Noah (16 page)

Noah withdrew his touch abruptly, and she cried out something close to a rebuke. He made up for the deprivation when he dragged her against himself, wetting his hard shaft with the slickness of her eager body, and unerringly found the threshold he had wanted to cross for so long now. He had no patience, no care, and no sense of anything except the demanding passion of the fire inside himself. She had lit the fuse, and now she would feel the explosion.

Noah thrust into her in one scorching movement, dragging her hips to his with torrid command, and impaling her on himself with barely suppressed violence of need. She was unbelievably hot as she surrounded him. How was it possible that she burned him so fiercely? Her body welcomed him, grasped tightly at him with a voracious sucking of quivering inner muscles. It was heaven and hell, a relief and a torture. He could barely breathe with the onslaught of sensations and emotions the joining of their bodies evoked.

Kestra inhaled so hard she thought her lungs would burst. He was inside her at long last. After months and months of waking to the empty feeling of her hollow body, at last she was filled to satisfaction. Her entire body arched with the overwhelming sensation of fullness, her thighs and knees clenching around his hips like an aggressive, sinuous constrictor. His powerful hands held her suspended against him as she absorbed her initial pleasure.

Then her head snapped back up, showering him in white strands of snow as her mouth sought the fit of his and she began to move with a sensual rhythm in his hands and over his body.

“Months…” she repeated on a gasp into his mouth as she moved slowly and tightly over his superheated and hardened body.

Again, it was all understood. But as hot and erotic as taking her like this was, he felt deprived without his hands free. He reached to hook her thigh higher over his hip, making her breath catch as it opened her deeper to him. It also freed up one of his hands, allowing his hungry fingertips to run up her thigh, her hip, and on to her belly and breast through the tight fabric of her dress. He peeled back the teal Lycra, rather like opening a gift, until her breast was exposed, its very dark nipple pulled into a tight point of excitement. Noah cradled her breast in his palm, toying with the rigid nipple with skilled fingers, coaxing her into growing still hotter around him, bathing himself in her sensitive response to his touch. All the while, her agile body curved and wriggled against him.

The Demon King could bear no more. He had needed her for far too long and his body pounded with primitive male urges. He grabbed hold of her, turning and stepping with her until he was near his goal.

Kestra felt her backside skimming over a solid surface, though it was covered in lace of some kind. She realized that he had set her on a huge antique table she had seen as she had waited for him earlier. It only took her a moment to understand why.

He stripped her of her dress in one quick motion, completely lacking in gentleness as he did so. Kestra didn’t even notice to care. He was laying her back along the table, allowing him to stand sturdy between her thighs. His hands went to her hips, gripping her tightly as he sank himself deep inside her in that ancient surging need of all dominant males. He repeated the thrust, shunting himself deeper and deeper, as if he wasn’t yet satisfied with his depth within her.

Kestra could do little more than grasp his hands where they clutched at her hips. She looked up into his watchful, smoky dark eyes as he looked for her every response, sought every movement that gave her pleasure. Even though he was half wild, even bordering on abusive as he stroked violently into her accepting body, he was looking for her gratification.

Kestra allowed his taxing of her body because it was pure ecstasy to do so. She arched, cried out, and felt stark waves of raw rapture begin to envelop and overwhelm her. Before she could even acknowledge its approach, she flew into a thrashing orgasm, her entire being locked up so tight, inside and out, it was incomprehensible.

Noah said something low and vicious under his breath in his native tongue. He had to stop as she cried out and seized with her climax. She was clutching at him so tightly, bathing him in hot, melted sugar, and he refused to be taken by her. When she finally released, gasping for breath and trying to open her dazed eyes, he began again to move within her.

Kestra was so highly sensitized that she thought she would fly apart as he took that first long stroke deep into her already pulsing body. She felt instantly tight, ready, and needing.

“Hang on, baby,” he warned her with wicked masculine confidence.

