Thief of Light (42 page)

Startled, Prue glanced up and saw his attention narrow to focus on her hair, the brush in his big hand. Carefully, he drew the bristles through the first lock. He was clearly unpracticed, even a little awkward, but his concentration was absolute, the touch of his hands light and soothing. Muscle by muscle, she relaxed, the high edge of her arousal fading to a banked glow. Her eyelids drooped with the soporific pleasure of it, but she wasn’t quite brave enough to defy him and close them. Erik hummed as he worked, a deep croon so formless she couldn’t recognize any melody in particular. She had the sense he’d let himself go, that he didn’t often sing like this, without a purpose, and she liked it—very much.

The brush skimmed from her hair to the skin of her upper back, leaving a pleasant tingle in its wake. Then again. And again. A little harder, a little farther each time.

Erik dragged the bristles the length of her spine, raising bumps on her skin. Looking up, he caught her startled gaze in the mirror and smiled. “Your skin colors beautifully.” The brush traveled across the curve of her buttocks, back up to her waist. Every nerve quivered, every inch achingly alive and excruciatingly aware. “Do you like it?”

“It’s . . .” Prue wet her lips. “It’s very intense.” She shifted on her heels, swaying away from the long, insistent strokes.

“This better?”

Something beautifully soft caressed her shoulder blade, moved down over her ribs. “Oh. Oh, yes.” After the uncompromising drag of the brush, it was exquisitely soothing, gliding over her sensitized flesh. Velvet perhaps? Or fur?

“Good.” One muscular arm wrapped around her hips, an immovable restraint. “Hold tight, love.” The brush slid over her shoulder and down between her breasts all the way to her navel, a trail of panicky flutters following it the whole way.

Prue stiffened. “I don’t think . . .”

Ignoring her, Erik repeated the stroke, slightly harder, humming under his breath. The bristles tingled over her ribs, the underside of one breast, up one swelling curve, down the other, skirting her nipples. They tightened in such a rush, Prue let out a huff of surprise.

She’d never felt so vulnerable in her life, her breasts soft and tender, her sensitive nipples exposed to the firm attentions of the brush. Except that he hadn’t touched them. The sensation hovered on the verge of discomfort. She couldn’t decide if she wanted more of it or less.

“Stop,” she gasped. “Gods, stop!”

Erik brushed across her belly and every nerve trembled with delight and terror. “In a minute,” he said inexorably. But he paused long enough to tilt her chin with strong fingers. “Look how beautiful you are.”

Prue stared at her reflection, astonished. She knelt bolt upright between Erik’s brawny thighs, her hair gleaming around her shoulders, her eyes huge aquamarine pools, the shy, pink folds of her sex gleaming with moisture between her pale thighs. She was still plump, still Prue McGuire, but she
glowed
. She couldn’t think of another word for it. Yes, the heated trails left by the brush were plain to see on her skin, but it was more than that, so much more.

This other Prue vibrated with pent-up passion, yet she was utterly relaxed in a way she’d never been before, his big body surrounding her smaller one with heat and strength. This Prue had found a place where her soul could rejoice, a sanctuary of trust and love and sheer excitement. It was extraordinary.

Erik pressed his lips to the pulse drumming in her neck, kissed the skin. “You see?” Lingeringly, he smoothed the velvet over her tingling breasts. Prue had to bite her lip to stifle the cry of pleasure. When her head fell back against his shoulder, he gave a dark chuckle.

That was all the warning she got before he started with the brush again, harder than before, still avoiding her aching nipples. It was hell and heaven together, waiting for the rasp of the bristles on her most exquisitely sensitive flesh. The anticipation was almost literally painful, her nipples standing so proud and rosy she wanted to take them between her own fingers and pull and twist to relieve the erotic pressure. Prue arched and shook until she couldn’t stand it another second. “Please. Erik . . .” Her nails dug into his leg.

His breath stirred her hair. “Gods, yes.”

The brush clattered to the floor and Prue’s world swung. “I’ve got you,” he said. And he had, sprawled across his lap, her head in the crook of his arm. Without a word, he bent his head and engulfed a nipple in the hot, wet cavern of his mouth, suckling strongly, no mercy.

Prue shrieked, but the sound stuttered in her throat when he reached between her legs and pressed the flat of his thumb directly over her quivering clit.

