A Promise of Thunder

those heady sensations he was creating within her.
    “Please stop, I can’t stand it!”
    “You’re close, sweetheart,” Grady murmured hoarsely. “Don’t hold back. I’ll stay with you until the end.”
    The tender torment of his relentless mouth drove Storm to the very brink of madness, and the delicious agony of his lashing tongue turned madness into ecstasy. She dangled at the edge of eternity for several breathless moments, until Grady’s finger found a place so sensitive Stormscreamed out in sweet surrender.
    When Storm’s heart slowed to a dull pounding, she opened her eyes and saw Grady towering above her, removing the last of his clothing. Tossing his breechclout aside, he stood poised beside her, magnificently nude, gloriously male, every splendid inch of him cast in bronze.
    My God, I want him!
she thought with fearful clarity. The undeniable and dreadful fact that no other man had the power to move her in the same earth-shattering way as Grady frightened her. She stared at him with her astonishing level gaze. His manhood was large and heavy, thrusting aggressively out of a nest of curling black hair, and a languid, drugging warmth uncoiled inside her. His face was strained with the harsh fever of desire, dark and striking.
    “Do I please you, Storm?” His question startled her.
    “I—yes,” she said, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. She knew it was useless to lie when her eyes gave her away.
    “You please me very much. When I put my body inside yours I am as close to Paradise as I will ever come in this life.”
    She moaned softly as he lowered himself full length atop her. Instinctively, her body arched toward him. “Now it’s my turn, sweetheart,” he whispered against her neck. “Spread your legs.”
    Storm let her legs fall open, amazed that she had obeyed Grady’s command without theslightest protest. He didn’t enter her immediately, wringing an agonized groan from Storm. Didn’t he know how she ached to feel the hard thrust of his strength inside her? Instead he inserted his hand between their bodies, locating the tender bud nestled between her thighs, and massaged in slow, erotic circles. At the same time his lips toyed with her sensitive, swollen nipples. He suckled her breasts as his fingers grew bolder, searching for the pleasure points he seemed to know by instinct.
    Suddenly he reversed their positions, bringing Storm atop him. For a moment Storm looked confused. Grady chuckled, delighted that he was the first to teach her new ways to love.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I told you there are many ways to love. You and your husband must have been innocent babes when it came to loving. It will give me enormous pleasure to teach you all I know. It will probably take me a very long time.” Storm’s eyes grew round as saucers as she considered his mind-boggling statement.
    “Put me inside you.” His voice was harsh. By now his control was hanging by a thin thread.
    “No.” Storm had no idea why she was fighting the issue. She knew he’d soon have her begging him to take her. The man was a devil. He showed no mercy, demanding more than she was prepared to surrender. He wanted her soul.
    Grady gave her an enigmatic smile as he raised his head and began suckling her nipple, while with the soft pad of his thumb he manipulated the tiny bud of her desire until it was swollen and throbbing.
    “Put me inside you,” Grady repeated in a strangled voice. This time she obeyed instantly.
    A groan of unholy torment erupted from his lips as she grasped his swollen staff and brought it against her moist crevice. Erupting in a frenzy of unrestrained passion, he grasped her hips and raised her slightly above him, thrusting upward as he brought her down to meet the rigid length of his manhood. His hardness electrified her and the sweet agony of impalement exploded upon her like a thousand tiny bursts of pleasure.
    “Grady! Oh, Grady!”
    “Do you like it this way, sweet? Ride me, Storm, ride me.”
    Grady’s strokes grew harder, stronger. It was magnificent. It was sweet agony. It was mind-numbing bliss, yet so profound an experience she wasn’t certain she’d survive. While he was merely enjoying a moment of physical desire, her soul was being ripped apart.
    And then the involuntary tremors of fulfillment began, making her oblivious to all but the searing need Grady had built inside her. A moan of ecstasy slipped through her lips, and hearing her, Grady’s thrusts