She couldn’t begrudge him his arrogance in this situation. He was leaning over her, his body like magic as it plunged slow and deep this time. His mouth skimmed up over her ribs and sought the thrust of her nipple. He sucked her deeply into his mouth and it sent rivers of fire rushing down her body. She made a small sound, half anticipation, half fear, and he looked up to see her widening eyes. He felt the tension coming, felt her begin to tremble.

He felt her resist.

He pulled her up against his chest, bringing her ear to his mouth so he could whisper softly to her as he began to pick up the pace with which he pitched into her body.

“Do not be afraid,” he said, his smoky voice swirling around her like a sensual fog. “Just let go.”

She shook her head. Maybe it was less about fear and more about disbelief. It was almost painful, the tension he was sending like a coil through her body. How could he do this? Only through the dreams could he know how to touch her this deeply. No stranger could do this. No one could. Never.

“
Kikilia
,” he whispered, his voice taunting sorcery. “I will help you if I must.”

Kestra gasped, her heart pounding as she tried to figure out what more he could possibly do to her. He let her fall back onto the table gently, seizing her hip again, sliding relentlessly into her taut body. Then Noah reached to where their bodies joined, slid a sure thumb through wet, white curls, and touched her.

Kestra squealed. She couldn’t help it. It was the only sound that could escape her as her body tension ratcheted up to the tenth power and beyond. Colors swirled around her vision; tears actually burned their way onto her lashes.

Then she detonated.

Noah absorbed her power with bracing agony and unrelenting hunger. She screamed out, and he devoured the sound with greed and pleasure. She was beautiful, hot, responsive as all hell, and she was his. Her body licked at his like a live flame and he was definitely burned.

Wait. Wait
.

It was a brutal, demanding whisper in his mind, forcing him to hold back even though she threatened his very sanity with her voracious body and capacity for pleasure. So he held on while she whirled away and back again. He wouldn’t allow her breath this time. He had need. He hungered. Like fire and flame, he would be relentless. And nothing would stop him now. It came over him savagely, the appetite of a building fire. He gave her no quarter, driving into her before she had fully returned from her last peak. Two wrenching strokes and she was rippling with orgasm again. She took his need and his hunger with equal appetite. Hard as he took her, as brutal as his ability to give her pleasure was, he couldn’t exhaust her. She slid now with every thrust into her body as the cloth on the table alleviated friction, allowing him to manipulate her until she thought she would pass out from the pleasure.

The more he made her come, the more she cried out, the more relentless his pace. His touch was everywhere, toying with her, teasing, and setting her off until she was blinded to anything but ecstasy. Just when she reached that point of her personal threshold, she heard him make a low, predatory noise, saw the intensity of the storm in his eyes, felt the increasing thickness and heat deep within her until she thought she was on fire. Noah suddenly grabbed her shoulders, dragging her against his chest and seeking for her mouth with his. She felt the slickness of his sweat-drenched body all over her as his surges into her body became frantic. She fell completely apart, her body jerking with spasms of pleasure that seemed to grip deeper into her with every invasion. She was almost completely senseless by the time he surged hard into her for the last time, succumbing to an explosion of release that poured liquid fire into her again and again. He vocalized, a raw, masculine growl of intense satisfaction, and his hands clenched around her neck and thigh as he shuddered violently from the aftermath.

It was, by far, the wildest and most satisfying sexual experience of Kestra’s life. She understood that even before she could breathe again. Every muscle in her body was abused by the tension of pleasure caught and released. Noah had done the impossible. He had made her feel the intangible. Kestra couldn’t understand it, and part of her didn’t want to try.

But it was also the moment she became aware that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. She couldn’t even begin to list everything that was wrong about this. She wasn’t the type to regret her sexual choices, but she instinctively knew that there was far more at stake here than the well-being of her body.

Oh God
.

They hadn’t even used a condom.

