Captive Spirit

by Anna Windsor

  She was getting dizzy from the sound and feel of him. “Yes.” Her fingers found the button of his jeans, struggled with it, and got it loose. “Yes.” Goddess, he was biting her again, and it felt so good she couldn’t take it. Denim scraped her wrists as she shoved his pants down and left him as bare as she was.

  “Damn, Duncan. Yes, I want you. I want you right now!”

  He kept his mouth at her throat, biting her soft and biting her rough, walking them forward and stepping out of his jeans. He settled himself against her belly, and Bela felt the damp tip, felt him pulsing. He was ready for her.

  Was she ever ready for him.

  She pushed his face away from her neck and kissed him as she wrapped one hand around his erection and stroked. “I’m not an angel.” Her lips danced over his as she spoke. She stroked him again. “You need to know that.”

  His cock bucked into her palm and she squeezed, loving the firm weight of him, and his feral growl. His jaw tightened, and his gray eyes hazed from arousal. She knew he had to be hurting for release. She was about to die from her own want. Her heart pounded so hard she didn’t know how to keep it from exploding.

  “You’re everything angels are made of.” Duncan took her hand and forced it down, rubbing her sensitive folds with his length and her own fingers.

  Bela cried out from the sudden, excruciating pleasure, and he swallowed the sound with his mouth. He used his free hand to hold her upright as he made her pump her own knuckles against her tender center, then dipped his head and caught her nipple in his teeth. Biting. Biting hard.

  Taking her, yes.

  Possessing her, yes.

  This time, Bela’s moan came from somewhere deep in her depths. She couldn’t stop the sound as he sucked the nub and used his tongue to tease it. Her moan went on and on and on, like the thrust of his wrist as he moved himself and her fingers at the same time, sliding, pushing until she couldn’t stand it, and then he bit her other nipple.

  Ecstasy swelled in Bela’s depths, rising, too hot to be contained. Was she hitting him? Yes. Pounding his shoulder with her fist, but not to make him stop, and he knew it. He was reading every groan and gasp, slowing down and speeding up at exactly the right moments to drive her completely, totally past any sane thought.

  Duncan let go of her hand and gripped her ass again, this time lifting her and laying her down in the same motion. Bela felt the soft mat under her shoulders as Duncan spread her legs wide and settled himself between her thighs. He braced his arms on either side of her head, his eyes locked on her eyes, and his face so close to hers that she could nip at his bottom lip.

  He let her catch him a couple of times, then moved his belly against her folds as he murmured, “You’re so damned beautiful. When I look at you, I can’t even breathe.”

  All Bela could do was groan and fight to gulp air herself. She was trembling and still dizzy, more dizzy. Everything spun in slow, grand circles, like she’d taken some ritual drug that slowed time and enhanced the tiniest sensations.

  Words left her, but Duncan didn’t give her a chance to talk, anyway. He slid himself down, lower, lower, rubbing her wet center with his abs, his chest, his chin with no mercy at all. His breath was warm and soft. “I want to taste you, Angel.”

  Bela tried to say Yes, please, right now, but the best she could do was a long, ragged sigh of delight. She managed to slip her fingers into his hair, but her hands were shaking too much to get a good grip. Her eyes clamped shut as he forced her thighs farther apart with his big hands, exposing her completely, letting his breath wash over her until the ache made her mind whirl faster.

  Duncan pressed his face into the heat between her legs.

  She made fists in his hair and pulled, lifting her hips to his mouth. His tongue—ah, damn. Right on the sweet spot. Right in the center. Tasting, just like he promised. Tasting, and tasting, and tasting, then licking, then sending lightning hits of pleasure in every direction as he pulled her softly across his teeth and moved his mouth back and forth.

  Bela moaned and bucked, and the basement rippled and moved with her. Sweat coursed down her back now, and her muscles burned from waiting and wanting and needing.

  “Not yet,” he whispered against her swollen center as he slowed his kisses.

  She yanked at his hair as the walls trembled. “Don’t tease me much more, Duncan. I’ll bring down the house.”

