BlackWind (57 page)

“Oh, God!” she moaned, her legs quivering. “I can't take much more!’

One moment her panties were still riding low on her hips, the next they were torn scraps of pale blue against the sage green carpet. Cree swung her up into the brawny arms and placed her none too gently upon the bed.

Bronwyn lay shivering, staring at the man looming beside her. He snarled as he jerked open his belt buckle. He ground his teeth as he kicked off his sneakers and stripped off his socks. He panted as he snagged down his zipper and pushed the jeans from his slim hips in nearly one motion. She was surprised to find he wore no underwear.

But it was the sight of his unrestrained manhood that caught and held her undivided attention. Bronwyn looked up at him, almost unaware she was licking her upper lip. Her eyes widened, for an unholy light filled Cree's face that would have frightened any woman.

“Help me to go slowly,” he grated, his hands clenched tightly into fists at his side. “Else, so strong is my desire for you, I will hurt you.”

She swallowed hard, opened her lips to answer, but her mouth was so dry she could not speak. She swallowed again, then moved over, patting the place beside her.

Cree was obviously struggling to refrain from throwing himself on her. It seemed to take every ounce of his control to put one knee on the mattress.

“L...lie down,” Bronwyn managed to say. “On your stomach.”

He looked at her quizzically, but did as she commanded. He was as tense and rigid as an oak branch, his legs slightly parted, his hands clutching the pillow.

“Relax,” she whispered, putting her hand on his back. She felt him shudder, and watched the muscles along his flanks bunch and hold. She repeated her whisper, gently stroking his shoulder blade. Gradually, she felt the tension dissolve under his flesh.

Without speaking, she straddled him, settling her body atop his firm buttocks.

“What are you doing?” he gasped, lifting his head to look at her.

“You've never had a massage?”

He shook his head.

“Well, you are about to get one,” she said firmly and pushed his head back to the pillow.

Cree was on fire with a passion that was consuming him. It was painful to lie on his erection, but the pressure against the mattress eased the ache somewhat. He made himself lay there, holding his breath as she moved her hands to his tight shoulders and began kneading. The feel of her applications as she worked the muscles was a sensation he found immeasurably satisfying.

“You like that?” she asked as she plied the length of his left arm, then his right, giving one time to relax before moving to the other.

“I like that,” he sighed deeply, closing his eyes and giving in to her manipulations.

Her hands moved down his back, pressed expertly into the area over his kidneys, shifted firmly along his sides and with enough pressure to make him groan with pleasure. As she rose up and moved down his legs, sat gingerly on his calves, he made no protest, though his hands still clutched the pillow.

“Stop punishing the foam rubber, Aidan,” she said with a light laugh.

He released his grip on the pillow but clutched it again, wadding it beneath his cheek, for her hands were now on his buttocks and he had stopped breathing again. When she remained paused, her hands not moving, he realized she was waiting for him to relax. It took some effort, but he let the muscles loosen and let out a shuddery breath.

She gave his firm cheeks deep tissue massage for quite a length of time, sighing at every grunt of pleasure forced from his throat. When she moved down to his upper thighs, he groaned in protest.

“Spread your legs,” she ordered.

Cree lifted his head and looked around at her. “Are you going to do something I'm going to find not so pleasant?”

She slapped him lightly on the ass. “Do as you're told and you'll find out.”

He hesitated, then shifted himself, tensing as tight as a coiled spring when she positioned herself between his opened legs. He forced himself to lie down again, though his eyes stayed open and wary as her hands moved to his thighs. Soon, he was relaxed again as her deep massages worked each taut thigh, then slid down to repeat the process on his calves.

“You have beautifully proportioned legs,” she said as her fingers plied his flesh.

“I've never paid any attention to my legs.”

“And elegant feet.” She lifted his leg so she could massage his toes.

“Ah,” he sighed, then groaned in gratification.

“The feet are an erogenous zone on most people.”

“You don't have to tell me that. I may start humping the mattress if you're not careful.”

She laughed. “That I'd like to see.”

