South of Surrender (Hearts of the Anemoi) (17 page)

How
dare
Eurus lay hands on this woman? She was his and his alone.

Chrys froze. Where the hell had that come from?

She wasn’t his. If this night proved anything, it was that Chrys did not deserve Laney Summerlyn. If he could not even protect her, he didn’t have the right to be in her presence at all. And that was on top of a myriad of other reasons why he didn’t deserve her and could never have her. His fucked-up wiring regarding touching. His need to control. The war—for that’s what this now was—that raged around him.

Needing to see her more clearly, he willed on the lights and dragged gentle fingertips over her cheek. Her shirt and shorts were badly singed. Sweat beaded over her red, puffy skin. And, good gods, was she on the verge of blistering?

Enough! She needs you!

Too hot. He had to bring her temperature down. Fast.

Without a moment’s debate, Chrys willed all of their clothing away. The more of him that touched her, the faster he could syphon the heat from her body.

He moved to cover her, and hated himself a little more—if that was possible—for having to push through the ancient anxiety that gripped him as he anticipated all that skin-on-skin contact.

His chest settled on her chest. His hips on her hips. His legs covered and surrounded hers.

Scorching. She was absolutely, intoxicatingly on fire. It would’ve been mind-numbingly arousing if he didn’t know the threat the heat posed to her well-being. Still, blood filled his cock and turned it to steel between them. He gritted his teeth, unable to control his body’s natural reaction to the temperature.

Breathing deeply, he concentrated on pulling the heat into himself.

Please let this work
. Gods, maybe the amulet hadn’t protected her after all.

He absorbed what he could. And then he took more. He would take whatever he had to. For her.

Chrys pulled the energy in until it turned volcanic inside him. Restraining that amount of power had him shaking so hard he feared hurting her. He locked his jaw and muscled through the burn, intent upon his life not to fail at this one thing.

Come on, Laney! Come back to me.

Damn his brother to the eternal fields of punishment! And damn himself! This. This was the scenario he’d feared that night he’d yielded to her pleas to stay, to talk. Gods only knew what had prompted Eurus’s return to Summerlyn, but no doubt his interest had been piqued to find Chrys’s energy more prominent than it had been before.

Eurus might’ve yielded the whip, but this attack—and, dear gods, its consequences—lay at Chrys’s feet. What a fool he’d been to think he could be the source of Laney’s joy he’d felt as he sailed with her on the wind. He had
always
been a source of destruction. Damnit, that shit went way back, to Chrys’s childhood, to when ancient peoples feared him for the crop-destroying capabilities his storms possessed.

But, man, while guilt would
always
eat at a part of him for Eurus’s death, another part—a baser part—would revel in his blood and dance on his fucking bones.

Laney whimpered and her body came to life beneath him, flinching and tensing.

Relief and hope flared. But as she continued to fight beneath him, he groaned, too, her movement agonizing against his over-sensitized skin and swollen cock.

Cooler. She was cooler. Not normal, but not endangered. Thank the gods.

Her eyelids flickered. Struggled. Opened. Gorgeous blue stared up at him for a long moment, unfocused and unseeing.

“Chrys,” she gasped, her voice raw. “Oh, Chrys.” Tears welled and spilled down her temples into her hair.

The physical expression of her pain sliced into him until he could hardly bear it. But he would. Because he deserved it. And because she deserved his strength.

“Y-you…o-ok-okay?” she asked, adrenaline and shock giving her the shakes.

Me?
He frowned. Surely, the dark hum of the overloaded energy vibrating through him made him mishear her. She couldn’t possibly be asking about—

“W-was so…so…sc-scared for…you.”

“Jesus, Laney, you infuriatingly brave, fearless woman. I am fine. Except for my heart, which stopped when he struck you. Except for my soul, which was nearly extinguished when I thought you dead. I am fine, because of you. But you—” Foreign, overwhelming emotion lodged in his throat, choked off the words that tried to form. Words communicating desires he had no business wanting, declaring feelings he didn’t understand and didn’t believe himself capable of, anyway.

“Back,” she said.

“What?” he managed.

“My…” She whimpered and arched under his weight. “So hot. H-hurts.”

Chrys wrenched up off her. Though her skin still bore a pink flush, the swollen red was gone. And despite everything, she was achingly beautiful, perfectly formed, utterly desirable. He raked his gaze up to hers. “Your back burns?”

Eyes wide and panicked, she nodded.

“I’ll fix it, Laney. I promise.”

Grateful for the soft carpet, he eased her onto her stomach. From neck to heels, her body bore the same distress he’d removed from her front side. It was like the lightning had seared her outside, but hadn’t been able to penetrate within.

