by Con Template
I turned away from him to keep from drooling.
“Why did you participate in the hike if you were that miserable?” I asked, keeping my eyes firmly on the roses. He had to have enjoyed some parts of it if he hiked with me for that long.
“Isn’t that what human boyfriends are supposed to do?” he mused fondly. “Pretend to go along with their girlfriend’s birthday surprise, even if it sucks?”
My skin flamed when I sensed him stepping closer to me, his towering body invading my personal space.
“You’re not my boyfriend and you’re not human,” I deadpanned uneasily, faintly moving forward to put some distance between us. I managed a fraction of an inch before the thorns from the rose bush pinched me.
Eclipse gave a strained laugh, subtly inching closer. He gently leaned over me, causing my body to tingle with hesitant excitement.
His warm breath feathered around me. “What are you up to right now, Teacup?”
“Picking flowers to decorate the dinner table . . .”
“Take a break and have a drink with me.”
I turned, wondering what he meant. My eyes inflated to the size of golf balls when I noticed the Jack Daniel’s bottle in his possession. “Where did you get that?”
“I packed my own emergency kit,” he answered, and I distinctly recalled him and Phix leaving earlier in the morning to go buy something for the trip. I guess this was the “emergency” supply he purchased for his birthday weekend with me.
I glowered, offended that he anticipated the need for alcohol to get through the weekend. “You’re drinking already?”
“Well, I need something to help me through this strange ass experience,” he mocked coolly. He laughed and raised the bottle. The long sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his forearms, showing off the tendons of his muscled arms. Equally as enticing were the sounds coming from the contents of the bottle. The rich whiskey swished coaxingly, urging me to take a sip. “You know you’re craving this as well, Gracie.”
I was. It had been a very tiring day. My joints hurt and my muscles were sore. I was mentally chastising myself for not bringing emergency alcohol of my own, so I was relieved that Eclipse offered me his. Desperation suffocating me, I took the bottle and drank my exhaustion away.
After downing my fair share, I handed him the bottle, wiping the outer corners of my lips with the back of my hand. For several slow heartbeats, Eclipse merely stared at me as I did this. In that breathtaking second, I thought he was going to lean down and wipe the alcohol away with his own lips. Instead, he took the bottle from me and took his own swig. He then diverted his attention to the basket in my grasp.
“Here . . . let me help,” he offered, grabbing the flower basket and holding it for me.
He quietly inclined his head, indicating that I should resume what I was doing.
I gave him a hesitant look as the alcohol laced my system. Once I determined that there was nothing sexually threatening about the gesture, I continued to scope out the prettiest flowers to cut.
Spying a pretty pink flower in the back, I stood on my tiptoes and struggled to reach for it.
As if on cue, Eclipse pressed his muscular body behind me, sending sparks of electricity to chafe my skin. I froze when his hot breath glided over my hair. He leaned in, pulled at the stem of the rose I wanted, and guided it inside the scissor blades.
Heart drumming feverishly in my chest, I cut the stem.
Snip.
Easing away from me, like he wasn’t intentionally trying to seduce me, Eclipse deposited the flower into the basket and waited patiently for me to make my next selection.
I peeked at him over my shoulder, wondering if he was deliberately trying to seduce me. When I saw that he was simply standing there, giving me a blank look, I hoarded those silly thoughts aside and went back to my flower picking.
With heat shrouding over me, I continued to shakily pick my flowers with Eclipse standing behind me, driving me crazy with his presence. I thought it was my imagination, but when I tested out the theory by leaning in to choose another hard-to-get rose, I felt him lean his body into mine again. His hand grazing ever so slowly over mine, he reached over, grabbed the stem, and moved it closer for me to cut.
I breathlessly snipped the flower before he dropped it into the basket, waiting patiently for me to make my next pick. Lost in a daze because I was becoming incredibly turned on by whatever the heck he was doing, I continued to make my choices, sometimes purposely picking the hard-to-reach ones because I wanted to prolong the unspoken game we were playing.
