Hers to Claim (6 page)

She never looked at him again and m
ade quick work stripping down to her skin. She ooched on tender soles across the tiny pebbles and submerged herself up to her neck in the hot water of the pool, her arms clasped about her breasts, her hair loose and floating on the water. The temperature bordered on too hot but worked miracles on her tight, cramped muscles and chafed skin.

She closed her eyes and revisited the vision of
blue-veined alabaster skin, lean rippling muscle, impossibly broad shoulders, chiseled pectorals, abs and a sculptured waist—no extra flesh anywhere. She could count the man’s ribs. A fine swirl of dark hair made a tee on his chest with a narrow line down the middle of his abdomen, past his navel to his groin, and below, ah, below...Goddess preserve her. In every way, he possessed a terrible beauty. She had expected from his height and width that he would be crude and bulky, perhaps hairy. No. He stood tall and wide, but every part of his height and width held proportion and refinement. Shit. Even his gods-be-damned feet were pretty. Who had pretty feet?

A touch on her should
er brought her swirling around with a gasp. “Easy, Healer.” Hel’s gray eyes found hers, and he offered her the knife, handle first. “I think we take most of the hair with this and then use the razor. Yes?”

“Umm, yeah, yeah. Okay.” She smiled tentatively and took the knife. With a deep
inhale, she grasped a thick hank of his beard. His hair felt luxurious and silky. She raised her eyes to his and positioned the keen blade against his Adam’s apple.

“Ready?”

“Always. Don’t take more than hair—hmm?” She thought he teased her but only his eyes broke rank with the solemnity in his face; amusement lurked in his clear gray gaze.

She sawed at the hank and
whacked it off in an irregular swipe. She opened her fist and watched as the long strands floated for a moment then sank slowly in the aqua water. “Too late to change your mind now.”

“Mmm.
I haven’t changed my mind about anything.” His eyes twinkled at her and pulled a wary smile from her in return.

They
still spoke of hair.
Right?

His broad hands gripped her hips
, his thumbs resting on her hipbones, his fingers wrapping her buttock cheeks. She tried not to stiffen. Inexorably, he pulled her to him—one step, then two. “You need to be closer. Your arms will tire if you stand so far away.” He raised his eyebrows as if seeking her agreement.

“Ah,
right.”

Adonia worked steadily for the better part of
thirty minutes—first with the knife and then with the razor—and his hands remained on her hips the entire time. She became so intent on her task, she forgot she was nude, standing between his legs, mere inches separating them. Scraping the hair off his face resembled watching him disrobe. As she removed the stubble from his cheeks, the face that slowly appeared from underneath the masses of silky black beard matched the body she had seen on shore. Chiseled. Elegant. Refined. When she finished, she laid the razor next to the knife on a stone ledge and crossed her arms. With a deep sigh, she studied his face. “I knew it.”

The corner of Hel’s mouth quirked. “What did you know?”

“You are prettier than I am. By Her light, you’re prettier than Visconte DeLorion and that’s saying something.”

He
released her hips, leaned away from her and chuckled. “Oh, I think that’s a matter of opinion, don’t you? I doubt DeKieran would agree.”

Adonia shrugged. “No, he’d agree with me.”

Hel snorted then traced a wet finger across her upper lip. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks, does it?”

Droplets
from his finger balanced on her lips, and she licked them off. His eyes followed her tongue. Hel again pulled her to him with tempered strength, watching her face. She didn’t know if she had a choice, but she stepped into his embrace, sliding her arms around his torso and nesting in between his thighs.

“No,
it doesn’t matter,” she whispered to his collarbone. Her heart, unaccountably, had lodged in her throat.

“
I think you undervalue yourself, Healer.” He pulled her abdomen against the hard length of his fully erect shaft. “As I am sure you are discovering, I find you most attractive.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Hel tilted her face to his and angled his mouth to fit over hers in a feather-light press of warm lips. “Very attractive.” Then he kissed her again—not at all feather-light—a kiss of demand with nips and a tangle of tongues—a kiss that consumed her—a kiss that she rose onto her toes to follow as he pulled back.

“O
ohh,” she moaned when he allowed her a breath, and she sank back flat-footed.

“Put your legs around my waist and your arms around my shoulders.”

He cupped her buttocks and lifted her. Adonia did as he ordered. It never occurred to her not to. It was in his voice, in his actions—the unstated imperative, “I am your master. Obey me.” He snugged her to him, sliding his thickness between her soft folds. His engorged flesh slid along the pouty cleft between her legs where she was most tender. Adonia sucked in air and flashed a glance at Hel when the crown of his cock bypassed the entrance to her warm interior and nudged firmly against her clit.

“Good?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

His broad hands and long fingers cupped the cheeks of her buttocks and
skirted her anus. A simple dip of his finger would penetrate her there. It tickled.

“Move
,” Hel ordered. “Show me what pleases you. I will hold you.”

Adonia looked up and held his gaze as she
slipped her center up and down the outside of his shaft, adding a sliding friction to the pressure and then circling her hips to roll her clit around the ridged crown of his erection. At first, his hands merely followed her actions but when he caught the rhythm of her undulations, he added his own pressure, helping her move more freely. She pulled her hand away from his shoulder and rolled her pebbled nipple between her thumb and forefinger. The water made lapping noises as the waves from her movement hit the rock ledge of the pool.

The
combination of firm male flesh between her legs and the streaking pleasure flooding down from her nipple to her clit tore a low groan from her. Her eyes slid closed to concentrate on the building sensation. More,
more
,
more!
Without thought, she paused at the top of an undulation and dropped her hand to position his cock at her entrance.

