One With the Shadows (17 page)

Perhaps she was, in many ways having nothing to do with her hymen. “Virginity matters not in the least to me.” He might have to revise his opinion that virgins were boring though. He was suddenly more excited to show her what it meant to really make love than to satisfy his own needs. Let his cock fail and be damned. “There are other sensations you’ll like.” He scooted down and set himself on his belly between her thighs. “Trust me now. I know women.”

He saw a little frisson of doubt cross her eyes and be replaced by a determined look. “That’s right.” He smiled, then turned his attention to the thatch between her legs. He parted the curls, drinking in the scent of her musk. He bent and let his tongue part the lips beneath. She gasped in shock. He laid his hands on her thighs to keep her from instinctively closing them against the intensity of feeling, and lapped again. Her wetness was salty and clean, like the sea. After five or six gentle strokes she relaxed into the sensation. He then paid more attention to her nub of pleasure. He would have her moaning and lifting her hips for more in a moment.

He did. She did.

Her shriek, when it came, was followed immediately by a wrenching shudder and she collapsed in tears. He wiped his mouth and slid up beside her to cradle her in his arms as she sobbed. He knew full well they were sobs of release and amazement, not sorrow. His own release seemed unimportant at this point. That was not to say his interest had flagged. On the contrary, his erection lay along her hip even now. He could feel the wetness at the tip born of denial. Fine. Let it be denied. Kate needed something very different just now.

*   *   *

Kate shuddered and sobbed in his arms. She couldn’t think why she was crying. It was the most wonderful sensation she had ever experienced. Though she’d thought she might be going mad, or maybe
had
gone mad when her world seemed to shatter into points of light. None of her other lovers had ever done
that
to her. It must be because no one had been brave enough to lick her … down there. She’d never even heard of that before and she thought she’d heard it all. How good of Gian to sacrifice himself in that way. It must have been a horrible task. And she would never experience it again.

That made her sobs subside into hiccups. He had been very good to her. Surely he deserved something in return. His arms around her felt more comforting than anything she had ever known. Had anyone ever just
held
her like that? She couldn’t remember it. Her mother, unknown that she was, perhaps. But then perhaps not. Who could have held anyone like this and still abandoned them? Gian Urbano, she reminded herself. He had held many just like this, and abandoned them, just as he would her shortly.

It didn’t matter. He still deserved something in return for what he had just done. Come to think of it, he undoubtedly expected it. No one performed such a generous act without expecting something in return. But what could she do to equal that?

“Is there some way I can give you that much pleasure? I will do it gladly.” She didn’t like that she sounded shy. Definitely not like a woman of the world.

He smiled down at her. Did he practice it to make it seem so … genuine? Of course he did. He’d done a good job. “Probably many ways. If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay simple. When you are ready, of course.”

“I’m ready now,” she assured him.

“So soon?”

Was there something to be ready for besides his sweating weight on top of her while she spread her legs and lay there, trying to breathe? Oh, he wanted to know if she had caught her breath after sobbing. She nodded and turned in his arms so she could spread her knees again.

But all he did was kiss her neck. It made her suck in air as though the breath was her first. And then his lips came back to kiss her lips again. The urgency of the first time was gone. He bit at her lower lip gently and swabbed it with his tongue. That marvelous tongue. It made her shudder just to think of what it had done to her. The prickle of his chest hair across her nipples sent sparks of sensation across her body. His hand on her waist made her acutely aware of how smooth his palm was. It moved to her hip, and then around it. He pulled her to him, and then he scooted around
under
her. Before she knew it, she was kneeling, straddling his hips, his cock lying between her legs with its leaking tip peeking out in front of her.

