On A Wicked Dawn (21 page)

He seemed to know; he wasted no more time. Breaking the kiss, he lifted her, placing her on her knees on the edge of the bed. Before she could even wonder, he ducked his head and set his lips to her breast. Set his hot mouth to one peak and suckled fiercely.

Her head fell back; her gasp shivered through the room. He feasted like a king, knowing her his slave. His hands, tight about her waist, held her steady, then one hand released and left her; the other slid to her hip and closed, hard, anchoring her, pressing her down so she sat on her ankles.

He laved her breasts, suckled, nipped—tortured the tightly pebbled peaks, his hot mouth pressing heat again and again beneath her skin. Her hands closed on his skull, holding him to her; it was only when he drew back and straightened that she realized he'd pulled off his boots and stripped off his breeches.

As naked as she, he was suddenly there, standing before her. She felt her eyes go round as she took in the sight, drank in the glory. She started to reach for him but he reached for her; gripping her waist, he raised her on her knees, drew her to him and found her lips again. Drew her once more into the heat of his embrace, into the flames and the fire, the heated, dizzying game of conquest and delight.

He conquered while she rode the wave of delight he evoked. She was with him, matching him kiss for kiss, breath for gasping breath as the kiss dissolved into an expression of raging needs, an inferno of unfettered desire. His hands roamed her curves, brutally explicit, no facade, no veneer, to mute his driving need. A need she gloried in, without thought or inhibition wantonly incited.

The feel of his hard body, hot and urgent about her, against her, the evidence of his desire never more real, shredded the last vestiges of modesty, swept away the last primitive restrictions, all remaining reservations.

He urged her back, one knee rising and pushing between hers, parting her thighs. His muscled thigh, raspy with crinkly hair, rode against her curls; her breath caught, tangled
in her throat. He deliberately shifted, pressing against that sensitive spot, knowingly winding her tight . . .

Until she gasped and let her head fall back, struggling to ride the sensual tide. Her skin was flaming, her body melting, her nerves tightening unforgivingly, her senses in disarray. Something else, something beyond all her experience, was filling her, driving her; a hot fire was consuming her from within. He pressed her back to the bed and she went eagerly, wanting, wanting . . . he followed her down, his other knee joining the first in forcing hers apart, spreading her thighs so he could settle between.

The touch of his thighs, crinkly hair abrading the sensitive inner faces of hers, made her force her lids up. He held himself over her, arms braced. He was glancing down to where they would join; the set of his face, angular planes stripped by desire to those of a ruthless conqueror, hard, unrelenting, elementally male, sank into her mind.

He shifted fractionally; between her thighs she felt the touch, the pressure of the broad blunt head she'd earlier admired, felt its inherent strength and heat as it parted her swollen, slippery folds. He glanced at her face, caught her gaze. Turning fully back to her, braced above her, her gaze trapped in his, he flexed his hips and pressed in.

Just a little way. Then he smoothly withdrew—she clutched his sides. He uttered a gravelly laugh. “This is where, I believe, I'm supposed to tell
you
not to worry.”

He reversed direction on the words, but again halted only a little way in. Just enough to tantalize, to drive her insane. She sucked in a breath, let it out as he again withdrew. “I'm not worried.”

One black brow arched, then he lowered his head; she lifted her lips to meet his. In the instant before they made contact, he murmured, “You should be.” Then he covered her lips, took her mouth, but kept the caress light, leaving her senses open and aware, trapped prey for the mesmerizing sensations he pressed on her, flexing his hips, gliding in, then back, just inside the entrance to her body.

Until she writhed and lifted, her body arching, wanting more. Until she couldn't stand any more of his teasing, until she was wet and open and so hungry with desire, so aware of the yawning emptiness inside her that she tried to break from the kiss, sank her nails into his sides when he refused to let her.

Abruptly she found herself kissed so ravenously she lost all touch with the world. His tongue deep in her mouth, he plundered, ruthlessly shackling her. She felt his strength gather, felt his hips shift, settling more heavily between hers. Then he thrust powerfully.

