Obsessed (26 page)

But still his body was braced above hers, and she wanted to feel his weight. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him down to meet her. His cock was hard against her mound and his hips solid between her thighs.

Jalen groaned and broke off the kiss. “Slow down.”

“No.” Ranelle shook her head and tried to pull him back to her. “I want to feel you from the inside.”

“You will.” He lowered his head and nuzzled her ear, his golden hair sliding across her breasts. “Soon, mi enchantrei. Soon.”

Frustration coursed through her. She was wild with need for him and couldn’t bear to wait any longer. He trailed light kisses down her jaw line, slowly working his way to her chin, and then on to her collarbone.

And when he reached her breasts, he kissed the soft skin between them, ignoring her nipples.

”Jalen,” she cried. “Stop this torture.”

“Is that what you call it?” A hint of laughter was in his voice, and Ranelle considered slugging him.

“Yes. Now suck my nipples,” she demanded.

With a hungry groan Jalen complied, fastening his hot mouth on her breast and flicking her nipple with his tongue. She arched her back, moaning with pleasure. “My other nipple. Suck it, please.”

As he captured it, Ranelle wriggled beneath him, feeling as though she might explode if he didn’t enter her right now.

“I want you to take me.” She almost screamed when he moved his mouth from her breast, and began kissing a trail down her belly. “You are near to driving me out of my mind.”

He gave a soft laugh and placed a kiss in her curls. “Soon, my love.” And then he flicked his tongue along the inside of her thigh.

Unable to take another moment of this sweet torture, Ranelle grasped his head and pulled his mouth to her folds. “Lick my clit.”

Jalen gave a rumble of pleasure and delved into her wetness. By the gods, his mouth was incredible. He swirled his tongue, twirling it around her woman’s pearl, sending her closer and closer to the precipice.

Just as she reached the summit he stopped, and Ranelle did scream at him. “Jalen!”

He rose above her and pressed his mouth tight to hers, and she tasted herself upon his lips and tongue.

When he pulled away, his blue eyes were dark with passion. “You belong to me, Ranelle. Do you understand?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck as she writhed beneath him, trying to pull him back to her. “Jalen, please. I need you.”

“Answer me,” he commanded as he pressed his cock to her belly. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.” She dug her fingernails into his back. “Yes, yes, yes!”

A possessive smile crossed his face and he murmured, “Then we are as one.”

And with that he thrust his cock deep inside her, tearing past her virgin shield and Ranelle screamed with the incredible pleasure of it. Amazement flashed through her that she had experienced no pain at his penetration. She rocked her body up to meet him and the feelings that coursed her body were so intense and exquisite she thought she might fly apart.

The tingling at her mound and on her forehead grew more powerful with every thrust. Blood rushed in her ears and the only sound she heard was the pounding of her heart.

Every fragment of her body was alive and on fire as he took her. Higher and higher the sensations rose. Vaguely she was aware that the cave had filled with a pulsating silver and blue light that seemed to emanate from their bodies.

And just as she reached the precipice, Jalen pressed his forehead to hers.

Silvery blue light blinded her as she screamed with her orgasm. Distantly she heard Jalen shout and felt his cock throbbing as he spilled his seed inside her. Flash after flash of lightning-like aftershocks tremored throughout her body.

The incredible pleasure was almost more than Ranelle could bear, and it didn’t seem as though it would ever stop. Her orgasm had not only rocked her body, but she had felt it in her mind when Jalen had pressed their foreheads together.

When the sensations finally ebbed, Jalen rolled over, bringing Ranelle with him so that she was resting on top, his cock still deep within her.

“You belong to me,” he murmured, his voice rumbling with exhaustion. “For eternity, mi enchantrei.”

Jalen awoke with Ranelle still atop him, his cock still buried in her. As always when he wakened, he was instantly alert. His senses told him it was late morning, but overcast outside the cave. They were yet undetected by the Sorcerer—not that Jalen had doubted his magic shield would hold.

Drinking deeply of Ranelle’s womanly essence and the smells of their sex, Jalen smiled with satisfaction. His first mating with her had been far beyond anything that he had dreamed. He had heard that joining with one’s heartmate was the greatest of all Elvin joys. Now that he had experienced such a joining, he knew it to be true.