  “You’re not scaring me, even a little bit.” Duncan shifted Bela forward and rose to his knees before she could rip out his hair for frustrating her so completely. He pulled her ass onto his thighs, and carefully lifted her legs to his shoulders.

  Bela’s breath stilled in her chest, and she couldn’t make her throat work. She was so wide open to him, so absolutely exposed. When she did start breathing, it came in ragged jerks, and she couldn’t stop staring into the magic of his eyes. The coin around his neck gleamed as it swayed on top of his scars.

  “That’s it, Angel.” He rubbed his cock against her ass and ran his fingers down her legs until he caught hold of her hands. “Look at me. Look at us.”

  He eased her hands up her belly, to her breasts, then made her pinch her own swollen nipples. The shock of touching herself while he watched turned her heartbeat to thunder. Her back arched, and he rocked her shoulders into the mat, releasing her hands. She kept squeezing her breasts, loving the way he stared at her fingers, her nipples, then her face and her mouth.

  She felt wanted. Completely appreciated.

  He gripped her hips and slid himself slowly, slowly upward, toward where Bela wanted him to be.

  “Look at your breasts,” he told her, and doing it made the pulsing in her folds a hundred times worse. “Pinch yourself.”

  She pinched and moaned.

  The tip of his erection teased her opening, and she looked at that, too. Her hips were moving under own power now, lifting to meet him.

  Duncan’s muscles flexed as he slid his length in an inch, then drew himself out.

  Bela bared her teeth at him, wishing she could bite a hole in his shoulder.

  He did it again, and she bit her own lip and yelled into her closed mouth. Her face was so hot she wondered if she was glowing. Her hands gripped her breasts, covering them and squeezing at the same time, crushing herself down to stand the ache as he tortured her.

  With a satisfied growl, Duncan drove himself inside her, deep, yes, way deep, as far as she could take, and she pinched her own nipples so hard tears rose to her eyes. The scream that left her was pure relief. He held her waist up, trapping her right where he wanted her, her legs on his shoulders, and he waited, waited, letting her savor the stretch, the sweet burn, gazing at her like he’d never stop, and she never wanted him to.

  “Watch.” His command made her walls clench, and her back arched even tighter as she let out another helpless cry from the intensity.

  Duncan moved his hips, unhurried, sliding back and forth inside her so slowly it became a new, perfect torment. Bela stared at the point where they connected, where he moved, and each thrust seemed to open her wider.

  Gray fire snapped in his eyes as he plumbed her deeper, pulling her hips against his thighs with each slow, sensual plunge.

  He was rocking her, taking her, yes, owning her, and she couldn’t stop watching.

  The coin on his chest bounced as she rocked. Her back moved on the mat and she pinched her nipples, staring as he pumped deeper, faster, spreading her, pushing her. She clenched and released. Couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. This couldn’t end. Never. Ever.

  “Don’t scream, Angel.”

  She tore her gaze away from their sex, and she found his untamed grin—and those eyes.

  “You heard me.” His thrusts got harder, faster. He pounded her, driving her past what she thought she could take. “I said don’t scream.”

  Everything was throbbing. Everything was clenching.

  Bela was nothing but molten heat, core heat. Fault lines opened through her essence as the pleasure clai
med her. Her eyes closed and her hands fell away from her breasts. She shook as she reached the top and stumbled over the edge, pulling at the earth, feeling its power rise to meet her when she screamed and screamed and screamed again.

  Duncan groaned with her as he spilled himself inside her, rocking back and forth with the floor and walls. She liked taking him, loved the thought of her body drinking in everything he could give her. The coin on his neck hummed and gave off a dark, loamy glow, and Bela realized it was absorbing her earth energy, magnifying it and sending it down again, straight through her, maybe to the center of the world.

  Duncan kept thrusting, slower, slower, sending aftershock after aftershock streaming through her spent body until she couldn’t stand it. She finally pushed herself up and sank her teeth into his shoulder to make him stop.

  He kept himself inside her but let her straighten on the mat beneath him, then covered her with his warm, muscled frame and his kisses.