She cried out, the sound smothered in their kiss. He didn't stop but drove on, all the way in, steadily pushing deep, stretching her, impaling her. She couldn't breathe except through him; her mind struggled to take in what seemed impossible, the sensation of him hard and strong, embedded deep within her, filling her fuller than she'd imagined could be.

Before she caught her breath, he drew back, then pressed in again; she tensed, expecting the same sharp pain, but it didn't eventuate. Yet she still found herself struggling—tensing against the welling pressure inside, the inherent force as he filled her again.

He repeated the exercise, then released her lips; his eyes, ebony under his lashes, glinted down at her as, the weight of his lower body holding her immobile, he again withdrew and slowly, even more powerfully, entered her.

She felt every inch, every last fraction as he filled her, felt her body tighten until she arched.

“Relax.” Bending his head, he touched his lips to the corner of hers. “Lie back and let it happen. Let your body learn.”

Despite the words, it was a growled command, one she had little choice but to obey. He continued to move above her, within her; gradually, her defensive tension unwound.

And the intimacy of the moment caught her. Slid into her mind as he slid more and more easily into her body, as the hair at his groin tangled with her curls. As she felt the first
stirrings of submerged passion, a
frisson
of reawakening desire.

She glanced up, caught his eye—it was the wrong moment for awareness to strike, yet it did. Full awareness of her nakedness, her vulnerability, of how essentially helpless she was in the face of his strength, trapped beneath him, her thighs wide.

What he saw in her face, she had no idea, yet although the harsh, set planes of his face never softened, the line of his lips did.

“Stop thinking.” He quoted her words back at her, then withdrew from her completely, only to return in the same heartbeat, more forcefully than before, until he was fully seated, jerking her slightly, sending a streak of sensation through her, giving notice of his intention, and the pleasure to come.

Still holding her gaze, he came down on his elbows, letting his body down atop hers. “Stop resisting.”

She did; the feel of him, so close, so real, reassured her—the warmth of his body, the contradictory comfort she drew from his muscled strength, washed through her and swept away the last of her maidenly fears. In truth, she was a maiden no longer. She was his.

She would have smiled but her face felt too tight; instead, she sent her hands sliding around to spread on his back. Holding tight, she lifted her face to his, breathed against his lips, “Show me then. Now.”

His lips quirked in the instant before they met hers. The kiss was long, deep—undisguised. “Stay with me then,” he murmured, and took her mouth, then took her body again.

And again.

And again. The relentless repetition fed a whirlwind inside them, a hungry, compelling tide of need. It combined with the restless flames of desire, flaring anew, stronger, more powerful, now unrestrained, unrestricted, then the power coalesced.

And erupted.

Into a firestorm.

A raging, uncontrollable conflagration where the physical, sensual, and emotional swirled, where lips melded, tongues tangling, hands gripping, their bodies merged and came together, locked and fused, driven to give, driven to take, driven to be one.

The force was frightening, thrilling, utterly compelling. She moaned; he gasped. She sank her nails into his back and arched wildly, taking him deeper, wanting him deeper, satisifed only when he thrust harder, faster, ever more powerfully.

He sank one hand into her hair and held her down, ravaged her mouth as he plundered her body. Beneath him, she squirmed, hot, urgent—wild to provoke him further.

It wasn't a game, but a fiery dance of desire, the recognition of a need beyond desperate, a need beyond her knowledge, a need that had to be fulfilled.

A need he seemed to share, equally driven, equally susceptible.

That welling need pulled them down, out, away from the world, onto a plane on which nothing beyond them and that need existed. On which nothing bar the fusion of their bodies was real, their senses held, locked, overwhelmed by the slickness, the heat, the gasping urgency, the spiraling tension. The steadily escalating excitement.

She would have given anything to grasp the bright triumph, the pinnacle of fulfillment that hovered and beckoned, just out of sensual reach. He drove her on, and she sobbed; he thrust deeper yet and her body closed hungrily, holding him, tightening yet more. . . .

