That made her smile, a quick, sly little expression that touched her eyes so wickedly that Vincent felt the other soul inside of him shudder in apprehension and delight. He let Docia push him over onto his back, watched as she threw her leg astride him and unzipped her dress. How amazingly beautiful she was in that moment. More so because of the lack of symmetry of her hair and such. It was nothing for a woman to portray beauty when she was simply beautiful. It was breathtaking to see an imperfect woman become stunning just because she willed it into being from the inside out. Over time she would heal, her hair would grow, and the Bodywalker within her would resonate until she was blindingly beautiful; but he didn’t think it would ever compare with what he was seeing right then.
She pulled the gown, which had become lank throughout their ordeals, over her head and threw it a little too close to the nearby fire. That left her in a lacy pair of boy shorts and matching bra, both in midnight blue. The bra was clearly bust enhancing, not that she needed any enhancements. She reached behind herself and popped the clasp, then, with an almost shy little wriggle, she let it slide forward down her arms.
And that wrote the end to Ram’s attempts to gainsay the situation. Vincent felt it in a chasing rush of heat and blood, blood trying to fill flesh already pretty heavily engorged. She was sitting directly on him, so she felt it almost the same instant he did. It was no wonder. He could have broken bricks with the thing at that point. The smile of delight, the sense of triumph that lit her face, was like nothing he’d ever seen before. And she should be delighted, he thought. She should feel her victory down to her very core. She deserved it. And they both knew … they all knew … it was a victory a long time coming in her life.
“Oh my!” She giggled, leaning forward over him so her hair curtained off his vision on one side and her breasts radiated warmth against him but did not yet come into contact with him. “So sorry, Ram,” she said, exaggerating a pout with absolutely no remorse in it. “It seems you’ve lost.”
“Oh, I think there’s victory enough to placate all involved,” Vincent assured her with a chuckle. He lifted a hand to the bare expanse of her breastbone, turning his knuckles against her and running them down the length of it. “But you’re right, aren’t you? This is rather a ménage á everybody. It feels very naughty, doesn’t it?”
“Kinky,” she agreed, licking her lips as though the idea appealed to her very, very much.
“It’s always the shy ones.” He chuckled, turning his hand to slide over her left breast, feeling the fantastic weight of it, the softness of it, against the contrasting hardness of his calloused fingers. “Now move up, sweetness. I’m going to taste you.”
She did as requested, scooting just far enough forward to help him bring the tip of her breast against his lips. More a forward rolling of her hips and a lengthening of her spine, he noted. She wasn’t eager to leave her seat now that she had him, and her little shifts against him were blindingly arousing … no doubt for both of them.
He kissed her first, a sweet sort of homage rather than just devouring her with lust, and it threw her off a little. She was still trying to redefine things, and she didn’t know how to settle into a gray area between all-out sexual vixen and quirky shy girl. But as she watched him take a deep breath against her, watched him nuzzle her with what could be defined only as affection, she realized that she had to stop making definitions and just start living in the moment. This whole experience had been nothing but a long act of redefinition, and it wasn’t likely to end anytime soon. Who knew how long it would truly take before the Blending finished successfully? Who knew what the outcome would be? But she knew one thing with utter determination, and that was that she wasn’t going to let this slip away from her. She wasn’t going to let him slip away from her.
By the time he finally touched his tongue to her and drew the rigid point of her nipple between his lips, she was squirming with impatience and need. His hands were running slowly down the length of her back, the warmth and strength of them seeping into her, making her feel, for the first time in days, as though she were utterly safe and secure. Not that she doubted his skills after all this time he had spent saving her life, but this was something far more essential than that, something that reached into a primal place inside of her that reassured her on levels she might never truly understand. If she stopped for a moment to think, she would realize that on many conscious levels she didn’t understand. But there was a soul-assuring energy to her connection with him that outvoted the conscious questions just about every time as far as he was concerned. As far as this physicality was concerned.
She was running her hands up and over his chest, feeling the topography of muscles with excited fascination. She let her fingers crawl over pecs and abdominals, dragging the edges of her nails through the dampness of sweat his arousal and the nearness of the fire had wrought. His hands burrowed into her panties in the back, grabbing hold of her by both cheeks and encouraging her to ride harder against him, making her suddenly aware that she had already been doing so.
As his mouth swarmed over her chest, throat, and lips, she struggled to understand the depth of what she was feeling, because nothing in her life had even come close to it. Every touch was like a dance of fire moving fluidly between them. She knew it wasn’t one-sided because she tested him a little, touched him complexly and simply, and watched how both types of contact stoked his need to a point where she suspected it was becoming an effort on his part to rein himself in.
It was perhaps the most beautiful thing anyone had ever done for her. She looked into the gold of his eyes, saw the molten wash of lust, saw how primal and male he could truly be if he let himself go … and perhaps she would want that one day. But he knew on an inexplicable level that she was still too fragile in some ways and that there were still too many unknown variables. He was afraid of frightening her or hurting her. Scaring her off. He desperately didn’t want to scare her off.
