Loc took another sip of his wine, then stared toward the hearth, his gaze thoughtful. It was far too warm to have a fire burning there, but the iron candleholder with its nine pillar candles provided its own light and warmth, a good substitute for a true wood-burning fire.
He didn’t seem inclined to speak, so Cat found the courage to ask, “Where did you go today?” Because some part of her was still worried that he’d come here and told her he would stay simply because he’d gone on his search yet again, and again was unsuccessful.
His answer surprised her. “I went to seek counsel from someone I thought could give me the insight I needed. His situation is not entirely unlike mine.”
“He’s a demon?” Cat asked. For a moment, she imagined the world being populated with hundreds or even thousands of demons in disguise, with their spouses and partners completely oblivious to their significant others’ alternate identities.
“No,” Loc said. His mouth quirked, and he added, “To be completely honest, I am not sure exactly what he is. Perhaps he doesn’t know, either. But he has been living a mortal life here on Earth, a life with a wife and children, a place in his community. His example made me reexamine my desire to return to my own world.”
Cat wondered who this person could possibly be. She’d never heard a whisper of anyone like that, but then again, it wasn’t as if her experience was all that large. There were huge swaths of the world she hadn’t visited, vast numbers of people she would never meet.
That thought didn’t sting quite as much as it used to. How could it matter, when she had Loc sitting here next to her?
“Because if he could be happy in this world, then you could be happy here, too?”
“Precisely,” Loc said. “How could I be happy there, if I didn’t have you with me?”
She wasn’t sure which one of them moved first. All she knew was that they were kissing again, lips locked as though they both feared the other person might somehow be whisked away from them at any moment. He tasted of wine, and his hands were tangled in her hair, holding her close, while the blood thundered in her veins and she thought she might drown from the sudden, overwhelming desire that flooded through her entire body.
Maybe he felt her need, or maybe he was just experiencing his own. Whatever the case, his arms went around her, and before she could blink, they were in her bedroom, where more candles shimmered on every available surface, and the room was washed with sunset’s orange light.
Now that they were alone here, though, Loc seemed suddenly shy. He let go of her and took a few steps backward. His dark eyes still glittered with desire, but his hands hung at his sides, and he glanced away from her, mouth tight.
“What is it, Loc?” she asked.
“I want….” He stopped there and pulled in a deep breath. “I want you, Cat. This body is telling me how much it wants you. But I have never — in my world, there is no such thing — ”
Even with the hot ache of need throbbing between her legs, she couldn’t help but experience a wave of pity. Loc seemed so lordly, so masterful…and yet, this was his first time. Cat supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, how could he have ever experienced physical love before this?
Well, to be fair, she guessed he probably had ample opportunity while he was traveling the world, but she sensed that such earthly concerns hadn’t even crossed his mind. Until her, he’d never met anyone who had ever sent his thoughts along those paths.
“It’s all right, Loc,” she said gently. “Your body is telling you what it wants. Just listen to it. And I can show you. Come here.”
She took him by the hand and led him over to the bed, then turned back the quilt and the sheet and the blanket. Slowly, she took hold of the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it up over his head, trying not to gasp at the body that was revealed. She’d seen his arms, of course, but this was the first time she’d caught a glimpse of the defined muscles of his chest, the beautifully cut shapes of his abs, such a display of shadow and light that once again she found herself wishing she could sketch him.
And another cut, V-ing down into the waistband of his jeans….
Before now, she’d let her lovers take the lead, figuring they had more experience than she did. Now she knew she would have to be the bold one, because even if Loc had seen depictions of human sexuality in movies or books or TV shows, he certainly had never experienced the act for himself. She undid the button of his jeans, and the zipper, and worked the pants down, revealing the gray boxer-briefs he wore underneath.
Well, at least now I know he doesn’t go commando….
Cat didn’t allow herself to dwell on that thought for very long, though, because the bulge she glimpsed in those briefs made her realize they had more important matters to attend to. Her hand brushed against that bulge, and he moaned, eyes widening as unexpected sensations began to move through him.
“That felt…good.”
“It’s supposed to,” she said with a smile.
He didn’t respond, but, echoing her own actions, took hold of her tank top and pulled it up and over her head. For a second, he frowned as he caught sight of the plain black bra she was wearing.
“Here,” she said, grasping his hands and bringing them to the front hook of her bra. “This is where you unfasten it.”
“And that is all right with you?”
Cat grinned. “Loc, I wouldn’t have shown you where the clasp was if I didn’t want you to undo it.”
Those words elicited a fierce grin of his own, and he unhooked the clasp and slid the straps of her bra over her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. At once his hands were on her breasts, stroking her, and a moan of pleasure escaped her throat. It had been a long, long time since anyone had touched her like this, and yet Cat somehow knew Loc would be evoking this same response from her even if she’d gotten laid a few days earlier.
“You are so very beautiful,” he murmured. “Is it all right if I kiss you like this?”
