“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” she whispered.

“ ’Tis the truth of it,” he said with a simple shrug.

The words had an incredible effect on her, but she reined herself in, tried to be careful with her soaring feelings. She didn’t want to get too far ahead of herself. Didn’t want to thrust herself out there, exposed to whatever pain he might throw her way. She was on uneven ground as it was. Every step she took was one step closer to falling flat on her face. There was just too much uncertainty in the future.

So instead of filling the air with insufficient words, and the possibility of dangerous disappointment, she reached to touch her mouth to his. He pulled her up tightly into the kiss a moment after that, his mouth warm and strong against hers. She closed her eyes, just wanting to feel the strength of him, to absorb his vitality deep into herself. That, more than anything, made her feel safe again. That and the surrounding feel of his arms, the strong press of his hands against her back.

Safe.

And warm. No. Not warm. Hot. It only took a moment for the heat of his kiss to stir up the heat he always seemed to carry with him. Then, with a sudden movement, he rolled her onto her back, his hips driving up between her thighs as they instinctively bracketed him, his elbows propped on either side of her shoulders, freeing his hands to be in her hair and against the sides of her face.

“My Kat,” he said, leaving her mouth for just a moment to speak the words. Then he was back again, this time speaking fire against her.

My Kat. His Kat. Was she his Kat? Or was that just something he was saying in that moment? Was it a way of getting his way? Were his words thoughtless or were they full of thought, full of emotion? Gargoyles were a lusty lot, he had told her. Did that mean they would do or say anything to make their way into a woman’s bed?

She put the questions aside and decided to simply accept what he was giving physically and leave off questioning. She couldn’t trouble her mind with the rest. She had been through so much that night. Now it was daylight beyond the polarized glass of his bedroom and they were safe from all the evil members of the Nightwalkers, imp gods included, and they could rest easy.

Kat accepted a series of kisses so deep she could barely catch her breath. He made love to her mouth with his lips and then deep sweeps of his tongue. He tangled his up with hers, traded tastes and fever until she was lost and thought she would never be found. She felt everything she was go wet and soft with growing need. She had never wanted anything so much, she realized, as she wanted him right then. Nothing had ever been so clear. She very quickly came so far from the fear she had been immersed in just hours earlier. But both places were places of strength. She had fought for her freedom and had won. Now she was fighting for feelings far more frightening. She was coming home in a way she had never known before. All the pain of that place and time was washing away and being replaced by this passion. Doubt and hate had no place, no home, in that moment.

His hand brushed from her face down onto her throat, his fingertips tracing along the line of her collarbone. There was something about the softness and starkness of the caress that made her look into his darkened amber eyes, seeing things she wasn’t sure she understood. He looked a little lost, as though pieces of the moment were missing. But she didn’t know how to fill the holes. She didn’t think she had what he needed. So she filled the blanks with kisses, with the touch of her hands drifting across the wide breadth of his shoulders.

He was without his stone armor, and yet felt just as durable; a strength that amazed her. She had never known anyone so strong, and to feel it under the brush of her hands was an amazing thing. To feel his warmth growing hotter at her command was something so remarkable that she could speak with nothing but her hands. She used her hands to draw him closer, to tell him how amazed she was by his strength. To tell him she wanted every part of him, every contour and every breath with everything that she was.

And he wanted her just as much with just as demanding an extreme. He burned for her and in that moment was unafraid to show it to her. There was no room for lies, no room for fighting. Why would either of them want to anyway? They gave truth to each other, naked and needful. He unbuttoned her shirt, parting both halves of it evenly, exposing first her belly and then each of her breasts. Her nipples contracted with the brush of the disappearing fabric and then the touch of the room air. Then she was tethered to him by the touch of his fingertips running down the length of her breastbone, inch by inch, every one tangling her up in an expanding need.

When he touched her belly it contracted with both surprise and expectation. She wanted his touch and yet was shocked by it just the same. His hand flattened against her for a moment, pressing into her, as if he were trying to reach inside of her. Then he pulled his palm away leaving just his fingertips against her once more. He drew them down, all the way to the very edge of the light hair at her mound. But instead of threading into the curls he pulled away, running back up her body in the other direction. He drew a line in the crescent under first one breast and then the other.

By the time he cupped her left breast she was breathing as though she’d run a quarter mile. He smiled a little, and she knew he was taunting her on purpose. And frankly she didn’t care. She wasn’t in any kind of rush. Well, maybe she was. But she wasn’t. Oh, how the hell was she supposed to know? If there was one thing Ahnvil was good at it was turning her inside out.

“There’s a fine sight,” he said, his voice thick with the need she could see in his eyes. “You’ve the prettiest breasts I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s such a lie,” she said breathlessly.

“No’ a lie. I’ll no’ pretend I’m a virgin, Kat lass. I’ve seen my share over three hundred years. When I tell you yours are the prettiest breasts I’ve ever seen, you can know I doona say it lightly. They’re fair and pale, the wee freckles just at the tops of them,” he stroked his fingertips over them, “and then the darkest pinkest nipples … so tight and puckering so prettily. Aye. I’ve never seen the like. And now I’m going tae love on them as greedily as ever a man could.”

And he started by laving each nipple with the flat of his tongue, wetting them so they grew even tighter in the cool room air. Then, with a strong intake of his breath he closed his mouth over her right nipple while taking the other up between his fingers. He overwhelmed her by sucking and pinching at her simultaneously, continuing to do so until she was dizzy, then switching and doing it all over again. Her knees drew up, her feet climbing all the way up the backs of his legs. Had he pulled his body up a few more inches he would have been cradled directly in the warmth of her core, but he remained frustratingly out of her reach.