“It is to me.” He was under control now but it didn’t stop his pulsing need for her. “I’ve never seen you dressed like that before. You shouldn’t cover your legs.”
Immediately she smoothed the skirt of her green woolen dress. She wore flat, black shoes with some sort of leather flower on the fronts and she crossed one foot over the other as if to hide as much of her legs as possible.
Niles laughed. “Is that a new dress?”
She seemed bemused. “No. I haven’t been wearing dresses here because the weather isn’t right. And I don’t usually do anything that makes me think of wearing one.”
The bodice had a round neckline with buttons down the front to a belted waist. Long sleeves ended in narrow cuffs. The slim skirt fitted sweetly curved hips perfectly. “But you felt coming to me was a good time to wear a dress?”
Leigh gritted her teeth a moment. “You are awful. I feel so embarrassed. I took ages to choose this and I thought you might like it.”
“I’m crazy about it,” he said. “I think you try to pretend you’re not feminine. Don’t ask me why because you can’t hide what you are. I feel like a million dollars knowing you chose the dress for me. How about my shirt? I chose it for you, too.”
They both burst out laughing.
Niles sobered first. “What would you do if I threw you over my shoulder and carried you off… to do all kinds of things to you?”
He settled his hands at her waist, dropped to one knee, and smoothed all the way to her calves.
Touching her, even through her clothes, made him tremble. “I am going to do all kinds of things to you,” he said. “Make you scream for me to make you come, again and again. That’ll be before and after I strip you naked—slowly—and lick every inch of you, then suck every inch of you.”
“Niles.” Her throat sounded dry.
If Niles had known picking up one of her feet would make her grab for him he would have done it ages ago.
“Niles!”
Slowly he massaged her foot, smiling a little when he touched the arch and she jumped.
The sensation as he moved from her foot, to her ankle, to the smooth skin of her calf made him feel anything but smooth or relaxed.
This wasn’t what he’d had in mind, seducing her in the entryway, but it felt just fine, at least for a start.
Beneath his hands, the soft skirt of her dress slipped up easily until he felt lace at the top of her stocking, and satin where garter met lace.
He filled his lungs and pressed his face to her belly.
Leigh pushed her fingers into his hair and held him to her tightly. He felt the rapid beat of her heart.
The skin on her thigh was more satin. Niles ran his fingers high between her legs, pressed the tip of his thumb briefly to the hottest, wettest part of her. He told himself over and over that he would not hurt her, he would hold back the force she would find unnatural.
When his hand moved away from her heat, she moaned and he smiled with satisfaction.
He hiked the skirt above the edges of her white lace panties. She made another little sound when he started to unfasten her garters and he paused, looked up at her face. She bit her bottom lip.
“You should look at yourself from where I’m looking,” he said. “Sexy lady.” He nipped the soft inside of her thigh and kissed a path to her panty leg, and opened his mouth over her mound, using his tongue until the fabric was completely wet and her hips started moving involuntarily.
Niles separated his mouth from her just far enough to allow for his tongue to get under the fabric and continue driving her mad.
Her fingernails dug into his shoulders and the one leg she stood on started to buckle.
“Hold on,” he said, keeping her skirt firmly up around her waist but letting her foot slide from his thigh. “Are you ready for me—for us? Once we really get going on the journey I have in mind there won’t be any turning back. I don’t want to hurt you but I warn you, I’m stronger than a man should be and it’s up to you to let me know when something is too much.”
She caught him off guard by kissing him. Kicking off her other shoe, she stood on her tiptoes, wound her arms around his neck, and showed him she knew how to use her tongue, too. She nibbled his lips, reached deep inside his mouth, moved her head this way and that searching for more ways to bring them pleasure.
When she had finished they were breathless and her mouth was red and bruised-looking. “Don’t take me for some wilting flower,” she told him. “I’m a strong woman.”
Her little laugh sounded uncertain.
Niles picked her up by the waist and cradled her bottom in his hands, amused by her startled expression. “Why the look?” he asked.
“I’m small but I’m not a feather. You didn’t even move a muscle to pick me up like that.”
The temptation to show off just how easily he could do a great deal more than she’d seen so far was childish. He nuzzled her neck instead, breathed in the clean sweetness of her.
Leigh had a knot in the pit of her stomach. Lust wasn’t foreign to her but it had been a long time. And she wanted to drive Niles wild, to make him feel as insanely sexy as she did. Who had she become? What had she become?
She was to tell him if he was too much for her? Once more she wanted to laugh. Twisting a little and enjoying hearing him groan and grit his teeth, she wrapped her arms around his head and held her face against his neck.
And she pressed her achy breasts to his chest.
With Niles she felt safe and protected, but she knew he could bring danger her way. And she only felt invincible when she could see and touch him.
She couldn’t think clearly anymore. Her life had turned upside down. But this man who held her tight, while the world did whatever strange things were planned for tonight beyond the walls of his home, was the only good change she could point to.
She leaned even nearer to him and slid her tongue along his bottom lip.