Kestra’s heart was already pounding at top speed, so even that frightening lapse in the protection of her body couldn’t increase the beat. She was protected against pregnancy, so
that
she wasn’t worried about. It was the million other variables that should concern her…but didn’t. Come to think of it, she realized it hadn’t concerned him, either.

Noah hadn’t even stepped away from her, hadn’t even released her in any way, and he could already feel the buzzing of her thoughts just outside of his awareness. He could easily imagine what someone of her personality would be thinking in a moment like this. Especially because she didn’t yet understand that there was no such thing as casual sex between them, and there never would be. But he could let her be with her thoughts easily in that moment. The fact that he could sense the jumbled bustling of them was the first sign that the Imprinting was begun in earnest. She would change even more rapidly now, now that they were mated.

As he looked up at the wall and the table and the disarray of clothing around them, he could see the scorching and burns that had come with his increasing lack of focus on things other than Kestra. Handprints in stone. Burns on the table. Toasted doilies and scorched clothing. Luckily, he had pulled her close to protect her at those last moments, because a glance up at the ceiling revealed the remnants of his total loss of control, a blackened, billowing pattern, as if flame had been thrown up above them in a roiling cloud. As it was, he was hoping her healing abilities as a Druid had kicked in, or she was really going to feel the damage he had done to her body. She was red everywhere he had touched her, though none of it more serious than a sunburn. Still, it would make her uncomfortable. Over time it would no longer matter; she was designed to dampen power surges like those. Soon, he would never burn anything by accident ever again.

At least, not when he was with her.

“Wow. It’s like a sauna in here.”

Noah and Kestra nearly cracked noses, both whipping their heads around to see who had addressed them.

The tall brunette finished entering the room and flopped down in the nearest chair, kicking up her booted feet until her crossed ankles rested on the ottoman before her.

“Otherwise, I really like this room. It has a more feminine touch than most of the others. I’m going to guess your sister must have had something to do with that.”

Kestra was shocked by the audacity it took for this woman to walk into a room with two clearly indisposed people in it, never mind the ballsy way she casually took a seat. She still had Noah standing between her knees,
in her body
, their bare chests against each other, and their arms still wrapped tightly about each other.

Noah released Kestra first, reaching for the lace tablecloth and using it as a wrap to cover her. He realized the fabric was smoldering at his touch, and he took a deep breath in an attempt to cool his sudden temper. It wasn’t so much because Jasmine was being rude, either. Jasmine was a Vampire. Public sex and other such liberties were commonplace to her breed. This type of indiscretion truly would mean nothing to her had she come across it in any venue. However, Noah was certain she’d meant to cause mischief. There was no way someone of her years and skills could have been unaware of her untimely entrance.

Still, there was no way for her to know how deeply she’d just messed up his life. Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to punish her for her brazen troublemaking.

“Jasmine.” He greeted her dryly, moving away from Kestra at last and going about the task of straightening his clothes and handing his mate hers.

Kestra was barely over the shock of what she’d done, not to mention about a thousand thoughts and emotions to follow. This man was a total stranger to her, she realized with a sensation of panic suddenly crawling beneath her skin. For all she knew, he was married to the sultry brunette who had made herself so clearly at home.

What in the world was I thinking
?

That thought had come through to Noah loud and clear, probably fueled by the emotion behind it. He was also aware of the emotional defenses that slammed down over her. He could feel the shift, right down to the little hairs standing up on the back of her neck.

“Jasmine, I trust you have a damned good reason for invading my privacy,” he said coldly, his eyes a world of threatening promises.

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” she responded, her tone nowhere near as respectful as her words. It was clear she was having a great joke at his expense. “I had not realized you had taken up the human penchant for privacy.”

Noah’s eyes shifted to glance at Kestra from beneath his lashes. Someone as sharp as she was would not miss Jasmine’s casual terminology even under the best of circumstances. He sighed heavily, running a quick, angry hand through his hair as he glared at Jasmine.