She smiled a question at him. What kind of a position was this? In truth it made her feel a little vulnerable, since her breasts and belly were so exposed. Even in the dim light, he would be able to see her clearly. Always before, the men wanted to spill their seed in her by crushing her underneath them where they couldn’t even see her. This was in some ways much more intimate. He made no suggestion, though his eyes were burning with heat. He wanted something. She looked down. Maybe he wanted her to touch his cock. She placed her thumb on the vein of the shaft and ran it up to the tip. It was larger than those of the men she had known when it was fully erect. She wondered uneasily if it would tear her when he started thrusting. She put that thought aside. He expected. She owed. She concentrated on giving him sensation. The leaking fluid made it easier to rub. He was breathing hard. She liked that. When he ran out of moisture, she slid her hips up and back across it. Her slickness was good for something. His hands sought out her waist and helped her move. That started her own nether parts tingling again. The vulnerability of her body to his eyes seemed to matter less as the sensation ramped up.

“Now you’re ready,” he whispered as he half sat and put his arm around her bottom. He lifted her as though she weighed nothing, and angled his shaft with his other hand. He eased her down until she was kneeling upright, his cock rubbing at her entry. “You are in control now, Kate. Do as you will.”

He meant to do it like this, with her sitting astride him? She set her lips. Well, if this would please him, she would do it. “Am I too heavy?”

A tiny smile played around the corners of his lips and lighted his eyes before he suppressed it. “No.”

She eased herself lower, settling, and felt his cock enter her, just barely. This was really quite nice. She could decide exactly how fast she could accept it. That would eliminate that awful dry, skewered feeling she remembered. Though dry didn’t seem to be a problem at all. It might even mean she could encompass all of him if she did it slowly enough. And she could decide just how she wanted to give him his pleasure. It was a peculiar feeling—being in control during the sexual act. Always before she had seemed … detached, a witness, a victim. But here he was, ceding her the direction of it. It was … equalizing.

She settled further. It felt quite satisfying to be filled. She wiggled her hips and pushed herself down. Ahhhh. That was nice. He sighed as she accepted him. And she wasn’t torn at all. She pushed herself up, experimentally, and lowered. He lifted his hips to meet her. Yes, that was even better. She had all of him inside her now. His hands moved to her waist again. He lifted only when she began to raise herself. He assisted only. His hand went round to cup her buttocks. She began to move just as the men had moved on top of her, slowly at first and then a little faster. He arched to meet her and lifted at her cue. It was effortless, really. On a whim she stopped and just rocked a little as she sat. He groaned. She could feel his member pressing against the inside of her belly. He changed the angle just a little by shifting her weight, and … and the sensation inside her seemed to multiply. She tried rocking again. “Oh!”

“Does that feel good?”

“Oh, oh, yes.” And what made it so special was that they were both feeling it. The pleasure was shared, and seemed to multiply as they passed it back and forth between them.

It felt so good she … she thought the madness might come on again, what with her nether lips grinding against his groin and him filling her so fully, and the tip of his shaft rubbing against the inside of her belly. And now she was raising and lowering herself faster, but he was helping her, and her buttocks were slapping against the soft mounds of his stones and the clenching muscle of his thighs, and he was arching, a grimace on his face, of pleasure? Pain?

*   *   *

Impotence was not a problem. Gian was driven almost to madness by the sensation of Kate sliding up and down on his cock. And he was filled with satisfaction because he was a true man again, and he had given her a pleasure she had never known before, and he would give it to her again and again in short order, until she was sated and dazed. He lifted her as she moaned and grunted. His chest, his belly, his brain were all full to bursting with emotion.

Oh, God.

Wasn’t high emotion just the trigger for things around him to burst into flame?

He stilled her movement. She pressed herself down on his cock until he gasped.
Banish emotion!
Maybe it was good he’d been denied orgasm since he got back. Maybe he would have set fire to anyone around him at the climax. He licked his lips and tried to quiet his breathing.

She opened her eyes. They had a question in them. “What’s wrong?”

He managed a wobbly smile. “Nothing. It’s just … just that I want to pay more particular attention to your pleasure.” He lifted her off him. She knelt at his side.

Her brows knitted. “I was having quite a bit of pleasure there. You weren’t?”

She knew very well he’d had. “Yes. Yes I was. But I’ll … I’ll just save myself for later.” He got up on one elbow and reached for her to draw her into his body where he could kiss her. His cock was screaming its disappointment at him.

