Samira felt the kiss travel through her to her fingertips and toes, her muscles going weak. Nicolae's mouth moved gently on hers, but with a confidence and determination that said he expected no resistance, was going to take everything she was willing to give and would persuade her to give up anything that was left.
It frightened her, but in a way that sent a thrill of melting desire through her. She didn't want to seduce or be seduced by one she did not love; she wanted the man she cared for more than life itself to take her, with care and tenderness, and a confidence that would break through her minor hesitations and petty qualms.
Nicolae scooped her up into his arms, his weak one strong as it held her, and carried her toward his bed. He broke the kiss long enough to softly chant the foreign words of a spell, and as he did so the sunlight softly filled the room and the darkness in the rafters turned to the clear blue of a springtime sky. The walls softened and faded and were replaced by a forest. She heard the trickling of a brook and the gentle sounds of birdsong and a breeze rustling through the leaves. When Nicolae laid her down it was on living greenery, small purple and pink flowers bright against their bed of emerald moss. Where the rough linen and savage furs of his bed had been, flowing white silk now served as sheets and blankets.
The illusion was so real, she could smell the greenness of the forest, the flowers sending forth their fragrance as she was placed down among them.
With gentle, skillful fingers Nicolae undid her clothes and pulled them from her, leaving her bare upon her woodland bower. Soft golden sunlight filtered through the leaves, touching Nicolae's skin as he began to undress. He hesitated for a moment, and she saw his lips part as if to speak another spell.
"Don't change how you look," she said, sensing that it was the burn scar down his body he had been about to change. "I want you as you are."
"Scars and failings and all, you want me."
"Scars and failings and all," she repeated.
He pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it aside, revealing his chest and the webbing of scars down his side and arm. She reached up and touched his side, and felt neither revulsion nor pity. "You are as you are, and I would have you no different."
He held her hand, traced the drawn lines of the wing on the back of her arm with his fingertips. "Nor I you. I saw into your mind, Samira, when Theron was here."
Her heart did a panicked flutter in her chest. "What did you see?"
"Only bits and pieces—and that you want me."
She parted her lips, wanting to say that it was more than that, but the words halted there. She was frightened and wanted to hear them from his own lips first, if it was the truth. "I have not tried to hide that," she said instead.
"But I have tried to hide how much I want you."
Want
. Was it only want, and not love?
"Take me as your first and only, Samira. Let me show you what is true between a man and a woman, that your Night World of dreams could never teach you."
Want or love, she would take what she was offered. "Show me."
He stripped off the rest of his clothes, and her eyes traveled down to his manhood, thick and erect, rising from its base of dark curls. A shiver went through her at the thought of it pressing its way inside her.
Nicolae took her hand and brought it to his sex. She grasped it gently, the skin silky smooth against hers, the firm, slightly giving hardness of it stirring to life something deep and primal inside her. She let her hand slide up and caressed the heart-shaped end, imagining the point of that heart piercing her at her core. She closed her eyes and shivered.
He parted her thighs and knelt between them, hands braced on either side of her. He looked down at her, his black hair hanging in dark locks, the arches of his brows wicked accents to the burning intensity of his eyes as he looked down at her. "There will be no other than me," he said to her. "Say it."
"There will be no other," she repeated, feeling herself given over to him as she uttered the words.
"You are mine, Samira. No other man may lay his mark upon you."
"I would have no other."
He lowered his mouth to hers, and this time the kiss was hard, staking his possession. He forced her lips to part and explored the dampness within, the touch of his tongue sending echoes of pleasure to her sex, which longed to be treated the same.
Nicolae kissed his way down her throat to her breasts but this time did not stop there, his mouth moving lower and lower until he was at the edge of her curls. He lay down on the bed of moss, his arms under her thighs, her knees over his shoulders, and then looked up at her from beneath his black and wicked brows.
