Authors: Julia Keaton
Gathering her nerve, she pushed the covers back
and moved to the edge of the bed, lifting her fingers to the tie of her gown.
“It does not matter,” she murmured shakily. “All that matters is that you
saved my life and it’s important to me. It is only fitting that I give as
graciously and selflessly as you did.”
She wasn’t prepared for the look of pure fury
that comment provoked.
Chapter Five
A
frisson of fear went through Bronwyn.
“I
do not
need
your sacrifice,” he snarled.
Unnerved
as she was by his sudden show of temper, it occurred to her after a moment that
it was inspired by hurt. She might have dismissed it as absurd except that she
was reasonably certain she had not guessed wrong about his reason for helping
her.
She
did
dismiss it as ridiculous, at first. She was attributing human
emotions to a creature that was not human! “I offer a gift of gratitude....”
“I
do not want your gratitude either!”
“If
you continue to roar at me,” Bronwyn said testily, “you will not have the
opportunity to distain it. You will bring the guards!”
Surprise
flickered in his eyes for a split second before they narrowed. “You believe
that is something that concerns me?”
Bronwyn
sighed. “It concerns me. I don’t want them hurt.”
Amusement
entered his eyes, softened his harsh features and Bronwyn felt a curious warmth
wash over her, and surprise, for she discovered that his face was infinitely
appealing.
Slipping
from the bed, she padded barefoot across the room to him. He stared down at
her almost warily as she halted less than a hand’s span from him. Lifting her
hand, she settled her palm lightly along his cheek. “If you do not want me,
you need only say so. I will not offer again, but I have no reservations about
giving you ease this once. It is a paltry enough reward for what you did for
me. All I ask is that you accept that it can only be this once. For the king
has decree that I shall wed again, and I will not dishonor my future husband,
or my own family.”
His
fingers closed around her wrist.
She
thought that he would fling her hand back her, shove her away. Instead, he dug
the fingers of his other hand into her waist and dragged her flush against his
body. “Then I should drink my fill,” he growled, releasing his hold on her
wrist to spear his fingers through her hair and cup the base of her skull. The
swiftness of his moves dragged a gasp of surprise from her which he used to his
advantage. Dipping his head, he covered her startled lips with his own,
plunging his tongue into her mouth.
A shockwave rolled over her. Thoughts
scattered before it like leaves tumbling in the wind. She lost none of her
primal senses, however. Indeed, she was left with nothing else, not even the
ability to close herself off from them.
The heat and moisture of his mouth inundated
her senses, creating a heated whirlpool inside of her that threatened to suck
her down into a place of dark chaos. The rush of his ragged breath and the
skate of his tongue along hers filled her senses with him, his taste, and his
scent.
Pleasure blossomed inside her, swamped her
senses. She lost awareness of self, of place, of time as he explored her mouth
with his tongue in a restless quest to know every inch of the sensitive inner
surfaces of her mouth and tongue that left her weak and trembling, struggling
to catch her breath. She had not even realized that she had placed her palm
against his hard chest when he had released her wrist to capture her head for
his kiss until her fingers curled into his flesh, seeking purchase, an anchor
as weakness flooded her.
There
was no thought of selfless giving as her fingers crept from his hard chest to
his neck to pull her closer to his warm, hard length, no thought at all, as if
her body acted independently of conscious thought. Hunger drew her, the same
need as a flower tilting its blooms to catch the warming rays of the sun,
opening itself to the heat it needed. And when she found that she could not
quite reach, she pushed herself up on her toes, the better to reach him.
The
movement brought her breasts against the rapid rise and fall of his chest,
teasing the tips and sending another wave of exquisite sensation through her
body as blood flooded her nipples and they became hard, tight little buds. A
tremor went through him that was so hard it echoed through her. His arms
tightened almost crushingly around her pulling, lifting. Her mind whirled dizzyingly
then righted itself as he turned with her.
She
felt the softness of her bed beneath her back and then his weight settled on
her, pressing her deeply into the cushioning softness. Coolness wafted over
her legs as his legs tangled with her own. His man root pressed against her
mound, producing an ache within her belly. Hot moisture flooded her woman’s
place as he arched against her again.
She
met his thrust when he pushed against her again, tilting her hips so that the
pressure of his member nestled closer to the place that ached for his
possession.
He
made a sound deep in his throat. Dragging his lips from hers at last, he
sucked in a harsh breath as he dipped his head to explore more of her flesh
with his lips and tongue. A tingling rush went through her as his moist,
heated breaths caressed the skin of her neck. His mouth closed over the ear
nearest his search and the sensations were so intensely pleasurable she shook
with the tremor that went through her. His tongue followed, tracing the convoluted
shell with the same thoroughness that he had explored her mouth, touching off
more tremors, sucking the air from her lungs.
Yes
, the word echoed
through her mind as he finished his hungry exploration and moved lower,
following the ridge between her ear and her shoulder,
more, please
. She
might have uttered the words. She wasn’t certain, but he seemed to know every
patch of skin to caress to give her pleasure, to drive her wilder with mindless
need.
