Lindsay came awake in a frightened rush. She stiffened in the instant before she realized where she was and what had happened. The nightmare had come again, only worse. This time the man pursuing her had had two faces, one old, one new, both terrifying.
For a moment Lindsay lay utterly still, her cheeks wet with tears, her body tense as she fought to control her breathing. With each deep breath, the warm male scent of Catlin reassured her in an elemental way that she neither understood nor questioned. There was nothing rational about the feeling; it simply existed, a fact like sunrise and the taming of the earth, inevitable, unstoppable. She wanted to curl more closely to him, to draw him around her like a living blanket, to fill her senses with him.
But she would not. She remembered too well the night in D.C. when she had cried, What do you want from me? and he had answered An act. That's all. Just an act.
As on the previous nights, Lindsay moved cautiously onto her own side of the bed, trying to disengage from Catlin's loose embrace without awakening him. But tonight it didn't work. Tonight his arms tightened, refusing to let her go.
"No," Catlin said gently, stroking her hair. "Water torture hasn't been doing you any good, Lindsay-love."
"What?"
"The showers," he murmured, kissing her temple, her wet eyelashes, the tear-streaked hollow of her cheek. "If the nightmare could be washed away, it would have been gone by now. Believe me. Water just doesn't get it done."
"Then what does?" she asked bleakly.
"Fire."
The hand that had been smoothing Lindsay's hair slipped down to her throat, tilting her head back along Catlin's arm. Delicately he found the most sensitive nerves on her neck and teased them into shivering life.
"Catlin
?"
Her husky, unfinished question made desire rip through him, but he controlled it with no more sign than a fractional tightening of his hands as his lips covered hers. The tip of his tongue caressed the generous curves of her mouth, probed gently at the corners and delicately tasted the inner softness of her lips until her breath caught.
She turned her head, trying to capture his sweet, caressing mouth for the harder, deeper kiss that she suddenly realized she must have. He laughed softly and evaded her sensual seeking while he brushed her lips again and again. Her breath came out in a ragged sigh. She caught his face between her hands, holding his mouth still for the kiss she needed more than she had ever needed anything in her life.
When Catlin's mouth opened beneath Lindsay's, she made a soft sound. The taste of him went through her in a shock wave of pleasure. She savored all his textures the sliding roughness of his tongue and the smoothness hidden beneath, the tiny serrations of his teeth and the resilience of his lips, the intriguing curves and salt-sweetness of his mouth. She felt herself savored in turn, tasted, enjoyed, responded to with an honesty that was as compelling as the kiss itself. She gave herself to it and to him, letting nightmare fade beneath the sudden, overwhelming heat rushing through her, flushing her skin with passion.
Catlin felt the change in Lindsay, the hunger that not only permitted but demanded that their mouths join deeply in a prelude to the hotter, even deeper joining to come. The rhythmic mating of their tongues made Catlin's whole body tighten like a drawn bow. In a sensual reflex as old as passion he pulled her closer, holding her hips against his while his body matched the primitive movements of their mouths. She shivered and made a tiny, wild sound that went through him like chain lightning, burning away his self-control.
Even as he stripped off her soft nightgown, he tried to slow down, to leash the primitive male sensuality that had always been his greatest vulnerability. The sight of her creamy breasts did nothing to help his control. Her nipples were deep rose, tight with hunger for his touch. He forced himself to wait, to trace the line of her body with his fingertips from her smooth shoulder to the curve of her waist and the shadowy dimple just below.
Lindsay's breath caught when the tip of Catlin's little finger filled the sensitive hollow of her navel and moved slowly, gently, finding nerve endings she hadn't known she had. Heat uncurled deep within her body, expanding outward in rhythmic rings of sensation that made her want to twist slowly beneath his touch.
He saw the tiny, revealing motions and stifled a groan of need. He wanted to stroke the curve of her thighs, to tangle his fingers in the burnt gold hair at the apex of her legs, to explore the textures and hunger of her. But he was afraid that the instant he found her hidden softness, his control would evaporate; then he would open her legs and sheath himself in her satin heat until years of cold were burned away in a fire so hot that not even ash would remain.