She shivered again, feeling the faint touch of his breath upon her. She had sent men dreams of doing this very thing to women, women who writhed in pleasure at the touch of a man's mouth upon their sex, but Samira had no notion of how it might feel to
be
such a woman.
"Did he do this to you?" Nicolae asked.
She shook her head. "No one has done this to me."
His eyes narrowed in satisfaction, and he lowered his mouth.
Samira dropped her head back against the moss as the first touch of his tongue upon her shot a bolt of pleasure through her body. With each wet, gently rough stroke of his tongue, she lost a little bit more of herself, all awareness and will dropping away until she was a slave to his touch.
He stroked and then he suckled, taking her sensitive nub between his lips and painting upon it with the tip of his tongue. She threw her arms above her head, reveling in the sensation, and then as he released her and traced his tongue down her length to her entrance she arched her neck, a soft moan of desire starting deep in her throat. She was his to do with as he pleased, and she wanted him to do it
now
.
Instead, the tip of his tongue pressed and swirled at her entrance, taunting her with a pressure that was too light for satisfaction. He dipped inside, barely gaining entrance, and she raised her hips to meet him, trying to gain greater depth.
With a broad, slow stroke he laved upward, ending at the crux of her desire, then laved her again and yet again. He reached forward and held her breasts, massaging and fondling as his mouth continued to work her, and she felt herself tensing toward climax. She lowered her arm and touched his hair. "
I
want you inside me," she said.
He paused for only a moment. "Not yet," he said, and then after a few chanted words he changed his stroke, playing her with a mix of pauses and short, swift, light touches of his tongue that pleased her as much as it left her wanting more. At the same time, the scene around her began to change, the sunlight deepening and then falling around her in golden drops like rain. It overwhelmed her vision, adding another layer of dizzying pleasure to her senses. Each pause followed by a light touch of his tongue, each small gratification of yearning desire, pushed her higher and higher toward the edge of climax.
She tried to lift her leg off his shoulder and roll away. "I want you inside me when I come," she whispered again, but his answer was to lay his forearm firmly across her hips, holding her down, his upper arms keeping her thighs closed tight to his head as he continued his possession of her.
Captive in his hold, it was only a moment more before she felt herself pass the cusp, her back arching and her thighs clenching as the waves of climax pulsed through her. He sensed her peak and held her yet tighter, his mouth still moving upon her, forcing every last drop of pleasure from her.
A moment more and she was quaking and shivering with each touch, the pleasure gone, her flesh overly sensitive. He released her at last and then climbed up to lie beside her on the bed of moss and flowers. Samira closed her eyes, her muscles weak with spent desire.
Softly chanted words murmured near her ear, but it was only when she felt his hand stroke lightly down her stomach that she opened her eyes again. As she did, Nicolae lay back against a slope of pillows and looked at her, his arousal rising full and thick from his loins.
The rain had ceased, but the sunlight seemed to have run in rivulets through creamy marble columns and a polished floor. They were lying now on a bed of jewel-toned silks and cushions, a garden of soft greens and trickling fountains beyond the columns.
"More illusions?" she asked.
"To give you some of the pleasure you have given to others, in their dreams."
She felt a start of tears in her eyes. It was the first time he'd been kind about her life as a succubus. Perhaps he did understand her a little bit.
She got up on her knees beside him and lightly touched his arousal. It bobbed in response, as if an eager pet beneath her hand. She stroked it, then bent down and lay her lips against the head. He was warm and as smooth as velvet. With her hand she gently touched his sack, the skin tight and thick over his stones, holding them close. She cupped her hand over him, enjoying her exploration.
She had spent her own desire and wanted now to give back to him what he had given to her. She looked up at him from beneath her brows and smiled against his arousal. He met her eyes with a burning intensity, and then she flicked out her tongue, hitting with three thousand years of accuracy the spot just beneath the head, the place where he would be most sensitive.
Nicolae's eyes closed, and then opened again to watch her, his gaze locked upon her face as if he were entranced.