“I’ll fix it,” he whispered again, once more covering her body with his. “Gods,” he gritted out as his chest pressed against her back and his rock hard cock nestled between the soft cheeks of her behind. Her arms lay above her shoulders, and when he covered them with his own, she lifted her hands and laced their fingers together.

Focus. Focus only on taking in the heat.

He tried. He really fucking tried. But she was squirming and shuddering and tormenting him with hot, unrelenting friction.

Almighty Zeus, one shift of his hips and he’d be in her…

Thunder rumbled overhead. Winds whipped through the trees surrounding the house. Rain fell in loud, fat drops. He couldn’t hold back energy this immense. It must release. Damnit all to Hades, he didn’t want to hurt her further.

But he was so close to the edge of his control.

Cooler. She’s cooler.
He’d quelled the blaze. “Laney, is it…is it better?” he asked, tremors making it difficult to speak.

She moaned. “Yes.”

“I…I have to—” He swallowed hard. “For just a few minutes, I have to go.”

“What? No!” Despite the hoarseness, the strength of her protest anchored him. “S-stay. Need…you.”

He dropped his face to her hair. Oh, a mistake. The appealing natural scent of warm citrus infused him, fueling his frantic arousal, making him want more,
demand
more.

She arched, grinding her soft ass against his cock.

One hand flew to her hip, gripping, clutching, restraining. “Be still. I have the barest hold on myself right now.” He hated how terse his words sounded, but couldn’t hold back. The energy had him jacked up ‘til he was nearly instinct alone.

Get up, get up, get up
, he told himself over and over, but he couldn’t gain control over his own base desires.
Get in her, get in her, get in her
.

“No,” he growled. He pushed himself up, his body howling in protest until he felt as if two sides of himself warred with one another.

Laney gasped. “Don’t go.” She pushed up on her elbows and looked over her shoulder. Her eyes had gone a blazing cobalt, wide, expressive, and fiery with a desire he didn’t know if he could resist.

Chapter Seventeen

“Don’t look at me that way, Laney. I’m so damn close to lifting your hips and burying myself inside you that I’m afraid to move.”

Heat roared through her, but this time it wasn’t from whatever had attacked her. It was from her pounding desire for the god currently kneeling behind her.

He was safe. And she was okay. Mostly okay, anyway. And he’d done that for her. He’d taken care of her, just as he promised.

She didn’t know what had happened in the moments after she saw that awful black light, but she did know they were damn lucky to be alive. And that made Laney not want to waste another moment. There’d be time for explanations later. Now, she wanted him. She wanted him wanting her.

“Chrys,” she croaked, her throat sore and parched. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not.” Shoving away her nerves, she pushed up onto her hands and knees, the carpet soft underneath. She stopped just shy of grinding herself into what she
knew
from how he’d laid on her moments before was a massive erection. Adrenaline roared through her until the room spun. His thighs straddling her calves were all she knew, all she could feel.

Rough hands settled on her hips. “Don’t. Move.” He spat out a curse in that odd language. “Jesus, woman. I’m trying not to hurt you here.”

She started to turn to him, wanting him to see the sincerity and trust in her face and eyes. Next thing she knew, he’d halted her movement by pinning her wrists against her lower back in one of his big fists. Fear and lust shot through in equal measure. She spoke over her shoulder, “You wouldn’t hurt me, Chrys. You healed me. Again.”

He tugged her upper body back against his chest, forcing her to arch against him. “You don’t understand what’s about to happen here,” he whispered, his voice low and gritty. “I don’t make love. I don’t do soft and romantic. I fuck. I dominate. And I restrain my lovers because I can’t stand to be touched. Sure, I get my partners off good, but then I walk out the door. So, whatever fantasy about us you’ve got playing in your head right now is whole solar systems away from my ugly reality.”

For a long moment, Laney was sure her heart stopped. And then it took off at a full-out gallop that left her breathless. No one had
ever
talked to her that way. He was just trying to scare her away. Had to be. And, truth be told, she was a little scared. But she was also wetter for him than she’d ever been for another man. Right at this moment, she couldn’t really think about why his tight grip, rough tone, and coarse words set her body on fire, but there it was. Her nipples puckered. The emptiness between her legs ached. After what’d happened, she
needed
to connect with him, in every way. Arousal flowed so thick through her blood, she’d take him any way she could have him.

In that moment, she
yearned
for him, her body, her heart, her soul.

Laney tilted her face up toward his, his warm glow filling her vision, her nose tracing along the hard angle of his jaw. “I want you however I can have you, Chrysander. I trust you.” And after what they’d just survived, she needed him, she needed the physical proof they’d made it through. Together.

