by J. R. Ward
Duran, that was.
She and Duran had entered a strange kind of forever, sure as if all of time was a serene, temperate pond so perfectly calibrated to their body temperature and utterly, completely still that they had been unaware of all the wading steps they’d taken to this submersion. In fact, the illusion of infinity was so complete that even her brother’s reality had lost some of its sting. It wasn’t that she had forgotten Ahlan’s situation; it was more like that sense of urgency she’d been motivated by had run itself out on the racetrack of her fight-or-flight response and was taking a breather on a bench off to the side, gulping water and panting as it prepared for the next relay.
Her panic would be back the second it was safely dark outside.
And in its place, a different urge was consuming her.
Across the way, Duran’s body was giving off all kinds of arousal signals: Those dark spices, for one. For another, he was moving around a lot, his boots squeaking as he crossed and recrossed his legs, his throat clearing, his shoulder cracking as he stretched again. And again. And . . . again.
She knew exactly the kind of ants that were under his skin. The tingle in the spine. The flush of heat in the vein that flowed but did not ebb.
She had been hoping he would act on their sexual tension first, and that was some cowardly stuff right there. Such a lame move, as if she didn’t have to be responsible for her own choice if he was the one to cross over and kiss her first: Like if it happened that way, she didn’t have to feel guilty that her brother was suffering and she was getting off with a stranger.
Closing her eyes, she crossed her arms over her chest and resolved to cut the crap and go to sleep.
Two seconds later, she was sitting up. Putting her weight on her feet. Going to him.
Being the one who forged the trail across the vacant yet somehow utterly cluttered space between them. And just as time had become distorted, so, too, did distance—miles, she walked miles over the course of the fifteen or so feet that separated them.
Duran cursed in a low mutter as she stopped in front of him.
“You can tell me no,” she said, “but I’m not going to apologize.”
“I don’t know what that word means right now.”
“Which one?”
“The one that matters.”
Lowering herself down, she straddled his outstretched legs, staying on her knees. Her hands went to his shirt, finding the soft fabric, pressing into the hard chest underneath. When she leaned forward, she tilted her head to one side and hesitated.
He seemed frozen. Incapable of response. Shocked, as if he didn’t know what to expect. He wasn’t pushing her away, though. Far from it. And those dark spices were a roar in her nose now, a dense erotic scent that intoxicated her even further.
As his lips parted, he swallowed hard. “Please . . .” he whispered. “Do it.”
Ahmare lowered her mouth to his. With his level of arousal, she thought he’d grab her by the back of the neck and go hard-grind with the kiss. Instead, he closed his eyes as she brushed against him softly, and beneath her mouth, his lips trembled—until she captured them fully, that was. Then he responded, mirroring her motions, the caressing, the stroking, the plying.
When she entered him with her tongue, he gasped. Groaned. Jerked his hips.
Underneath her, his body was live-wire tight, his palms braced against the floor, his arms shaking as he held himself in place, his leg muscles contracting in a series of spasms. She appreciated the restraint, she truly did.
It meant he respected her in that old school way.
But it was not what she wanted.
Breaking from the kiss, she sat back on his knees and knew she had to do something to get him into gear. The kissing was nice, the kissing was great, but the prelude was not the purpose of this, and he seemed unwilling to be the one to take things to the next level.
Pulling the bottom of her shirt out from the waistband of her pants, she had a stupid thought about how Under Armour had made this thin, long-sleeved body upholstery to “wick sweat” and “cool as it covered” during workouts. Good attributes if you were in the gym or on a run.
Totally irrelevant in this particular hot-and-bothered situation.
Worse than irrelevant.
An impediment.
Duran’s eyes burned as she gripped the mesh, and he breathed like he had a car in each hand and was doing bicep curls. What she was about to show him seemed, given his rapt attention, like the kind of thing he needed to see more than he worried about oxygen.
Funny, how a male could tell you you were beautiful without saying a word.
Ahmare lifted the shirt slowly, not because she wanted to artificially delay things or was having second thoughts. She wanted to savor the moment of revelation.
Except the sports bra underneath was something she’d forgotten about.
As she up-and-over’d the shirt, tossing it somewhere, she didn’t care, she had meant to show him her breasts. Instead, hello, Champion.
Duran didn’t seem to notice. He traced the wide straps and tight panel with his hot eyes, as if he were imagining the flesh underneath.
“Take it off for me,” she said in a throaty voice.
More with the trembling on his side, but he didn’t disobey the command. Hooking his thumbs under the lower edge of the wide band, he took the tight nylon upward—
Her breasts popped free, bouncing, the nipples tight and tingling thanks to the fabric’s hard stroke.
Duran didn’t get any further than that. He bailed on the removal job with the sports bra wedged under her armpits, her breasts compressed on top, extra full on the bottom. Sitting up, he put his mouth to her, sucking one of her nipples in, lapping at her with his warm, wet tongue.
