by Tamsin Baker
Oh. I turned away, moving towards a treadmill. “Want me to warm up on this first?”
Xander turned the machine on. “Only to warm up your muscles. I don’t want to wear you out too soon. I have other things in mind for that.”
I concentrated on moving one foot in front of the other, consciously not watching Xander when he stripped off his tank and began his own set of warming up exercises.
The man had a body of a god. I nearly lost my footing when I became mesmerized by the interplay of muscles along his long, lean limbs. There was an otherworldly grace about him I couldn’t quite pin down.
I forced my eyes on the distance display on the treadmill and tried to shut him out as best I could. It was difficult, considering everything he said I took as a sexual innuendo, which only increased my awareness of him. Because if there was one thing I did know, if I didn’t hold myself in the strictest of control I was going to disgrace myself and set myself up for more rejection.
Chapter Twenty Six
“So what are you going to teach me?”
Although he’d warmed up, he hadn’t cracked a sweat, while I’d walked half an hour and was already perspiring like crazy. All of that muscled perfection needed a lot of energy to get hot, I guessed.
“Some hand to hand combat,” Xander said.
“You make it sound like I’m going to fight a war,” I said.
“Your safety is no light matter. If any of these skills give you an edge, then you will use them. I will not allow anyone to harm you, Ella.”
I eyed his lean chest, packed with streamlined, chiseled muscle. “If I looked like you, I think I’d have a better chance.”
A small smile played on his sensual lips. “Your body weight doesn’t matter. I’ll show you some techniques that will be effective. The secret is to know what to use and how to use it properly.”
“How do you know these things?” I realized I didn’t know a lot about them. Xander may have been a soldier or a fitness trainer. I had no idea. I was caught walking a fine line of being uncomfortable and placing my innate sense of trust in a man who could eat me for breakfast if he chose.
He shrugged a shoulder. “I’ve had training. And years to hone my skills. Now, have you finished delaying?”
I guess it was now or never. He wasn’t going to let me leave the room after a stroll on a treadmill. If there was one thing about Xander, he said what he meant. I wasn’t going to leave without some sort of defense tactics, whatever they may be.
I nodded, my mouth drying. “May as well get this over with.”
His lips quirked again. “Good. Now turn around. I’m going to attack you from behind and I will show you how to deflect hands around your neck.”
I turned and he came so close behind me that his body heat washed through my clothing. He scraped my hair aside, the strands lightly brushing my neck. Goosebumps broke out over my skin and my whole focus centered on the man I couldn’t see behind me. “I don’t think potential attackers will take the time to play with my hair before they abduct me.”
He pressed his lips on that sensitive place between my neck and my shoulder and inhaled. His nose grazed my skin and he inhaled once more. His body stilled, preternaturally so.
My skin prickled as a rush of awareness crashed through me, and yet, like any good prey, I stilled so that the only thing moving in my body was my heart and the blood it pumped. I barely dared to breathe, as if moving would somehow allow Xander to pounce.
A long moment passed. He shuddered, as though it had taken him a great deal of effort to stop whatever he was going to do. Disappointment, along with a healthy dose of fear poured through me.
He came out of his trance, taking a silent step back, which wasn’t that far because he still touched me. “You are too much of a temptation, Ella,” he murmured, almost too softly for me to hear, as though he’d said it to himself.
“Why?” I didn’t understand why I felt this way about all of them. Why I was unable to stop myself or this rush of deep awareness that tempted me beyond reason. If Xander thought I was temptation, he was pure craving for me.
He brought up his forearm and locked it around my chest. “Some things are not of the logical world, Ella. You will see, but for now I must prepare you. I’m only doing this because you wish to return to your world.”
“But…I have to return.” My breathing was shallow and erratic. His proximity was quickly weakening any sort of resolve I thought I had. And that was it, wasn’t it? I only thought I’d be able to resist him, when in reality, I knew I really stood no chance at all.
“And I will see to your wish. Now, elbow me in the ribs and step on my foot.”