  Sweet, total exhaustion wrapped her up like Duncan’s strong arms. Bela’s eyelids fluttered as she traced his muscled shoulders with her fingertips. She didn’t want to close her eyes. If she did, she might miss hours with him, and she didn’t even want to miss minutes.

  Duncan’s lips found her ear. His breath a tickle deep in her mind, his tone teasing and gentle, he whispered, “Don’t sleep, Angel. That’s it. Don’t you dare go to sleep.”

  (23)

  A few hours later, Duncan woke. John was still there in his head, but distant, and letting him be—so Duncan kissed Bela awake and took her home to the brownstone. They found Andy in the living room, dressed in torn jeans and an NYPD T-shirt. She was sprawled on the overstuffed sofa, snoring and hugging a bag of chips and a sack of chocolate cookies. The entire brownstone smelled like ice cream, fudge, and whipped cream, and bowls and spoons covered the big round table in front of the couch.

  Andy woke up long enough to burp and mumble, “Dio’s had enough rocky road to kill two grown men. She’s locked in her archives, and Camille’s downstairs in the lab.”

  Bela froze mid-step on her way to the kitchen and started swearing.

  Andy ignored her and went straight back to sleep.

  “I’m taking it that Camille in the lab—that’s a problem?” Duncan caught hold of Bela from behind, then tried not to be distracted by the feel of her soft slacks and shapely hips in his hands. “A big hairy problem?”

  Bela turned to face him, her dark eyes snapping. “Are you nuts? There’s a fire Sibyl in my laboratory!”

  He tried to pull her to him to settle her down, but she let out another string of curses that would have impressed a prison guard and tried to get away from him. He wasn’t ready to let her go, especially with her gaze so wild and the color rising in her cheeks.

  Damn.

  Just seeing her like that made him hard, much less touching her. “Don’t you guys share all your important stuff, Angel? Quad unity and all that?”

  Bela smacked his chest with her palms. “There’s a fire Sibyl in my lab!”

  “I got that part.” Duncan wanted to kiss her so badly he could already taste her lips.

  “The machines,” those beautiful lips were saying. “And—and my papers. The one computer that still works—and oh, shit. My chemical cabinet.”

  Duncan hated to do it, but he let Bela go and followed her into the kitchen. “Okay, I admit sparks don’t mix with a lot of stuff you’ve got going down there, but Camille’s pretty careful, isn’t she?”

  Bela was already opening the door at the top of the stairs, presumably to march down to the basement and earthquake her fire Sibyl into next year. “Camille doesn’t spit smoke and flames like the other fire Sibyls I’ve met,” he said, hoping he was on the right track.

  “I really don’t know how Camille might be if she gets angry, or too excited.” Bela headed down the steps, and Duncan tried to stay close. “When she’s scared, her fire energy drops. Could be that other emotions would go the other way.”

  He caught her in his arms again, right outside the closed door he assumed hid her bedroom from view, and kissed her. When he could stand pulling back for a second, he said, “I vote for assuming Camille’s level-headed. She’ll be respectful of all your shiny stuff and those microscopes I want to play with when I’ve got time.”

  Time.

  The word gigged him when he said it, and he wondered if Bela felt the quick, tense jerk of his muscles. Her steady gaze caressed him just like her long, graceful fingers, running across his face and neck like she was taking a brand-new read on him.

  Duncan wasn’t afraid of dying, or what death would be like. He wasn’t worried about turning demon now that he knew Dio or the Mothers would take care of business when he drew his last breath.

  No, what hurt him was knowing that time was short, that he wouldn’t have much of it with the beautiful woman he couldn’t stop touching and tasting and wanting.

  Bela kissed him, her lips gentle and sweet, moving on his mouth like a whisper. When she finished, she told him, “I’m on to you, Duncan Sharp. What you’re voting for is a tour of my bedroom, or maybe my bed.”

  When his lips took hers again, he didn’t want to stop. Fast and deep this time, then long and slow. She felt like dreams and hopes and warm perfection in his arms. “Yeah,” he managed after a minute or two. “That’s my vote.”

  She rubbed his cock through his jeans, and he ground his teeth to stop the groan.

  Who needed a bedroom?

  He could take her right here, up against the wall.