And he lowered his head and took her nipple in his mouth, tongue working over the sensitive flesh. Once again she moaned, the heat between her legs increasing. How he’d known to do that, she had no idea, but damn, he was good at it.
Gasping, she said, “Oh, yes…it’s more than all right.”
Somehow, they were falling onto the bed, his mouth still closed on her nipple even as his fingers caught hold of the button of her jeans. He got it free, then pulled the zipper down. At once, Cat wriggled her way out of the pants, kicking them to the floor. Loc’s hand slipped inside her bikini underwear, moving down….
“Oh, God!” she cried.
At once his hand stilled. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Loc, you did something exactly right.” Despite the anxious need building in her, she smiled. “Human women can sometimes be a little noisy…during. You know.”
He nodded, although Cat wasn’t entirely sure whether he did in fact know what she was talking about. But that didn’t matter, because those long, strong fingers were now slipping over her, feeling her, exploring, one of them going inside her, sliding in and out.
Oh, dear lord. Maybe he’d watched human pornography so he’d know what to do if he ever found himself in this sort of situation. Cat had no idea, and it wasn’t long before she found herself not really caring where he’d learned how to do this, because she could feel the orgasm building in her, warm, swimmy heat increasing in her body as he touched her and continued to suckle her breast.
And then it was happening, and her body was spasming around his fingers, her own fingers buried in his long, silky hair. She held on to him and rode the wave, and then, when it had finally dissipated somewhat, she fell back against the pillows, gasping.
Loc shifted so he was propped up on one elbow, starting down at her. “Is this what an orgasm is?”
Cat nodded because she wasn’t sure if she trusted herself to speak. Finally she managed to say, “Yes. That was amazing.”
A relieved smile spread over his
features. “Good. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
Not much chance of that, especially since she realized that the climax she’d just experienced was only an appetizer. The main course was yet to come…no pun intended.
She pushed herself up and said, “I am pretty much the opposite of disappointed.” Leaning in, she initiated a long, slow, deep kiss, tasting him again, breathing in the warmth of his skin. One hand moved down to caress the bulge in his briefs, and he gasped, a gasp that turned into a moan once she’d pulled down the underwear that had concealed him all this time.
His cock was just as magnificent as the rest of him. Good thing she wasn’t the virgin that most people probably thought she still was….
Before he could react, she bent and took him in her mouth, tongue working slowly up and down his shaft. He moaned, falling flat against the pillows while she continued to lick him, not fast enough to bring him to orgasm, but just enough that his need would continue to grow.
The daylight had begun to fail, the room lit now only by all the candles Loc had placed there. Still she made love to him with her tongue, until he groaned and sat up, taking hold of her hands so he could push her back down onto the bed.
She’d expected him to enter her then, but, to her surprise, he pushed her legs apart and kissed her up the inside of her right thigh, and then let his tongue slip into her, just as slowly and lasciviously as she’d sucked his cock. Cat was glad that she lived in such an isolated spot, because the cry that escaped her throat then was probably loud enough to carry outside the house.
Then she didn’t have time to worry about neighbors or anything else, because the throbbing heat in her body was concentrating in her core, making her focus on Loc and only Loc, his dark hair brushing against her thighs, his tongue circling her clit.
This time the climax hit her with the force of a thunderbolt, her body shuddering as she buried her fingers in his hair and held on, nearly weeping from the intensity of the pleasure that swept through every limb. And as she caught her breath, tried to recover herself somewhat, he was moving, cock pressed against her entrance.
She gasped. “Yes, Loc. Yes.”
He pushed in, deeper, and then deeper still, and she began to rock her hips, showing him the rhythm. At once, he picked up on it, moving with her, going deep and then nearly pulling out before plunging into her again.
Was it possible to die from pleasure? Cat didn’t know, and right then she wasn’t sure whether it mattered or not. All that mattered was the weight of his body on her, the intense sensation of him filling her in a way she never had been before.
At last, though, he groaned, dark eyes wide and wondering as they focused on her face. In the next instant, she could feel him come, could feel the heat of his seed going into her. Apparently, that was all she needed, because she climaxed yet again in the next second, her body clamping down on his shaft as she cried out his name and held on to him.
The storm subsided, and he fell over onto his side, breathing heavily. Cat moved toward him, snuggling against his chest.
“That was….” he began, then stopped, as if he had suddenly realized he didn’t have the words to express what he’d just experienced.
“It was wonderful,” she said softly. Right then, she thought she’d never felt so satisfied…so satiated…in all her life. Even in the afterglow, however, she was also glad that she’d gotten her contraceptive shot a few months ago, although at the time she’d wondered why she even bothered, considering the wasteland that was her sex life. But as happy as she was with how things were progressing, she doubted either she or Loc needed that kind of complication in their lives.
“Now I begin to see why human beings are so obsessed with sex,” he said in musing tones. “I could never quite understand before this, even when I found myself thinking of you, wondering how you were doing.”
“You did?” she asked, surprised. She would have thought he was far too busy with his search for someone to send him back to his world to have spared any mental energy on her.