Who knew such a strong, confident creature would be so capable of so much self-sacrifice just to protect another? Or that he could have such vulnerabilities? As he rolled with her, pushed her under his body after stripping her of her underwear, he made a fierce sound that echoed the fury of restraint he was using. For her. Just for her.
“Look at you. Just look at you,” he ground out as he did exactly that, lifting himself enough so he could stare at the landscape of her body. The intensity of his appraisal triggered something both shy and arousing inside of her, her hands flitting in a weak attempt to divert his attention or protect herself from the starkness of his inspection, she wasn’t sure which. He grabbed them and pinned them to the mattress at the level of her shoulders. By not holding them over her head, he deprived her of being able to hide her face within the shelter of her arms. And therefore she felt even more exposed than ever. She had no doubt that he was aware of this. Aware of all of it.
“You have nothing to hide. Nothing to feel inadequate about,” he whispered against her ear before lifting to look at her yet again. “There is nothing here that is less than perfect to me. Your left breast is slightly larger than the right, no doubt to try and win my attention.… I suspect she’s jealous of her twin. I find that precocious of her, don’t you? Your navel tips a little, the coy thing, tempting me to do this.…” He moved down and dipped his tongue inside her sensitive belly button, the stroke of it long and lazy. “And the soft rounding of your belly is quite fortunate, because you are going to need the cushioning to protect you from the power of my thrusts. And I am going to take great delight in watching the impact shimmer through you. And here … oh, here …” His mouth drifted over the trim hair framing her nether regions. The hair she had needed to wax before her accident and hadn’t had the chance to manage since. Still, it wasn’t as though it were a wild Amazonian forest or anything. Just … more than she preferred. Especially when being intimate. “Pretty to see, warm to touch …” He stroked thick fingers over her, then down between waiting lips. “Wet. The smell of ambr
osia, the whole of it like an oasis. My oasis, Docia. Where I will rest, and drink and dine on the fruits available to me.”
“Holy smokes!” she gasped as his mouth fell on her most intimate flesh and his tongue worked an insane kind of magic against her. And that touch, his tongue to her most intimate places, was no different from any other touch they had ever shared. It was fiery and fierce, an instant resonating burn that burrowed deep and fast and left ferocious echoes of itself everywhere at once. He danced attendance all around her clit, his perfect avoidance of it telling her he knew exactly where it was and exactly how to let the nuanced nerves around it bleed flushed arousal into it until she was ready to scream.
“You’re killing me,” she growled at him impatiently, her knees squeezing at his shoulders where they framed him on either side. “You just wait till it’s your turn. See how mean I am to you!”
He chuckled, the vibration of it dancing across her hypersensitive flesh.
“Why are you in such a rush?” he asked her, the expression in his eyes so smug and confident that she wanted to kick him in the head. How was it that men never had any doubts about themselves? Or perhaps they did but had learned to make it appear otherwise. And why was that so damn sexy?
“See how you feel when you haven’t had sex with another human being in three years,” she muttered.
Ah, crud. Wrong thing to say. He was stopping. Stopping was so not welcome right then.
He looked as if he were going to say something and then seemed to think better of it. Instead, a peculiar smile drifted across his lips.
“You’re right,” he said, his fingers stroking through her wet flesh from the niche at the very front to well past her vaginal entrance. “Now is hardly the time for deep seductions and extended foreplay.”
“Too late,” she muttered.
That made the most incredibly mischievous smile light his features as he rose to his knees and began to unfasten his trousers. Before she knew it, he had shucked them off and kicked them aside and was right back up the center of her body, his hips settling deeply against her, his aroused flesh hard and hot as it slid and stroked against her. She tried to gasp, but for some reason she couldn’t. Her eyes fluttered closed and she fell back into the sensation of him. Her hands, unconciously, turned into ridged little claws, her nails sinking into the flesh of his shoulders. She was trying to grasp him, to manipulate him, her whole body rising as her hips shifted mindlessly for a better angle to welcome him.
All amusement and teasing had been sucked out of Vincent the moment they came into contact sex to sex. He had been lit on fire, that heat and electrical effect she had on him exploding through him. Again, nothing in his life or Ram’s lives— any of them— compared with what she was making him feel. He craved her mouth just then as much as he craved to be inside of her. One would not do without the other. It was a need he’d never required before. Certainly not so adamantly. He set himself to enter her but paused until her lips were touching his, her sweet tongue twisting together with his so he could savor the flavor of her just as his entire being was savoring the intensity she caused to vibrate throughout his body.
Then with a pair of fervent thrusts they claimed these women for themselves like explorers stabbing a flag into the precious territory of the North Pole and claiming it for all those they represented. They settled deeply inside, thrilling in the dominance of it, knowing there would never be anything better, that nothing would ever have more value than that moment. They knew what they were now a part of was the most precious thing the universe could ever give to them. The feeling was so overwhelming, so shocking and obliterating, that there was no movement for the longest time. There couldn’t be while there was so much to process. So much unexpectedness. So much craving on the heels of so much satisfaction.