And she suddenly felt it—let go, let herself ride the tide, joyously let it sweep her up, let it claim her soul and take her to the stars. Her body imploded in heat and glory, shards of sensation flashing down every nerve to melt in satiation just under her skin. Golden joy suffused her; the wave crested and she held tight—felt him thrust deep and hold still, holding her there, in glory, then the wave slowly ebbed.

Luc dragged in a breath, eyes closed tight as he felt the last spasms of her completion fade, then his body took
charge, no longer his to command, driven by a need he couldn't control, a need he had to slake.

A need to make her his, to bind her to him—to have her and know her to a degree beyond the carnal. To command her surrender. Complete and absolute.

With his.

He couldn't stop himself from reaching for the gilded fruit, even though enough of his mind yet functioned to warn that, once tasted, he'd crave it again and again. Not even the certainty of lifelong addiction could turn him from his goal—bracing his arms, lifting above her, he watched as he loved her, watched her body take him in, cradle him, hold him. Watched her sumptuous, pearlescent curves lift and ease as she rode his thrusts, felt her acceptance as he spread her thighs wider and filled her deeper yet.

Release came on a long wave, a tsunami of feelings that built and rose and finally broke, pouring about him, crashing through him as he shuddered and filled her, spilled his seed deep inside her, then slumped, exhausted, wrung out beside her—more deeply sated, more deeply at peace, than he'd ever been in his life.

They were both exhausted. The sun sank low, slanting through the windows, illuminating their tangled limbs as they lay wrapped together, too drained to stir, and waited for life to reassert itself, waited for the world to start turning.

Slumped on his back, Amelia a warm silken bundle beside him, her head cradled on his chest, Luc idly played with her curls, and tried to think.

Tried to define just what had happened, and what it meant.

The most frightening thing was he couldn't even define what “it” was—the force that had risen out of nowhere and driven him—he suspected them, but couldn't be sure. She, of course, thought it only normal; he knew better. The point that exercised him most was that it had felt like it belonged, as if such a force was a natural part of him and her—a natural element in their physical interactions. An element that had elevated the latter to heights sufficient to stun even him.

He closed his eyes, tried not to think of the moment he'd first slid into the heat of her, or the moment he'd finally been able to thrust as deep inside her as he'd wished, and feel her close lovingly about him. She'd been so damned tight—easing her into letting him ride her freely had taxed his will, yet the result had been worth every iota of restraint. . . .

Swallowing a groan, he opened his eyes and stared at the canopy. He was hard and throbbing, but he couldn't have her again, not with dinner drawing near . . .

The thought focused his mind on where they were, on the hour, the house. The company. All things he could define. Lifting his head, he glanced across the room—at the door he hadn't locked. Now he was listening, he heard the shuffles and scrapes of distant footfalls.

“Mmm . . .” She stirred drowsily. Then her hand drifted from his chest, down over his torso—

He caught her wrist, manacled it. “We haven't time.” Folding back her arm, he hefted her up, then brushed back her tangled hair. Met her gaze, brilliantly blue, lazily sensual, noted her lips, swollen and red. “I'll have to leave before the other ladies start emerging. One thing—there's blood on the coverlet.”

She smiled smugly. “It's all right—it's mine. I brought it. I'll just take it home again.”

Lips compressing, he narrowed his eyes, remembered her transparent wrap—not something her mother had bought her for Christmas. She'd planned, and planned well—witness his current position. “Very well.” He rolled, taking her, too, pinning her beneath him—not that she struggled. He caught her hands, raised them, pressed them back to the bed on either side of her head, and kissed her—deeply, thoroughly, as he wished.

She undulated beneath him, sinuously sirenlike. Ending the kiss, he lifted his head and used his weight to hold her still. “Not now.”

“Surely we have time—“

“No.” He hesitated, looking down at her, then bent his head, trailed a kiss to her ear, and whispered, “Next time I
have you, I plan on taking at least an hour, and we'll have to gag you, because I promise you'll scream.”

Drawing away, he studied her face. She simply stared back at him, thoughts whizzing behind her eyes.

He smiled—wolfishly. Then he lifted from her and left the bed.