The Ritual (19 page)

He lifted me up against him, stood up and put me on my feet, then started fumbling with the fastenings of my trousers. The hair on his chest was tickling my nipples, and I buried my face in the crook of his neck, nipping at the skin and kissing the pulse point in his throat which fluttered under my lips. He moaned, cursed when the knot in my drawstring only pulled tighter, then impatiently slid the knife from his boot and sliced through it.

“Hey!” I giggled as he dropped the knife and pushed my trousers and smallclothes down over my hips, and he flashed me a grin before claiming my mouth again.

“I’ll buy you another pair,” he muttered, then gasped when I began undoing the buttons on his trousers with one hand and cupped my other hand over the hard ridge underneath.

“You’ll be buying me trousers forever at this rate,” I teased, trying to concentrate on what I was doing, and heard him give a chuckle which turned into a moan when I loosed the last button and moved my hand to encircle his cock, rubbing and stroking it. He was hot, hard and ready, and I kicked off my trousers, desperate for him to fill me.

He let go of me for a moment, taking a step back and looking at my body with ravenous desire in his eyes, and tried to do the same with his own trousers. Unfortunately, where I had been barefooted he was wearing his boots, and the fabric became irrevocably stuck around his ankles, even though he sat down and tried to yank it off.

“Gods-fucking-dammit,” he swore, struggling for a moment more, then he surged back upright. “Come here,” he growled as he caught me around the waist, lifted me up and sank to his knees. I wrapped my legs around him and he dropped forward, placing me on the ground and entering me in one fierce, deep stroke that made me arch and cry out in pleasure.

“Oh, Gods, Rin,” he moaned, dropping his forehead against mine, and when I ran my hands over his shoulders and down his back I could feel him tremble. It surprised and confused me, but he left me little time to think when he started thrusting.

His movements were steady and sure, and his hands travelled across my skin with practiced finesse, teasing and pleasuring as he pulled out of me then sank back in all the way, filling me deeply and searing me with his feverish heat. I met his every stroke, lifting my hips and rubbing against him, caressing and kissing him, frantic with the urgency of desire too long denied. His breathless grunts and moans drove my need ever higher, and the feel of his slick skin as it slid against mine was everything I had dreamed of, and more.

Then I felt his tongue run past the shell of my ear, and the shivers he had been causing until then exploded into ecstasy. I arched again and cried out, and heard him groan in response. “Come on,” he encouraged me, thrusting faster and deeper as he clasped one arm around my waist and pulled me tight, and rolled my nipple between his fingers with his other hand. Then he trailed his tongue further up, closed his lips around the tip of my ear and suckled.

The combination of sensations was pleasure beyond anything I had ever experienced in my life. I bucked against him and cried out, my orgasm washing over me with an intensity that left me reeling, and I dimly felt him tense, then shove into me hard and deep before crying out in his own release.

Almost immediately afterwards he rolled off me, and I felt bereft. To have him inside me had been bliss, and although I was still coming down from my high I felt a keen disappointment at his absence. I wanted to protest – it had been over too soon, the whole experience had passed too quickly, and I wanted more, was desperate for so much more. I was too spent to speak, however, and instead I tried to push away my dismay and concentrate on what had just happened.

And then he was back, rolling up against me, his skin still slick and hot against my own. His hand cupped my breast, his lips touched my ear, and when I felt him run a foot upwards along my leg I realised that he had merely freed himself from the remainder of his clothing. The relief made me want to laugh, but then his tongue ran past the shell of my ear again, and just like that I was back on the edge of orgasm, gasping and moaning in startled pleasure.

He chuckled quietly and I felt his hand slide down, across my stomach and belly, then lower still until he cupped my mound. His fingers dipped down and into me, slicking themselves on my juices, and when he brought them back up and moved to circle my centre of pleasure he also closed his lips around the tip of my ear again and sucked at it.