He blew out a halting breath. “You shouldn’t. Right now, you shouldn’t. The healing…I am overloaded with energy right now. I can’t…I don’t think I can hold back.” His words rasped with arousal and need and pain—all three touched her down deep.

“Then don’t. I’m not fragile. I won’t break.” She dug for courage. “Don’t believe me? Feel between my legs. That’s what you’re doing to me.” She kissed his jaw, once, twice.

For a long moment, he didn’t seem to respond, and then the light in the room flared, the air took on a tingly, electrical quality, and Chrys’s muscles tightened everywhere they touched.

With a groan, he claimed her mouth with a possessive, invasive kiss she felt in every nerve ending. His hand gripped her jaw and forced her to arch further to accommodate the demands of his kiss. His tongue stroked and explored and took her mouth, stealing her breath until dizziness threatened. He wrenched back, breathing hard. “Last chance, Laney.”

“I’m yours,” she whispered. At least, she wanted to be. If he would have her. If he would take her, as he’d threatened. If he’d fulfill the dark promise of passion he’d made.

In an instant, he pushed her away until she was upright on her knees. Still holding her wrists behind her back, he urged her upper body forward, forcing her rear out. The unexpected movement threw her off balance. She thought she’d fall, but she hung by Chrys’s grip on her wrists.

His heat radiated against her backside. He dragged the head of his cock through her wetness, then pushed into her entrance.

The sensation of fullness was immediate, and he was barely inside her. Laney moaned, so desperately excited her skin seemed to tingle. Gripping her hip with his free hand, he withdrew and thrust again, and again, and then he fully seated his cock inside her, the hair on his thighs tickling her rear.

He paused, and the lights in the room flared, the brilliant white visible even with her poor vision. But she couldn’t think on the meaning of it because the pressure within her was so deliciously intense. And maddening, too. Laney was just about to beg him to move when he ground out a curse in that foreign language and pulled out. Then slammed right back in.

Laney gasped and threw her head back.

He stroked into her again and again, the barely controlled full-withdrawal-and-thrust rhythm stealing her breath and blanking her mind of everything except him. His hips snapped against her bottom and his grip tightened on her wrists. She longed to touch him, to skim her sensitive fingertips over every inch of him, to dig her nails in his back, but
not
being able to forced every bit of her attention to the incredible dragging friction of his hard, thick length pumping in and out of her. Add her blindness on top of it all, and his cock literally became the center of her world.

His hold on her wrists tightened until it was nearly painful. The lights flared again. Nearby, something popped—a lightbulb? The sprinkling sound of glass followed. “I’m sorry,” Chrys grunted. “I’ve got to release some of this or I’ll hurt you.” Another bulb popped, then another. From outside, a sharp wind suddenly rattled the windowpanes.

“Whatever you need,” she rasped as his hard thrusts quickened.

“You feel so fucking good,” he said, voice full of gravel, punctuating his declaration with hammering strokes. Another bulb exploded, closer this time.

She gasped. “So do you.” She fisted and unfisted her hands in his grip, partly from the numbness settling into her fingertips, partly an outlet for the erotic energy flowing through her body.

Chrys grabbed her hair and wound it around his fist, forcing her to arch. She moaned as the change in her position had him hitting new places inside her. He was completely in control of her body. And she could say with complete certainty that she loved it.

Glass shattered again, and Laney’s eyes flew open. The room had almost no electrical light now, though Chrys’s aura shown so brightly, its yellow glow illuminated most of the room.

Chrys released her hair and stroked his fingers down her spine, once, twice. The third time, he caressed all the way to where her cheeks separated. His palm settled there, just above her crack, his fingers spanning her lower back, his thumb extended downward. The pad of his thumb paused over her rear opening.

Laney whined as instinctive fear and desperate, forbidden curiosity swirled within her stomach. She shoved the fear away. He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t do anything she didn’t want. But did she want this? No one had ever even touched her there. But she couldn’t deny how much that one simple movement of his finger had ratcheted up her arousal and made her juices flow.

“Shh.” He dragged his thumb over the opening, exerting a foreign pressure against the tight pucker with each pass.

“Chrys,” she whimpered, her mind in chaos over how damn good it felt.

“I want to take you
everywhere
. Over and over.”

He might not have done romantic, but he certainly did erotic. His words shot straight to her clit, and her body lurched toward an orgasm that promised to be bigger than she could possibly handle. Never before had sensation felt so intense, had she felt so out of control, had another person felt so
in
control of not just her body, but her mind and her heart.

