Epilogue

EPILOGUE

A thin sheen of sweat covering her naked body, her hands pressed against the sash of the window, her hardened nipples raw on the cold leaded glass as she gasped breath after breath. Thomas’s swollen shaft warred with her convulsing inner walls, her body continuing to splinter with every last thrust he drove up into her, making sure she felt every last inch of his cock exploding deep within her.

“Hell, Iz.” Thomas collapsed over her back, his arms collapsing around her middle, his left knee coming up onto the window seat to sidle along her leg as he swallowed her into him. His lips landed on her shoulder, his breath hot on her neck.

She chuckled, her breath fogging the glass in front of her as every muscle in her body quivered, ready to collapse in the best of ways. She reached up behind her, gripping the back of his head, holding him to her.

This, watching the tumultuous sea from this vantage point in Ravenstone as he devoured her from behind, had become one of her favorite things. The moon was bright tonight, silver shards of it reflecting off the inky waters under the clear skies. The night air still held a cold snap in it that belied the coming summer.

His head moved, his chin resting on her shoulder as he stared out at the sea. “You exhausted?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He kissed her neck. “Well, what do you think of it?”

She twisted her body, looking back over her shoulder at the bed in the middle of their room. Her chest lifted in a big sigh and she gave a slight nod. “I’m willing to try it.”

“Excellent.” In a blink, he shifted, sliding one arm behind her thighs, and he plucked her up, carrying her away from the window. At the edge of the bed, still carrying her, he dropped one knee down onto the mattress, then the other for how low it was.

He’d had the legs of the bed removed a day ago, setting the mattress and the side rails onto the floor next to the spot on the floor where they usually slept.

He laid her on her back onto the bed, falling down next to her on his side, his head propped up with his fist as he watched her face. “Well?”

She wiggled her body back and forth on the bed, the softness beneath her foreign, making her anxious. But less so than usual.

Flipping a hand under her head, she looked to him. “This isn’t so bad. And I can definitely see the advantages of lifting the bed up higher to its usual height in another four months when I can no longer bend over at all.”

He leaned over the top of her, his lips going to the hard mound of her belly and kissing it. “And then you’ll never want to leave it.”

She chuckled, her fingers threading through his hair. “One can hope. As I don’t know how our babe will take to sleeping on the floor with us.”

He flipped, reversing the angle of his body so his face was toward her and he rested his right ear on top of her hard belly. He did that often—said he could hear gurgling inside, feel little kicks.

Staring at her face, he reached up, his fingers tracing the line of her cheekbone, burying into the side of her hair. The green slices of his hazel eyes calm and content and it made her heart hurt she was so happy to see him like this.

He grinned. “But first, we have to conquer one night—one night where one of us doesn’t crawl out of the damn thing for the floor.”

A slow smile came to her face as her look roamed down the hard planes of his naked body. “You know what would help?

“What?”

Her tongue darted out to lick her lips. “If I tired you out—and you tired me out.”

He chuckled, his hand drifting down to land on her breast, his fingertips plying her nipple. “But you just said you were exhausted.”

“I’ve been revived.”

His finger lifted, spinning in a circle about them. “You’re not just trying to delay the sleeping part of being in the bed?”

She sat up, her hand running up along his bare thigh, then diving inward to slide along his cock. Hard and ready for her. She would never tire of this. Of him. Never.

“Maybe.”

He grinned. “Then I am at your command.”

Two rounds later, Izzie curled onto her side with Thomas’s arm heavy over her waist, wrapping her body into his. Completely satiated, and the heaviness of sleep weighed down upon her, yet somewhere, twinging deep in her mind, the instinct to roll over and crawl onto the floor called out.

She managed to ignore it just long enough for the escape of darkness to take her over. The last thing she did…wrapping Thomas’s arm tight into the center of her torso, her back solid against his chest, the rhythmic cadence of his breathing a guide to her own peace.

Normal.

Normal on a bed.

Both of them lost to their own dreams.

Dreams of each other. Dreams of the future.

***

Did you love the interconnected stories of Guardians of the Bones? For more of the same, check out my Revelry’s Tempest series—six stories filled with sexy alpha men who are determined to avoid attachments, and the women who love to gamble—on both coin and love.

One gaming house to unite them all...

The Revelry's Tempest gaming hall is the saving grace for a collection of ladies—keeping them out of poverty and giving them purpose—never-mind the scandal of it. Until fate throws some irresistibly sinful men into their lives and sparks fly in these scorching historical romances.

The series starts with Of Valor & Vice. Check out the sneak peek in the following pages…