I didn’t know which of the two actions did it, or whether it was the combination, but again I exploded into orgasm, crying out as I twitched and spasmed against him, then panting as I lay recovering.

“Mmm, you are deliciously responsive,” Zash crooned against my ear, amused and satisfied.

“How the fuck did you manage to do that?” I brought out, still gasping for air.

“With you? With ease, it seems,” he purred. “Shall I do it again? I think you might have it in you…”

It happened slower this time, but happen it did. He licked and caressed my nipples, trailed his lips upwards along my collarbone and neck while his hand moved down again, and when his mouth reached my ear I whimpered, almost afraid of the strength of the feelings he coaxed out of me.

“Relax,” he whispered. “This feels good, right?” His lips began to nibble and tease, and once again he sought out the swollen nub between my legs. I spasmed once, and he crooned in his throat. “Easy,” he said as my breathing became ever more irregular and I whimpered again. “You’re nearly there.”

“Zash… Oh Gods, Zash!” I moaned, nearly paralysed with pleasure, and he kissed my ear.

“There we go,” he murmured, and suckled the tip once more. For the third time I came, and this time I had no voice left to cry out.

“No more,” I begged when I finally had my breath back. “Please, no more. I don’t think I can survive anything more.”

“You can, and you will,” he promised, pulling me close to him, “but not now. Not just yet.” He kissed me, at leisure this time, and I clung to him with the last vestiges of my strength.

“I still don’t know how you managed that,” I whispered after a while. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

He blinked at me in surprise. “You really don’t know?”

I shook my head, too tired, too sated to hide how vulnerable he made me by knowing my body better than I did myself, and unsure whether I wanted to hide it at all. If making love to him would always be like this, I wasn’t sure whether I’d ever want to do anything else again.

He rolled onto his back, pulling me on top of him. “You’re a half-elf, Rin,” he said. “In sex, this,” he ran his fingers past my ear, “is your biggest asset.”

Even that simple caress made me shiver again, but I shook my head in disbelief. “How can that be? How come I’ve never found that out before?”

His mouth twitched into a half-smile and he shrugged coyly. “Bad lovers?”

I took a breath to protest, then let it out again as a thought occurred to me. “Human lovers,” I muttered.

“Hmm?” he said distractedly, pulling my head down and nibbling at my throat.

I pulled loose. “You’re the first half-elf I’ve fucked. I’ve only fucked humans before.”

“That could explain it,” he admitted. “Elves know about this, since they’re the same, but I suppose not many humans do. It’s how elves use us for sex slaves, you know,” he said, his eyes focusing past me as he folded his hands behind his head. When he continued his voice was bitter. “We’re perfect for those snooty bitches. Prettier than humans, no chance of getting them pregnant and easily stimulated. Just the ears isn’t enough, but a few touches in the right places… The more aroused you are, the more sensitive your ears get. It enhances everything you do.”

“So I could do the same to you?” I said, intrigued, and his gaze snapped back to me.

“If I let you, yes,” he said, a smile curling around his lips.

“And why wouldn’t you let me?” I ran my fingers through his hair, brushing it away from his face before starting to kiss his nose, his cheekbones, his eyes. His breath hissed in sharply when I dipped my head down and caught his earlobe between my teeth, and he breathed out again when all I did was suckle it gently.

“Why indeed?” he replied eventually, running his hands down my back and cupping my bottom. Against my stomach I could feel his cock starting to swell again, and I rolled off him.

“I think I get it,” I breathed, trailing my fingertips across his chest. “I could, for instance, do this…” I bent over and ran my tongue past the rim of his ear, hearing his brea
th catch again, “but that’d be too soon, really.”

“It would?”

“Absolutely. You’re aroused, true, but only a little. First I have to get you impatient.” I trailed my hand further down, smiling at the intent look on his face. His eyes were closed in concentration, and he tensed when I ran my hand across his hip and down his leg, then up again along the inside. When I reached his balls and caressed them for a heartbeat I saw his cock twitch, and smiled.