Almost sinuously, the flower picking became fluid for us.
His body towered over me, and every time I reached in to cut a flower, he’d lean in, scarcely gliding his sculpted body atop of mine. The movements became hypnotizing. I was so confounded with the subtle tease that by the time we reached our thirteenth flower, I knew that I couldn’t let the sexually tensed silence overpower us any longer. I had to do something to break myself out of this spell.
“Why don’t blue roses exist?” I asked thoughtlessly, reaching in for another flower. Even amid the lust I was experiencing, I hadn’t forgotten about the blue rose he had gifted me.
His fingers skimmed over mine as he grabbed the pink rose and placed it into the basket.
“Who says they don’t exist?” he murmured distantly. For a second, I thought I felt his lips linger on my bare shoulder.
I reeled back, surprised by what he said and jarred to life by the feel of his mouth on my skin. Swallowing roughly, I fought past the tremors overtaking me and said, “I’ve never seen a real one.”
His lips curved up into a devilish grin. “Just because you’ve never seen one doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.”
I crouched down, inspecting the roses there. I was no longer paying attention to the flowers before me. All I cared about was this flirtatious interlude.
“They actually exist?”
“Yes,” he replied, crouching down beside me. He began to stroke my bare arms, causing rivers of goose bumps to erupt in the wake of his touch. “They just don’t exist for you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, reaching for another rose.
“Blue was my father’s favorite color,” he whispered, the sinful heat of him smoothing along the skin of my neck.
With the patience of an expert lover, he delicately eased my hair over one side of my shoulder. Suddenly the pink strapless dress I wore felt too promiscuous in the company of someone like Eclipse. Once he bared enough of my skin to his satisfaction, he reached in and dutifully assisted me in acquiring the flower I wanted. As he did this, he resumed with his tale, his hypnotic voice dancing like a soft symphony in the cool night.
“And the rose was his favorite flower. In the beginning, when God created the world, my father was purported to have said to God, ‘Keep the blue rose for me, Father. Let your creation be blessed with everything else. So much of what you will gift them will be impossible for a being like me, so let me have something that their world will never have. Let me have the one thing they will always dream of.’”
I faced him once we stood up, a cloud of desire billowing around me. I was not only enraptured by him, but also by the story he was sharing.
“The blue rose actually exists?”
His doting fingers traced over the column of my neck. His eyes darkened with a fevered hunger that mirrored the look a lover might give to his woman before he took her to bed. “Where’s the rose I gave you?”
“That – that was real?” I gasped, feeling my knees grow weak. “I thought it was a dyed rose. I thought you gave it in order to mock me.”
“I was—partly.” He spared another distracted glance at my lips before asking, “Where is it, Teacup?”
In fear of him being able to read the yearning in my eyes, I turned away and resumed with my flower picking.
“Trash,” I breathed out at once, reaching out for a red rose.
Eclipse bent down to h
elp me. Just as I snipped the stem, his teeth caught my earlobe. He nibbled on it, causing me to gasp with unexpected approval. Shortly thereafter, with the effortlessness of the wind, he eased himself away, continuing to help me pick roses and acting as though he hadn’t touched me at all.
He continued to speak, the sexual magnetism of him weakening my defenses. I was melting like butter on hot toast.
“Liar,” he stated simply.
“I threw it away,” I shakily insisted. My earlobe was tingling from the intense attention it received from Eclipse.
“Lie to me again and I’m ripping this dress off.”
“In the bottom drawer of my closet shelf,” I answered quickly, fearing that if he ripped off my dress, I’d lose all sense of control. I struggled to pick another flower, foolishly thinking that ignoring what he was doing to me would save me from his captivating spell. “I kept it dried because I thought it was pretty.”
A charismatic laugh issued from him. I felt him leave a line of butterfly kisses on my shoulder blades as we cut another flower. The light caress of his lips had my breath lodging in my lungs. Much like the few times before that, he removed his teasing lips from my skin and eased himself away, leaving me to long after him like an addict. I couldn’t believe how much I was yearning for his next touch.
