Elijah (16 page)

The rush of arousal that followed that understanding was hers, not his. Siena panted hard with it as it flooded her with molten gold, a precious liquid burning through her and then spilling slickly out of the very core of her body. She understood, all of a sudden, that there was only one way to her own pleasure, and that was to dive into his. It was one of those revelations that would change everything, even though it seemed so small a detail. She knew it. She knew it from the bottom of her soul. When her fingertips drifted over the wet tip of his arousal, one after another, coasting silkily through moisture and over highly sensitive skin, she learned a whole new description for stimulation.

Elijah exhaled a low, rough sound of ecstasy, his jaw clenching as he blindly thrust his hips toward her wicked little hands. She got the message, his reaction prompting her to repeat the stroke, only this time more slowly. Elijah couldn’t think straight from that moment on. Not that he had been engaged in much thought beforehand that didn’t center around the luscious feel of her body and skin sliding against him. Siena was relentless in her curiosity of his body and he was utterly mindless under her increasingly bold caresses. Before he knew it, he was on his back and she was stripping him quickly.

Then she slid up his body and sought his mouth. She kissed him and caressed him, trying to outdo herself first with one, then the other. She reveled in the abandon of his reactions, of the
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sounds that escaped him. She could make every rigid muscle twitch and flex, using the hot velvet touch of her lips and tongue to do so. His hands dove desperately into her hair, crushing the sensitive strands beneath fisted fingers.

Siena had never thought such a stranglehold could actually feel so incredibly good. It was a part of her body as sensitive as any other, and his touch was like wild magic as he grasped her in passion. It was an instantaneous erogenous zone, and she felt him suddenly comprehending that as he began to drag his fingers through the body-length coils.

“Oh!” she cried throatily, her body rising up over his and arching like a sleek python. She was straddling his stomach, her hands braced on his chest, her head thrown back as his calloused fingertips streamed through her grasping, clinging hair.

Elijah freed himself from the golden ivy curling around her body, a smile turning up one corner of his lips. Her position over his body left her vulnerable to an entirely different assault of sensation. His hands dragged rough touches down the center of her torso, over breasts and ribs and belly and hips. Then he went seeking for the heat and the moisture that had called to him relentlessly. His fingers slipped through a tangle of golden curls and touched the flesh beyond.

She was slick and swollen with the arousal her manipulations of his pleasure had caused to her own body. Siena squeaked with a thousand impulses, thoughts and feelings crowding for expression, and Elijah plunged a free hand into her hair and dragged her down to his kiss. She gasped into his mouth when the invasion of his touch registered on her nerve endings with violent eroticism. He found the sensitive nub that would respond the most to his stroking fingertips and circled it with a flirting, skilled touch.

She had never suspected how breathless such a seemingly simple caress could leave her. He was touching her in earnest now, forcing her to go weak and wild with the strange, building sensation that flowed outward from that one small spot. She couldn’t concentrate on what she was doing anymore, so her hands fell away from his body.

Elijah rolled her over onto her back, taking back control as she moaned with incredible intensity into his hungry mouth. She was a factory of brash sounds of pleasure from that moment on, the auditory stimulus sending urgent need clawing through Elijah’s soul. He left her mouth quickly, sending uncaught cries into the room by doing so. But he was busy learning the taste of her throat, her collarbone, and breasts once more. He felt her shuddering, closing in on the release she wanted, needed so desperately.

His fingers stilled against her, making her sob a sound of protest.

“Elijah, please,” she cried, her head turning side to side as her mind and body sought for what was missing.

He did not give in to her pleas immediately. He had something better planned. Her exotic scent had taunted him long enough. This was his one and only thought as he reached to replace the touch of his fingers with the caress of his mouth.

Siena’s hips surged upward and she cried out so loudly that the cavern echoed with the sound.

Elijah caught her bucking hips in eager hands and held her to his tasting tongue. She was pure aphrodisiac. Flavor and scent combined together with the perfection of strawberries and cream.