Niles let her ride lower on his hips and his penis moved against her.
Leigh worked a hand down between them and squeezed him.
“Damn, you like to live dangerously,” he said, looking into her face again, his eyes turned black and unreadable. He kissed her until she had to break the embrace just to breathe.
“All right,” he said. “Let me show you some things you don’t know about me.”
If she wanted to change her mind, it would have to be now. And she knew he would not force her to do anything.
“I want to learn everything there is to know about you,” she told him, even while she quaked inside.
He put her on her feet in front of him and ran a hand between her legs until he touched dampness again.
“You are so excited,” he told her with a brief, hard kiss and continued rubbing. “You’re driving me over the top.”
Leigh grabbed his shirt. Holding her with one arm, he rubbed back and forth, never taking his eyes from her face.
Pressure mounted and she started to cry out.
But he stopped, the corners of his mouth tilted down and triumph oozing from him.
Leigh sucked in a great breath. “You tease me. You want to play with me like—”
“Like the most desirable woman I can imagine. That’s how. And I want it to last, but not without learning all the little things you might not tell me just because I asked.”
Her heart thudded harder and she braced her hands on his shoulders. “You’re going to torture them out of me?”
“Something like that. Have I told you I’m crazy about your breasts?”
“Hush.” She stood upright. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“Yes, I can. That and much more. I want to see them. Undo some buttons for me. Just one or two.”
So hot she felt slightly faint, she shook her head, no. And he shot his hands up the backs of her legs to hold and squeeze her bottom. “Just one or two,” he repeated, his smile wicked now. “I love your ass, too.”
“Niles!”
So he wanted to taunt her. She could play that game, too.
“Buttons?” His fingers slipped over her flesh and into the cleft of her bottom. He stroked her there very softly, letting his little fingers stray under her enough to barely touch the part of her that still throbbed.
Leigh undid a button on her dress. He raised his brows and she pushed another one undone and, without any indication from him, opened a third and a fourth.
The top of the dress was meant to be snug. Unbuttoned, it gaped.
Niles held the tip of his tongue between his teeth.
Leigh spread her dress open wider. She was coming alive in a new way. Pleasing him obsessed her.
“Why do you wear this?” he said, tracing the edges of her bra.
Confused, she looked down. Apart from the dress, the bra was all she wore above the waist, a white piece of lace that didn’t quite cover her nipples.
“I like it,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him.
“Mmm hmm.” Languidly, he reached to flip his tongue beneath the lace of her bra to surround the nipples and leave them exposed. She tried to arch her body and keep him touching and stimulating her there, but he drew back. “It doesn’t serve much purpose, this little piece of nothing.” He stared at her breasts and his fingers on her behind dug in forcefully.
“Although I like the way it looks,” he added.
“What about showing me those things I don’t know about you?” Leigh said.
A shadow passed over his features. He stood up, so close she had to arch her neck to look at him.
“You’re still sure you want to know?”
“You can’t imagine how much.”
Niles took her by the hand and led her to the room she had thought must be a second bedroom, or another bathroom. It was neither. Except for boxes that looked dusty enough to have been there forever, the room was empty.
With one hand he moved aside stacks of boxes taller than he. They had hidden bifold doors, gleaming dully as if made of an old metal, but without handles.
“They can’t be pushed open. Not by anyone but me, unless I want them to.”
She felt sweat on her back. Moment to moment she moved deeper into a dark and enigmatic world.
Niles looked at her, and at her breasts. He bent to makes circles around a nipple with his tongue until she wanted to scream.
“Passion is power,” was all he said.
He looked at the door and it swung open. “My initiator was no ordinary werehound. He had come to his state by strange paths that traveled through sorcery. Some of his powers were passed to me.”
She slid her hand back into his and straightened her shoulders. “I have powers. One day I’ll know about all of them, not just that I am sure I can hear what I shouldn’t hear or see what other people can’t.”
“You’re a gutsy woman,” he said. “Don’t worry. I never doubted you’d turn out to be a tiger. Now come on. I can’t wait any longer.”
“This is a passage into the cliffs,” he said, nodding ahead where an unearthly green glow showed rough-hewn walls that curved to meet overhead in a tunnel that gradually disappeared out of sight. “It goes all the way beneath Two Chimneys. I was told to build the cabin by Chimney Rock, and my sanctuary in these cliffs. I can’t tell you who told me what to do—I don’t know.”
She swallowed with difficulty. “The glow,” she said. “Could this be something to do with the light from Chimney Rock?”
“The light I can’t see, you mean? I suppose so. I only know what that looks like because you’ve told me. Before you came I learned that Chimney Rock was responsible for the veil that separates the natural from the supernatural world, but no details. There was no one to ask. No one I could trust to tell me the truth.”
He walked slightly ahead of her, enveloping her hand and leading her.
“This supernatural world,” she said. “How extensive is it?”
After some thought he said, “It extends beyond our understanding. But we know it is vast and its members are more numerous than any one of us will ever completely know. And they come in a multitude of forms. Good and evil. And quixotic. It’s only through time and experience—and often a lot of trouble—that we learn who we can trust.”
