Part 19 (1/2)
She began to plead. ”Nikolas-Nik-it's on the other side of this wall, I just don't know how to get there-”
You don't have to get anywhere, he whispered. Ease up, my Sophie. Let it come to you. I will bring it to you. I promise. Trust me. And when I bring it to you, I am going to come inside you. I'm so hard and ready for you. My skin burns with it. Feel the heat coming off my skin. I am on fire for you.
She touched his face, and he knew she could feel it. He had never burned so hot for anyone before. She lifted her head to stare at him.
Their eyes met. Nikolas touched the cool, starlit magic in her gaze with the dark blaze in his own. There was some kind of message that pa.s.sed between them, some kind of truth.
Then her head fell back onto the pillow, and she cried out as she climaxed. He felt it ripple through her inner muscles. Her tiny, delectable c.l.i.t pulsed. Fierce emotion roared through him.
He had given that to her, no one else, and in giving it, her climax became his. He claimed her pleasure, owned her response in that moment.
Mine, he thought. Mine.
He forced himself to wait, wait, wait, until the rhythm of her pleasure began to subside. Only then did he rise up to cover her body with his and unleash his own need. Kissing her, biting at her mouth, he took his c.o.c.k and rubbed it against her entrance.
Reaching down between their bodies, she welcomed him and helped to guide him in. Then he slipped in, just the tip, and as he broke through her entrance and felt her body grip his most sensitive place, a groan broke out of him. Unable to move forward, unable to pull away, he froze.
She whispered, ”What is it?”
”I'm back in that place again,” he said between his teeth, resting his forehead on hers. ”I don't know if I can be gentle any longer.”
She laughed, and it was a completely joyous sound, as she threw her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips and hugged him with her whole body. Putting her lips to his ear, she gasped, ”You need to go, let's go. Do it, Nikolas, cut loose, I want you to f.u.c.k me so hard right now.”
She incited him to riot, and he had no brakes, no barriers left, so riot he did.
The fire in his body took over. He plunged into her, all the way, to the hilt, and she was so hot, so tight, just exactly what he needed, he had to pull out and plunge all the way back in again. She met him thrust for thrust, rocking up with her hips as he hammered down, and it was so d.a.m.ned perfect he didn't know how he could ever stop. Gripping her by the hip, by the breast, swearing in her ear, he f.u.c.ked her while the blaze inside him built and built until it peaked in a fiery gush.
His climax roared up the base of his spine. Helpless in the grip of it, he thrust and thrust again with every new spurt. She ran her hands down his back, holding him to her, rocking with him until the rhythmic jerk of his c.o.c.k began to subside.
Either he was shaking, or she was. His lungs pumped hard like bellows, while she stroked his back, his shoulders, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck until finally his climax began to subside.
For a moment he was gripped with the strangest compulsion. He wasn't done, he wasn't done. He needed more, to pin her down and claim her until there was no doubt left anywhere that she was his. His c.o.c.k still felt hard as a spike and as agonized.
He tensed, frozen on some kind of precipice.
Then, as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, the moment pa.s.sed. ”This was wonderful,” she whispered. ”Thank you.”
The words grounded him, not much but just enough. Carefully he backed away from the internal precipice as he withdrew from her even though every muscle in his body screamed at him to stop, change course, claim her until they both knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was his alone.
He paused long enough to kiss her lingeringly on the mouth, down her throat, and finally he pressed his lips against the scar above her left breast, where her heart beat strong and true.
”You are so beautiful,” he told her in a quiet voice. ”What a surprise this night has been. You've given me more pleasure than I've known in years. Good night, my Sophie.”
He shouldn't say those words. She wasn't his Sophie. As she had said earlier, they both knew what this was. This was a stolen night of pleasure, nothing more, nothing else. They were little more than strangers, their lives lived on two separate trajectories.
This was not a mating. There would be no claiming her for his own even if she would have welcomed such an outlandish proposition. Yet his Wyr side didn't understand logic and reason. It pounded through his blood, urging him to take her again, to mate with her.