Vincent slid a hand under her, at the small of her back, lifting her hips in a tilt better suited for the fury he was about to unleash on her. Then he was thrusting into her, trying to make it past the initial overwhelming sensations to seek out the rest. This connection was so satisfying just the way it was, just that alone, that there was a danger of remaining too content. So he moved. He risked throwing off that sense of perfection and moved. And the moment he did, all things primal and fierce took over. Perfection was one thing, but now … now he must claim this perfection as his own. They must stake their claim for all time as the dominant, the ruler … the pharaoh. In his time, Ram had been one of the most powerful and effective rulers of Egypt. He had brought forth some of the greatest wonders known to man, wonders still respected to this day. Vincent had proven to be more than worthy to host such a being. But both were brought low in her body, in her magnificence. And neither would let her go. Neither could. It was as though something inside of them would be destroyed if she escaped them.
Vincent listened to her gasp and squeak and moan, and it gave him a feeling of delight he’d never forget. As he pushed into her, he was determined she would never forget that moment either. He thrust deep enough, he felt, to reach the elusive creature inside Docia who had said so little and reached out to him not at all.
You think you belong to another, and he might think you belong to him, but I will prove us all wrong. I will make the forbidden my own. And I will make myself her servant in all new ways.
Vincent began to tremble to his core, shaking in the face of the magnitude of what was coming. They who had not quailed under any threat or enemy in aeons of time were now humbled and afraid. Afraid they would not be what she needed. What she wanted. What she would keep. Afraid they wouldn’t please her enough to satisfy something so special.
With frustration and desire clawing through him emotionally and physically, he listened to her cries of pleasure, struck into her until he felt her nails ripping through his flesh on his back. Then, unable to contain it any longer, his release rushed up on him. He cried out heedlessly, came into her just as recklessly. All rhythm gone. All well-laid plans destroyed. He felt her sobbing against his lips, realizing he’d never once let his mouth fall away from hers.
And yet still he kissed her. As they both gasped for breath, as she cried ridiculously indefinable tears, as his hot wetness overflowed their meshed bodies and stained their thighs. Docia had felt everything he had felt and more.
“More” being the sudden revival of the spirit inside of her. As if their coming together had awakened her, revitalized her, given her all the strength she needed to come into being. Docia’s body hummed in the aftermath of pleasure and vibrated with the energy of the symbiont.
They didn’t fall apart. They couldn’t bring themselves to separate. Instead, Vincent wrapped his arms tightly around her and rolled them over so her body came to blanket his. Her weight was the only thing that kept him from floating away from the high buzzing through him.
And so, mouths still adjoined, still exchanging kisses up until the very last moment, they let the exhaustion of daylight wash over them at last.
Hours later, at the cusp of evening, Ram woke with a start and an inward breath.
That inward breath brought the scent of sex onto his palate. He turned his head the slightest bit and his lips touched a female forehead, the loose, unnecessary stitches inside perfectly healed skin and the new growth of about an inch of hair telling him much time had passed and many things had changed. As if the understanding that he was nakedly entwined with the woman who ought to be his queen were not enough.
He and Vincent were once again in their usual, agreed-upon positions. Ram the front man and the dominant for the most part, Vincent the background observer with his attention to details, his eye for danger, and his leveling opinions that kept Ram clear and relevant.
Ram wanted to lash out at his alter ego, to scream at him for what he had done, to shame him for the betrayal to king and kind. Because for all he said he was not beholden to the ways of the Bodywalkers, Vincent knew that he was. He knew their ways were now his ways. He knew he had accepted that long ago when he had accepted such a po
werful and positional Body-walker as Ram.
But Ram also knew it would be hypocritical to blame Vincent. He had been there. He had been just as present. He had made love to Docia and her symbiont just as eagerly as Vincent had. Ram had thrown aside all protests the minute he had felt the heat of her. And the minute they had moved inside of her, Ram had instantly bridged the distance back to Vincent, as though the connection had broken the separating spell completely, as if it had energized his soul into being.
Ram swore softly, an Egyptian curse, something he didn’t do very often, knowing how powerful words could be among his race. What would happen now? How would he even face Menes, his longtime friend and respected leader, knowing he had willingly done such a thing with the woman who carried the spirit Menes had once said was forever cleaved to his? There were those who looked on the Bodywalkers’ existence as a long-standing curse, but Menes had always claimed that it was anything but, for without it he would never have known Hatshepsut, a queen who had ruled in a dynasty far beyond his own.
What he had felt, what he had experienced, was exactly what he had imagined must pass between the besotted king and queen. He even tested the thought of having to live life without Docia, and the immediate rise in his heart rate and chill on his skin, the vicious rush of rage threatening to boil up over him … oh yes. This was what he had imagined it to be. Blind and furious and fabulous. Everything and anything.
The only trouble was … she was not supposed to be his. What would Menes do if he came out of the Ether and found his queen in the arms of another? What would it do to their people? Their political structure? The Politic Bodywalkers would have no leader, no strength … and the zealot priests and priestesses would gain the foothold they had always fought for.
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