Knowing that he shouldn't, feeling his control slipping away by hot increments, Catlin bent and touched Lindsay's rose-tipped breast with his tongue. He sensed the sudden change in her heartbeat, heard the break in her breathing, felt the wild tightening of her nipple as his lips closed around it. With a groan he took her deeply into his mouth, tugging on her rhythmically, shaping her to his intimate demands.
Heat pulsed through Lindsay with each sweet movement of Catlin's tongue. She heard a moan and knew that it was hers, just as the growing pressure of hunger demanding to be released was hers. She tried to tell him, but her breath wedged in her throat when she felt the warmth of his hand sliding down her body. Her hips shifted, seeking his touch with sinuous movements that were as graceful and as elemental as fire itself.
Catlin's fingers shook as he shaped the firm curve of Lindsay's thigh, stilling her, trying to slow himself down. With a broken sigh she turned toward him. The movement shifted his fingers to the smooth warmth of her inner thighs. His breath shortened as he accepted her wordless invitation. He traced her layered softness, teasing her until she shivered and melted, opening for him, asking for a deeper caress.
Eyes closed, fighting for control, he delicately touched her humid softness again and again. It wasn't enough. He wanted to feel her around him, clinging to him, moving with him. He wanted it with a violence that shocked him. And he knew that she wanted it, too. It was there in her heat, in the incredible softness of her, in the way she moved against him, promising a joining that would be both hot and perfect.
With a throttled groan Catlin withdrew his touch, no longer trusting himself. He took Lindsay's mouth as he longed to take the hot center of her body. Her hands moved restlessly, hungrily over him, finding and combing through the rough silk wedge of male hair that covered his chest. The flat, smooth circle of his nipple was another texture, as intriguing to her as the tiny, hard center that rose to her touch. Her nails scraped lightly over his nipple. The husky groan of his response made her hand drift lower, searching for even more sensitive masculine flesh, finding it.
In the next instant Lindsay found herself flat on her back, pinned beneath the sensual weight of Catlin's body. He caught her hands and brought them alongside her head, lacing his fingers deeply through hers.
"Don't you want me to -" began Lindsay, only to have the words cut off by the force of Catlin's kiss.
"Yes, I want you to touch me," he said finally, lifting his mouth. His voice was gritty and his pupils were so dilated with passion that only a golden rim of color remained to his eyes. "I want those sweet hands all over me, and I'd kill to feel your mouth in the same way." He closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath. "But I'm nearly out of control right now. If you touch me," he said, biting her lips and neck and breasts with barely leashed hunger, "it will be all over. I'll bury myself in you until the only thing I know is your softness, your heat."
"Yes," she said huskily. "That's what I want. You. Inside me." Her body arched into his, openly pleading for him, demanding him. "Please, Catlin," she moaned. "Now!"
"Christ, Lindsay," he grated, "we'll burn down the night." He sheathed himself deep inside her with a single powerful movement of his hips. The sweet shock of him sliding into her made her cry out raggedly. He filled her until she overflowed with pleasure, sending heat spilling between them. He moved again, slowly, slowly, and drank the tiny cries that were torn from her. He shook with the effort of holding back. He wanted to feel her come apart beneath him first. He needed to know that she would feel the same shattering release that was clawing at him even now. He wanted that wild release for her as fiercely as he wanted it for himself; yet each time he moved within her, control slipped further away from him.
With a distant sense of shock Catlin realized that Lindsay's gliding, sliding heat had burned through his will, leaving only an elemental hunger for her that could no longer be leashed. He caught her hips with one arm and arched heavily into ha again and again, trying to bury himself in her so deeply that the pleasure exploding through him would never stop. Her name caught in his throat, coming out as a broken groan echoing the pulses of his release.
The sound of her name breaking on Catlin's lips hurled Lindsay into ecstasy. He felt the tiny convulsions begin deep inside her, closing around his rigid flesh, caressing him with the intimate rhythms of her climax. Suddenly, impossibly, fire burst within him once more, spreading up from their joined bodies, sending him over the edge again with a sweet violence that was like nothing he had ever experienced, hot and untamed and endless, destroying him, creating him.