He sucked in a sharp breath as the bed dipped between his legs and her hands were once more on his backside. But it was not her hands that pressed into his flesh; it was her nails, dragging in lazy circles over his flesh, sending prickles of intense sensation down his legs and through his groin.

“By the gods, Bronwyn! You are torturing me, woman!”

“Lie still or I might stick my finger—”

“No!” he exploded, grabbing the brass bars of her headboard.

Bronwyn slapped him on the rump—not as lightly this time—and ordered him to turn over.

He reluctantly obeyed, wanting more of her hands on his ass, but realizing as he turned over and she shifted her position between his open legs, another part of his anatomy would be easily within her reach. That part of him leapt to the same conclusion.

“My, my, my,” she said. “Aren't we happy to see Bronnie?”

Before he could answer, her warm hands wrapped around his turgid flesh and he once again gripped the headboard above him, his eyes squeezed shut to keep from unmanning himself in her hands. He began panting, feeling her touch to the very core of him.

“Look at me, Aidan,” she said softly and in a tone of voice that brooked no argument.

His eyelids fluttered open. He looked up at her as she braced one hand on the bed and leaned over him, her breasts lightly touching his chest, her other hand firmly grasping his manhood.

“I own you, Reaper,” she taunted, her hand squeezing him.

Cree's eyes narrowed. Very slowly, his lips stretched into a vengeful smile. “You think so?”

She leaned closer. “I know so, baby.”

One moment he was beneath her, his cock in her hand. The next he was straddling her, his knees pressing her legs far apart, her wrists in his strong hands, pinned above her.

“Let's see who owns who, baby,” he growled.

Bronwyn gasped as his head dipped to her chest and his mouth closed on her nipple. As his tongue lathed the swollen tip, she strained against his invasion, arching her back.

He gave no quarter as he plied his own brand of torture to his ladylove. His lips moved from one peak to another—tasting, suckling, flicking, tormenting—and back again. His fingers tensed, holding her wrists captive as he moved his lower body against her, allowing her to feel the stab of his erection and the grind of his hips against her pelvis. He released one of her wrists and drove his hand down her side and hip, then to the damp mound of her sex.

“Aidan!” she hissed, rising to meet him.

He cupped her womanhood, swirled his palm over her wiry hair, then turned his hand so his index finger could slide inside her.

“Aidan!” she screamed, lowering her free hand to push at his shoulder, then clutch him as her nails dug into his flesh.

She wiggled against his invasion, gasping, reveling in the feel of him thrusting shallowly inside her: first one finger, then two, then three. His thumb made tiny circles on her clitoris, driving her mad with pleasure. She moaned and tightened her muscles around his questing fingers.

His mouth slid from her chest to her mouth, slashing brutally across her lips, plunging his tongue deeply inside. He raped her mouth with his tongue—claiming her, branding her, making her his possession for all time. When he had his fill of her lips, he abruptly released her other hand and slid his body down hers, shoved his hands under her hips, lifted her, and claimed her nether lips in a hard vacuum that lifted her off the mattress with a shriek.

She grabbed his hair—the thick strands threaded through her fingers—and pressed him to her. She made low guttural sounds that seemed to spur him on as his tongue drove ruthlessly into the center of her sex.

“Oh, my God!” she screamed, feeling the almost-forgotten itch deep within her that she had known only once before so long ago on the banks of a Georgia river.

Cree had no more control over his flaming passion. He moved up and over her and pressed himself inside her, striving not to hurt her but unable to keep from doing so as her legs came around his hips and she arched up to impale herself on his steely length. He heard her gasp of pain and would have withdrawn, but she held his hips captive and began moving against him, grinding her sex on his cock.

Almost at the same moment, as he went as deep inside her as he could thrust, their passions ignited, rose up to meet one another, and crashed together in a blinding flare of consummation that brought a roar of satisfaction from his lips and a scream of intense pleasure from hers. They shuddered, clutching at one another as he fell limp against her, her arms wrapped tightly around him.

