Heart Song Anthology by Carolyn Faulkner (summer reads txt) 📗

will get you nowhere.” But he did remove his hand to unzip her jacket the rest of the way and leave her bare beneath him. Her nipples instantly hardened against the chill even in the well-insulated hotel room. His mouth found one of those peaks, rotating his tongue as he had just rotated his thumb, sucking gently, his breath warmed her and made her core flex in anticipation.

He flicked his tongue, then migrated downward. Kissing a line down her stomach he had to release her wrists to go lower, and immediately her hands found his hair, gripping her fingers through the long strands.

He pressed back up, trapping her arms again beside her shoulders. “Be still, and enjoy your Valentine’s Day gift.”

He slid back down and this time she laid obediently still, looking up at the ceiling of red, white, and pink balloons. She felt his fingers work across her abdomen, stripping her the rest of the way of her warm clothing. He then grabbed her legs and slid her closer to him, one leg resting on either broad shoulder.

The first stroke of his tongue was euphoric. She reached her hands above her head and threaded her fingers through the sheets, gripping hard and fast, her head flinging back against the mattress as she moaned. His tongue found her clit with practiced ease, his arms wrapping around her legs to press into her stomach, further separating her lower lips to him and his explorative mouth.

She groaned as he flicked his tongue, his breath coming in gasps. She looked down at him, her eyelids fluttering. His face, still shielded by a ski mask, was completely hidden between her thighs except for the flash of his baby blues, which gazed up at her, taking her in at the angle he currently had her pinned.

The mystery of the ski mask somehow made her blood boil more. As if he were robbing her body, giving her pleasure by taking pleasure for himself.

She moaned again, her whole body shuddering with that thought in mind. He lowered his mouth to cup her throbbing pussy, eating any and all of the juices spewing from within. He sucked her dry, then came to lay over top of her again, licking the moisture from his lips. “I’ve missed your taste.”

Her face heated, her whole body caught in a blush beneath his intensely loving gaze. “I want you,” she breathed. “Now.”

“You don’t make the demands here, baby girl. I do.” A sly smile pulled up both of his cheeks beneath the mask. God, she loved it when he smiled. So rare and yet so iridescent it inspired her own lips to lift upward. A feeling that could only be described as love fluttered through her gut. She loved him, that at least had not changed.

Untangling her hands from the sheets, she reached up and removed his mask while he turned his head and kissed her palm.

He kissed a line up her arm from her wrist to her temple. “You seem a little overheated,” he observed, breathing heavily against her ear. “Let’s cool you down a bit.”

He swept his strong arms around her waist and hoisted her into his arms. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around his midsection and her arms around his neck, trying to help him hold herself around him as if he needed the aid.

He carried her with ease, hardly even watching where he was going, his icy eyes were only focused on her. She reached up and stroked a line of balloons, smiling as they bounced against the ceiling contently. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

“You’re going to love the bath even more.”

He carried her into the bathroom bathed in candlelight and gently set her down on the side of the tub. She looked down into the water, rose petals floating alongside tea light candles in a beautiful display of fragrant water. Swinging her legs over, she sunk her bare legs into the water and watched it lap against her skin.

Asher, too, watched her as she slowly and carefully submerged herself into the water, and for a split second an image interrupted their tub-side romance. He remembered carrying her into the bathroom under very different circumstances after rescuing her from Krone, almost the same way he just had, only she had been unconscious then. Unconscious and covered in so much blood he wasn’t certain she had any skin left. He had placed her into the bath then too, and just like those rose petals, her blood had turned the water red.

He swallowed and forced the image from his mind, again focusing on the beautiful, naked woman who was no longer beaten and bloody, but luminescent even with the scars from her past marring her once flawless skin.

She didn’t seem to notice them in that moment, she was too busy lathering her hands with soap and smirking at him, completely oblivious to his inner memories, as his face betrayed nothing. “Aren’t you going to join me?”

Yes, even despite her scars, despite her memories that still haunted her, she was still just as luminescent as ever. He smiled sincerely as she leaned forward, a clear invitation. After dropping his own clothing to the floor, stripping until he was just as naked as she, he gently stepped in behind her, letting the water crawl up his leg, then the other, then all the way up to his waist as he slunk down into the water behind her, a leg on each side of her. She leaned back into his chest, and his toned arms immediately went around her, flexing and pulling her as close as she could possibly be.

“How long have you been planning this?” She wanted to know.

“Not long. You just seemed to need something good to occupy your time.”

The water sloshed as she turned around to face him, lying on his chest, her lips hovering over his. “I considered making you take me out, just like old times. Minus the getting shot at bit.”

“Beat you to it.”

“Your