hot; his mouth was heavy, demanding, and deliciously wet. I bit my lip and felt my whole body shudder in response. I heard an answering sound from David—need, lust, love, wordless reassurance.

We were both on the knife-edge of control. David had never fully let his Dji

I knew better. I put my hands around his face and held him still for a moment, staring deep into those inhuman eyes.

And then I nodded. No words, and none necessary.

His skin took on a dusting of gold, and then darker shades, until he seemed more metal than flesh—but it was flesh to the touch, warm and soft and firm. He tasted like exotic spices—cardamom, saffron, wild honey from the rocks. Everything about him was different, and yet everything was exactly the same.

His hand slipped lower down my body, into the slick folds between my thighs. The sensation was overwhelming—burning and cooling at the same time. His thumb pressed and stroked while his long, lovely fingers slipped within. His mouth closed over mine, ci

Ecstasy to the power of infinity.

The old, wild magic spiraled up inside of me, exultant, slow pulses that built on each other. Yes, God, yes . . .When I came I did it silently, rigidly, holding the awesome force of it inside and giving it to David through the link between us.

It drove him beyond human disguises, and light exploded in the room. I heard him gasping, struggling to stay with me in flesh, because flesh was what we both needed just now.

He solidified again into skin, hot and firm against me. I rolled over and up to my hands and knees, and felt the fiery stroke of his hands over my back, down my hips, between my thighs . . .

I gasped and dropped my head to the pillow as the relentless pleasure of him filled me. Nothing mattered in that moment—only the need, the all-encompassing need to feel.Every thrust traveled through my body in shattering waves, as intense as any sensation I’d ever known. I heard David whispering in that liquid, sibilant language that I knew must have been his native tongue, the language of fire, of Dji

He knew just the right spot to hit to shatter me completely. I screamed as another orgasm flooded me like boiling light. It spilled into him, triggering a matching explosion that rocked us both to the core.

The room was full of light.

I caught my breath to hold on to the pure, silvery perfection of that moment, riding the waves, feeling them slowly and gently diminish.

We hadn’t said a word, not in English. David still didn’t. He continued to move inside me—slow, gentle strokes—and kissed the small of my back. It was the gentlest gesture after such an aggressive, passionate coupling, and it promised me, without the luxury of words, that whatever boundaries we found ourselves crossing, he would always lead me back.

David eased down next to me on the bed, flushed and glowing and triumphant. Human, and not.

So much power and control, made vulnerable through me.

I felt a tingle of heat in my back. No. Not now.It faded, more like a warning than an attack.

I curled into David’s body and recovered my breath. Despite everything the past few hours flooded back, bringing guilt and regret. What right do I have to be happy?I had none. Maybe I never would. That wasn’t safe.I couldn’t surrender control like that, not with Bad Bob’s mark on my back. What if he’d taken advantage of that moment to strike? What if he’d taken control?

“Jo.” David’s voice was rough, not quite steady. When I looked up into his eyes, I recognized the expression. “I see I can’t make the world stop for long. And you think too much.”

“I was just thinking what a terrible risk that was,” I said. “Because—”

“Because of the mark.”

I nodded. He lifted himself up on one elbow and looked down at me, golden skin still shimmering in the light, flushed in all the right places.

“I know,” he said, and trailed his fingertips over the line of my collarbone. “But you’re my wife, and no matter what the risks might be, that matters more to me.”

“I love you,” I whispered. “But you need to be careful. Especially with me.”

His smile was warm enough to light every candle in the world. “I was, at first. But I fell in love with you instead. Now there is no safety from you.”

I burrowed close to him, and his arms wrapped around me, and for the moment it was all quiet. All peace.

“For as long as we live,” he said, and kissed the top of my head. “Which means forever, if I have any say in it.”