When his free hand then covered the other, Valerie gasped and arched her back, one hand sliding around his neck, and the other covering his hand and squeezing even as he squeezed her. She was so overwhelmed by the sensations he was stirring in her that Valerie was slow to realize she wasn’t doing anything in return. She had never been a selfish lover, but right now she was taking and not giving. And that right there spoke to the effect he was having on her. Cripes, all she was doing was holding on for dear life to keep from drowning in the passion washing over her.
Releasing the hand she’d been clutching, Valerie slid her hand to his back and ran it down to his behind. She squeezed one cheek, urging him harder against her and then started to slide her hand around between them. She had reached the top of his jeans when Anders immediately stopped what he was doing and reached down to catch her hand.
“But—” Valerie’s protest ended when his mouth covered hers.
Anders’s kiss was determined and hard as he caught both of her wrists in one hand and raised them above her head, holding them in place so that she couldn’t touch him. Meanwhile, his other hand slid down her cheek, over her chest, down her belly and inside her jeans. It was only then that she realized that he’d apparently undone her jeans at some point while she was distracted, allowing his hand to slide easily between her skin and panties and slip between her legs.
Valerie jerked beneath him, gasping and making little whimpering sounds into his mouth as his fingers brushed over her sensitive skin. She also eased her legs apart, giving him better access. Anders accepted the invitation at once, his fingers dipping into her moist center.
His touch set off an explosion of pleasure inside Valerie that built and rushed over her wave after wave under his caress. It was incredible, overwhelming, all encompassing and terrifying. She wanted him to stop and she never wanted it to end. She wanted to drown in the pleasure he was creating in her and was afraid she would.
Valerie’s body was arched like a bow, taut and trembling. Her eyes were squeezed tightly closed and while she had been sucking desperately at his tongue when he first covered her mouth with his, now she couldn’t find the wherewithal to do even that. Her mouth was just open to him as she panted little puffs of breath into his that grew faster and shallower with each brush of his fingers over her.
When he suddenly pressed one finger into her while continuing to caress her, the tension inside her snapped like a thread. Valerie cried out into his mouth and bucked violently, and then she finally drowned under the pleasure assaulting her and sank into darkness.
W
hen Valerie murmured sleepily and shifted, drawing her leg up along his, Anders opened his eyes to peer down at her. She was curled on her side, one arm and leg cast over him and her head on his chest. She shifted again, her leg now sliding down his. Damn. Even that small, unintentional caress in her sleep sent shivers of pleasure through him. But then his body was still sensitized after what had happened downstairs.
Anders had enjoyed every second of pleasure he’d given Valerie, experiencing every ripple and wave of excitement and pleasure that had traveled through her, including the end orgasm that had overwhelmed them both. Valerie wasn’t the only one who had passed out downstairs. But Anders had woken up first.
Aware that Valerie would be embarrassed if they were found on the couch by Leigh or Lucian, and unsure how long she’d stay unconscious, Anders had scooped her up and carried her up here to her room. He’d removed her jeans, T-shirt, and the already undone bra so that she would be more comfortable. Then he’d stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed with her. He wanted to be there when she woke up, to be sure that she hadn’t been too freaked out by what had happened.
Intimacy between life mates just wasn’t your everyday sexual experience. Anders had bedded hundreds, perhaps even thousands of women during the first century or two of his life, and had never experienced anything like it. Nothing even close.
His thoughts fled as Valerie shifted again and wiped a hand over her face. The action made him smile. She’d been drooling on him for the last half hour while she slept. Apparently, she was waking up enough to feel the liquid that dribbled across her own skin before dropping onto his chest.
Lifting his head, Anders peered at her face in time to see her eyes blink open. A heartbeat later, she stiffened in his hold, and then jerked up, banging him in the chin with the top of her head. Wincing, Anders let his head drop back on the bed.
“Ow,” Valerie muttered, following closely with, “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Anders said with a wry smile, rubbing his chin with the hand not presently wrapped around her back.
“We’re in my room,” she noted with surprise.
