Had it truly been a thousand years since he'd been touched? Perhaps he'd never been touched, not really. The other man, Zander, had rolled about in bed with this woman or that, always with friendship and a good-natured sense of adventure. Yet he had never engaged his heart.

Perhaps that earlier Zander had possessed a few walls of his own, after all.

Now, he had no walls where Gemma was concerned. He was naked in every way, exposed and vulnerable. Yet he had never felt more powerful, more linked to the life around him, to the life in her. Powerless without care, vulnerable without fear. He had so much to say to her. He did not think he could express it, that his stumble-tongue would fail him.

Then don't speak. Show her.

All that passed through his mind in the instant before her lips kissed the tip of his cock. Then thought ceased.

GEMMA COULDN'T EXPLAIN THE impulse. She'd never done such a thing before. Her tongue flicked out between her lips and caught a salty droplet, then she wrapped one hand around the thick base of him and eased her tongue around him, licking slowly in a circle.

How wonderful to explore. How decadent, and yet at the same time it felt so trusting and giving. She dared a glance upward to see his eyes shut tightly and his jaw clenched. He looked as if he was trying very hard not to reach out to her.

What if she made him do so?

She opened her lips wider and took the blunt head of him into her mouth, still sliding her tongue over and around. His chest rose and fell in sharp rhythm, as if he'd been running, yet still he did not move.

I want you to break past it.

I want you to reach for me first, this time.

She shifted closer on her knees so she could slide a length of him between her lips, and made up for the rest with her hand fisted snugly around him.

The power she felt made a heavy ache between her thighs and she felt herself grow damp when he wasn't even touching her. The way she'd felt watching him pour water over his head, standing in the sun by the rain barrel, gleaming and muscled like the powerful animal he was.

Then, as now, he'd waited on her to call him to her, for her to touch first, for her to kiss first.

He was afraid of the darkness within him. She was not. She'd seen him become chaotic in a state of battle madness. Even when he was lost to himself, his instinct to protect had prevailed over his habituation to violence. She had no fear and she meant to prove his trustworthiness to him.

I want to be taken by you. I want to be claimed.

I want you to race free. I want you to run.

Run to me.