Morgan had known, the moment he had held Athena naked in his arms, the moment he had tasted her, that their joining would be unlike any he had felt before. It wasn’t only the many years of enforced celibacy. It wasn’t that his one time with Tamar had been so cold and bereft of emotion. No, it was so much more than that, more even than the desire he had felt for Athena almost from the day they had met.
Athena was his. He would be the first to possess her, to take the virginity she willingly conceded to him. She gave herself without reluctance or false modesty. The scent of wanting wreathed the cave, and the intoxicating flavor of his desire still lingered on his tongue.
He knew that this act of love was a gift of the moment.
After it was over, the questions would still be there—the questions and the doubts and the fears. And he didn’t care. For now there was only one reality, and both wolf and man cried out to seize it for the first and last time. For a while he and Athena would grasp salvation in both hands.
Yet when he entered her, holding himself back and desperate not to hurt her, he knew how pitiful had been his greatest expectations.
She was slick, hot, and tight around him, and as he moved deeper she pushed her fingers into the carpet of leaves under her back and moaned sweetly. The small barrier gave easily, and still he held back until she reached up and grasped his shoulders in urgent demand.
With a groan of relief he thrust hard and true. It was like coming back to a home long lost. She arched into him, lifting her hips, drawing him deeper still. He cupped her firm buttocks in his hands to hold her steady as he withdrew and thrust again more swiftly. Her gasps came in time to his movements, the very beat of life itself.
But she was too far away. He drew her up so that she straddled his lap and her nipples pressed into his ribs. Her eyes were closed, her skin flushed, her lips parted in an expression of ecstasy.
He wanted to see her eyes, watch them looking into his as he rocked her again and again.
“Look at me,” he demanded. “Look at me, Athena.”
She did as he commanded. Her lashes fluttered open, revealing changeable eyes almost swallowed up by the black of her pupils. Her gaze held his as if they could join minds as well as bodies, and he remembered the time in Denver when he had felt her all the way to her soul.
She gave her soul to him now, holding his gaze as he carried her to completion. Her little gasps became a long sigh of wonder. He had a moment to savor his triumph, and then he was borne away to that same perfect place.
Athena fell against him, panting, and he held her trembling body close. They were still as one in every way. But separation would come, as inevitable as sunrise, and all he would have was the memory of her silken heat and the rapture in her eyes.
Silence claimed the cave, but it was not the peaceful quiet of rest after vigorous loving. Morgan had no hope for such a reward, and he felt, in Athena’s stubborn grip on his body, that she had not found it either. The one thing he could give her had lasted but a few, mindless moments.
Yet when she finally withdrew, it was all he could do to keep from pulling her back and beginning again. His body should not be capable of wanting her, but it did. He did. He leaned his head back on the cool stone wall and closed his eyes.
Go, he wished her. For your sake, Athena. Go.
He cursed when he felt her breath on his cheek, but even curses deserted him as her hands moved to cup him below. So slight a touch made him full and firm as if he hadn’t just taken her.
“This is so new to me,” she murmured. Her fingers traced up and down his length, lingering at the velvet tip. “You don’t mind?”