True passion

*Calliope*
Rising up with a courage that had accompanied me to the war, I roll into him, kissing him, taking my turn at skimming my hand along his side.

Uneven flesh greets my perusal, and I have to force myself to follow my own command. I will not think about how each scar has come to be, how he might have suffered. He has gained several since I had treated his wounds at the Barrack Hospital. But that is the past. We are in a peaceful area. No gunfire will roar in the distance. No cannons will shake the earth. No men will cry for me to help them.

His manhood, hard velvet, burns against my belly. Guilt surges through me because I had not had the courage to tell him the truth, that I had feared losing him, losing Zane … and in a way I had led him to believe I had been more to him
than I had been.

Silly girl, as long as he never regains his memory, he will always live in blissful ignorance. Can I wish that on him? Based on the horrors of my own memories, it is a mercy for him not to recall a single moment of what surely must have been a hell far worse than mine.

I kiss his neck, his chest. Flicks my tongue over his turgid nipple, feeling him jerk against me. I understand Jeanette's urgings now, her promises. I can see myself easing lower. In the heat of passion, nothing is forbidden.

Suddenly I am on my back, and he is again in control. Oh, the things he does with his hands, his mouth, his teeth. A stroke here, a lick there, a nip. He is young, and in spite of all he has suffered, in fine shape. He moves over me with a
powerful grace, leaving nothing untouched, nothing wanting. Passion burns hotter than any flame.

I adore this man, and want to give him everything. My heart, my body, my soul. He had been the light in a dismal world. He had been my knight. War can bring out the worst and the best in men. For the first time, I regret that he doesn’t know, deep in his soul, that he had been the best.

He can be told. Over and over. But the broken linchpin of memory will not allow him to know it, to feel it. Yet, I know. I had experienced it, witnessed it. I will hold the knowledge dear for him. It will be enough. It has to be.

“I love your breasts,” he rasps near my ear. “They fit my palm perfectly.” Bending his head, he suckles one nipple, this time with no cloth to separate my flesh from his questing tongue, and I turn my body into him, needing to ease the
awful ache between my thighs.

His hand travels a circuitous path over my body, finally reaching its destination, settling with surety and purpose between my thighs. I gasp with the first intimate touch, the sharp spark of pleasure, the slow stroke of his thumb over my nubbin.

“You're like tinder,” he whispers provocatively, “so easy to burn. You can't believe how badly I want you."

“Then why do you not take me?” I gasp.

“Because when I do, it will be over all too soon. Touch me, Callie.”

I place my hand on his shoulder. His eyes, smoldering with desire, lightening with silent laughter, as he takes my hand and guides it down until I am able to wrap my fingers around him. His groan is low, guttural. I might have thought I was hurting him if not for the triumph that sparks his eyes.

He teach me movements that I fear he might later question me not already knowing, but I am fascinated by the feel of him, steel encased in silk. Smooth and not. Hard. I felt the dampness, the first spill of his seed. I don’t want to lose any of it. I wanted his child to grow in my womb. I want to give him another son, a daughter, two daughters.

I want to be irrevocably connected to him.

Just as I had once feared losing Zane, now I fear losing Zac.

When had I become such a worrier, such a fearful soul? After watching so much taken away from so many others.

But I am safe here, safe in his arms, safe in his bed. Just as I had been that night outside the Barrack Hospital. He is still the courageous, determined man I had known then. What does memories count when the core of who he is remains intact?

I grow bolder with my strokes, and he growls, low in his throat, a rumble in his chest that reminds me of his dragon and tickles the breast flattened against him.

He slides his finger into me. “My Gods, but you are wet and hot … and tight. How can you be so damnably tight after giving birth?”

I almost say it is because the baby was so small, but I have never directly lied to him. Not one false word. I have simply not told him everything. I have never said that I gave birth to Zane. Only that I am his mother, and in my heart I am.

“I might hurt you a bit,” he rasps, and I see the torment on his face with the thought. “Is that why you are as shy as a virgin? Because there was pain before?”

It is not his way to hurt women. I have learned that much about him in the short time I have known him. But, yes, with my fingers wrapped around him, I think he might very hurt me.

“The memory of pain dwindles with time,” I reassure him. “I only remember how much it meant to me to be with you. I want you."

“Then you shall have me.” He growls.

With a smooth movement, he is suddenly wedged between my thighs, his body pressed to mine as he kisses me deeply. The musky scent of sex wafts between us. I rub my hands up into his thick curling hair. I skim my thumb along his scar. He is a man of such confidence that a physical imperfection bothers him not at all. But losing two years of his life is another sort of imperfection altogether. I want to relieve him of all doubts.

I open myself up to him, heart, body, and soul.

He rises above me, his face a mask of dark pleasures, as he guides himself into me. Yes, I am tight. Yes, there is discomfort. But I fight to ignore it, fight instead to relax, to make the way easier for him.

He pushes. Coats my throat in kisses. Pushes again.

“Wrap your legs around my waist.” His voice is strained, his arms taut as he holds himself aloft.

I do as he wants, and he slides farther, farther, until he fills me completely.

“God, I have dreamed of this," he murmurs. “Of you. Of those lovely long legs."

I have dreamed of you, too.

Where he finds the strength to speak, I do not have a clue. With all these wonderful sensations dancing through me, I can barely think. All I can do is feel. The press of his mouth, the caress of his hands. His slow withdrawal, his determined thrust. My hips lifts to meet him, my body curls, desires peaks.

His tongue plays havoc with my breasts while he again retreats, only to return with more force, more pressure. I whimper. Whatever discomfort I had initially experienced is gone, replaced by this need to have him closer, nearer.

He is whispering things, tawdry things about my breasts, my throat, my stomach, the haven where his body joins mine. I feel like I should have been shocked. Instead I become more aroused, my pleasure increasing.

He begins rocking against me, faster, deeper, stronger. Sensations built. They spiral, they soar. As my back arch, I press my head into the pillow and his hot mouth is immediately nibbling at my throat. my fingers run down his back, and then I am crying out as stars burst forth inside me.

Lightning flashes, sunlight pours in. It is a storm of pleasure that takes me under and lifts me up, leaving me trembling on the shore of passion.

His grunt echoes around me as he tenses, his body pumping into me, fast and furious.

“God, Callie!” Other sounds of gratification and satisfaction echoes around me as he stills and slowly lowers himself to press a kiss to my lips. “There is no way in hell I should have forgotten that”.