“Not another word, Jas. Wait in the Great Hall for me. I will be there shortly.”

He could tell she was thinking about carrying on her joke for a little longer, but luckily she realized exactly how seriously pissed off he was. Unapologetic as ever, though, she dropped her booted feet, paused long enough to adjust the thin chain around her slim waist, and then finally stood up. Her dark eyes roved over them with merriment for a moment, and then she left the room, surprisingly obeying his command to keep silent.

Noah rested his hands on his hips, bowing his head briefly in order to cool his temper and gather his thoughts. He felt Kestra slide off the table and backpedal away from him, toward the remainder of her scattered belongings. When he sensed that she was dressed to a point of decency, he turned to look at her. To his surprise, she was moving toward him with his shirt extended in her hand.

“Thank you,” he said, taking it from her.

“I need to go,” she said in quick, apologetic excuse.

She reached to reattach her holster, and Noah didn’t miss the fact that she turned her back to do so.

“Jasmine is an ambassador from another culture,” he said quietly. “I will have to remind her of certain common courtesies.”

“It doesn’t make a difference to me,” she said from behind the fall of her hair. “It’s not the first time I’ve been walked in on during an indiscretion.”

Noah flinched inside, but he had bigger fish to fry than her terminology. There wasn’t even time to waste on the instantaneous flare of jealousy that her words inspired.

“Kestra—”

“Look,” she interrupted him hastily, turning toward him with perfect posture and a practiced air of indifference, “I’m not the frail and fluttery type and I don’t need promises or good manners when it comes to something like this. It was fun while it lasted, let’s just leave it at that.”

Kestra started to look for her gun, another convenient excuse to turn her back on him. Noah wasn’t used to uncommunicative people, people who hid their emotions and refused his input or his every address. For a moment he was at a loss, trying to draw on his experiences with the others he knew who had been raised in human culture. Corrine and Isabella were hardly good examples, however. They were both outspoken and incredibly adaptable for their species. They almost never made a mystery out of their actions and their opinions.

Kestra found her weapon, but as she bent to retrieve it, she realized it was melted, even parts of it that were pure steel, into a ball of jumbled materials. It was as if it had been in an explosion or an extremely intense fire, but she had seen weapons found in the aftermath of such things and she’d never seen anything like this. She couldn’t even begin to formulate a suitable question for him, however, so she didn’t bother.

Noah, meanwhile, was struck with the overwhelming sensation that he had done everything wrong. It was a stark understanding and it filled him with fear like very few things could. Hadn’t he read that fairy tale dozens of times over the years to the children in his family and others? The words in Sarah’s mind when she had realized she was Imprinted upon a man she very nearly despised began to echo in his brain.

She could keep her heart from him.

Lovers but strangers. Forever.

All she had to do was put her mind to it, walling off her emotions. It was rare, but not unheard of. In those rare cases, it led to a perverse kind of insanity, a fate worse than death. Especially if one partner fell in love and the other one did not.

Kestra felt his fingers encircling her arm, dragging her up to her feet roughly and spinning her into his body as if they’d never stepped away from each other in the first place. The reflexive sensation of coming home as she settled against him made her angry, frustrated over her body’s misbehavior when she’d spent all of her life fine-tuning it as a weapon under her complete control. She reacted by bracing her hands against his chest and pushing hard away from him.

Noah didn’t let her go this time, using his significant strength against her. What was more, he was able to do it with a single arm around her waist, allowing his free hand to come up and push back her hair, baring her ear to his close, heated whisper.

“I do not know what you think to accomplish, but I can assure you that you will never be able to escape me just by leaving my home. I have been inside you,
Kikilia
. Not only today, but for months. Our hearts have thrummed to the beat of this chemistry between us for so long now. Do you really think distance will work any better now than it did all the while you were an ocean away?”

