Authors: Felicity Heaton
Varya wished she could control him. If she had been able to, it would have ended her interest in him. It was her inability to control him, her inability to read his aura, and his ability to take energy from her, that had her fascinated.
Were those three things the reason why shadowed males were forbidden?
Andreu was certainly dangerous.
But why hadn’t her clan just told her those were the reasons behind the law against interacting with men who wore a black aura? There had to be more to it than she had already discovered.
“I have no desire to kill you,” she whispered and relaxed beneath him, hoping to convince him that she was telling the truth and that she wasn’t a threat. “Please let me go.”
“Why?”
“Because you are hurting me.” A bold-faced lie but one she prayed he wouldn’t see through. He had shifted almost all of his weight to his pelvis and legs now, restraining hers and leaving her wrists mercifully free of pain.
“You lie. Why do you really want me to let you go?” He frowned down at her and she looked away, towards the bathroom door.
“I want to leave, and I have no desire to fight you to achieve it.” The truth this time. She could fight Andreu but she didn’t have the heart to do it. She didn’t want to hurt him.
That thought shocked her. She had never cared about the welfare of her hosts before now.
She had never cared about anyone outside of her clan.
“So just disappear.”
Varya closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and quietly admitted, “I cannot.”
His eyes bore into the side of her face, burning with a question that she didn’t want him to ask because she would feel compelled to answer and he would know that he had power over her.
“Please let me go.” She spoke before he could, turned her head towards him and opened her eyes. The moment they met his, the red in his irises receded, clearing to reveal deep sea blue.
Electricity shivered through her from the points where their bodies touched, crackling fiercest in her wrists and where his hips pressed hers into the bed. She stared into his eyes, lost in the magical feel of him against her and the incredible connection that slowly built between them. His breathing slowed and then changed rhythm, coming to match hers, so his bare stomach pressed against hers with each inhale.
“Please, Andreu.”
Red spots danced across his aura, colouring the darkness, and desire shone in his eyes, burning fiercely in their depths, a hunger that she knew he would see echoed in hers.
“Please?” she whispered.
He continued to stare at her, his lips parted and mouth so invitingly close to hers. She was torn between kissing him again and begging him to let her go.
“I don’t even know your name. Tell me your name and I will consider your request,” he husked, accented voice low and sexy.
It had none of its usual effects on her.
Varya bristled. To give him her name was to give him more power over her. If he could withstand her abilities and could take energy from her and somehow control her, he might be able to bring her to him by using her name. Even if he didn’t possess that power himself, he could use a spell to do it or give her name to the bastard. He could call her and she would be powerless to ignore him.
She stared into Andreu’s beautiful blue eyes.
She wanted her freedom.
To gain one sort of freedom she would have to sacrifice another.
She prayed he wouldn’t use it against her.
CHAPTER 5
“
V
arya.” The woman beneath him breathed her name in a low and reluctant voice but Andreu’s body reacted as though she had whispered it into his ear in the sultriest of tones.
He hardened again, cock straining against his stomach and her hip. It was difficult to ignore the position he was in, laying half on top of her with one of her legs between his and the other bent at the knee beside him, or the urge to do wicked things to her. She had come here to kiss him. If he could believe a word that she said.
Andreu glanced down at her crooked leg, exhaling a soft curse in Spanish. The small pleated black skirt she wore had fallen back to reveal not only the top of her black over-knee stockings, but a creamy slender thigh that had felt like silk under his hands the first time they had kissed and a hint of shocking pink satin panties.
“Will you let me go now?” She seemed to place a lot of value on her freedom. Rather than trying to get him to kiss her again, she was intent on getting him to release her. She had said that she couldn’t disappear. Why not? She had disappeared on him every other time they had seen each other. What was stopping her from just popping out of his life again?
“No,” he said and her eyes widened, a spark of panic lacing the scent of her blood.
“You said you would let me go if I surrendered my name to you.” She struggled again and he pressed her wrists down into the mattress. “You promised!”