Her world disappeared in a luscious, all-encompassing explosion of soft red sensation. There was no room left inside her for breath, or thought, or awareness of anything save the whirlwind of heat that roared up and down her spine, pooling low in her belly, in her sex. A hurricane of release tore through her, winds that blew her conscious self away, leaving only Erik’s big hands and deep voice to tether her to earth.

It took forever and it took no time at all.

The aftershocks were still washing through her when she cranked her eyelids open. Oh Sister, she’d forgotten she wasn’t supposed to close them!

But it seemed to have slipped Erik’s mind. His palm moved in warm, gentle circles on her stomach. “That was, was . . .” He shook his head, his eyes wide and very blue. “I had no idea. This is actually working, isn’t it?”

Prue smiled, tears stinging her eyes. “Oh yes.” On impulse, she locked her arms around his neck, dragged his head down and nuzzled his stubbled jaw. “What about you?”

“It’s . . . like flying. Knowing I have you, that for tonight you’re mine and only mine. You make such gorgeous little noises, Prue, like music. I . . . Ah well.” He blinked, shrugging.

Prue slid a hand down over his chest, toward his stomach. “Doesn’t it hurt, that thing?”

Erik caught her fingers in a hard grip. His cheek moved against hers as he smiled, but there was little humor in his voice. “I’ll survive.” Gently, he drew back. “Roll over on your front, sweetheart, and stretch out.”

With a deep sigh, Prue did so, every muscle, nerve and tendon languid with the release of tension. When he returned to the shelf holding the devices, she was so lost in studying the hard, high curve of his ass, she forgot to worry. The light picked up the golden glow of skin and body hair, a downy fuzz like that on some delectable fruit. Her mouth watered. On the way back, she was so focused on the astonishing rigidity and girth of his bound cock, she barely noticed what he had in his hands. A small bottle and something else.

Didn’t matter, she trusted him. She was wet and soft and open, she’d be able to accommodate him, whatever he wanted. It would be her pleasure. Or she could take him in her mouth, taste him, lick and suck and drive him wild. Now that would be something. Her lips curved in a sated smile, but Erik looked stern, even forbidding.

He sat at her hip. “Hold on to the headboard.”

When she did so, he untangled two of the silken ropes draped over the latticed canopy above the bed. “Prue, do you remember the things I said to you earlier?” As he spoke, he looped a rope over her wrist and tied it to the fretwork of the headboard.

The knot was a token effort, so simple she’d be able to release herself with ease. Prue smiled. “Which one? You said an awful lot, you know.”

“I have a point to prove.” Erik secured the other wrist. “I said I could make you do things, feel things, you’ve never wanted before.”

A chill slithered on little cat feet down her spine. Prue moistened her lips. “Like what? It’s only a different angle. Fine, I’ve done it this way before.”

“Lift up.” Erik grabbed the other pillow and shoved it beneath her hips, cupping the generous curves of her bottom in his palms. It must be her imagination, but she could have sworn his hands shook. “Lord’s balls, I’m going to fuck you into the mattress.”

She must be presented to him like a meal on a plate and it seemed he was hungry. Prue purred. “Good.”

“But first . . .”

Picking up the bottle, he uncorked it and dribbled a trail of something cold and wet over her tailbone and into the cleft between her buttocks.

“What the—?” Prue tried to rear up, only to have Erik press her down with a firm hand in the small of her back.

“Sshh. It’s a lubricant.” He pushed her legs farther apart, following the liquid with a thick forefinger, swirling around the shrinking pucker of her anus.

Prue could barely speak. “You w-wouldn’t!”

“You have a truly fabulous ass, sweetheart. Don’t move.” He smacked her bottom, enough to sting but not to really hurt. As he leaned forward to whisper in her ear, one fingertip penetrated, very gently. “No more than you can take, I promise. You’re doing wonderfully. Here, look.”

He placed an object on the table beside the bed. Prue stared. It was made of a dark gray, flexible substance, reminiscent of Technomage transplas, in a series of graduated bulges, fine at the tip, thickest near the base, where there was a broader, flatter piece.