She was shaking so hard in his hold as her pleasure was coiled up tighter and tighter inside her that he could predict the power of her coming release by it.

Siena suddenly was surging up into an oblivion beyond mere bliss. Her body locked even as it released. She heard herself screaming wildly, but hardly recognized herself in the unfettered sound. Pulsations of ultimate pleasure rode through her like shock waves, and still his tongue stroked over her, pushing her further and further into the extraordinary abyss of relief and delight.

She had barely settled back into the mattress before he was sliding up her body and sharing the confection of her sweetness with her in the form of a soul-searing kiss. He was so hard and so heavy with need for her that he was slightly mad. Her orgasm had pushed him to his limits, and he needed to be inside her with a desperation he had never known himself capable of. Her thighs
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fell open for him easily as he settled between them, and he rested against her saturated flesh with a hot, insidious slide.

Her eyes flew open in shock at how astoundingly stimulating the sensation was. He looked down into those golden pools, looking deep into her soul, past the haze of desire and the endless need to be who she was in this moment.

“Tell me what you choose,” he said hotly against her swollen lips. “I have to hear you—” He broke off when she shifted her hips, bringing him right to the threshold that he so badly needed to cross. She swallowed his groan greedily, her mouth ravaging his with unparalleled intensity.

Elijah reached between them for her throat, encircling it to keep her from following after him when he broke away from her kiss. She was heaving for breath, her eyes wide and demanding that he let go. Of her. Of his doubts. Of everything.

“Siena,” he gasped as she purposely slid against him once more. “I need to hear it.”

“Of course,” she whispered seductively, catching him once more in the perfectly poised spot where a single forward thrust would bury him inside her. “Elijah, I want this,” she breathed.

“Do you accept me?” Elijah demanded of her, clutching her so hard it was a wonder she did not break. “Do you choose me?”

“Yes,” she gasped, her body groaning for the completion he kept from her. “I accept you. I want you. You, Elijah…”

Elijah released his restraint with a savage growl of intent. He surged forward, pushing into her body with a single, rending thrust. Siena cried out, but not with any kind of pain. He could feel that with every fiber of his being. Her maidenhead gave way with ease, letting him sink deeply into hot, welcoming heaven.

Heat, tightness, slick surrounding honey. She was a burning sheath of immeasurable bliss, and he was deeply surrounded by her at last. In this she was beyond perfect. She fit him as if she had been hand-fashioned for him. Elijah was blind with the beauty and wonder of it. She was so tight around him it felt as if it should be impossible to move, so for the longest minute he did not.

Siena was clinging to him, her hands on his shoulders, her body permanently arched into his, it seemed. She gasped and gasped, her eyes wide as she stared up at him with shock and amazement. As he remained deeply embedded in her, he was deeply embedding the memory of the moment into his brain. He would never forget this, and he would make sure she never did either.

But she was silky and slick and incredibly tempting, so he could only bear it for a few more heartbeats. He needed more of her, needed to give her himself. He began to withdraw and she dug her nails into his shoulders.

“Elijah!” she gasped helplessly, her golden eyes wild with the confusion of knowing something instinctively, yet not fully understanding the method to his seeming madness.

“Oh,” he teased softly, “I am not going anywhere.”

He stroked within her deeply, making her groan until the lusty sound was echoing off the surfaces around them. He loved that sound, loved her raw passion. The thrill of it pulsed through him, hardening him even more until he felt so incredibly thick within her quivering body. He knew she felt the new surge of heat because she purred with a deep, deep rumbling vibration. The sound urged him on, even though he needed no encouragement. It took only a moment for him to find the perfect pace for them both. She met his thrusting hips with natural ease after one awkward second. He guided her with a hand on her slender hip, the other hand trapped in the tangled clutches of her hair. He felt her nails bite into his back and he surged forward with the backlash of the resulting pleasure.

“Siena,” he groaned, “kitten, you feel so damn perfect.”