Surrendered. That was a strange word to use. She made it sound as though she had sacrificed something by telling him her name.
“No, I didn’t. I said I would consider letting you go. I considered it and the answer is still no.”
“You son of a bitch.” She spat in his face and he closed his eyes, steeled his jaw and then released one of her wrists so he could wipe it away.
She punched him hard, her small fist slamming into his hand and knocking it into his face. The force of her swing sent him to one side and she effortlessly flipped him onto his back. He didn’t let go of her other wrist. Her fist crashed into his face again, cracking his nose. Blood poured over his lip.
Andreu growled and rolled with her, ending up astride her stomach and bare too. She stilled beneath him, wide luminous eyes on his hips. Blood dripped from his nose and onto her deep purple bodice, soaking into the satiny material. She didn’t notice. Her gaze remained glued to his cock.
He went to grab her other hand but he wasn’t quick enough. She had her slender fingers wrapped around his hard length before he could stop her and he hissed through his teeth. Dios, she had hot little hands. He fought for composure and the will to stop her, but both faltered as she ran her hand over his erection. It started a slow steady glide that threatened to have him climaxing all over her in a matter of seconds. Damn, it felt good. Perfect.
“Stop that,” he growled. Was that his voice drenched in hunger and thick with desire? The sound of it shocked him. He shouldn’t want her, knew that she was dangerous and only out to use him as a quick tasty snack, but none of that dampened his need for her.
Andreu cursed his lack of control around her. It was a spell. Some terrible power she had so her victims fell willingly into her arms and didn’t fight her.
She only wanted to kiss him.
No. She wanted to kill him.
The throbbing ache in his nose as it stopped bleeding and began to heal was testament to that.
“Stop manipulating my feelings too,” he snarled the words at her.
Her hand paused on his cock. “I’m not.”
She wasn’t?
“Am I supposed to believe that?” He clamped his molars together when she started stroking him again, palm like silk against his aching erection. “I said to stop that.”
“I refuse,” she whispered and then added more defiantly, “and I am not lying… I am not using my powers.”
If that was the truth, then it meant he had been right about their first kiss. He was attracted to her, and that only made her more dangerous.
She smiled sassily and his heart thudded against his chest. “I have never seen you look so terrified. Is it the thought that I don’t have to toy with your feelings to make you desire me that horrifies you?”
Andreu growled in her face and she flinched, a spark of fear lighting up her eyes and her hand stilling on his cock. Better. No, not better. He missed the hot glide of her fingers, the sweet fragrance of her desire, and the sight of passion in her eyes. Passion she felt for him.
Passion that he also felt for her.
The need to touch her consumed him, drove him to ignore his instincts and surrender to his desire. If she had wanted to kill him, she could have done so while he slept. She just wanted a kiss.
A kiss that he would give her.
Her hand started a slow caress up and down his length, hot skin burning him and stealing away every shred of desire to resist her, replacing it with only desire to have her.
Andreu stared down into her eyes, hand trembling where it held her left wrist, eager for each caress even though a single touch from her was too much for him to handle, felt so good that he shivered all over and burned for another. Each teasing brush of her fingers was torture, a strange kind of bliss, a dark sort of pleasure that he couldn’t resist.
He rocked his hips forwards without thinking, thrusting through the ring of her fingers, grunting as his balls drew up and tightened, signalling an impending release. She bit her lip and groaned right along with him, her eyes vivid and bright, entrancing. Everything about her said not to fight it, to just go along with it without question like she was, embracing the passion that blazed between them.
Andreu fought to keep his eyes open, his breath coming in ragged pants as release coiled at the base of his cock. Just a few more strokes. His gaze shot to her mouth as she squeezed, tightening her grip on him, and he surrendered to temptation. He swooped on her lips again, kissing her so deeply that even he couldn’t breathe, and swallowed her soft moan. The taste of his blood melded with the vanilla-honey of her and, Dios, he had never tasted anything so good. It wasn’t just their combined taste that intoxicated him though. It was the fact she hadn’t pushed him away. Part of him had expected her to shove him off her rather than have his blood on her lips. He definitely hadn’t expected her soft tongue to flick over and swipe at his lips whenever they broke apart for a second to gasp at air. Each time she licked at the blood, she moaned and her eyelids drooped sexily to half hide her brightly coloured irises. She took pleasure from his blood just as he took pleasure from her flavour.