“Mmmmm,” Ranelle murmured as she stirred in her sleep, and his cock hardened within her. He tightened his grip around her waist, and her dark tresses slid along his arms, her breath warm upon his chest. A smile flitted across her lips, and the enrli at her forehead glittered silver.

It would be the greatest joy in his long life to wake every morning with his heartmate. She would be even more beautiful when her belly grew large with his child, and with every babe to follow.

The Council might be displeased with a non-Elvin woman as his mate, but even they could not refute the choice of the goddess and her wisdom in giving him a Nordain female as his heartmate.

Jalen began massaging Ranelle’s back, her skin so soft against his callused palms. She gave a small moan, and he cupped her buttocks and pressed her tight against him.

“Wake, mi enchantrei.” He pressed his lips against her forehead, enjoying the pulse of her enrli against his lips.

Ranelle blinked and a slow sleepy smile spread across her face. “Is it morning?”

“Aye.” He smiled in return. “My cock is near to bursting for you.”

“I feel you inside me.” She wiggled her hips and he groaned at the sensation.

“Sit up,” he told her as he grasped her tighter. “And ride me.”

“My Elvin stallion.” At her words a light blush stole across her cheeks. Her eyelids fluttered and she moaned as she pushed herself up, her small hands braced against his chest. “By all the gods, your cock feels so good within me.”

Jalen gave a quick pump of his hips, causing Ranelle to arch her back and cry out. Begging for his touch, her breasts thrust forward. He captured them in his large hands, enjoying the feel of their lush softness against his palms.

“Ride my cock,” he commanded as he pinched and rolled her nipples between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. “Fuck me.”

She moved her hips, sliding his staff within her tight core. Her cries and her movements grew more and more frantic as she rode him harder yet.

“That’s it.” He moved his hands from her breasts to her hips, his eyes focused on her face. “Aye, my lovely Ranelle, ride me.”

Her head was thrown back, her eyes closed, and her enrli sparkling with silver light, growing brighter with every plunge as she rode him. Just watching her was pleasure in and of itself, adding to his own fervor. Another joining like the one they had experienced last night would render them both exhausted again, so he refrained from touching the enrli at their foreheads together.

Jalen gripped her hips and held her tight as he thrust into her hard and fast. “Come with me,” he ordered. The enrli above his cock pulsed, in sync with the one at her mound. Ranelle cried out with her orgasm as his own climax burst through him. He continued pumping his staff in and out of her, ’til every last drop of his seed was spent.

Feeling absolutely boneless, as though her body was made of water, Ranelle collapsed against Jalen’s chest. She might never move again.

“As much as I wish for it, I fear ’tis not possible to lie here all day,” Jalen said, a teasing note to his voice.

She raised her head and frowned. “You were reading my thoughts.”

“Nay.” He trailed one finger down her nose to the tip. “I was voicing my own.”

“Ah.” Her eyes widened as she caught his hand in hers and studied his fingers, then looked at his forehead and arms. “All your wounds have healed. There is no sign that you were ever injured. Not even a scar.”

“I am Elvin.” Jalen smiled. “Come. We must ready ourselves.”

With regret, Ranelle moved from Jalen’s chest and onto the krstn blanket. His cock was still hard when it slid from inside her, and she missed the feel of it deep within her.

In an effortless movement, Jalen got to his feet and retrieved his waist pouch. While he dug through the pouch he settled beside her on the krstn, then brought out a wrapped bar and handed it to her. “’Tis gorni. Elvin food,” he said as he brought out another one for himself. “It will give you nourishment enough for several hours.”

Ranelle unwrapped the bar and discarded the covering onto the krstn. The strange foodstuff appeared to be a stick of birdseed glued together with a clear paste, and she cast Jalen a doubtful look.

He was already devouring his own birdseed bar. “Try it. ’Tis most delicious.”

Taking a tentative bite, Ranelle was pleasantly surprised at the rich flavor that rolled over her tongue. “Mmmmm.” She closed her eyes as she enjoyed the Elvin treat. “It tastes like spiced cakes, only better.” Nuts, cinnamon, cloves, and other spices she couldn’t identify.

