by Jory Strong
Soft, desperate sounds spilled from her mouth to his, enflaming him further. The head of his cock found her opening, sending a jolt of unparalleled ecstasy through him.
He rubbed back and forth, tormenting them both, swallowing her gasps and soft cries. She retaliated by lightly raking her fingernails down his back, by grabbing his hips and trying to hold him steady so she could impale herself on him.
Tir resisted with a husky laugh, with the rub of his chest over the tight points of her nipples. Fiery need arrowed straight to his cock each time his nipples struck hers.
He wanted to lift up, to press his nipple to her mouth and feel the lash of her tongue, the grasp of teeth and pull of lips as she laved and bit and sucked. He wanted to kiss downward to her breasts and do the same to her.
Later, he promised himself. Later he would explore more of her, conquer every inch of her.
A shock of pleasure made him gasp. Lost in his fantasies, he’d forgotten about resisting, about drawing out the moment when his length would be held deep in her body.
She’d captured his cock head in the hungry mouth of her opening. And it wept, cried in ecstasy, his arousal joining hers in a heated wash as she clenched him.
Twin urges assailed him. The desire to swallow her virgin cries warred with the desire to watch her face as he forged inside her for the first time.
The latter won, though his lips clung to hers and his tongue was loath to leave the wet heaven of her mouth. When he was finally able to draw away, her sound of protest added to his pleasure.
The sight of her midnight eyes clouded with desire filled him with a satisfaction he wouldn’t have believed himself capable of, not when it came to a human. But she wasn’t just any human. She was the one who’d freed him.
She cried out when he pressed deeper. She was so tight, so hot he nearly came from the exquisite pleasure of having the muscles of her sheath tighten and spasm on him.
“Araña,” he whispered, the name torment and benediction.
It strained his control to keep from thrusting all the way in a single stroke, to keep from giving in to the mindless, clawing hunger she created in him—a hunger magnified by centuries upon centuries of abstinence.
Alpha and omega. The first and the last.
He couldn’t remember anything as pleasurable, didn’t know if he’d ever lain with a woman before.
He’d never imagined how close ecstasy and torment could be.
With excruciating slowness he worked his way in. He couldn’t resist the urge to cover her mouth with his, to feel her open for him, letting his tongue slide past her lips as his cock had done through the slick, swollen folds of her labia.
He shivered when he was fully seated. Stilled.
It was beyond imagining.
Tight vaginal muscles rippled and clenched, welcomed and resisted.
Heat surrounded him, bathed him, made him want to cry out.
Araña.
Her name echoed through him. In warning? In recognition?
He didn’t know. He knew only that nothing had ever felt as good as this, as having her beneath him, her body open and his penis held deep and fast inside her.
Araña’s arms tightened around Tir’s neck. The thick length of his cock was a throbbing presence in her channel, an echoed heartbeat filling her, stretching her in a seamless blending of pain and pleasure.
His lips left hers and she cried out at the loss. When their eyes met, the intimacy was nearly too much for her. She felt exposed, stripped bare, the shields necessary to survive no longer hiding her vulnerability, her need for love and touch.
Araña lifted her head and pressed her mouth to his, wanting to hide, willing to give her body but not her soul, not to a stranger who would soon be gone from her life.
His kiss didn’t allow the escape. His tongue plundered, commanded, insisted she cling to him, surrender a part of herself she knew she would never recover.
It didn’t matter, she told herself, knowing it was a lie and forcing everything from her mind but the moment, the reality of having Tir inside her.
She felt him fighting to give her time to adjust to his size even as need pulsed between them in a fierce, rapid beat that made it impossible to remain still.
Her sheath tightened on him. Feminine pride surged through her with the catch of his breath, the sharp thrust of his hips.
“Please, Tir,” she said against his mouth, and it was as if some barrier inside him broke.
His tongue fucked against hers as the hard length of him surged in and out of her.
She clung to him, moved with him.
Ecstasy. There was no other word for it.
She understood then why fortunes and lives and honor itself were sacrificed for the promise of passion.
Hot flesh and masculine desire turned her into a primal woman, a creature caught in the endless spirals of fierce joy.
She struggled for breath.
To get closer.
To reach the pinnacle that expressed itself in a sharp cry and brought exultation when her orgasm triggered his, leaving her swamped in feelings she never thought she’d experience.
For long moments afterward he continued to lie on top of her, nuzzling, kissing, his cock still inside her, as if he were in no hurry to part from her.
He was everything she’d dreamed a lover would be.
It was foolish, she knew it was, but she closed her eyes and allowed herself to pretend she’d always have this. Tir’s touch. His body covering hers. The pleasure he’d shown her was possible between a man and a woman.
When he finally rolled away to sit in the shallow pool, she wanted to follow him, to climb onto his lap and cling to him. Instead she sat, bathing herself in the sun-warmed water, struggling in the aftermath of sex to find words, chiding herself for the fierce longing to be held, for craving true intimacy as well as touch.
Her eyes teared with memories of Matthew and Erik together. Their shared glances and casual caresses, the way it was impossible to think about one of them without thinking about the other. Her throat tightened and she forced the pain back to the place in her heart that would always contain it. She couldn’t afford the weakness.