“What?”
Suddenly I was flat on my back, the wind pushed from my lungs and I lay there, stunned on the mat. A hand was thrust into my vision. “There is no warning when you are attacked. You must be ready at all times. Now get up and we will begin.”
* * *
Sweat stung my eyes when it slid down my forehead and dripped into my lashes. I’d lost track of time, but judging by the way my muscles had gone past burning with strain and now threatened to give out completely, it had to have been hours.
At first I’d tried everything Xander told me. Done it again and again when he’d urged me to do it better. I’d followed his instructions to the letter, but he was stronger, faster, fitter and taller, and no matter how hard I tried, the harder he’d make it. I was never going to match him and I was just about done trying.
“I can’t do this anymore, Xander.” I panted through the sequence he’d had me repeat five times.
“You’re still not quick enough.”
“I’m never going to be able to throw your body over my shoulder, and I’m out of energy. I’m gassed.” He was a hard task master, but I’d learned a lot and for that I’d be grateful. That was, if he’d ever let me out of the gym to shower and crawl into a bed like I wanted to.
Xander moved too fast for me to track. I had no idea how he moved so quickly but the next thing I knew, the world spun. I tumbled to the mat and Xander was on top of me, pinning me down. My arms were above my head, Xander’s large fingers trapping my biceps to the ground.
It took me a moment to catch my breath, but when I did, Xander still had me pinned, “Enough, Xander. I’m only human.” I had to wonder if the man actually was more robot than human. He never seemed to tire even though he’d thrown me to the floor and picked me up often enough.
“Do you think Gary will care about that?” Xander’s voice was hoarse. Low.
My breath caught as I stared up at him. He had yet to release me. “Gary doesn’t care about much. You have to get to his father to get to Gary. Without the backing of his father, Gary is nothing.”
“You do know how to read people, don’t you?” Xander said.
“It’s a pity I didn’t know how to get them to do what I want them to do as well,” I said. If I did. I wouldn’t have had half the amount of strife from most of the people in town.
“I think you do know how to motivate people. You just haven’t been motivated enough to try,” Xander said.
That was a laugh. I was plenty motivated to get people to treat me better. I’d settle for a friendly good morning wave, let alone getting them to do what I’d like them to do. Like stop listening to the Holy Trinity so that everyone could claim their own life, or at the least, be able to leave town and escape them. “I’ve been plenty motivated.”
“But what have you done about it, Ella?”
I tried to lift my arms, but his hands were like steel weights. He stayed where he was, not willing or wanting to let me go just yet. The first fluttering of panic made my heart tremble. If he didn’t want me to get up, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
I realized my legs were splayed, his abdomen lodged firmly between them. His scent surrounded me, and my clit began to throb. This wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all. “Get off me. I can’t breathe.”
“That’s not motivating
at all. I think you can do better than that.” Xander’s serious face hovered over me, his black pupils bleeding out any color. Deep crimson reflected in the depths, flashing like a ruby in firelight. He wasn’t going to let me up. This was another one of his tests.
He tilted his hips, increasing the pressure on my clit. A deep throb of desire pulsed, making me breathless in a completely different way. I needed him off me. I needed to get away, otherwise I was going to do something I was going to regret. I just knew I was.
“I mean it, Xander. Stop playing around.”
“If there’s one thing you know about me, it’s that I don’t play around.”
No. He didn’t. Everything he did was intentional. I just didn’t know what his intentions were at the moment. “I mean it, Xander. Let me up.”
His eyes dilated more. Hardness pressed between my legs, sliding along my cleft, sending delicious currents swirling through me. “You want me off you, Ella. How are you going to do that?”
I tilted my hips in an effort to buck him off but his hard shaft sliding against me increasing the friction of cloth over steel. I groaned out loud as a wave of arousal crashed over me. He leaned down and brushed the tip of his nose along my neck, leaning over me further. His lips were a hair’s breadth over mine. If I so much as twitched, my lips would touch his.