Kestra opened her mouth, but his audacity left her speechless. Worse, the potential truths of his suppositions were terrifying. However, he didn’t know her quite so well as he thought he did, she thought as a familiar flush of very explicit excitement coursed through her. It was a reaction that she recognized all too well.

He had just given her a challenge. What was more, it was a deadly one. She knew it as sure as she knew how to wire listening devices for sound. He was dangerous, she admitted to herself. She had probably known this from the outset, and it was probably why she had felt such an overwhelming attraction toward him.

Let him build his better mousetrap
, she thought to herself with almost wicked confidence and satisfaction.
There isn’t a cage made by man that can hold me.

Kestra lowered her chin, flicking up her snow-white lashes until he could very clearly see the danger in her eyes and the gentle tilt of her suddenly smiling lips.

“Would you like to make book on that?” she murmured, flicking her blue diamond gaze down the length of his entire body, clearly taking his measure and just as obviously finding herself unthreatened.

She wasn’t expecting the feral smile he sent her in return, though.

“I have all the money and time in the world to make good on that bet,
Kikilia
,” he whispered. “Whether you know it or not, you need me now. You will always need me.”

Kestra laughed, hard and harsh, a derisive sound that would have cowed any normal man. She was already beginning to realize that he was no normal man, so she didn’t underestimate him in that way.

“Listen,” she said quietly, “you can threaten and cajole all you like, you can even seduce me until the cows come home and we are both exhausted from it, but you will never, ever own me. Unless you have something better than idle threats, my mind will always remain my own, and so will my life. There is nothing you can do to change that. Now let go of me or I swear—”

“I already have changed it, although I would never want to change the honest essence of who you are. I am not who you think I am, Kestra.”

“I don’t
think
anything. I don’t care
who
you are. You’re as much a stranger to me as you ever were! You’re rich? Well, so am I. You’re strong and clearly have power? You haven’t even scratched the surface of my strength and my power. I don’t care how many little tarts come traipsing in here calling you
my lord
or whatever it is that gets you off, because I don’t impress that easily. Don’t challenge me. You’ll regret it. Now let me go!”

Noah finally did so, clearly more suddenly than she expected because she stumbled backward in her abrupt freedom.

“Kestra, you have no idea what you are going to do to yourself if you leave.”

She laughed, a snorting sound of disbelief.

“My God, you are on a trip, aren’t you? I survived just fine without you all these years, and I will damn well do it again. You were an itch, Noah, and you have just been scratched. So, it’s been swell, but I really must be going.”

Her haughty sarcasm was a practiced art, and she used it too well. His fingers curled into tight fists as she turned surely on her heel and marched out of the parlor with a hearty slam of the door. It took everything within him to control the surge of his temper, to keep his feet planted firmly on the floor and not tag after her like a schoolboy with a sick crush on the head cheerleader. He could have shown her the meaning of the word
power
, could have sucked her into his world with a heartbeat and a whirlwind of smoke and ashes. Hell, he could have blown up an entire country just to show her what she was enmeshed in whether she liked it or not.

But that was purely his infamous temper talking. He could no more harm an innocent than…

Noah shook out his fisted hands and exhaled harshly. He had already harmed innocents in his quest for her. The memory of Bella’s outrage bit as sharply as the recollection of her slap against his face did. Would Kestra ever know the price he had been willing to pay just to save her life? Did he have the cold heart it would take to throw that knowledge up in her face?

Patience
, he told himself, using the word like a mantra to soothe his sparking temper.
Patience.
Time was on his side. He hadn’t been lying about that. However, if he were to take advantage of it, she would pay a heavy price. All he had to do was wait, give it three, maybe four days. Then she would understand what it would mean to be without him. She would only grow weaker, sicker, eventually facing no future but her own death, unless she returned to him.

And he couldn’t bear the idea of it.

He had to find a better way.

The Miserable Princess

A Demon Fairy Tale

Cont’d…