“Impatient,” he repeated, sounding sceptical if a tad breathless.

“Maybe impatient is the wrong word. Let’s say eager instead.”

“Eager,” he said with equal scepticism. “Are you saying I’m not eager?”

“Right now? No. You’re hard.” I flicked his cock gently. “That’s not the same.”

“I’ll show you how eager I am,” he growled. He surged up, grabbed me around the waist and pulled me against him for a kiss.

“That’s a start, yes,” I chuckled when he came up for breath, rubbing my breasts against his chest and dipping my head down to nibble at his throat. “Mmm, your heart’s beating faster. If I touched your ears now it’d feel much better…” I reached up, brushed his hair aside and smiled when he held his breath. “But not yet.”

He cursed colourfully. “Are you sure you’re getting how this works?”

“Oh, definitely. I need you to want me, want me like you did the first time, want me enough to cut the clothes from my body.” I kissed him hard, slid my tongue into his eager mouth and rubbed my whole body against his while I caressed his buttocks, then his inner knee as I pulled his leg up over mine.

“I need you to want to shove your cock into me, fast and deep and hard,” I panted, satisfied when my words made him shiver. “Do you?”

“Gods, yes,” he groaned, sliding his hand between my legs and testing my readiness. “Come on, come here.” He struggled to press closer to me, but I held him tight, grinning.

“In a moment. I’m not sure I’m tall enough for this.”

“What?” he gasped.

“Your ears are up here,
” I murmured, trailing a fingertip along the shell, making him moan, “but your cock is down here.” I grasped it firmly and squeezed, and he cried out.

“I’ll bend,” he panted. “Come on,
please
.”

“Ahh,
now
you’re ready,” I said, rolling him onto his back and straddling him. I grasped his neck, bent his head forward and ran my tongue along his ear as I impaled myself onto him, and he moaned again. He pulled out and slammed back in deep, and I allowed him two more thrusts before I closed my lips around his ear tip and sucked.

He jerked underneath me, once, then a scream of ecstasy tore from his throat and he reared up with such force that he nearly unseated me, though I clamped myself fast around him and chuckled in his ear as he continued to twitch and moan in my arms. Finally he settled, still panting, and I rolled off and lay beside him in the grass, feeling extremely smug.

“Right,” he said after a while, “I suppose you do get it.”

“I’m a quick study, remember?” I sniggered.

“I’m not likely to forget.” He rolled to his side, propped himself up on his elbow and started combing his fingers through my hair. It felt ticklish, and the gesture was so unexpectedly tender that I had to swallow away a lump in my throat.

“Now why couldn’t we have done this three weeks ago, in Tizar?” he asked, almost as if to himself.

Why indeed? But however much I wanted to, I still could not put Naylis out of my mind, and his conversation with Mior in the mountains. “Why could we not have done it five weeks ago, in Naylis?” I offered instead. “It was you who kissed me first before going all cold.”

He stilled his movements, then rolled away from me, and I sighed. I had done it again, had said something I shouldn’t have, and I reflected that he was right – we always messed things up when we talked to each other. Now I would have to come to terms with the fact that this had been a one off, and it would never happen again. The thought nearly made me cry, but I gave another sigh and sat up, looking around to see where my clothes had been tossed to.

As I stretched to try and grab my tunic, Zash’s hand slid down my thigh. “What are you doing?”

I looked over my shoulder and drank in the sight of his naked body, relaxed and more appetising than a table full of the finest dishes. Gods, I wanted him again. Wanted him still. “Getting dressed,” I managed to say, and tore my gaze away.

“You’ve had enough already?” He sat up as well and began to trail kisses up my arm, nibbling at my shoulder.

I’ll never get enough of you
, I thought, but I closed my eyes and whispered, “I didn’t think you wanted more.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” He nuzzled my neck, then pulled me to him, nestling my body in the circle of hi
s legs while I caressed his shoulder with one hand.