“I carried you up here,” Anders explained, and when she raised the sheet covering them both to peer down at herself, added, “And took your jeans and stuff off so you’d sleep more comfortably.”
“You left my panties on,” she said, blushing.
“Yes. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, and then gave an embarrassed laugh. “I suppose it’s silly that I would have been embarrassed if you hadn’t left them on, but . . .”
“But you would have,” Anders finished with understanding.
Valerie nodded, and then tipped her head back, carefully this time, and eyed him uncertainly. “I fainted, didn’t I? I’ve never fainted before. Ever.”
Anders hesitated and then said, “Your system is weaker than normal right now, and you were on your back, putting pressure on your wound.” All of that was true of course, but it wasn’t the reason she’d fainted.
“I didn’t feel any pain,” she said with a frown.
“You were rather distracted,” he pointed out delicately.
Valerie flushed and lowered her head again briefly. When she raised it a moment later, there was a determined expression on her face. “Yes,
I
was definitely rather distracted. And selfish. You didn’t get to—”
“It’s fine,” Anders interrupted, knowing where her thoughts were headed. She felt like it had all been one-sided and that he had given her pleasure while not enjoying it himself. She couldn’t be further from the truth, but he couldn’t tell her that, or explain how he could have enjoyed her pleasure with her.
“That’s sweet, Anders, but it’s not fine,” Valerie said on a sigh, and raised herself up enough to look him in the face. She began to slide her hand down his stomach as she said, “I could do for you what you—”
She stopped abruptly when Anders caught the hand that had nearly reached the top of his boxers. As tempted as he was, he couldn’t let her touch him. While it would certainly give him pleasure, Valerie, too, would experience that pleasure with him and he couldn’t explain that without explaining everything. She wasn’t ready to hear the truth of his origins yet.
Raising her fingers to his lips he pressed a kiss to them, then released her hand to slide his around her neck and draw her face down to his. His kiss was as light and gentle as it had been on her fingers. At least, he’d intended it to be, but the moment their lips met, the passion came roaring back like a freight train. Reeling under the blow, Anders rolled in the bed, pressing Valerie into the mattress as his body covered hers. The feel of her flesh against his was exhilarating, her naked chest to his, her naked legs entwining with his . . . It all started a clamoring in his body it was impossible to ignore.
“Semmy,” Valerie gasped when he tore his mouth from hers to follow a trail down her neck.
Anders smiled against her throat at the nickname. No one had ever called him that. His mother had only ever called him Semen, and to everyone else he had given the name Anders and nothing else. But he liked Semmy. On Valerie’s lips it sounded like an endearment or a prayer.
Valerie shifted beneath him, sliding her heels down the backs of his calves and then digging them in so that she could arch her pelvis into him. The action had an immediate effect. Blood rushed to his groin, turning the semi-hardness that had been building there into a full-on, raging hard-on.
Growling, deep in his throat, Anders caught the fingers of one hand in her hair and pulled, drawing her head back and elongating her throat as he thrust back. Both of them groaned at the passion that rushed through them, and Anders felt his fangs slide out. He froze briefly, and then allowed them to gently scrape across her flesh, shivering along with her before forcing them back where they belonged and continuing down to crest one breast and close over her nipple.
“Oh, God, Semmy, Semmy, Semmy,” Valerie breathed, cradling his head as he suckled.
Anders nipped at her flesh lightly, then raised his head to claim her lips again before sliding further down her body, his lips and tongue tasting her upper stomach, her belly, dipping into her belly button . . .
“Semmy?” She shuddered under his teasing, her legs shifting restlessly. When he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her panties and began to draw them down, Valerie lifted her behind to help. He slid them down her legs and off, then let them drop to the floor as he stood to remove his boxers. The moment he stood, Valerie rose up and reached to help him. Anders didn’t think there was any harm in that until she reached for his erection while his boxers were still around his knees.