“No.”
Hurtling toward sublime ecstasy, she smashed against an invisible wall. Adonia’s eyes flew open as Hel pushed her away gently, shaking his head. His eyes were kind but his firm words denied her absolutely. “No. I say when. I wanted you warmed, relaxed—more easy with me. I think I accomplished that.”

Adonia’s laugh was helpless. “I am at your mercy, Sir. Tell me what to do.”

Hel’s lips curved in a slight smile. “Get out. Dry off. I’ll take it from there.”

A shiver ran through her in reaction to the message in his eyes.
Goddess.

Adonia used her shirt to dry herself
and tried not to betray her fascination with Hel. She failed miserably. Every time she threw a guarded peek his way, he caught it. He answered with a stare that normally would send her running. His was not the look of shared passion. It was predation, ownership, plunder and there was nothing gentle in it.

He held up his
fur coat and delved into its deep pockets, tossing six
diaman
crystals the size of his fist onto his shirt. He then spread his coat out and pointed to its center.

“Here
, lie on your back. Spread your legs. Put your arms over your head.”

The way her heart thundered in her chest made her breath unsteady
. She was certain Hel could hear her shuddering inhales and exhales. While she no longer doubted he would arouse her, the exact mechanics of this rite made her uneasy. “What are—”

“Don’t talk. Answer me when I as
k you a question but otherwise, don’t speak. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Lie down as I told you.”

She lay down on her back, her legs spread and arms extended over her head. Hel
placed two diaman crystals in the palms of her hands and closed her fingers over them. The remaining four he placed on either side of her wrists, two for each wrist.

“I need you to keep
a tight hold on those crystals and don’t move your arms. It is necessary for the crystals to remain in contact with your skin for the entire rite. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.”
He might as well have bound her arms over her head.
Well, you always wanted to know what went on in those barbaric sex rites
.
Now you’re going to find out.
She didn’t think it possible for her heart to beat any faster. It did.

Hel’s face was a study in solemn intensity as he knelt beside her. He started with a feather soft stroke that began at her forehead and wandered down
over her eyes and lips, then to her collarbone and shoulders and then around each small breast, avoiding the hard nipple that sat atop each like a plump raisin. His lips mouthed silent words while his fingers soothed the gooseflesh on her stomach and traced circles on her protruding hipbones. He left trails of ghostly figures on the insides of her thighs, especially the tender crease where thigh met abdomen. Hel repeated these patterns all over her body until her sensitive skin shuddered under the slightest of contacts, until she was hypersensitive, almost rising into each feathering touch. Her eyes fluttered closed and her breath came easily, her senses hypnotized by the feel of him.

“Don’t move,” he warned.

“I won’t,” she murmured, lost in the gossamer sensation of his stroke.

Pain from a hard, twisting
pinch to her right nipple sent another kind of sensation lancing through her. “Oh!” Her eyes flew open.

“Don’t move.”

Her breath came in pants, but the pain dispersed and she had managed not to move her arms.

Again
he stroked her with gentle, titillating slides, this time moving over her pubic mound and down between her legs in the lightest of touches. Again her breathing slowed to deep, relaxed inhales. The most delicate of strokes feathered on either side of her labia, in the tender crease of her buttocks and then straight up her swollen center, slipping easily in her moisture.

“Don’t move.”

Her eyes flew open and this time the streaking pain when he pinched her right nipple caught her less by surprise.

Once more
he returned to light brushes over her labia and clit, over her pubic mound and the tender inner crease of her thighs. He placed delicate circles behind her knees. The strangest thing was happening. Adonia felt as if every hair on her body was a nerve alive to the slightest motion. She could feel her inner lips swell and slick. Her inner core felt heavy and her lower groin ached. The nipple that Hel had abused throbbed with life and registered the merest shift of breeze across it. She waited with tense anticipation for his fingertips to trace over her clit, and it was all she could do not to arch into his touch for an increase in pressure when the stroke came. She must have moved in that exact fashion, for his hand suddenly pushed her hip back to the fur.

“None of that.”
His gentle finger slipped between her swollen folds and into the entrance to her body. His broad thumb moved up to her clit and rested beside it then circled ever so gently. She closed her eyes and bit her lip to stop a moan.
Goddess!
It felt beyond good. His harsh, guttural whisper sounded in her ear. “This may be on
your
body but it belongs to
me
. It is for
me
to decide what is done for you and when. Adonia, look at me. Tell me you want this. Tell me you agree to this.”

She turned her head and stared into
gray eyes that branded her, possessed her and demanded her obedience. There were no half-measures with this man. In that moment, she made a decision she suspected would change her life. Her voice came out in a whisper. “I want this. I agree to this.”

“Good. From
this moment forward, this flesh,” he circled her clit gently, “and this flesh,” the finger inside her stroked the front of her walls, “are to be touched only by me or at my direction. Understood?”

She nodded slowly.
Considering her complete dearth of sexual stirrings the past two years, she didn’t think that would be a problem at all. “I understand.”

He grunted and withdrew his hand from between her legs.
She couldn’t prevent a slightly restless shiver of her hips at the loss of the pleasurable sensation. Hel glanced toward her hands and a smile ghosted across his face.

“Good girl. You didn’t
disturb the crystals. And my sweet Nia—they glow amber. But we need them stronger to protect us all night.” He moved between her vee’d legs and knelt. “Carefully, put the soles of your feet on the fur and arch up. I want to put your lower body on my thighs.”