She
had begun to thrash restlessly against him by the time he had thoroughly
anointed her neck and throat, traced the dip at the base of her throat and
examined the upper slopes of her breasts. The tips of her breasts, swollen now
almost past bearing as was the lips of her womanhood, had begun to throb almost
as painfully as an aching tooth. She clung to him desperately, arched, trying
to press those aching buds against him.
The
thirst arose to feel his mouth on hers again. Instead, he nuzzled his face
deeper into the valley between her breasts, nudging aside the loosened neck of
her gown. Skimming one hand up from her waist, he cupped a breast, kneading
it, pushing it through the opening. The jolt that went through her as his hot
mouth closed over the distended tip almost bereft her of consciousness. The
air left her lungs as if it had been punched from them. Her belly clenched
almost painfully with the first tug of his mouth.
Mindless
with the avalanche of sensations jolting through her, she plowed her fingers
into the cool silkiness of his hair, clutching at his head, uncertain herself
of whether she most wanted to push him away or hold him more tightly to her.
The tease of his tongue and warm adhesion of his mouth created sensations that
were too keen, too intense to be borne. Tiny animal-like sounds scraped her
throat with the panting breaths that were all she could manage to try to fill
her lungs.
She’d
begun to think she would faint with the torture when he released the tip and
then a vast sense of disappointment filled her until she realized that he had
merely moved to seek her other nipple. She froze, steeling herself against the
sensations she expected and yet desperate to feel them, and still the first tug
of his mouth on her stole her breath.
She
strummed her hands over every part of his flesh she could reach, stroking and
kneading his flesh like a contented cat, begging wordlessly for more and then
more still as she felt the hunger grow more desperate, coil more and more
tightly throughout her body.
His
caresses did not appease the need and she could not think what would, she could
only clutch and cling and arch against him as the fever in her blood rose
higher, begging him wordlessly to end her suffering. And then, as he moved to
torment the first breast again, she could no longer contain herself to silent
suffering, to the moans and gasps she couldn’t contain. “Please,” she
whispered brokenly. “Please.”
He
lifted his head, looking at her, she knew. With a tremendous effort, she
lifted her lids to stare back at him, moistened her fever dried lips with her
tongue. “Nightshade,” she murmured in distress.
He
surged upward, opening his mouth over hers and sending her mind reeling closer
to the darkness of madness, but as he surged upward to claim her mouth, he
caught her thigh, dragging her leg upward and to the side, and with it her
gown, to allow his hips to settle between hers. The moment she felt his
engorged member press against the swollen lips of her sex she knew exactly what
she desperately wanted, needed. She arched against him when he pressed into
her again, spreading her thighs wider, reaching down to take his manhood in her
hands and push him inside of her.
Frustration
filled her when she realized she couldn’t reach him. She lifted against him
more demandingly the next time, rotating her hips in a desperate attempt to
engulf his flesh as she felt the head of his cock breach her nether lips and
slide tantalizingly along her cleft.
He
tore his lips from hers. Sucking in a harsh breath, he shifted to one hip, grasped
his member and aligned the head with her opening. Eagerly, she surged upward
to receive him, uttering a grunt as she felt him stretching her, breaching the
opening. He surged again, recapturing her mouth and spearing his tongue into
the wet recess as his cock plowed more deeply into her channel.
She
dug her heels into the bed, her nails into his shoulders as she fought her own
body’s resistance to his invasion. Her frantic efforts to impale herself on
his shaft send quaking shudders through him. He broke from her lips again.
Burrowing his face against the side of her neck--gasping hoarsely--he caught
her hips in his strong hands and thrust again, bearing down with determined
pressure until her channel yielded to him, until he’d sunk to the hilt within
her and Bronwyn was gasping with the fullness inside of her, dazed with the
wonder of it.
She
tightened her arms around him, wanting nothing more at that moment than to hold
that feeling to her, to hold his massive member tightly inside of her. She
discovered, though, that there was more, much more. As he withdrew slowly and
then thrust again, delight rippled along her channel, radiating through her.
The tension inside her coiled more tightly still, but this time she felt an
instinctual tug toward the appeasement that had eluded her before and when he
began to move more rhythmically, she moved with him, striving to reach it,
urging him to move faster as she felt it nearing.
Releasing
her hips abruptly, he shoved his hands beneath her, tipping her hips up to
receive his thrusts. Instantly, the sensations intensified until she was nigh
sobbing with the glory of it, the desperation that built and built inside of
her until she thought she couldn’t bear anymore. Of a sudden, something seized
inside of her and then broke with an explosion of exquisite, rapturous
sensation that tore a series of sharp cries from her as her body convulsed with
it. He uttered a hoarse groan as her body clenched frantically around his
cock. Shuddering, shaking all over, he pounded into her fiercely as her body
milked his of his seed and finally slumped against her, gasping hoarsely for
breath.
Thoroughly
spent, weak, drifting toward darkness and utterly content from the explosive
release, Bronwyn lay perfectly limp beneath him, trying to catch her own
breath. Warmth and a strange sense of fulfillment wafted through her as he
finally caught his breath and nuzzled his face along her neck, brushing light
kisses there. And when he finally gathered her to him and rolled onto his
side, she snuggled gratefully against him without protest and allowed her mind
to drift aimlessly toward sleep.
She
was skating the rim between the world of knowing and the bliss of nothingness
when she felt his hands begin to roam her body with more purposefulness.