Anders sucked in a sharp breath at the shock of pleasure, but was almost immediately distracted by the gasp she released as she experienced that pleasure with him. When she raised confused eyes to him, Anders brushed her hand away and cupped her head to kiss her. It was a quick, hard kiss intended to distract her from the shared pleasure, but he knew before he raised his head that it hadn’t worked, and wasn’t surprised when she immediately frowned and said, “Anders, I—”
That’s as far as he allowed her to get. Catching her legs beneath each knee, he tugged her to the edge of the bed, dropped to his knees between her legs and sought out a more effective way to distract her. The moment his lips pressed against her warm core, Anders knew he’d found the perfect way to make her forget what she’d experienced. Heck, he was having trouble remembering what he was trying to distract her from himself as her pleasure began to course through him in growing waves.
Anders nearly pushed them both over the edge with his mouth; certainly, they were both teetering on that edge when Valerie suddenly cried his name and tugged at his ears almost painfully. He immediately recalled what had started all this. Her feeling that it had been unfair that he’d pleasured her earlier without, she thought, gaining any pleasure himself.
Cursing, Anders stood at once, caught her legs in both hands again and thrust into her. He froze then, hardly aware of the long groan both he and Valerie issued together. All he was aware of for a moment was how damned good it felt to be buried in her, to have her warm, wet heat closing around him like a glove, squeezing and pulsing around him. Nothing in his life had ever felt this good and for a moment, he couldn’t move, didn’t want to. But then Valerie shifted, wrapping her legs behind his butt and arching against him.
Anders began to move then, withdrawing and thrusting in again. But as far along as they were, it was only a few thrusts before they were both crying out and then sinking into the dark well of pleasure.
V
alerie opened her eyes and found herself staring at Roxy’s furry face. She smiled wryly at the sight of her pitiful eyes, and then Roxy shifted and twisted a bit so that she could scratch her ear with her back paw.
“Damn,” Valerie breathed.
“What is it?”
Glancing around at Anders’s question, Valerie smiled shyly when she saw that she was lying on her back with her head on his arm while he lay on his side, peering at her sleepily. The last thing she remembered was being splayed across the bed sideways with him between her legs. She supposed he’d moved her again after she’d—“I fainted again.”
Anders smiled slowly. “Would that be due to my superior skill as a lover?”
Valerie chuckled at the smug look on his face, but said, “I guess it must be . . . that and my wound. Maybe I haven’t built my blood back up yet.”
“Maybe,” he said mildly.
A whine from Roxy drew her attention again and Valerie began to shift the sheets and blankets aside with a sigh, but paused when she recalled that she was naked.
“Shy?” Anders teased lightly as he got up, completely, gloriously, and unabashedly nude.
“A little,” Valerie admitted, her eyes roaming over his body. Damn, the man was beautiful. He was like a Greek god, muscles rippling under unblemished mocha skin. How did she dare show her own less-than-perfect body to him?
“Here.”
Valerie managed to drag her eyes up to his face, but paused along the way as she noted the clothes he was holding out.
“You go ahead and dress. I need to use the bathroom,” he said.
Valerie watched him cross the room, her eyes fused to his tight tush as he walked. Damn. This just wasn’t fair. The man had a nicer behind than she did. And those legs? Wow. When the bathroom door closed, cutting off her view, Valerie gave her head a small shake and turned her attention to dressing as quickly as she could. She had no idea how long he’d be in the bathroom.
Anders took long enough that Valerie had dressed, brushed her hair and was hooking Roxy’s leash to her when he came out of the bathroom. Much to her amazement, he too was dressed. He must have taken his clothes into the bathroom with him earlier. How had she missed that? She didn’t have to wonder hard about it. She’d been so busy ogling his butt, he could have been wearing a moose head and she wouldn’t have noticed, Valerie acknowledged wryly.
“I imagine Roxy has to go out,” Anders commented as he approached.
“Yes. Unfortunately, so do I,” Valerie said as he paused in front of her.
“I can take her out while you use the bathroom,” he offered, taking the lead from her.
“Thank you,” she said with sincere gratitude. She really had to go. “I’ll be down in just a minute.”