Andreu held her tighter and kissed her deeper, until that sweet flavour overwhelmed that of his blood. He wanted to drown in her, wanted to kiss her until she was all he knew and he could never erase the taste of her from his lips.
He growled in frustration when she took her hand away from his cock and he pinned the wrist he grasped harder against the bed. Her right hand drifted up over his left arm and it trembled, barely able to hold his weight.
Andreu shifted between her legs, knocking them apart with his right knee, and collapsed on top of her. He rocked into her. Her body fit his so perfectly that he swore a higher power had made her just for him. She moaned his name, a sweet breathy sigh that sent heat skittering over his skin, and he continued to grind against her, cursing the pink satin panties that stopped him from entering her and teased him with their silkiness at the same time.
He drew back, intent on tearing away her offending underwear and thrusting home.
Her hand reached his face, her eyes captured his attention, and her kiss-swollen lips called to him for more, but a chilling sense of danger stole over him and he somehow found the strength to swat her hand away.
Her demeanour changed instantly, switching from aroused, to shocked, and then angered in the space of a heartbeat.
She tried to touch him again. He wrestled with her, fighting to catch hold of her wrist, but she evaded him. Every time his fingers brushed her arm, she jerked it out of his reach, until it was zigzagging around so quickly that he felt dizzy trying to follow her movements. He growled in frustration and chased her, almost claiming his prize once or twice. Each graze of his fingers over her soft satin skin sent his temperature shooting back up again and fogged his mind with desire.
He snapped his hand forwards and she moved hers in a low arc, brushing her stomach and then his. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, a burst of pleasure exploding within him and making his cock strain for contact, and then growled down at her again. She grinned at him and laid her hand on his chest. His heart thumped and hand stilled, and he swallowed hard. A hot shiver followed her caress and the arm that supported him shook, threatening to defy him and give out so their bodies touched again.
Dios, he wanted them to touch again. He wanted to rock into her and ease the painful ache. He needed to climax. Her hand slid lower and he hissed through his teeth when she curled her fingers around his erection, her own low moan of appreciation causing him to pulse and harden to the point of agony again. He groaned and tried to stop himself from thrusting into her palm.
Tried and failed.
Andreu rocked his hips and bit his lower lip until he tasted blood. Just like that. He frowned, hung his head and released his breath in a sharp burst. Dios. Just a little more.
She felt so damn good.
So perfect.
He opened his eyes and looked down into her brown-blue ones. They were bright, swirling with gold and beautiful. Entrancing. He softened, elbow unlocking so he could lower himself onto her. Just a single moment. That was all he wanted with her.
All he needed.
She smiled, her look one of victory.
Andreu frowned and then growled.
“I said to stop that.” He shot his hand down and caught her wrist, tearing her fingers from his cock. Part of him hated himself for ending his pleasure but the rest of him said that capturing her took priority.
She twisted her hand free of his grip and laid her palm against his chest. He almost groaned. Almost. She could fool him once, okay, maybe more than once, with that little trick but it wasn’t going to work again. He knew what she was up to and he couldn’t let her touch his aching cock again. If she did, it would be game over. There was only so much self-control he could exert before his base instincts overruled common sense and told him to finish things with her legs wrapped around his backside and him furiously pumping into her lush curvy body until she screamed his name at the height of her climax.
He growled at her, exposing his fangs this time. Her eyes shot wide and her hand trembled. He seized his chance and snatched her wrist before she could recover. She bucked up with all of her might, forcing him off her, and then unleashed a feral snarl of her own as she yanked her arm free of his grasp.