Hers To Cherish (Verdantia Book 3) (24 page)

Ram pulled his hot mouth off her nipples.

{Ramsey...please.}

{
No.}

When the cold air hit the
saliva, it chilled her buds to even harder points that burned with an insidious itch. Ram picked up more rope. He began another piece of artistry that branched from her sternum and extended down both arms to her wrists and hands, a cord of scarlet between each finger. As each strand wrapped her shoulder, his mouth sucked and nipped her delicate skin, multiplying the sensations and sent her sliding into incoherent surrender.

When finished
, Ramsey walked around her completely, his gaze riveted upon her body – then raised his eyes to hers. Steffania could not remember why she had
ever
thought his eyes glacial. His chest rose and fell as if he had performed some taxing physical deed, and then he stepped up to her front. He pressed himself upon her fully, opening his hands upon her shoulders to steady her. He dropped his head and nuzzled the space behind her ear. His full, hard erection, clearly outlined in synth-leather pants, pressed into her abdomen and she wished the ropes would vanish so she could feel him against her bare skin.

“I
hunger for you like no other before you.” His fervent breath pushed small wisps of her hair to tickle against her cheek. “You inflame me, intoxicate me. As long as I live, I could never sate my need for you.” He braced each leg on either side of her as if to steady himself, inhaled as if to flood himself with her scent. “You are incomparable.”

At that moment
, the total of her reality became Ramsey – her existence reduced to the simplicity of one truth. In that moment, it was impossible not to raise her eyes to his and whisper, “I am yours.”

Her words destroyed him.
The glory of her offering broke something within him and bleakness invaded. He couldn’t allow even the hope of having her. Life would never be so kind. If you didn’t want, didn’t need, didn’t love, you couldn’t be hurt, and already his want of this woman would leave hidden scars. He could only blame the knowledge that their time together was ending for the undisguised truth he had murmured – a truth that should
never
have passed his lips.

Now, somehow, he had to
continue when every element of his being ached to lay her on that azure floor and take her, protect her, claim her as his and keep her. But that heartless bitch named Fate carved a different path for Ramsey Melborn DeKieran, and he kept his dick in his pants. He sure as hell couldn’t keep his vixen. He had no home to take her to. He had no way to protect her.

Still,
he could not ignore Steffania’s gift. He would not reject her so cruelly. He gathered her to him and engulfed her in the shelter of his much bigger body – and ripped his battered heart out.

“
You deserve someone far better than me, vixen. Be still, sweetheart. Let me free you.”

As
Ram worked to deconstruct the masterpiece he had built of red and black hemp on Steffania’s glorious body and drape her once again in her “skirt”, his eyes scanned the crowd that had assembled to watch. Many of the distinguished spectators, aroused by the sensual aura cast by Ramsey’s interplay with Steffania, engaged in sexual congress on the upholstered benches scattered across the patio. Others, their hands and mouths working their partners in provocative foreplay would soon seek a quiet corner of their own to consummate the lust that drove them.

Ram eyes kept searching and finally found the faces he had hoped for –
Narr, Lontz and Kella – and just behind them, among several other
slaaf
, stood Alessa DeAlbero. He’d stared at the picture of her so often it was permanently etched in his brain. Narr turned and spoke to her. She shook her head and Narr grabbed her upper arm. Alessa lifted defiant eyes and answered but Ram could hear only snatches of conversation. What he did hear concerned him, for as Alessa spat something at Narr, Kella dragged her struggling body away with the words, “quiet room” hanging in the air.

Shit!
Ram returned his focus to Steffania. He could do nothing for DeAlbero at that moment. He had to wait and coordinate with what Tok had set up with the League. Right now, he had a vulnerable, red-haired vixen needing his attention.

Sometimes
, he found reason to be thankful for his grim reputation. This was one of those times. With a forbidding stare, he warned off those few who dared to approach and the crowd dispersed, leaving him alone with Steffania.

Ram
signaled to the gray-man, Eagan. “Have someone gather the rope and my bag and return them to my rooms. Now, take me back to my chambers, quickly, or I will end your existence. Understand?”

Eagan’s eyes found his and the attendant cocked his head indicating yes. Ramsey
picked up and cradled the precious cargo of a silent, languid Steffania, and ordered, “Go.”

Steffania nestled, eyes closed, into Ramsey’s bare torso, attuned to the thumping of his heart and the rasping of his chest hair against her cheek. The subtle scent of a man’s lust overlaid by the woodsy spice of the soap he had used that morning pervaded her nostrils. Her need of him submerged her and she sank to the bottom of a hot pool of yearning. Desire for this man drove her hard and threatened to erode the dream-like state that floated her consciousness as if on a raft gently washed by waves. She regained outside awareness as Ramsey laid her on the bed in their guestroom and sat beside her. His hands smoothed her skin where the ropes had left red, diagonal marks. He began at her ankles and worked his way methodically up her body. His face remained closed, shuttered, devoid of emotion and he would not meet her gaze.

She
rolled her head on the pillow to see the time-keeper on the bedside table. An hour remained before they expected Tok and Pansy. As she examined the raw, handsome face of Ramsey, a hollow sense of desolation swept her. Their time together was ending, perhaps, had ended. Events would move at a break-neck pace once the League gave them a set pick-up time. She was guaranteed only one more hour, alone, with Lord Ramsey DeKieran. In spite of the lonely void threatening her, she no longer denied that she loved him and she allowed a rush of feeling to overtake her.
I don’t want to waste a single moment of this.