“I was hoping you’d keep lying to me,” he crooned huskily, his body tensing with regret. It took me a while to register that he was hoping that I’d keep lying so he could rip my dress off. It took all my willpower to not tell another lie so that his threat could come to fruition.
Whimpering quietly, I tried other means to assuage the desire coursing through me. I thought about the blue rose in my room and felt my heart race. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact that something so unobtainable was given to me.
“It’s actually real?” I uttered in continued disbelief.
I felt disoriented, both from our conversation and my desperation for his touches.
Seized with lustful thirst, I struggled to find another flower so he’d butter me up with attention again. Ugly ones or pretty ones, none of it mattered anymore. All that mattered was the man behind me who was driving me crazy with his eroticism.
“I don’t give my woman knock-offs,” he crooned, helping me cut another flower.
He continued to sensually nip at the skin of my bare shoulder. My body was so hot that I was surprised it hadn’t burned his tongue. But then again, he was the reservoir feeding oil to my fire—of course he wasn’t going up in flames. It was just me who was on the brink of imploding.
“Everything I give you will be top of the line, one of a kind, and absolutely timeless.”
“Why’d you give it to me?”
“To mock you,” he revealed in amusement. This time, he didn’t edge away. He held me tight as I struggled to stand, his lips venturing to my other shoulder and giving it the same exquisite treatment. “Because you were chasing something so impossible. Nothing in this world embodies that more than the blue rose. Plus, I wanted you to have it; I wanted to be the one to give it to you. The blue rose may not exist for the rest of your fellow humans, but it exists for you.”
Delirious from all the attention he was showering me, I unthinkingly asked, “You wanted to give me the impossible?”
He laughed while he continued to leave a trail of hot kisses on my shoulders. “Don’t push it, Teacup. There was no intention of ‘love’ behind the gift. I wanted to give it to you because I wanted you to have something special from me.”
“I figured,” I voiced, feeling like I was about to pass out from the scorching heat. “I’m going to sell that flower.”
“Can’t happen,” he whispered hoarsely, moving his kisses upwards and finding my earlobe again. Like the wickedly sinful bastard he was, he nibbled on it again, driving me insane with his mouth. “Only one human can touch it and see it. It will self-destruct if anyone else sees it.”
“You placed a spell on it?”
“No,” he went on, nibbling harder. “I overrode the former spell on it. My father was a snob with your kind. It took me a while to figure out how to override his spell and take it out of Hell.”
“Give me another one.”
“Not possible,” he replied, reluctantly easing away from my earlobe. Surmising that I must’ve been parched, he offered me another drink from the whiskey bottle. “That was the last rose.”
My eyes bloomed, and I wasn’t sure if it was from shock or from the wonderment of everything Eclipse was doing to my body. “It was the last one?”
“Yes.”
“You gave me the last blue rose?” I asked, obediently drinking from the bottle so he’d keep answering my question. My joints felt so buttery that when I drank from the bottle, I advertently bumped my mouth against it as well, causing some whiskey to spill over my jaw and stream down my neck. “Why?”
“Because I am a hundred times better than your future husband,” Eclipse voiced roughly, his eyes darkening at the sight of alcohol dripping down my neck. From the desperation in his eyes, it looked like he was holding onto the last of his control as well. I thought he was able to hold himself back, but when the alcohol moved over my collarbone, it became the last straw for Eclipse. “Because I can give you everything that he won’t be able to give you,” he finished hoarsely, eyes amassing with need.
Then, with the fervor of a starved man, all control was lost when his lips went for the stream of alcohol making its way down my collarbone.
Oh!
Brilliant arcs of pleasure canvassed my vision when his mouth ravaged the whiskey on my skin. All sensible thoughts were led astray. I dropped my garden scissors and my inhibitions along with them.