Energetic warmth coursed her body as she savored the gorni, and she felt as though she could scale the cliff to the shore below with no help from her Elvin god. She finished the bar and opened her eyes to see Jalen watching her and smiling.

“’Tis a shame to cover such a beautiful body with clothing.” He held up the tunic and trousers she had ‘borrowed’ from Zanden’s fortress. “Alas, you need the protection from rocks and the elements.”

For a moment she pictured herself descending the cliff naked, clinging to Jalen’s equally nude body. Heat rose to her cheeks at the grin that spread across his face, and she was afraid that this time he had read her mind.

He began pulling on his own tunic and breeches, and she furrowed her brow as she watched him. She could swear that last night he had worn black, but today his clothing looked as gray as the cave’s walls. In Fiorn, the first time she saw him, she thought he had worn brown. Or had it been blue?

“It changes,” he said, startling Ranelle from her contemplation. “The color shifts depending on what surrounds me.”

“No wonder I could never see you when you followed me in Fiorn.” Ranelle stood and slid the tunic over her head and pulled the bottom down over her hips. “I sensed you, but no matter how I tried, I could never see you.”

“You sensed me because I permitted you to.” Jalen shoved one foot into a boot, and then his other. “You didn’t see me because that I did not allow.”

Ranelle stepped into her breeches and drew them tight around her waist. “Why did you let me sense you?”

She caught her breath as he moved to her, and cupped her face in his palms. He brushed his lips across hers. “You bewitched me the very moment I laid eyes upon you.”

By the gods’ gifts, she wanted to melt into this man every time he touched her.

His lips met hers again, and his tongue slid into her mouth. He tasted sweet, of the gorni and his own elemental male flavor.

“Again you distract me.” He kissed the corner of her mouth and moved to her ear. “I fear we shall never leave this cave.”

She sighed. “Would that be such a bad fate?”

Jalen’s soft laughter sent a thrill through her, straight to her nether regions. “Nay. With you it would be the best of destinies.”

He scooped up her makeshift belt that he had discarded last night, brought it around her waist and tied it. “I have something important to tell you.” His face grew solemn and her stomach teetered as she sensed that what he had to say was serious.

“Have you ever wondered from where you came?” Jalen brushed hair from her face with a gentle hand as Ranelle nodded. “Did you ever feel as though you yearned to fly, to be one with the ravens?”

She widened her eyes as Jalen spoke aloud her fondest desire. “How do you know this? Did you read it in my thoughts?”

“Nay.” He grasped a handful of her hair and smiled. “You are Nordain, my fair Ranelle. Taken as a babe from Phoenicia and brought to Fiorn to be raised with two other stolen children. You are all orphans, yet not.”

Ranelle’s body vibrated with tremors as she tried to digest what he had just said. She was not human—she was Nordain?

She shook her head. “It cannot be. I do not take raven form and fly.”

“But you can.” He pressed his forehead to hers, enrli to enrli and he filled her senses with warmth and assurance…and trust.

Yet the magnitude of his statements overwhelmed her, rattling around in her brain like pebbles in a box. “What do you mean I was taken?”

He pulled back and sighed, but did not release his hold upon her tresses. “When you were only a toddler, you were stolen from your family by one of your own blood.” Tremors wracked Ranelle’s body as he continued, “The young man who kidnapped you learned of your destiny through the Seraphine Chronicles and his own twisted visions. He brought you to the house you were raised in, and arranged for Tierra and Liana to be delivered there as well.”

“I do not understand.” Her mind whirled and the cramps in her stomach grew more fierce. “My blood stole me. What does that mean?”

Jalen’s jaw tightened and his expression grew almost fierce. “One of your brothers.”

Numbness crept into her limbs and her hair all but stood on end. “I have brothers?”

“Three.” Jalen began rubbing her shoulders in a manner meant to comfort her, but the numbness continued to seep through her body. “The youngest of the three is Renn. The eldest brothers are twins. One is Aric, King of the Nordain.”

“And the other twin,” she said slowly, “the one who took me is…”

His throat worked, and she knew it was difficult for him to say. The anger in his voice was apparent, as he replied, “The Sorcerer Zanden.”

Ranelle’s eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth as horror filled her being. Her knees gave out and she would have dropped to the floor had it not been for Jalen’s strong grasp.