He stopped and faced her. “My team is honorable. I’m honorable.”
“I believe you.” Leigh squeezed his hand. “What about the Deseron? What do you know about us—if there are such people?”
“Almost nothing. There were never large numbers and you aren’t supposed to exist anymore. Thank God you do. There is too much uncertainty for us to pursue it now but when we can we will talk to Sally. I believe she may know more than most.”
He kissed her hand but what he had said frightened her. She wanted answers to her questions.
“Come.” He smiled at her and they went on until there was a curve in the passage and more metal doors, these so shiny Leigh could see Niles and herself in them. “They look silver,” she said.
“They are. Silver doesn’t hurt us like it does the wolves.”
Once more they opened in front of him, and closed behind them when they were inside. Leigh was speechless. This cave was huge.
“Are you finally frightened?” he asked.
She shook her head, no. Little did he know the truth and he wouldn’t learn it from her. One thing she knew for certain. She would not give in to fear.
And in truth, she would not want to live without this man or this moment.
Many lamps in vaguely familiar shapes, all made of silver and inset with colored glass, hung from the ceiling. The cross over a simple white-covered bed was the easiest symbol. Leigh thought another lamp had a masonic shape and several others resembled ancient pagan carvings. There was a circular lamp, amazing in its construction and the way shafts of brilliance seemed to shine inward rather than outward, as if the sun had found it. She realized it looked like a druid circle.
The lights were hung too high to totally penetrate the chamber’s shadows.
In the very center of the room water bubbled almost to the brim of a large circular pool.
Stone walls were unadorned and the bed was the only furnishing.
“I can sleep here in complete safety if I ever want to,” Niles said. “I can bring my team here also. And if you choose, you can come at any time. You will be my mate. When we are sealed, what is mine is yours, including the loyalty of the team.”
He took off his shirt, stripped away his jeans, and stood before her.
Leigh’s heart did the strangest things and her knees felt weak.
He was naked.
He was beautiful.
And he was dangerous to love with a capital D.
She wouldn’t change a thing.
“You do have to tell me if I’m acceptable—as a man. As your man.”
Leigh took in every sexy inch of him. She had no idea how to respond.
“Leigh?”
Bemused, she shook her head.
“You dislike something about me?”
“I think you’re the most fantastic male I’ve ever seen,” she blurted out. “You are incredible. You make my legs weak. I want to touch you.”
“Then touch me.”
He smiled but she noticed there was a hint of relief and almost laughed aloud.
His hips were firm and narrow and she could grip them while she tried to figure out what to do next.
Suddenly she knew. She traced his face from flaring brows to full, sensual lips, his clean-cut jaw, strong neck, and massive shoulders. With her fingertips and palms she made a map of his triceps and biceps, the solid muscles in his chest, the ridges over his midsection. Her fingertips moved down his hair-rough belly to his groins and thighs. Cupping the male weight of him knocked all the air out of her lungs.
Without warning, he dived sideways into the pool, disappearing at first and coming up quickly, slicking his hair away from his face. “I think you enjoyed that, woman. Very much. Now you
have to pay for your pleasure.”
He rose out of the water, climbing steps she couldn’t see. He pulled her toward him too fast for her to react.
He shimmied her dress from her shoulders, tugged her arms free of the sleeves, and swept it down until she had to step out. That dress hit a wall, torn away with such force that it was in shreds.
Two fingers between her breasts made sure she would never wear the bra again and her thong simply disappeared, together with her garter belt.
With another serious look into her eyes, he rolled her stockings down and took them off with care. He held them to his mouth then set them aside. “I shall keep them,” he said. “A memento of this night.”
Without a hint of a smile, he returned to the water and said, “Jump. I’ll catch you.”
“I’ll knock you off your feet.”
His laughter echoed. “Let me worry about that. Just jump to me.” As he spoke he took another backward pace.
“What if I can’t swim?”
“What does it matter? You’re with me.”
Leigh drew in a breath. She held it, ran at the side of the pool and jumped toward Niles, closing her eyes as she felt herself suspended in midair and without any support.
His hands closed around her ribs, just below her breasts, and her eyes opened. He grinned up at her, circling slowly, letting her feet and ankles trail in the water. And he kept walking backward, going deeper into the water. Leigh clutched his wrists.
“You’re safe!” He tipped her face closer to his. “Kneel on my shoulders.”
Scrambling, she managed to get her knees onto his shoulders, which barely cleared the water. Still held only by his hands, the next part of him to touch her was his mouth—between her legs, across her clitoris, curling up and back, up and back—before she cried out and twisted, sensation burning, knifing, exploding until she felt torn in half and never wanted this to stop.
When her head finally cleared a little she was held in his arms, her head on his shoulders. “You planned it,” she said, panting. “Every second of it.”
“I did, ma’am.”
“You started out there.” She pointed vaguely toward where she thought the cabin was. “And you knew I’d go right over the edge the instant you touched me again.”
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