My mind was muddled. I didn’t want him off me anymore. I wanted his weight over me, igniting my desire. He tilted his hips, easing his length along my core. Things had escalated quickly. Changed and morphed from one intense situation to another entirely. No less deep. No less dark. But one that called to me from beyond my mind, my thoughts, my body. No, this went deeper still, right down to the very heart of me, where there was no choice. There was only longing and need and action. Connection on a level beyond my understanding. Together, we walked a tremulous path that neither of us could no more stop walking, than step away from.
I sucked in a quick breath and caught my bottom lip between my teeth. I didn’t want him off me anymore.
I wanted him inside me.
Slowly, so slowly, I arched my back, pressing my breasts against his bare chest. I rocked my hips up and down, pressing against his hardness, the thickness of the material between us adding to the friction. His breath shuddered from his body and washed over my face. I breathed it in, filling my lungs with his breath, his scent.
“Tell me no, Ella.” Another shuddering breath when I rocked my hips against his hardness again. His gaze locked onto mine, caught and ensnared me.
I released the lip I’d been biting all this time. I couldn’t hold back any more. I didn’t want to. I wanted him. Needed him. Craved him. I wasn’t going to wait anymore. There would be no more ‘nos.’ “I need you, Xander. Please love me. Please. Now.”
“See? I knew you could be motivated.” He seized me with a kiss. His tongue swept into my mouth, thrusting against mine, delving and swirling in a dance I met with each movement and I soared in a maelstrom of need, want and a dark abyss of no return.
Chapter Twenty Seven
He kissed me with raw power that was wholly Xander. Taking where I could only receive, giving, which left me craving more.
His taste was exquisite torture. Too much and not enough. I didn’t think I could ever be enough. Not now. Now when he gave himself to me like this.
His hands slipped beneath my tank. He drew it up and off me without hesitation. Before I had a chance to stop and think, he bent to devour one breast with his hot mouth, while he palmed the other between his clever fingers.
My eyes slammed shut and I tipped my head back. My whole attention was riveted to him and the way he teased my breasts with his mouth, tongue and touch. He drew my rock-hard nipple into his mouth between his sharp teeth, bringing me to the fine edge of pain before he released me and laved the area with the flat of his tongue.
His hand left my breast and he moved lower down my body to kneel between my legs. I gasped, knowing what his intentions were when his fingers hooked into the waist of my pants. He locked his gaze with me, challenging me to defy him as he drew the material over my hips and down my legs, totally baring me.
He didn’t realize I didn’t have it in me to deny him at all. Not now. Not when it was so much work to try and I only really denied myself. His gaze lowered. He went preternaturally still, muscles tensing, as though he held himself back from something by the finest threads.
His eyes closed for a long moment and he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. When he opened them again, there was no color, only inky blackness. “One last time, Ella. Tell me one last time.”
Time hung on a precipice. That line where one little word would mean a momentous change. In life, there are only one or two times this might occur and I knew down to my very existence that this was one of them. Not just for me, but for him as well.
And somehow, in some way, I sensed how much he wanted me. How they all did. It was illogical, but it was there, all the same. A pulsing need that was undeniable. I was as able as a sapling in a flood to withstand the desire raging through me. Every cell, every sense, called to him. It was a driving force, a connection that had swelled and built between all four of us, tension racketing up until there was only one answer. One choice. “There is no question, Xander. I want you.”
He moved so fast, I’d barely finished speaking. One moment he was kneeling between my parted legs, and the next he was devouring the most intimate place on my body, but that was Xander. A wonder of pure strength, masculinity and purpose.
He sucked on my clit, working the nub of sensitive nerves with his tongue at the same time he pushed inside me with a finger. A scream ripped from my throat as an unexpected orgasm crashed over me. It was too much. Too intense. Pure sensation barreled through me, stealing my breath and my mind.