Live in the moment, in the here and now. That’s what life had taught her.
Make the most of every opportunity. That was the lesson favored by Erik and Matthew.
Tir watched the play of Araña’s thoughts across her face. Her emotions buffeted him, sliding through mental barriers erected over centuries.
What was it about this human that affected him so strongly? Stripped away his control as though it were nonexistent?
She rose from the shallow pool, black hair and water trailing down her back, tanned skin covering sleek muscle and a beautiful feminine form. She was like the Eve of the religious— unbearable temptation capable of leading any man to his destruction.
Tir caressed her with his eyes, hunger flaming to life, filling his cock so it rose along his abdomen, filling his testicles so they hung heavy with seed. There was a fleeting thought to ask her about the scars crisscrossing her back, the brand on her hand, but when she stepped onto the mossy bank and turned toward him, dark eyes sultry, holding a knowledge he’d given her, only carnal desire remained.
“I want you again,” she whispered, meeting his gaze boldly before lowering her eyelashes, shy temptress and brazen seductress rolled into one.
Seven
TIR surged out of the water to go to her, the gentle first lover he had been giving way to something darker, more primitive, as the promises he’d made to himself roared to life with the sight of her bare mound.
“Lie down,” he ordered.
Color bloomed in her cheeks. But her nipples beaded, making him hunger for a taste of them.
She sat, drawing her knees to her chest, her movements graceful. The erotic fear he read in her and her subtle disobedience heightened his desire.
Tir crouched in front of her, a male in his prime, his thighs splayed, affording
her a view of his thick erection and heavy testicles.
If he hadn’t been sure of his own ability to discern the nature of others, he’d have thought she had to be a gifted witch to affect him so profoundly, to do what no human female had ever done before, harden his cock and take away his will to resist.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, tightened them until she tilted her head backward, exposing her neck in an unconscious show of submission.
The scent of her arousal swamped him, told him she would accept a dominant lover. And his lips pulled back in silent anger at the thought of any other male having her.
He pressed his lips to her throat, feeling the wildness of her heartbeat there—a primal fear mixed with the desire to mate, both of them knowing he could easily kill her. Both of them knowing he wouldn’t.
Because of her, he wore no shackles. Because of her, sunlight danced on his skin, flirting with shadows as a breeze dried him, reminding him he was physically free for the first time in memory.
He wouldn’t let the desire he felt for her enslave him, he told himself, kissing upward until he covered her mouth with his, swallowing her cry before he took her breath and gave her his. He’d been at the mercy of humans for centuries. Now he had one of them completely helpless, subject to his will.
His tongue dominated hers. His fingers slid through raven-black hair, tugging, pulling her backward until she lay sprawled on lush green moss. It took more effort than it should have to keep from following her all the way down, from covering her body with his and thrusting inside her again.
Her hands found his chest, delicate fingers going unerringly to his nipples and sending an icy-hot spike of need straight to his cock. His hips bucked and his buttocks clenched, echoing the throbbing desire of his penis to impale and thrust.
“No,” he said, freeing her hair to take her wrists in his hands and pin them to the ground at her sides.
She was a warrior in her own right. He’d seen the evidence of it—in the corpse of the dragon lizard she’d fought and killed as well as in the courage she’d demonstrated in remaining to unlock his shackles while the guardsmen drew closer. Yet she was fragile compared to him, so very mortal. He could easily crush the fine bones of her wrists. But he knew that even in the throes of passion, he wouldn’t.
She was safe from him unless she proved to be his enemy. And even then, he’d take no pleasure in exacting vengeance.
With a moan he left the sweet temptation of her lips. Her breathy protest and the needy sound of his name as she whispered “Please, Tir” were a song that made him want nothing more than to please her.
He kissed downward, to a dusky breast capped with a dark, puckered nipple. Her back arched when he laved it with his tongue then took it between his lips and began suckling.
The scent of her arousal deepened, the desire she felt sliding past mental barriers and hitting him in waves, melding with his own. He was torn between freeing one of her wrists so he could take the nipple’s twin between his fingers, or continuing to restrain her, keeping her at his mercy.
He delayed the decision, kissed across her chest to capture the other nipple. She shivered underneath him, her hips lifting, angling so her wet cunt lips brushed against his thighs where he knelt between hers.
The feel of her hot, smooth mound eradicated every thought but the one that had his lips leaving her breast and trailing downward toward the feminine folds waiting for him. At her abdomen Tir forced his mouth away from her. He lifted his head, testing his control by doing nothing more than looking.
She was intoxicating. Exquisite.
He wanted to memorize the sight of her bare cunt, its secrets unfolding for his pleasure, its lips glistening, hungry for his kiss and the feel of his tongue slipping between them to thrust into her heated core.
It was torment to remain motionless, especially when her hips rose in carnal offering, bringing the scent and heat of her so close he had only to flick his tongue out to taste her.
Tir shuddered, resisted giving in to her. He wanted to pin her thighs to the ground, to see his hands holding them open. But he knew he’d be lost if he freed her wrists.