Suddenly, his hand returned to her hip and his pace increased. A series of fast, frenetic strokes that rubbed the head of his cock against a place inside her that had her keening low in her throat. The sound joined the rapid, wet
slapping
of his skin against hers and the mumbled curses that spilled from his lips. Somewhere, more lights exploded. A strange humming buzz filled the air. The room smelled hot of electricity and summer and sex. Her shoulders started to ache from the demanding pull of her body toward his, but she wouldn’t have changed anything about their lovemaking for all the world. Even if he refused to call it that.

Laney’s heart squeezed. The physical intensity between them combined with their earlier emotional connection to shove her feelings further down a path she probably shouldn’t go. She was falling for him. She knew it. It was likely going to cost her. When he left—and he would leave, she knew that—her small, isolated life was going to feel that much smaller, that much lonelier. But that didn’t change what she was starting to feel.

The pain, the pleasure, the overload of sensation and emotion of every kind—she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt more alive.

“Jesus,” he groaned, and a blast of thunder cracked above the house. Laney cried out.

Chrys tugged her wrists hard enough to force her up onto her knees and back against his chest. The position had her nearly sitting on his damp thighs, which hammered up into her in slower, harder, precise strokes that felt so much deeper. His breath rasped in her ear, mixed in with a series of low grunts and curses. She reveled in the sound of his desire, in the press of more of his skin against more of hers, and thrilled at how amazingly
hot
he felt. Feverish, even.

In a hot hand, he cupped one of her breasts, jutting out because of how she was arched against him. He squeezed and massaged one, then the other. As she watched, he rolled her nipples between his fingers, tight enough that she caught her breath before releasing a long moan, but not so tight that it hurt. Then he skimmed his palm down her belly, leaving a trail of heat in his wake. She quivered in anticipation. His fingers curled between her legs.

“You’re going to come for me,” he growled.

“Yes,” she rasped, the command helping to ensure it would happen sooner rather than later.

He stroked her clit, his nails occasionally scraping the sensitive flesh and shoving her arousal higher. His hand moved faster, harder. She moaned, gasped, held her breath. She was so close, so close.

“Now, Laney.” He pinched and rolled her clit between his thumb and finger.

The third tug brought her orgasm slamming into her. She cried out, her head thrashing on Chrys’s shoulder, her body convulsing. His fingers still moved, dragging out her pleasure until it was hard to breathe.

“Damn, that was gorgeous,” he said, pressing a rough kiss to her ear.

The praise made her heart squeeze, but she couldn’t respond. Her muscles rebelled, refusing to hold up her weight. She went limp against him. He wrapped an arm around her chest and they fell forward onto her stomach, his muscular form atop her, his thighs going to the outside of hers. Their sweat added a slick friction to his thrusts.

He released her wrists and pushed up onto his arms, moving within the tightness the new position created. Fast. Hard. Driving. Chasing. Thunder rumbled low and long, growing louder and more intense. He grabbed her hips and yanked her body back to meet his demanding thrusts.

“So good, Chrys,” she managed. “I knew it would be.”

“Fuck,” he groaned. Then he withdrew completely. Glass exploded and thunder splintered the nighttime air as hot, liquid stripes fell across her back.

He came on her.

The thought released a wanton satisfaction throughout her tired body. She literally wore his desire on her skin. But why had he—
Holy crap, Laney!
Never once had she thought of protection. Gratitude had tears pricking the backs of her eyes. How many times had he said he’d take care of her? And he had, again.

Leaning over her, he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

As if she could move.

…

Chrys returned a moment later with a warm washcloth in his hand. She hadn’t moved an inch. Sleepy blue eyes peered up at him and Laney gave a small, crooked smile. “Hi,” she whispered.

“Hi,” he said.

He straddled her thighs and reached out. But then he drew back and just soaked in the image of this beautiful, brave, trusting woman lying naked on the floor, painted with his seed. He’d come so close to losing control with her. Excess energy still rippled through him, making him tremble, stirring up the wind outside. Glass littered the floor in every direction, like someone had sprinkled glitter all around them.

She’d very likely saved his life tonight, and it wasn’t the first time she’d risked herself for him. Tending to him when he’d fallen through her roof, terrified of the storm that raged around her but determined to help a creature in need. Hell, she’d even stepped in front of him when Zephyros had appeared in her room that day. Why did she keep doing it?

And how could he let her continue?

The question had a ready answer: he couldn’t. He needed to leave. He needed to find another way to protect her.

Immediately, every part of him rebelled at the idea. His brain ruled out the possibility that anyone else was better suited. His body demanded more of hers—her heart, her tight slickness, her touch. And Almighty Zeus if that last one wasn’t a head-spinner.

His heart…
Aw, damnit all to Hades.
His heart fucking
ached
at the idea of leaving her.