With a guttural groan, Eclipse tossed the flower basket aside and pulled me tighter against his hot body. He raised me onto the tips of my toes and gave me the most dazzling rapture I had ever experienced.
Desperate mewls expelled from my throat as a maelstrom of bliss besieged me. The more he kissed my neck, my collarbone, my shoulder . . . the more I grew insatiable. What occurred next felt like a blur—a brilliantly amazing blur. Before I could discern my actions, lust prevailed over me. I tugged on his shirt, ripped the fabric off, and felt all the buttons fly away. A chuckle of approval came from his steel chest. The sexiness of his laughter settled in my tummy, and I grew more ravenous.
I wanted him so badly.
That bastard was being wicked though. With a demonically sexy smile that would have a nun renouncing her chastity, the sinful Demon eased away from me, shaking his head and saying, “That’s all you’re getting tonight, Teacup.”
I stared at him, furious at what he was doing to me. That bastard. He was getting his vengeance for all those times I denied his advances. Now that I was primed and ready, he was the one holding out.
With a lascivious smirk edging his lips, Eclipse lazily drank from the whiskey bottle. The muscles on his upper body flexed and contracted with the simple movement. When he removed the bottle from his mouth, a small stream of whiskey slipped from the corner of his lips and coursed down his neck. The beautiful liquid glided down his chest and settled onto the muscled planes of his firm stomach.
That was when the conflagration worsened inside me.
I suddenly felt thirstier, and it was a thirst that only Eclipse could sate.
That sight became my undoing.
Mindless sexual attraction consuming me entirely, I propelled myself towards him without reservations.
Bam!
As my body slammed into his, a triumphant laugh escaped from his chest. As though he had been waiting for me to lose control all along, he stood perfectly still. Then, his hands caressed my back as I stood on my tiptoes and moved my lips across his hardened body. I kissed his chest, bit his shoulders, nipped at his neck, and showered kisses all over his strong jaw. Every muscle on his body flexed and rippled as my fingers ran over his bare skin, as if coming alive just for me.
After a few scorching seconds of giv
ing me free reign, Eclipse relieved himself of the submissive state and took the lead. He was the alpha male. No one dominated him without him throwing it back tenfold.
He took me into his arms, passionately tugged at my hair, and gifted me with open-mouth kisses on my neck that ignited a wildfire in my bloodstream. The hands in my hair were rough, but I could feel the gentleness of them as he tilted my head back, going back to worshipping my body with his heated kisses.
Any normal girl would’ve retreated in fear because my current romp with Eclipse was the equivalent of challenging a lion in its own den, but I wasn’t afraid. If anything, his aggressiveness heightened my lust even more. I got so voracious that I even pulled at the short strands of his hair. My nails dug into his scalp while I tugged at the strands with appreciation. Any normal guy would have retreated from the biting pain, but Eclipse merely groaned in approval, seemingly becoming more and more turned on.
“Take what you need, baby,” I thought I heard him say in my frenzied state.
I did just that.
Having enough with standing on my tiptoes, I stripped the shirt off of him and pushed him to the ground with all my might. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that he fell because of my strength. He went down strictly on his own accord.
We tumbled roughly onto the ground, where the sprinklers had just turned on, and I became an animal.
I climbed over him, bracketed my knees on either side of him, and continued to kiss every inch of his exquisite body. He tasted like the most potent and dangerous whiskey in existence. Every kiss caused the need within me to elevate more violently than the last. I had never been around something so addicting and so unearthly aphrodisiac.
By now, I could see OinkOink running into the garden and whining as the water hit him, but I didn’t care. The only thing I cared about was Eclipse.
My lust . . .
The scene that followed was passion—mindless and explosive passion.
I didn’t have full reign over Eclipse as much as I wanted because within a split second, I was on my back and he was rising above me, his savagely beautiful face primed above mine. He was a portrait of sensuality, the very essence of male virility. The air around us hummed with his heat and every morsel of him demanded my submission.