Ahmare let her head fall back, and he caught her torso with a strong arm. Spearing into all that long hair of his, she moaned at the sweet tugging, the slip and slide and recapture, the switch to the other side. And even though the contact was only in one place, she felt it everywhere, all over her skin and throughout her body.
Especially between her legs.
Back with the kissing now, and positions were changing. He was moving them, shifting her as if she weighed nothing, laying her back against the hard floor that could have been a down mattress for all she knew. As he lay on top of her, a strange, hypersensitive numbness came over her, and she welcomed it just as she welcomed his body, now flush against her own, her clothing, and all of his, a total frustration.
She solved that problem quick.
Peeling the sports bra all the way off, she went for the buttons of his flak shirt. Her fingers were sloppy as she worked her way down the lineup, and then she was parting the two halves, finding smooth skin and hard muscle and volcanic warmth underneath.
Pants were supposed to be next on both sides, but she stayed awhile where they were, like a mountain climber enjoying a keyhole view that was not to be missed even though the summit was where they were headed. He was so different than she, the pads of muscles and thick, heavy bones the kind of thing that made her feel feminine, especially as her bare nipples met his torso.
The independent part of her, the fierce and strong part that had entered Chalen’s castle without weapons, carrying the head of a dead man, rankled at the idea that somewhere in her was an unevolved female who wanted a male to chase her and catch her and hold her down while he entered her and bit her hard on the neck. While he marked her as his own. While he established a dominance that she was hot for. While he left his scent all over her.
Inside of her.
Yup, the modern side of her could do without those kind of he-man antics. But what was happening between them now wasn’t modern; it was ancient. It was as old as the species itself. It was the basis of mortal existence, the door to immortality through the creation of a next generation.
Splitting her thighs, she pulled him even more fully on top of her, and Duran came readily, his body making its way between her legs, the rid
ge of his hard sex pushing into her core through their pants. As he started to roll into her and retreat, stroking them both, his hands, broad and warm and calloused, swept up to her breasts, learning her contours, caressing. Kissing deeply, they moved together, getting their rhythm down, a dress rehearsal for the naked penetration that was coming soon.
When she pushed her hands between them, he popped his hips up to create the space she needed to undo his fly, her fly. The shucking, inefficient and maddening, came next as they tried to keep kissing while kicking off everything south of the waist.
He had no underwear. Hers were no big deal.
And then they were fully naked.
Duran was magnificent skin to skin. And there were so many places to go with her hands and mouth . . .
But that would come later. First this essential union. Then the exploration.
17
DURAN HAD NEVER THOUGHT there could be anything more visceral, more consuming . . . more important . . . than revenge. Everything else he had ever experienced had been in the category of discardable distractions, the sights, smells, thoughts, or feelings like pennies spilled from his pockets, nothing valuable enough to make him stop and retrieve what he’d lost or ignored.
This, however . . . this consumed him even more than his revenge.
Tasting Ahmare, feeling her skin against his, hearing her breath catch and then explode on an exhale, all of it was, for the first time since he had become aware of his father’s cruelty and his mahmen’s suffering, a submersion of sense and sensation so complete that another need took the wheel of his intent and intentions and charted a course he was not going to argue with.
Hell, all he wanted to do was stomp on the gas.
And now was the moment.
As Ahmare tilted her hips and he felt the first brush of his erection over the hot core of her, he knew there was no going back.
Actually, that probably had been true the instant he had sensed her on the far side of the waterfall in his cell.
Some things were inevitable.
Some leaps were taken before you were aware of going over the edge.
Some songs called you too magically.
Except now, he fumbled. Everything leading up to this had been so smooth, as if they had done this a million times before even though it was a first for him on all accounts and obviously something fresh to her. But now he poked around, his cock’s head swelling with every misguided almost-there, the half thrusts of his hips the kind of blind navigation that would get him where they needed him to be only by a stroke of luck.
Pun intended.
Ahmare solved this increasingly urgent problem by reaching between them, just as she had when she’d undone both of their pants. He gasped as her hand touched him, the bolt of electricity so great he saw stars and thought with horror that he’d orgasmed. But no. When the shock cleared, he was still hard and he hadn’t left a mess all over her—
His body knew what do to.
As soon as she made the connection, something took over, his hips thrusting forward and driving him deep into her hold. Dimly, he was aware of a streak across his shoulders, her nails biting into him as she kicked her head back and arched up into his torso with a moan. Taking the back of her head in the palm of his hand so he didn’t knock her out, he meant to go slow—and did nothing of the sort.
Pistoning against the cradle of her hips, he pounded into her, his lips peeling off his descended fangs, the need to bite her a not-right-now for two reasons: One, he hadn’t asked, and she hadn’t offered, but also because he’d have to slow down, maybe stop.
And that was impossible.