“Elijah…”

That was all she said. His name. Over and over, with increasing urgency, until she was sobbing it to him like a chant. Elijah could do nothing but bury his face in the curve of her neck and send them both spiraling toward an outrageous release. It was going to be torrid and fast, violent and
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ecstatic, and he just gave himself over to it. His name bursting from her throat was the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced in his long lifetime. He plunged into the sweet silk of her body again and again, until he felt he would shatter from the pleasure of it. Siena felt the world go up in heat and flames, her body burning and burning until it needed to explode. She was already crying out with her release when he finally broke into his own, adding fuel to an already raging fire. He crushed her into his embrace as he pulsed into her with violent surges of relentless climax.

It was all he could manage, to keep himself from crushing her with the weak collapse of his drained body. He scooped her up to his chest and rolled with her so that she was sprawled over him instead. He felt the separation of their bodies and it left him feeling powerfully bereft. He held her to him with a heavy arm, his fingers wrapping possessively around her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she murmured a few minutes after their breathing had normalized.

“For what?” He laughed, tilting his chin to his chest so he could see her face as he pushed back the half ton of hair that obscured it.

“For answering my question.”

He recalled the question and turned his gaze up to the ceiling formations.

“I hope it was a good answer,” he said softly, not wanting to feel the trepidation that was trying to creep over him.

“Very adequate,” she said.

“Adequate?” The term nipped at his ego, making him pull away from any looming worries immediately. “Would you care to rephrase that?”

“Must I?” she asked turning her face toward him as she lifted her head.

Elijah saw the humor glinting in the troublemaker’s eyes and thoughts. He gave her a poisonous look and she started to laugh. Siena was not much of a giggler, he noted with pleasure. She had a bold, sexy laugh that dared you to gainsay her humor. It had the knack of ferreting out his libido with unerring ease.

The warrior rolled her off his body so abruptly that she laughed even harder. When he trapped her on her belly beneath him, his hands pinning hers to the bed, she became nearly hysterical.

“Have I happened to mention how that sexy laugh you have tends to affect me?” he asked silkily, showing her exactly what he meant with a strategic shift of his hips.

Siena stopped laughing, raising her head to try and see over her shoulder. Realizing it was a useless effort, she settled her cheek onto the sheet and smiled.

“You actually have not mentioned anything of the kind,” she informed him.

“Then allow me to explain,” he murmured.

Elijah made love to Siena relentlessly. When she complained about the abuse to his injuries, he lectured her on the healing qualities of her delectable body. The lecture was long and thorough, spoken across her skin and driven home inside her body.

After that, she never complained again.

At least not about that. She did find she liked his lectures, though, and so found other topics they could discuss in depth. Siena had never come close to suspecting what this kind of intimacy would feel like. She had claimed time and again that she wanted no part of it and would not miss it in the least. She had maintained there was no possible avenue for enrichment in such things.

She had thought that her life could never be better than it had been before walking into this cavern.

How foolish and wrong she had been. The arrogance of ignorance! She was Queen of her species, but she had not truly begun to know the world until she had ascended, her sheltered, limited life depriving her of so much practical information. This thing, what she had chosen to allow here with the Demon warrior, would change that forever.

Change her forever.

Other than that thought, she pushed all other realities between them aside. Whatever tomorrow
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brought, she desperately wanted today to go on as long as it could. It wasn’t just the physical completion that lured her into feeling this way, she admitted to herself. Elijah was a natural wit, making her laugh in a carefree manner she had known so rarely while growing up the offspring of a royal warlord. There was something about him, about his confidence and the surprising intelligence behind all that brawn and battle-hardness. She had never suspected him of being multidimensional in this way. It had so surprised her, when they had first met, his loyalties and obvious sensitivities when it came to the needs of those he loved.

In her childhood home, warriors did not love. Attachments were weaknesses. How could such a man as Elijah have stood toe to toe with the warlord who had reigned before her and come out the victor when he so clearly was susceptible to all the things her father had claimed were drawbacks to a warrior?