His hand moved over her hair, slow, caressing. More warmth spread through her body, and Cat knew that, even as content as she felt right now, she would happily go for a second round any time in the near future. “Of course. Yours was the only mind I had been able to touch. As the months wore on, I realized I wanted to experience that again, wanted to be near someone who could communicate with me in a way I was used to.”
“You haven’t done it very much, though.”
“No,” he said. “Once I was here with you, I realized it wasn’t the mode of communication that mattered so much, but rather simply being able to speak with you at all. And, after so many months of being here in your world, being around your people, I began to understand what a rare jewel you are, Catalina Castillo.”
As much as his words pleased her, Cat felt as though she should offer up some form of protest. “I’m not that rare.”
“I disagree.” He moved then, shifting so he was mostly on top of her, his hands holding her arms down against the mattress.
A thrill of need went through her. Normally, she would have said she didn’t much care for being put in a position where the man was so dominant, but Cat liked him holding her down like this, his straight dark hair falling around his face, black eyes boring into hers. It was probably just a reflection from one of the candles, but for a second, she could have sworn she saw red flames gleaming in the depths of those eyes.
That thought didn’t bother her at all. She loved what he was, didn’t care at all that a bat-winged, red-eyed demon lurked under his outer perfection.
If she were going to be entirely truthful with herself, she loved him. Everything about him, no matter what it was.
Possibly something of what she was feeling revealed itself in her face, because he bent and kissed her, kissed her hard, tongue in her mouth strong and needy, just as his cock had been a few minutes ago. And was now, too, because once again he was at her entrance, ready to go all over again. She wrapped her legs around him and pushed him inside, glad of this chance to join with him again, to feel their bodies locked together in the sort of harmony she’d never experienced before.
This time went on even longer than the first. Cat clung to Loc, kissed him, reveled in the strength of his arms, the heat of his body. And when they came, the orgasm hit them both at the same time, the sound of their cries mixing in the still air.
Neither of them seemed inclined to part. She lay there, feeling him still inside her, smaller now but still enough to allow delicate little ripples of pleasure to pass over her body. Finally, though, she murmured, “I need to get up,” and Loc rolled away so she could push herself off the bed and go to the bathroom, where she got herself as cleaned up as she could without actually jumping in the shower. It seemed silly to get dressed again — she had a feeling they wouldn’t be leaving the house anytime soon — and so she grabbed her silky, knee-length bathrobe from the hook on the bathroom door and pulled it on, pausing at the lingerie chest in the walk-in closet so she could get a clean pair of panties.
Thus attired, she returned to the bedroom. Loc was now sitting on the edge of the bed, and he smiled when he saw her, apparently not disappointed that she’d chosen to cover herself up. “It’s getting late,” he said. “We should eat something.”
Cat hadn’t really been thinking about food, but as soon as he mentioned it, her stomach woke up and reminded her that it had been at least eight hours since she’d had her meager lunch. “Probably,” she replied. “I’m not much in the mood to cook, though.”
“You don’t have to cook a thing,” he said, and stood up. Cat could have sworn he hadn’t been wearing those black knit shorts a moment ago, but she supposed that someone with his particular powers could have made them appear on a whim.
Likewise with their evening meal. Of course she didn’t have to cook — Loc could conjure anything they wanted. “Perfect,” she said with a smile.
“What would you like?”
&n
bsp; Still smiling, she responded, “Surprise me.”
That reddish gleam was back in his eyes. “I hope I always shall.”
15
Had there ever been a woman so beautiful?
Loc didn’t think so, and he’d seen a random sampling during his travels.
Cat sat next to him on the sofa, smiling as she pulled bits of chicken satay off a skewer and ate them with her fingers. He’d thought she would enjoy having something different from her usual New Mexico fare to eat, and so they had satay and fried rice and wontons and egg rolls, most of which didn’t have to be eaten with a knife and fork. And wine, too, of course, the Syrah that had been grown here in this very vineyard.
It was hard not to merely sit there and stare at her, at this wondrous being who had shown him heights of pleasure he could never have even imagined before this day. As he’d told her, he’d understood that human beings placed a great deal of emphasis on physical relations — and he’d even attempted to watch a few videos of the act in order to clarify this particular obsession — but those sweaty, awkward couplings seemed light-years from the intimacy he and Cat had shared.
Perhaps it was simply because he loved her. That realization had come to him as she’d emerged from the bathroom wearing that silky blue robe, her rich dark hair loose on her shoulders. He’d gazed into her face, and a sudden, piercing ache went through him. Not need for her physically, although there was something of that as well. No, it was more that he was struck by the wonder of her, that this incandescent being somehow wanted him in her life, wanted to share her days with him. Loc was not sure if he could call himself worthy of her, but he knew he would do his utter best to prove that she had not made a mistake in choosing him.
Candlelight flickered all around them. He thought that the usual practice was to have the candlelit dinner first and the lovemaking afterward, but he was very glad they hadn’t delayed. Glad, too, that this body hadn’t failed him, had made the experience as pleasurable for Cat as it had been for him.
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