LITMIR.BIZ

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the emperor and his concubine remained unfinished.’ Ruby took the shirt from him and steeled herself not to ogle his very fine form. ‘Now I know why.’

      ‘Happy to do as much illuminating as you want on that score, Ruby. He was probably trying to distract her.’

      ‘Well, I’m sure she appreciated his efforts,’ she murmured. ‘What a giver.’

      Damon smiled, slow and lazy, and Ruby shivered, and not with apprehension. Something about this man called to her and it wasn’t just his beautiful body and it certainly wasn’t his zealously guarded mind. Maybe it was the yearning she sensed in his soul.

      ‘C’mere,’ he said, and Ruby went and gave herself over to him willingly, to the taste of him and the responsiveness of her skin beneath his touch. A fleeting kiss and then another as he teased her lips with his and made the ache inside her grow.

      ‘Distracted yet?’ he murmured.

      ‘Very.’

      She found places for her hands on his chest. A puckered nipple beneath one palm and the ridges of his stomach beneath another. ‘Last night,’ she whispered, ‘was so … so …’

      ‘Don’t say disappointing.’

      ‘Unexpected.’ As he slid her hair comb from her hair and set his lips to the skin behind her ear. ‘And unbelievably hot. I’ve been trying to figure out the why of it all morning.’

      ‘I’m blaming it on the limo,’ he whispered, threading his fingers through her hair and drawing her into an open-mouthed kiss that as far as Ruby was concerned destroyed his limo argument outright. ‘All that forced intimacy.’

      ‘I’m thinking of blaming it on Santa,’ she offered, and closed her eyes the better to concentrate on the fire in his touch.

      ‘Not exactly a reasoned argument.’

      Ruby countered by sliding her hand down until she found the iron-hard length of him, deeply satisfied when he groaned and surged against her hand and then in one swift movement picked her up and planted her on the table, her legs wide as he stepped in between them and showed her exactly where he wanted that shaft to be. ‘Better than yours, though. Where’s the limo now?’

      ‘What limo?’ he muttered and his eyes were dark with desire. ‘Where’s your bed?’

      ‘Down the hall, first door on the right.’

      By the time they got there Ruby’s clothes were gone and so were his, two of the hallway pictures were askew and the walls had received a battering.

      He gave himself so freely to pleasure, and Ruby did too, until they were both bathed in touch and taste and the heady scent of arousal, and then he rolled until she sat astride him and he positioned her for his entry and made it slow and glorious.

      Ruby closed her eyes and wrapped her hands around his forearms while he sat up and worked his clever lips and tongue over her neck and throat. Piling distraction upon distraction and lacing it with an abandon she couldn’t resist.

      There were no rules with this man. She wanted him at her breast, and he took it with a groan and paid attention and made her scream. He kissed his way down her body after that, and he turned her on her back and took her hands and wrapped her fingers around the wrought-iron bed bars above her head and told her to keep them there and then proceeded to string kisses across her stomach and her hip, her thigh and finally her core, and he knew what he was doing, heaven help her he did, and she entreated him and cursed him in the same breath as he took her to a land far, far away.

      There’d been a magical quality to last night’s love-making that had taken Ruby unawares and turned the night golden, and today was no different.

      He made her feel loved, and he made her feel beautiful as he let her ride out her climax and then entered her as if he couldn’t wait a moment longer.

      ‘Now you can touch me,’ he whispered, and touch him she did, only she could never quite get enough, and her need built again, he made damn sure of that.

      Need over reason, for how could reason explain this?

      ‘Let go, Damon, just let go now. I’ll come with you, I swear I will.’

      And it was as if her words released the leash he’d kept on himself and stripped away every barrier. He shuddered hard and clung to her as he spilled himself deep inside her, and Ruby flew with him this time, not even half a heartbeat behind as together they found oblivion.

      Just as she’d promised.

      ‘The things you do to me,’ he murmured as they lay on the bed, both of them on their backs, their bodies spent and separate but the connection between them running stronger than ever. He lifted his arm from his elbow down, made a fist and then stretched his fingers wide, and Ruby raised her hand to his and he threaded his fingers through hers. ‘The concessions you wring from me.’

      ‘I’d hardly call a thimbleful of honesty between lovers a concession,’ she murmured lazily. ‘Although maybe in your case I should. Maybe you should favour me with another example of your concessions, just so I can identify them in future.’

      ‘Give me five minutes and I’ll get right onto it.’ He shot her a lazy, satisfied smile. ‘Maybe ten.’

      ‘Give me a memory from your childhood, something you don’t usually reveal, and I’ll give you anything you want.’

      ‘Big promises, Empress.’

      ‘Chances are I’ll never have to deliver, Concession Boy.’

      He closed his eyes. He shut her out. ‘My mother died giving birth to me,’ he said quietly. ‘Not something I tell the world.’

      Careful where your wishes take you, Ruby, she thought grimly, but it was too late to turn back now. ‘That’s understandable.’

      Damon said nothing.

      ‘Did your family hold it against you?’

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘Never.’

      Ruby let go of Damon’s hand, the better to prop herself up on one elbow and look at him. But she slid her other hand in his the minute she could and he didn’t pull away. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said simply.

      ‘Didn’t stop me from spending most of my teens trying to push them away.’

      ‘And then you got over yourself?’ she asked hopefully, and he smiled wryly and brought her hand to his chest.

      ‘Let’s just say I finally figured out how much I needed them. And how much they needed me to come good. To make their loss worthwhile. To make it mean something.’

      ‘Or, they could’ve just been waiting for you to stop beating yourself up over something you had no control over so that you could finally see how much they loved you. That’d work too. As an argument for persistence in the face of your rebellion.’

      ‘The lawyer speaks.’

      ‘Well, if reasoned argument isn’t working for you, I dare say I could always try kissing you better. Provided of course that you tell me where it hurts.’

      ‘My shoulder,’ he murmured, his eyes dark and guarded, and she kissed his shoulder and he took a shuddering breath.

      ‘My chest,’ he said next and she kissed him above his heart and then she took his nipple in her mouth and Damon loosened his hold on her hand and the next thing she knew his hand was in her hair, the better to hold her against him.

      ‘My side.’ Little more than a rumble, but she heard him and she kissed him there, as he started to stiffen against her once more, ten minutes to resurrection be damned.

      ‘Where else?’ she whispered.

      ‘You know where.’

      ‘Say it.’

      But he didn’t say a

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