Lindsay clung to Catlin, absorbing the shock waves of his ecstasy into herself, knowing only the sensual weight of him covering her, the salty taste of his sweat as she kissed his skin, and the wild, shivering aftermath of his climax. For a long, long time there was no sound but that of broken, gradually slowing breathing. When he finally stirred and moved as though to roll aside, she made a small sound of protest and clung to him.
"I'm crushing you," he said, kissing the slightly swollen curve of her mouth.
"Don't leave me yet," whispered Lindsay. She moved against Catlin, bringing down even more of his weight on her, holding him with a reflexive movement deep inside her body. "You feel so good like this. So right. Just a few moments more. Unless you're uncomfortable?"
Catlin looked down into Lindsay's eyes, half closed, midnight blue, luminous with sensuality. The reality of her swept through him in another kind of shock wave, near pain and savage pleasure combined. She had taken him into her body with a sweet and searing generosity that had twice undone him. She had played no games, expected no rewards beyond the intimate moments she shared with him; and now she was asking nothing but that those moments be a few more before she returned to the cold world that had been tearing her apart.
"Uncomfortable?" Catlin's laugh was husky, ragged, almost broken. "Sweet God, Lindsay. You fit me perfectly. Can't you tell?"
If she gave an answer, it was lost as he bent and took her mouth in a slow, savoring kiss. His arms surrounded her, lifting her with him as he rolled onto his side without separating himself from her. She returned the kiss even as she shifted languidly, burrowing closer to his muscular warmth. With long, slow sweeps of his hands he caressed her, taking pleasure in the smooth texture of her skin, the elegant line of her spine and the warm weight of her resting against his body. The feel of Catlin's hard palms and sensitive fingertips stroking her made Lindsay murmur contentedly against his shoulder. She flexed her hands, enjoying the heat of him radiating up through the damp, musky wedge of hair covering his chest.
Catlin tilted Lindsay's face up to his so that he could brush his lips over hers once, twice, and then a third time, hungry for her in a way that had nothing to do with unappeased desire. She had satisfied him all the way to his soul. Yet he still wanted her.
He wanted to absorb her into himself as honestly as she had absorbed him, to teach her that ecstasy could be simultaneously savage and endlessly sweet, that it could be brilliant torrents of life pouring through her, destroying her, creating her. He didn't think that she knew ecstasy in that way. He hadn't known it himself until tonight.
"Stay here," Catlin murmured, kissing Lindsay deeply as he slowly separated himself from her.
Other than making a muffled sound as Catlin left her body, Lindsay didn't object.
"I'll be back," he said, smiling, caressing her cheek with a gentle fingertip.
Catlin went into the bathroom, filled a glass of water and poured it slowly into the toilet. He flushed, then lifted off the back of the tank very carefully and set it aside during the height of the flushing noises. As the tank refilled, he took his comb and jammed the shut-off mechanism, ensuring that water would run continuously into the tank. Because the bug had been placed just below the tank, whatever was said in the bathroom from now on would be blurred by the noise of running water. When he added the pounding roar of the shower to the background sounds, Stone's eavesdroppers would think they had been dropped over Niagara Falls.
Lindsay watched Catlin coming back toward her through the semidarkness of the bedroom. As always, he moved smoothly, displaying a feline certainty of his own coordination and strength that fascinated her. She looked at him openly, honestly, letting him see her appreciation of the powerful interplay of tendon and smew, of the masculine strength revealed in the flex and flow of muscles beneath his skin and of the potency she had so recently enjoyed.
"You're like the dragon we saw at Wang's auction," she said, her voice husky, intimate. "Sensual. Powerful. And very, very male."
Catlin saw the approval in Lindsay's indigo eyes, heard it in her words, felt it as he stood by the bed and she traced the center line of his body until she cupped him warmly in her hand. Smiling, he bent and eased the sheets down her body, looking at her as completely as she had looked at him. He kissed the curve of her neck, the tips of her breasts, and then dipped his tongue into her shadowed navel.
"I'm glad you like what you see," Catlin whispered, smiling as he took tiny, loving bites of Lindsay, "because I think you're the most perfect maiden ever sacrificed to a needy dragon."