With every penetration and each retreat, he was building momentum and she was right there with him, matching his rhythm, mirroring his greed for more, faster, harder, more. Off in the distance, coming at him with lightning speed, was a terminal point of pleasure, and in the back of his mind, he remembered running out of Chalen’s dungeon toward her car, an optical illusion making him believe the vehicle was rushing toward him instead of the other way around—
The intrusion of reality threatened to ground him, like a stake through his chest into the earth below, and he lost his step in the dance with Ahmare, his brain tripping him up, his rhythm off.
He shouldn’t have worried, though.
All he had to do was look down into her eyes, her beautiful, shining eyes, and he was plugged right back into the moment.
She came as their stares found each other, and it was so incredible that this time he slowed because he was savoring the experience, not because he’d lost a connection to it. As pleasure came to her, her face contorted and her body stiffened, and around his erection, he felt her delicious hold tightening and releasing—
“Duran . . . oh, God, Duran.”
No one had ever said his name like that before. And he was captivated by the way she gasped and grabbed onto him, her breath seeming to freeze in her lungs. She was in heaven, and he knew he had put her there, and that was, even more than whatever his body was feeling, the very best part of what was an amazing experience.
He also had no intention of stopping.
As he rolled his hips and stroked her on the inside, she said his name again and moved her hands up to his shoulders, half-moons of sweet sting making him smile because he wanted her to draw blood from him. He wanted her to use him for her own pleasure for the rest of their lives, taking everything he had to give, accepting all parts of him.
As he continued to thrust, so she continued to orgasm. And he concentrated completely on what worked for her. What made her moan. How to go even deeper by gripping the back of one of her knees and cranking her leg up.
He didn’t know what had given him the idea. But it was a stroke of genius going by the way she responded.
Duran knew when she was finally done because the tension left her completely and her hands slipped off his back, falling to the hard floor.
He stopped. And smiled at her exhaustion, peaceful as it was.
Except then she said, “What about you?”
Duran frowned as she focused her glassy eyes on him.
“We need to take care of you, too,” she insisted, her words strung together as if she lacked the strength to differentiate the syllables.
When he still didn’t respond, she reached up and stroked his face; then she lifted her head and pressed her lips to his. As her mouth clung to his, and then her tongue licked inside of him, his own needs rekindled and he realized she was right. He hadn’t orgasmed. He was still rock hard inside of her.
“Come for me,” she said into his mouth.
Then she worked herself against him, recreating the friction that had been the point of all of this. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on being inside of her, on everything that was so slick and tight, on the sensation of heat against heat.
Faster. Harder.
Faster . . .
. . . harder.
The endpoint she had reached refused to come to him, any orgasm stalling along its path toward him, the sensations getting just to the tipping point of release . . . but then going no further, like there was a barricade. Or a security checkpoint with an armed guard was more like it.
Sweat beaded his forehead, and he brushed the sting out of his eyes. Concentrating on where his arousal was and what it was doing and who to, he demanded that he get caught up again in the moment. Otherwise, he worried, she would find insult in what he could not control.
He tried another position, a different rhythm. He squeezed his eyes tight. He opened them to stare at her.
Eventually, he stopped, bracing an arm to hold himself off her. He was panting from exertion, not passion, as he tried to catch his breath.
“It’s okay,” she said as she ran a smoothing hand over the hot, steaming plane of his back. “Just let yourself go.”
Closing his eyes, he gave it another shot, sure that this time would be different. This time, he’d be normal and do the normal thing, and then afterward they would h
old each other and probably have two or three more sessions before the sun went down and they got back to reality. Teeth gritted, hips swinging, he bore down on his lower body like that would take care of the problem. Like he could force the orgasm out of himself, a cure for coital constipation.
All of the trying just seemed to be scaring off his goal.
No. Go.
Duran popped open his lids, ready to scream from frustration. He couldn’t keep this up forever; he was going to hurt her and end up with a dislocated lower spine.
Maybe he’d just fake it. Except she’d know and that seemed even worse—
The solution presented itself as his eyes swung around and landed on an object that had fallen out of her pants.
As he reached for the trigger to his collar, he grabbed onto it like the lifesaver it was.
“Help me,” he said. Begged was more like it.
Ahmare was confused—and then horrified as he put the black box into her palm.
“What? No, I’m not going to—”
Before she could argue, he pressed the button himself—
The electrical charge that went through him was so powerful and sudden, he bit the inside of his mouth, tasting blood as his body went rigid from the shock. But goddamn it, the pain that lit up his skeleton, traveling down his spine and branching all the way to his fingers and toes, opened the door for his release. Like a crowd rushing a field, his orgasm exploded out of him, his erection kicking inside of Ahmare.
Losing himself in the sensations of pleasure and pain, he was blown apart even as he stayed whole, his brain incapable of processing anything other than what he had forced out of himself.
When he finally stilled, his head dropping to her shoulder, his breath sawing out of his open, bleeding mouth, he knew, without a doubt . . . that he had made the wrong call.
Ahmare was frozen under him, horrified.
The means had not been justified by the end, however huge the orgasm had been, and he sensed her withdrawal from him even as she lay beneath his tired, twitching body.