Ramsey trailed his fingers along her arm as he made to rise. When his hand met hers
, she grasped him firmly.

“Ramsey.”
She held him until he looked at her. “We have an hour. Please.” She pulled him toward her, her message clear.

He evidenced no emotion. She could read nothing from his face. He pulled away from her
and broke her hold. He stood as if undecided and then his eyes closed. She forgot to breathe.
Please, Ramsey.
Perhaps he heard her. Perhaps her word did change his mind. She didn’t know. But he unfastened and shucked from his pants and boots then joined her on the bed, nude, and stretched out next to her on his side. Ram rested his head in one hand while his other wandered her face in a sensual exploration, as if he learned her through the delicate tracery of his fingertips.

“How can I please you, vixen? I’ll do anything you ask.”

She caught her breath at his stunning offer and voiced what was in her heart. “Make love to me. Just once.”

He sighed and gathered her into his arms. Rolling onto his back, he push
ed her up to a sitting position and eyed her dispassionately.

“
We’ve made love often.”

She shook her head, emotion
strangling her. She looked into his gray eyes, her own filled with the longing surging through her. “No. We’ve had
sex
often. You know what I mean, Ramsey. This once, don’t deny what we both know is true.”

He surged up and flipped her over, nesting her beneath him.
She thought she saw fleeting pain on his face. He kissed her lips and the corners of her eyes in gentle sips. “All I can offer is a bed in a whorehouse, vixen. Don’t care about me.”

“It’s too late.”

Again, he closed his eyes and the infinitesimal quirk that teased his lips for a moment struck her as sad. He exhaled with a soft chuff.

“For me, too.”

Steffania didn’t have a chance to ask him what he meant. His mouth descended on hers and ruthlessly destroyed any connection to reality she
had clung to. By Her eternal light, the man could kiss. He carried her away to a realm of otherworldly pleasure made bittersweet by the sense this would be their last time together.

Her body rose up into his caressing hands as if magnetically drawn. It seemed as if every hair follicle registered the passing of his stroke with shivers of exquisite gratification. And when his soft,
questing lips stopped conjuring their sorcery, he lifted his head and caught her gaze.

“Here, vixen? Like this?”

And then his hands roamed, seeking the most sensitive places on her body as she strained and writhed under the incredible delight his touch evoked – a touch made precious with the realization she might never again have him. Those two words haunted her heart –
never again.
She shoved the thought away, angrily. “Yes, Ramsey! Yes. There!”

She returned his exploration with one of her own, passing flattened palms across the heavy muscles of his chest, over his
corded shoulders still bearing mottled green and purple bruises from his recent combat, and then up his neck. Her hands sank into his thick hair and she pulled his wondrous mouth to the nipples his fingers had teased to aching points of heat. He followed her guiding hands with no resistance, allowing her to place him where she needed him the most.

She
was lost in her own paradise but the trembling of her warrior penetrated her senses. His body shook as if the effort to contain a raging emotion stripped his muscles of their strength.

“Ah, vixen, I could lose myself
forever in you.”

“Ramsey, please.” Steffania spread her thighs and arched her pelvis, seeking the hard cock that lay in the crease of her groin.

“Sweet girl . . .”
The blunt head of his staff found her entrance and slid into her smoothly. He never took his gaze from her face. He worked himself in her with surging invasions aimed at the soft cushion on the front of her inner channel, rocking the base of his cock against her clit as he penetrated her. His girth filled and stretched her. His every small movement cascaded bliss to the very marrow of her bones. The wiry curls of hair on his chest abraded her nipples as he slid against her.

“Like this, sweetheart? Here?”
His face hovered inches above hers, his eyes a caress to her soul.

She nodded
, on the verge of bliss-induced incoherence. “Yes, there! Gods! Ram...so good...so good.”

Steffania held
his gray gaze that told her of longing and hunger until the building of her orgasm forced her eyes closed. Her screams of rapture echoed in the bedroom as Ram sent her over and she relaxed into his painfully tight hold as he pumped in savage jerks then roared his own climax beside her.

Silence closed over her, broken only by the sound of their labored breath and for long moments, she floated in a world where Ramsey DeKieran saturated her being.
She kept her eyes closed as his gentle lips found hers. She kept them closed as with a whispered, “There will never be another like you, vixen,” Ramsey rose and left the bed. Cool air chilled pleasured flesh that moments before had been hot. She felt him place something on the pillow by her cheek. Silence settled in the room, and then Steffania heard the sound of water in the bathroom. She rolled her head to see what he’d left on the pillow. A tiny key rested on the pristine white linen – the key to her collar.

The tears of
ecstasy Ram forced from her eyes moments earlier transformed to silent tears of heartbreak. Ramsey had affirmed his feelings through his lovemaking. He cared for her, perhaps even loved her – and he had just said good-bye.

A sharp rap announced Tok
. He entered with Pansy trailing behind and Steffania had no time to dwell on the empty nothingness inside her. She grabbed the key and scrambled to a sitting position, pulling the sheet over her and swiping hastily at her face.