But Wyr mated for life, and he had no room in his life for that kind of commitment. He had already given his life to his people. The thought of taking a steady lover was laughably inappropriate. The thought of mating, utterly impossible.
He had never been gifted with such an experience. He had never felt such a driving compulsion to mate with anybody before, and he accepted the rare gift for what it was-an arrow through the heart.
As she realized he didn't intend to stay, the light in her eyes dimmed, and it was another arrow to the heart. She deserved to be held, in that moment more than ever, and she deserved to explore the new realm of pleasure he could give her as he brought her to climax over and over until she fell into exhaustion. Every instinct in his body told him to go take her in his arms and refuse to let that light in her eyes die.
Without another word, he turned his back on those instincts and on her, picked his clothes off the floor, and shut the door on his way out.
Well, it was a good thing they'd had a clear understanding of what they were getting themselves into when they had s.e.x.
Otherwise, Sophie would be feeling let down and disappointed that Nikolas chose to walk out the door rather than stay and enjoy more time together. If her vision blurred with wetness, it was because she was so tired. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that he chose not only to leave her bedroom but to leave the cottage as well.
Almost as if he couldn't get away from her fast enough.
As she heard the cottage door close, she rolled over to hug a pillow. Gah, she would never understand men. As far as she was concerned, they'd had a pretty spectacular time. He had been...
He had been so much more than she had expected. So much more considerate, tender, and pa.s.sionate.
She closed her eyes, but she couldn't block the images that played through her mind.
His face as he moved inside her, fierce and gentle, determined and sensual. They had barely gotten started, d.a.m.n it. She had things she wanted to do to him. Really cool, s.e.xy, fun things. She had been hungry to try them, and she was still hungry. But apparently he wasn't interested enough in exploring anything further with her.
Of course he wasn't.
He was no longer the a.s.shole she had thought he was. There was something decent, true, and fine in him, and just as she glimpsed it, it moved away.
His scent was still on her skin. She loved his scent. Loved it. She was never going to get to sleep if she kept experiencing his scent, as if he were still with her, while she fantasized about taking his c.o.c.k into her mouth.
Pus.h.i.+ng out of bed, she grabbed a nights.h.i.+rt and went into the bathroom to take a shower. When she was through and fragrant with her shower soap, she padded into the kitchen to drink the tumbler of wine still left on the counter.
Sipping it, she stood at the kitchen sink, looked out the window, and saw him. The moon still looked quite full, and the scene outside was almost as bright as day.
Nikolas had dressed, and he stood with his hands on his hips near one end of the manor house, his back to the cottage as he looked out over the landscape. Instinctively Sophie glanced at the corner of the kitchen where his sword harness had been, but it was missing. She felt better knowing that he was armed even if the cloaking spell prevented her from seeing it on him.
He had so many bad memories wrapped into this place. He had so much history, period. She barely knew him, so why did the sight of him standing alone out in the night tug so hard at her emotions?
She felt a pull to go outside and join him that was so strong she almost gave in to it. But he had been the one to leave her, and with a stinging realization, she knew he would not welcome her presence.
As she finished the wine in the tumbler, the monkey came into the kitchen, jumped onto the counter, and sat looking out the window beside her. She said, ”Robin, I wish I knew how to help him.”
The monkey took her hand and patted her fingers.
”I know,” she said. ”I'm doing what I can. And he didn't ask me to do anything more anyway.” Forcing herself to look away from the lone figure outside, she turned her attention to the puck. He seemed bigger, more substantial, and for the first time, she could feel a hint of his Power. Pleased, she said, ”You're getting better.”
He nodded.
”I'm so glad.” Pa.s.sing a hand gently down the back of his head, she rinsed out her gla.s.s and set it in the sink. Then she went to bed.
For the first time, she realized somebody had made the bed, and she knew it hadn't been her, and she was pretty sure it hadn't been Nikolas.
She and Nikolas had made love on top of the bedspread. Made love, huh. She meant they'd had (tremendous, mind-blowing, screaming, utterly fantastic, wildly pleasurable) s.e.x, and it had lived up to every single one of those adjectives. Every single one and more.