Cree rolled off her but was loath to be apart from her. He pulled her into his arms, their sweaty bodies pressed together, and nestled her firmly in his arms.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“As I love you,” he returned, his hold tightening as he placed a chaste kiss on her damp brow.

Within moments, she was sound asleep in his arms, exhausted by their lovemaking. He lay there listening to her deep, regulated breaths, and sighed with contentment.

For the first time in his life, he knew utter contentment. The joy of their lovemaking had been like a laser thrust—he could feel the slicing away of his loneliness, the severing of the solitude that had always held his body captive, the fading away of the darkness that had been his constant companion since birth. He never once tried to reach out, to keep his emptiness from leaving, for the brutishness that was his solitary existence was being torn away, leaving in its wake a wondrous warmth that was his new physical being.

With a smile on his face, he slid into the depths of slumber with his lady.

“It's almost three o'clock in the afternoon,” Bronwyn groaned as she lifted her arm to look at her watch. “Why did you let me sleep so late?”

Cree ran his index finger down her arm. “You seemed so at peace, I hated to wake you.”

She turned her head. “What were you doing? Watching me sleep?”

He nodded. “Reapers don't sleep well or deeply. I have been lying here reveling in having you at my side.”

Bronwyn pushed up in the bed, blushing as the coverlet fell, exposing her naked breasts. She tugged up the sheets and tucked them under her arm. “Voyeur.”

Viraiden Cree's amber eyes gleamed as a slow, devilish smile creased his mouth. “I am an evil man. What can I tell you?”

“Then you had best repent, Reaper.”

“I'm already doomed, my love. The sacraments will forever be denied me.”

Bronwyn frowned. “Why? If you go to reconciliation and—”

A harsh breath rose and fell in Cree's chest. He tossed the covers from his lower body, swung his legs from the bed, and sat up, plowing a hand through his tousled hair. “'If any man whosoever of the house of Israel, and of the strangers that sojourn amongst them, eat blood, I will set my face against his soul, and will cut him off from amongst his people'—Leviticus 17:10.” He turned to look at her. “I belong in hell, Bronwyn, and one day I'll take up permanent residence there.”

Bronwyn winced. “Don't say that. I can't believe God would condemn you for something not of your doing. You didn't ask to be born a Reaper.”

He took her hand. “You have to understand something about what I am.”

She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held fast, his eyes locked on hers were golden fire pools.

“I am a killer, Milady. I have killed so many times the very act of murder has no meaning for me. To me, it is no different than swatting a pesky mosquito and bears no more thought.”

“I don't want to hear—”

“You
need
to hear.”

“Don't,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. She cocked her head in pleading, causing her lips to tremble. “Don't.”

“Bronwyn...”

“I know what you are. I just don't want to be reminded of it. I can accept you if you can accept that some things should not be discussed between us. This is one of them!”

Her misery unnerved him. Her eyes were forgiving; her look one of infinite trust. She was wisdom's dark angel peering at him through a gaze that said more than words ever could. When she lifted her hand to his cheek, caressed him, her thumb stroking the side of his mouth, he gave in, gathering her to him.

“Life is never simple,” she said as she settled against his chest. “Don't make it any harder than it already is.”

His arms went around her. “I love you,” he whispered into her thick hair. “They tried to take the right to love away from me, to keep me from feeling anything but hate, but you saved me from the darkness into which I had fallen. For the first time in my life, I know what it is to love and be loved.”

She drew back and looked at him, her smile a saving grace. “I understand, Viraidan.”

Her use of his name made his heart soar. He brought her fingers to his lips, closed his eyes, and kissed her knuckles. “Never leave me, Lady. I could not bear it.”

She pressed against him, her bare breasts soft against his naked chest. He opened his eyes to look at her and found himself staring into her very soul.

“I have loved Sean Cullen for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I love him still. Now there is another soul to which I cling and that one is not as dark as its owner would like me to believe.” When he started to protest, she pulled her fingers free of his grip and covered his mouth. She pulled him toward her, falling back so his upper body slid over hers.