She flicked her tongue out again, and then took the rosebud knob of his manhood into her mouth, the softly giving shape filling it. She pressed her tongue against his vulnerable spot, rubbing hard against it as she sucked lightly, her lips grasping him just beneath the head.
He groaned, and then his hands were in her hair, lifting her up and away from him. "This time is for you," he said.
"I've had my pleasure already."
He shook his head. "I've but readied you. You wanted to know what it was to feel a man inside you. Now is the time."
She looked down at this thick and ready shaft and felt awkward and uncertain, and a little frightened. Without the fires of unquenched passion pushing her onward, his manhood seemed to promise more pain than pleasure. "Should I lie down?"
He smiled and gently grasped her arms, pulling her forward and up over him. "Straddle me."
She climbed up onto his hips, shy and clumsy until she felt the ridge of him against her folds. The desire she had thought was dead took a step toward life as her sex brushed against him. Her eyes widened, and he grinned at her. The pillows held him half-sitting, and she put her hands on his shoulders for balance. "What now?" she asked, fully aware of the thick erection she was straddling.
"Do what pleases you." He put his hands on her hips, warm and strong, his fingers splayed out over the tops of her buttocks. "I'll help you when you need it, but as much as I want to be inside you right now, I don't want to hurt you. I don't want you frightened that I'll force my way in, or take this from you too quickly. Do this at your own pace."
"I don't know how," she complained, even as she tilted her hips to feel the ridge of him slide against her.
His eyes widened and he sucked in a breath, his hands tightening on her hips. "Move as you please. When you want me inside, I'll help you."
She slid over him again, the sensation almost as good as when he aroused her with his finger or tongue. She liked, too, to feel his hardness at her entrance, her body recognizing the guest it was about to receive. With each rocking tilt of her hips her body became more eager to catch hold of him and take him inside, where he belonged.
"Samira…" Nicolae said on a moan. "Oh, God…" His pupils were huge and black, blotting out most of the color beneath his half-closed lids, and yet his eyes still burned with passion as gazed at her, drifting down to her breasts, then back up to her face.
Samira tossed her hair back over her shoulders, revealing herself fully. And then, possessed by a feeling of wickedness, she cupped her own breasts and rolled the nipples between her fingertips. She saw his gaze go to her hands, his eyes widening.
"Ah, gods… what are you doing to me?"
She laughed softly and leaned forward, her hands once again on his shoulders. "Show me how," she whispered, raising her hips until she felt the tip of him near her entrance.
Without a word he reached down between them and took hold of himself. "Hold me here," he said.
She reached down, feeling his hand on his shaft, and took hold as he withdrew his fingers.
"Guide me," he said.
She moved him to where her body knew was the right place and then stayed there, poised atop him. "And now?"
"Take it as you wish."
"Help me."
He did, thrusting upward in a short stroke that pressed him into her, without yet parting her flesh. She felt herself tighten at the threat of invasion. "Oh," she said in renewed trepidation.
He touched her cheek, stroking softly. "Only as you wish," he repeated. He traced his fingertips down her neck, her chest, her belly, and then brushed his thumb over the peak of her desire. Her body hummed in response and, as if of its own volition, lowered against him, the tip of his manhood parting her and gaining its first hint of entrance. It didn't hurt, giving her instead a promise of fulfillment in its blunt pressure.
His thumb brushed against her again, and she rose up and pressed down again, helping him to slide a little deeper. Once more she did it, and this time the stretching was enough to cause discomfort. She stopped, trying to relax and get used to the feeling.
His thumb touched her again, playing, and it was a bait her body could not resist. Despite the stretching and the discomfort growing to a stinging pain, she couldn't keep herself from forcing him deeper, needing to feel all of him inside her, stretching and filling her.
And then she felt the tops of her thighs meet his, his shaft fully encased within her. He withdrew his hand, no space for it between their bodies, and put both hands on her hips.