  “Don’t do that again, Angel. I can’t take the tease.”

  Bela kept her hand on his erection, and her wicked-mischief expression said she was considering doing whatever she wanted. Her gaze shifted to the hallway, toward the laboratory where Camille was working.

  “In here.” She let go of him and grabbed the doorknob beside her. With a twist and push, the door swung open, and Duncan followed her into …

  An eight-year-old-boy’s room?

  Bela’s cheeks flushed as she reached for the wall switch to shut off the light and hide everything Duncan was trying to absorb.

  When he wouldn’t let her shut off the light, she started to back them out of the room, but he held her tight, her back to his chest, as he counted ten Knicks posters on the far wall. The other wall had a football Giants schedule and poster for décor, Yankee flags, and a Yankees roster from last year, when they’d made one hell of a pennant run. He noticed a leather tool belt in the corner with a hammer sticking out and saw lying beside it a bunch of figurines along her handcrafted dresser—the 1927 Yankees, he thought—two baseball bats in a chair beside the rumpled full-sized bed, and an ancient pink ball in a cup on her bedside table. An unusual white feather had been tucked behind the pink ball, and the cup had worn, colored drawings painted on it beneath the words Disney World.

  Duncan bent down and kissed Bela’s neck, enjoying the almond scent and the heat playing across her skin.

  “Not what you expected,” she whispered, obviously embarrassed, though he wasn’t really sure why.

  “No.” He concentrated on nibbling the spot in the hollow beneath her jaw, and got rewarded by her quick sigh. “But I like surprises where you’re concerned.”

  “My father painted those figurines.” Her tone was more serious, so Duncan stopped nibbling at her cheek and enjoyed the silk of her hair instead.

  “He did a great job, from what I can see.”

  She held his arms tight, like she was scared he was about to back away from her. “The tool belt’s mine.”

  “Yeah.” Damn it, his imagination could see her wearing that thing, and not to run upstairs and fix a banister. His erection strained against his jeans.

  “I need tools. Sibyls live here. Sibyls with tempers.”

  “No argument. It’s just that the rest of the brownstone is kind of … fluffy, compared to this.”

  “I’m not friggin’ fluffy. At all.” Then, “I don’t let many people in here, Du
ncan. I don’t let anybody in here.”

  Duncan kissed Bela’s neck again and turned her loose, understanding that she needed a minute to get her bearings, and feeling pleased that she had opened her door to him. His body cooperated, at least for the moment, cooling down enough for him to start wondering about the stuff on her nightstand.

  “About the fluffy thing, that’s a matter of opinion,” he said, then pointed to the cup with the ball and feather. “Is that pink thing a Spaldeen? I heard about those old reject tennis balls from guys in my building after I moved here.”

  Bela nodded. She started for the nightstand, then stopped, her hand outstretched like she wanted to pick up the cup. “During the week, I had to go to the Motherhouse for training—but on the weekends, when my dad was out on job sites, my friends and I played stickball like fiends, all over the Bronx.”

  She leaned forward and brushed her fingers across the pink ball as her cheeks turned about the same color. “I kicked ass with a broomstick for a bat, but since I had sword practice Monday through Friday, I guess pounding on Spaldeens and other kids with a stick might have been cheating.”

  Duncan tried to imagine what it would have been like to run the streets as a Bronx kid, then get yanked away to some Russian castle all week long. “We played baseball in empty fields and lots where I’m from, in Georgia, but I didn’t have sword practice on my side.”

  Bela’s attention had shifted to the feather, and when she saw Duncan looking at it, too, she said, “It’s an osprey feather. My mother found it on our trip to Disney World when I was eight.”

  He could tell from her expression that she wanted to share these things with him, and that touched his heart. He wanted to hold her all over again, but for different reasons now. “Were you an only child, Angel?”

  “Yes.” She lifted the feather, with its splashy brown markings.

  Duncan watched the feather’s journey to Bela’s cheek, and a new and deeper ache for her, more emotional than sexual, opened up inside him. “Me too.” He coughed, trying to ease the pressure in his chest, and pointed to the Knicks posters. “So, what did your mom think about your sports fetish?”