He knew he couldn’t trust her not to touch him, to tangle her fingers in his hair and force him to her mound. And unlike the unwanted women who had tried to entice him by rubbing themselves against his face while he was held motionless by chains, with Araña he’d be a willing prisoner.
On a groan Tir closed the distance, pressed his face to her cunt. He inhaled her. Savored her. Lost himself in the ecstasy of hot flesh and slick arousal.
His head spun with the scent of her. His cock head grew wet and his heart raced.
She rocked against him, tormented him even as he tormented her. Begged with words and movement for him to suck her hardened clit, to pierce her with his tongue.
Fire scorched through his penis in warning, and he fought to keep his hips from jerking, refused to hump the air like the small dog a long-ago captor had been overly fond of. He ran his tongue up her center, felt the clenching of her channel as she tried to capture him and pull him in.
Silky, slick folds deepened in color with his touch. The tiny hood of her clit pulled back, drawing his mouth to it. She cried out with his possession and yet fought to get away from the pull of his lips with the same desperation as she fucked the tiny organ through them.
Tears streamed from the corners of Araña’s eyes. Desire ruled her.
She’d never imagined such pleasure was possible. Each lash of Tir’s tongue, each suck sent need spiking through her, sharp as a razor-thin blade and just as dangerous. Time and time again he held her on the edge of desperate climax, in a place of exquisite agony and unbearable pleasure, only to deny her its release.
He became all that mattered in her world. And when he allowed her to come, she only barely remained conscious as wave after wave of unparalleled ecstasy washed over her.
It left her boneless, weak, her helplessness stirring instincts of self-preservation. She shivered when he pressed a kiss to the spidery mark that now lay demon-inked on her mound.
The act reminded her he wasn’t human. It sent her emotions into turmoil as her mind raced to build walls around her heart and soul.
He lifted his mouth from her cunt. Dark blue eyes glittered in a face of otherworldly beauty. She couldn’t look away as he crawled up her body and took her again, sharing the taste of sex and submission with her as he did it.
Afterward he rolled to his side, taking her with him so they lay together in lazy contentment. Her fingers traced a line of symbols on his arm, strange glyphs and sigils, none of them recognizable.
They weren’t the punishment tattoos given to a lawbreaker. She’d lived among the outcast and criminal for ten years; she knew what those marks looked like.
“What do they mean?” she asked when her fingers reached his shoulder.
His eyes became hooded, just as they’d done when she asked him what he was. He answered with a question of his own. “How is it I saw you in a dream, and then you were waiting to free me?”
Her hand fell away from his shoulder, but he caught her wrist, his fingers a shackle. The suddenly hard lines of his face did nothing to detract from his beauty. If anything, they compelled her to answer.
“The demon mark causes me to have visions,” she said, giving him a small part of the truth.
His gaze moved to the spider now resting in the curve of her neck. He studied it, eyebrows drawing together in a concentrated frown as he freed her wrist in favor of brushing his fingertips over the mark.
“I once knew what this meant,” he murmured. “How did you come by it?”
“I was born with it.” The truth and yet not the truth, but Erik was the only one she’d ever revealed the spider birth dream to.
“You were branded because of it?” Tir said, reclaiming her hand and taking it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the scarred flesh.
The gesture was so tender and unexpected she ducked her head to hide
its impact on her. “Yes.”
“And the scars on your back? They are also because of the mark?”
“To beat the evil out of me.”
He carried her hand to his chest and left it there, then cupped her chin in his palm, forcing her to look up and meet his eyes. “When I’m free of the collar my enemies have enslaved me with, I will hunt down the ones who hurt you and kill them.”
“They’re already dead.”
“You’re sure?”
“I saw them burn,” she said, shivering, remembering.
She was twelve again, seeing the righteous fervor in the eyes of her parents and the clergyman as they prayed over her while she sat tethered in a chair much like the one Tir had been in.
The room sweltered from the fire in the fireplace. The brand glowed red as it was lifted from the flames and brought toward her.
She cringed at the remembered sound of her cries and pleas, her recitations of scripture denouncing evil as she begged them not to press it to her skin. But they did it anyway.
The brand seared her flesh, leaving only pain and rage, a desire to stop the torment at any cost. Caution and fears for her soul were lost to agony. In that moment she’d been beyond caring about consequences. She’d wanted the pain to stop and the restraints burned away so she could escape the chair, the house, the settlement.
She’d used the gift she’d never dared reveal for fear it would be more proof she was destined for the fires of Hell. She’d called the flames and they came in an explosive gust. And because her parents and the clergyman were between her and the fireplace, the fire consumed them, filling the air with their screams just as they’d filled it with hers.
Tir wondered where her memories took her. Her emotions were a roiling mix, horror and fear, hatred and guilt, hurt and loneliness and confusion.
The intensity of his need to comfort her nearly made him resist the urge to lean forward, but it was only a fleeting thought, lost as soon as his mouth was on Araña’s.
Her sweet moan was enough to make him crowd closer, until she was on her back and he was on top of her, his tongue rubbing and twining with hers.