She stayed his hands, looking wary. “I don’t want this to be one-sided. I’ve only just realized how … good it is when two share sensations…” She sat back and glanced to his cock, throbbing insistently against his belly. “If you’re worried about … about faltering, that really doesn’t seem to be a problem.” She gave a roguish smile and reached for his erection.

That
would be bad. He flinched away. And immediately saw the hurt in her eyes.

Her smile wavered and she turned her damaged cheek away. “If you’d rather not…”

“God, Kate, no … it’s not that.” He gathered her into his arms, though she had stiffened. She was trying to harden herself against the hurt. He swallowed. The only thing that might spare her pain was the truth. “I … I didn’t tell you everything about my condition.” He buried his head in her neck so he didn’t have to look at her. Her soft scent assailed him. “I think I started the fire in your rooms. I was angry at Elyta. My anger expressed itself in … flame. It’s happened before. What if, at the climax now, I did something like that again? What if I burned you?”

*   *   *

“What?” Kate couldn’t believe her ears. He thought he started fires with just his anger? And if he spilled his seed he might burn her? This was too wild.

“I create spontaneous combustion at times of high emotion.” His voice cracked.

She held him back from her. Even now the feel of his satin skin covering the hard muscles on his shoulders sent shrieks of sensation to her loins. She glanced to his engorged member. Even as he protested, he wanted to climax with her. He couldn’t hide that. She examined his eyes. Pain, regret, determination. He believed what he said.

She didn’t. No one could create flames from nothing. He was just nervous about ending a long bout of impotence. The pressure was too much … He was making excuses in order not to face it. There was no chance she’d let him give her pleasure without taking his own. That smacked of what she’d experienced with the marks so long ago. And she rather thought she’d been on the brink of some discovery when they’d stopped, some transformation that would change the rest of her life. “How many women have you burned at … intimate moments?”

“Well, none,” he said as though that didn’t matter. “But I haven’t … carried through in more than two years.”

“Oh. That’s right. When you actually started fires, it occurred when you were angry.”

“Don’t make fun of this. I … I started the fire when Elyta and I were struggling, and I set LaRoque’s lodgings on fire when he was trying to kill me. And now that I look back on it, I started fires in Algiers, when I was fighting a war there.”

Kate suppressed a smile. The fires were all coincidence of course. Lamps overturned in struggles, coals from open fires in North Africa scattered. She’d never make him believe that. So she took another tack. “Sounds to me like you start fires only when your life is in danger.”

She saw him cataloging the incidents, behind his eyes. “It may be.” His eyes focused on her. “But what if it’s not?”

Now she let her smile show. “I promise I will sing out at the first sensation of burning.”

“You don’t know the danger…”

“I won’t let you pleasure me if you won’t join in.” Ultimatums were never fair, but really, he was being ridiculous. A stubborn look came into his eyes. “Are you really going to let this come between us, when you aren’t certain?” His resolve flickered. “You’ll be a monk, and I…” She had to say it. “I’ll never experience what it’s like to share that sensation together.”

“Don’t say that.” He sat up and took her in his arms. She softened into his embrace. She’d won. She knew it if he didn’t. “Of course you will.”

“I don’t think so. Don’t deprive me, Gian.” It was his turn to hold her away from him. His eyes were filled and still uncertain. “It will be well. You’ll see.” She ran her hand along his jawline and he melted. He took her hand in both of his and kissed her palm. His lips were soft. It made her almost shudder with desire. She pressed her body into his, and rubbed her breasts across his chest. Her hand strayed to his cock and stroked it lightly. “Now where were we?”

He kissed her neck, gently, just as he had caressed her palm. The brink that she was sure he had been on seemed distant now. He’d try to hold himself back. Well, she wasn’t going to let him. Her lips found his and she kissed him thoroughly. His cock was throbbing in her hand. Satisfaction warred with desire in her. She pushed him back firmly onto the tangled bedclothes and straddled him again. Now it was he who must feel vulnerable. She took his eager cock and tilted it up, then eased herself down over it. That made her breath come in hissing gasps. She reached around to caress his balls. She raised herself and lowered. He was beginning to breathe heavily. That was good.