Erik’s finger sank in to the first joint and swirled. His other hand drifted up and down her spine, petting and soothing. Prue gurgled, her brain reeling. Gods, she’d never imagined anything so naughty in her life, but neither had she known the nerves there were so sensitive.

Erik said something and she missed it. He swatted her other cheek. “I asked you a question, Prue.”

“W-what?” Every square inch he’d brushed tingled, prickling and burning, as if that single sharp smack had set off a chain reaction all over her body. But it was no hotter than the dark, fiery sensations in her ass. When his finger advanced another inch, Prue shuddered, unable to process the competing sensations, the strangeness of it all.

“Do you know what this is?” He laid a finger on the very tip of the object. “What it’s for?”

Prue groaned into the pillow. “I can guess.”

“Is it thicker than me?”

Merciful Sister, was that a
second
finger inside her? “N-no.”

“Longer?”

“No!” He was stretching her now, gentle, but implacable. She didn’t
not
like it, in fact—Godsdammit, this was insane,
wrong
. “Stop, Erik, I can’t—”

A big hand came into her field of vision and scooped up the plug. “You can take it, love. I know you can.”

Prue pulled back as far as her bonds would allow. “No, don’t.” Her voice came out deeper than she’d intended, husky. “I don’t want—
Gods
!”

He’d cupped her sex, pressing the slick, cool surface of the plug the length of her slit. “You’re not just wet, Prue. You’re dripping.” He slid the first third of it inside her sheath, setting off a series of clutching spasms she was helpless to prevent. “You see?” He gave the plug a twirl, leaving her aching for something thicker, longer.
Harder
.

Erik’s voice dropped a full octave as he withdrew the plug and trailed the flexible tip back over her perineum, making her quiver. “I’m dying for you, Prue. So tight around my cock. Like a soft, hot fist gripping, sliding—” She heard his breath hitch. A momentary pause and the cool, silky weight of his hair swept across her thigh. Strong teeth worried delicately at the slope where buttock curved into thigh.

He replaced the fingers in her ass with the plug and began to work it in, using plenty of the lubricant. He did it one bump at a time, ignoring her incoherent protests. Prue’s thoughts whirled about like small birds tossed in an updraft. She could stop him in an instant, she knew she could, knew what she had to do. But he wanted it so very badly, and she loved him so much—and besides, she’d always said she couldn’t sing.

The plug wasn’t especially thick, even at the base, so it didn’t hurt, but it stretched her enough to be a fiery presence in her rear, invading and filling in a way it was impossible to ignore.

“There.” Erik gave the diabolical thing a final twist, seating it firmly and setting off a complicated tangle of fireworks that had Prue clenching her hands around the headboard until her knuckles shone. The carved surface bit into her palms, but she had no attention to spare because Erik had grasped her hips and lifted her to her knees. The front of his thighs pressed against the back of hers.

“Fuck, Prue,” he muttered. “You’re killing me.”

Searingly hot and hammer hard, he worked the first inch into her body. His long, low groan and Prue’s shocked gasp echoed off the walls together. His fingers bit into her hips as he slid back a little, only to thrust back in. She could hear the harsh rasp of his breath, feel the rock-hard tension in his thighs.

“Feel it?” He had to be speaking through clenched teeth because she could barely make out the words, but oh, gods, yes, she could feel every twitch of his cock, every curve of the device inside her!

The difference was indescribable. The bulk of the plug narrowed her sheath, so that Erik had to move unbearably slowly, finessing and furrowing his way through slick, delicate tissues. When he was finally crammed all the way in, planted balls deep, he froze, waiting for the Sister knew what.

Prue dropped her head, whimpering. All the blood and every nerve she possessed had migrated to her pelvis. Gradually, she became aware of his heartbeat, transmitted through the girth that spread her so wide. Her own marched together with his, an insistent rhythm in her sex, her ass, her belly, her heart, her head. Ah, gods, she was on fire—lost, so lost in him, consumed utterly. Owned.

Had he spoken? It took so much of her willpower to prevent her shaky knees from collapsing she must have missed it.

“Prue.” Erik tapped the plug, which sent hot sparks streaking through her ass to pool behind her clit. Prue gritted her teeth and hung on.

“I know how strong you are, how stubborn,” he said. “I want you to fight it. You’re not to come until I tell you.” A light smack that nearly destroyed her. “Do you understand?”