I tried to crawl away, an unconscious movement, but he placed a hand on my hips, locking me in place as he continued to lave me with his attentions. I locked my fingers in his hair. I knew I must be hurting him, but I couldn’t make myself stop clenching him.
A second finger entered me. He worked deep inside me, sliding in and out, in and out, lapping my slit, my clit, with long strokes of his tongue and lips. His fingers brushed inside me, raising me towards another climax.
He added a third finger, stretching me wide, the burn stinging and sweet, and when he groaned, the vibrations added to the intensity and another orgasm locked my lungs and stole my breath. He continued to suck and stroke me, prolonging my climax until the exquisite torture began to abate.
Only then did he ease his fingers from me and climb up my body, kissing me deeply and thoroughly. I tasted myself on his lips and tongue. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, undulating my hips against his hardness. He dragged through my wet, sensitive cleft, letting me seek the hardness I yearned for.
I wanted him inside me. I wanted him to make love to me.
He gathered me in his arms and it took me a moment to realize he stood with me cradled against him. I touched his cheek. “Xander?”
“Not like this. Not on the floor of the gym. You deserve much more than that. And I want my brothers with us, Ella. Do you agree to that? It’s all of us or nothing at all. I can’t…can’t be the only one to have you.”
I blinked as meaning slowly seeped into my brain. He wanted all of us to be together for our first true time. It wasn’t going to be just him. Xander wouldn’t make love to me just on his own.
It was going to be all four of us.
A dark thrill raced through me, the thought that it was wrong, so wrong, merely an inkling. I wasn’t brought up to have a harem of men, but that was just echoes of the Holy Trinity. It wasn’t my own thought.
My own thoughts wanted all three of them with every fibre of my being. My own thought was that I had never felt more complete, that my life had never been more on the right track. Being with all of them caused threads of my existence to align into rightness, coalescing into the only decision I could make.
It was my own.
Not the townspeople’s. Not the Holy Trinities’. Not Mom’s. Mine, alone.
I cupped his cheek and ran the pad of my thumb along the stubble of his jaw, the rough texture heightened with this movent, because I also knew with my whole heart that this decision could change my life.
Nothing after tonight would ever be the same for me. And for the first time, nothing held me back from making it. It was so right, that anything else I might say was ashes on my tongue. “I want you, Xander. And Cassius and Davon. I want all three of you to make love to me. Please, Xander. Love me. Please. I want you. I want you all.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
He wrapped me in a towel snagged from a nearby neatly folded stack and headed upstairs. I had no idea how he had the stamina after the hours we’d just put in, but I was grateful for it. After the multiple orgasms he gave me, my muscles were like wet noodles and I doubted I’d be able to walk up the flights of stairs.
I was cradled – protected – against his chest, anticipation building like a living thing inside me. He kicked my bedroom door open and strode to the bed.
“Davon. Cassius!” he called before we went into the bathroom.
“Bathroom?”
“I would think you’d like for me to wash you after our…exertions. I also happen to know how much you like showers,” Xander said.
I blushed as he started the shower, remembering my time with Davon, but this wasn’t a time to be embarrassed. He wasn’t, so there was no reason for me to be either. He knew how I felt. Had, in fact, demanded it. He placed me on my feet and kissed me as he removed my towel.
He was already bare-chested. I ran my hands over hot, undulating muscle, delighted with the silken feel of his skin beneath my touch. Then I did what I’d never done to any man before. I stripped him like he’d stripped me.
I slid my fingers beneath his waistband and slipped his pants down his legs, then as he stepped out of them, I wrapped my fingers around his rigid cock and pumped him up and down slowly. Silk over steel.
His lips still on mine, he locked his teeth, a breath shuddering through his mouth. I breathed it in, the air flavored with his scent. My arousal spiked as his hand trailed down my back, between my buttocks and slid through my soaking cleft. His finger found my entrance and slipped inside, fingering me as once again, he took over the kiss. I spread my legs, allowing him to stroke his finger deeper inside me, my entire focus on his hands, mouth, skin.