by Anne Marsh
“Pretty,” he whispered against her ear. “So very pretty, Nessie.”
One long male finger gently explored the hot valley of flesh.
“Oh, God,” she moaned into his ear. “I’ve missed you, Zer.”
“Show me.” The darkly sensual command ratcheted her arousal up another, impossible notch. “Slide your panties out of the way for me.”
Her flesh was liquid with wanting him, but, God, they were who knew how many hundreds of feet in the air. Even the hard beat of those strong wings taking them away—somewhere—wasn’t insurance against falling.
“Trust me,” he said, and she was lost.
She badly wanted to ask if he had missed her. Instead, she slid her hand between them. Straining against the worn leather, he was thick and hard, filling her palm with delicious heat. “You missed me,” she guessed, pressing against him.
His finger made another wicked exploration of her soaked panties, and she gasped. Hot and damp and needy. She was all that, waiting for him to fill her up, fill in the lonely bits.
“I’m waiting.” His voice was stern and hard and dark. And a total turn-on. She loved this game they played. “Slide your panties out of the way for me, Nessie.”
Trembling with need, she slid the fabric out of the way. “Good girl,” he whispered, but his large body shuddered against hers. He wanted her, too. Every bit as much as she wanted him, and that made everything okay. “Now I’m going to give you what you need.”
She wanted him. She wanted this, this impossible crescendo peak of pleasure as his wicked fingers parted the swollen folds of her sex and rubbed a teasing path around her clit.
“Zer,” she moaned, the wind stealing his name from her.
Each strong beat of his wings drove his fingers against her throbbing clit with satisfying power. What would it feel like to have him inside her this way?
“I’m going to take you just like this, baby,” he warned. “Hard and fast. Right now, where there’s just you and me. You’re going to have to trust me, baby.” One hand threaded through her loose hair, holding her head still for his hard kiss. The other hand angled her, held her, as he slid inside her, deep and hard. With each downward thrust of his powerful wings, he hammered into her. Taking her hard and deep.
Just as he’d promised.
Her orgasm was a deep, brilliant burst of pleasure, sensation exploding behind her eyes as she held on. And he held on to her, keeping her safe as she let go and came apart in his arms.
When he gently set her feet on the ground, she wasn’t sure her knees were going to hold her. His wings closed, sinking gently into the skin of his back until only an inky black outline remained.
God knew, he’d done a number—a delicious number—on her in flight.
“Where are we?” she asked, because that seemed like the safest question she could field right now. Never mind that she wanted details. Where had he been? Why had he come back? And—most important—was he sticking around, or was this a farewell fuck? Because, truthfully, she wasn’t sure how she’d get on with her life without him.
He looked at her, and she didn’t know how to interpret that look. Through their bond, she sensed masculine satisfaction, heat, and something else. Unfortunately, her skills as a mind reader were practically nonexistent. This was going to take practice. Centuries of practice. “We’re outside of M City,” he said finally. “Maybe a hundred miles or so. This place used to be a monastery.” He didn’t sound as if the distance bothered him any. And maybe it didn’t. He had himself a pair of wings. Whereas she’d have a hell of a long walk.
“You brought me to a monastery?” Maybe he was aiming for hideous irony.
“Not just any monastery.” With one arm, he swept open an ancient wooden door, the hinges protesting loudly. “Secret tsarist retreat.”
Which he’d clearly co-opted for his own personal lair.
Figured.
The tumble down, butter-colored stone was silent as she let him lead her into a half-hidden grotto and an exotic tumble of silky pillows and half-melted candles. She’d wanted romance, and he’d delivered. “It’s beautiful.”
“So are you.” His hand on the small of her back urged her toward the bed he’d clearly made for them in the center of the grotto.
“Where were you?” She needed him to tell her. His face closed, and, for a moment, she wasn’t sure if he would. If they were going to have any sort of a future, however, he had to let her in. This couldn’t be a one-way street. They were both bound to this relationship. Weren’t they?
“I have responsibilities,” he said finally.
“Armies to lead,” she said lightly, but she knew it was no joke. Zer was a warrior—he always would be.
“Yes.” His eyes examined her face. “That’s part of the deal. I fight.”
“Right.” She got that. And, she realized, she could even accept that. The hard part was figuring out what her role in his world could be. She had to do something, because she couldn’t imagine being the little woman at home. If what he wanted was to stick her away on a shelf somewhere until he needed some companionship, that wasn’t the life she’d imagined for herself. But that was the point of talking. Get it all out there, in the open. Still, she wondered if she’d be able to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “And I find soul mates for you.”
He gently settled her on the nest of pillows, and the look of hesitant tenderness on his face was killing her. Maybe there was a place for her here, after all. She turned her cheek into his palm and waited.
“The soul mates are important.” Understatement. “But,” he said hoarsely, “if you don’t want to find them for us, that’s okay.” His dark eyes never left hers. “That’s your choice. You make it.”
“You’d trust me with that?”
He raised her hands and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. “That’s your right. I need you to keep them safe, though. You know who they are, so if you choose not to tell us, you make certain they’re safe.”
“So, what else do you want from me?”
“Love me.” His voice was all rough command, a liquid reminder of the lazy sensuality of their bond. His fingers traced the marks that curled around her forearms. “I need you to love me.” The vulnerability in his voice made her own heart ache.
She wrapped her hands around his arms, sliding them over the hot skin.
“That’s all?” Damn. That hadn’t come out right. “I mean, if we’re soul mates, isn’t there something else?”
“You mean, like a special ritual?” The look of masculine satisfaction flashing across his face warned her. That hesitation was all gone now. “We already did that part.” He threaded his hands through her hair, tugging her closer. Delicious heat and the scent of him sent the words tumbling right out of her head. God, he was dangerous. “And you already got your favor, baby. All of me.”
“Forever.”
“Forever, baby. All yours. You going to return that favor?”
That note of vulnerability was back in his voice now. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, and that raw emotion was doing something to her.
“I want all of you,” he said, and that hoarse note was back in his voice, squeezing her heart and turning her insides molten.
She pulled his dark head down to hers, closing her eyes because all this was almost—but not quite—too much. She hadn’t been asking for love, but that was what she’d found when she’d found Zer.
“You got it. You’ve got me. I love you,” she whispered, sensing rather than seeing his slow smile as the wicked shadows wrapped around them and he filled her world.
He leaned into her. “Falling or flying,” he promised, taking her mouth—and her heart—in a hard, hot kiss. “We do it together.”
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Copyright © 2012 Anne Marsh
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-7783-1