She was barely able to get her arm between the wall and her own body, but when her fingers at last reached the juncture where his rod filled her channel, she formed a ring and squeezed him. His growl satisfied everything she wanted. Her fingers found his ball sac. She pulled down and felt the rumble of his chest again on her back as his guttural moan released to the room. His shoulders arched back behind them, his mouth releasing a groan that sounded like pain. Or pleasure. Or the pain of pleasure.
Instinctively, as her inner muscles reacted to his thrusting, to the sounds coming from behind her, lighting up her spine, she turned her head and leaned, exposing the long muscles of her neck. She laid it bare, nakedly there for him to take. It was a dare to experience the thrill of his fangs pleasuring themselves at her expense. It was a plea to be taken now in the only way she knew how to fully satisfy him.
I’d say that my experience of our sexual encounter was that she was perfect.
The words had slithered down her abdomen, nearly making her sick when she heard them spoken. Some other woman had been perfect for Gideon.
No more!
It would be her mission in life to please him, whatever the cost, whatever the pain. To stay alive to experience the pleasure as he took her.
Her muscles milked him. His cock seemed to expand as she heard another groan. It almost sounded like a muffled no. Again, she arched back, lifted her body against his powerful legs and chest, stretching wide her legs, bracing her body on one arm, clutching his right thigh. She dug her nails into his flesh until his skin gave way.
His roar and groan was fierce, and she desperately angled her head back and to the left, to place her own neck closer to his mouth, which was clearly out of reach. She tried to entice him, to let him know what she wanted because she knew he wanted it. Her lips would not utter it. She wanted to feel it in his roar, in the rumble of his chest and the way he powerfully pumped her to oblivion.
She could move her left hand, so sprinkled the golden dust on her shoulder and rubbed her neck with it, and waiting.
He jerked to a stop. Then she felt his powerful inhale just before her neck stung when both his fangs ripped into her flesh. He squeezed her left buttock. The pain made her dizzy, but thrilled her. Then he inserted a finger into her anus, and she saw stars until he removed it. His fingers desperately found her bud, and he pressed against it with his thumb while he drank. A ribbon of red fell between her breasts and dropped to the floor of the shower, mixing with the water.
She coated her fingers, rubbed his ball sac with her blood, mixing it with some dust. The large vein at the base of his stem bulged, began to pulse and then she felt the rush of his sperm coat her lining deep inside.
Gideon must have sensed the shiver because he removed his fangs and his tongue sealed her wounds. But he continued to pleasure her, even after all his seed had been spilled.
The emotional toll caught up to her, and at last, she sobbed into the wet tile wall, her heaving chest releasing sounds like a wounded animal.
She was wounded. She would never be the same. She was lost in her desperate need of this man, this creature, formed by Father, altered, altered again, and altered a third time by his own hand.
And now he had altered her forever and forever, too.
“Angel, are you okay?” His urgent whisper sent her heart racing.
How could she answer this?
“Angel, oh, my angel. What have I done?”
What was this? Done? No. I asked to be altered. I begged him with everything I had.
“Gideon,” her hoarseness surprised her. She’d been nearly screaming in the shower, too, and now she felt the constriction, the soreness of her exertions.
“Yes? Yes, my angel? Are you okay? Have I hurt you?” He sounded urgent.
It took every ounce of strength to say it, but she finally pushed it out of her. “Gideon, I want more!”
He removed himself and quickly turned her around, setting her on her feet. His eyes were wild with a mixture of things she’d not seen before. Golden flecks appeared in his eyes at her mental begging. “You are drawing my glamour, my angel.”
“Yes!” She took strength from his gaze. A fire burned in her belly as he fingered over her bite marks, now healed, on her right side. She drew more dust, crossed over her chest and spread it down her neck and shoulder on her left. Their gaze still locked, she leaned her head to the right and exposed her naked left side to him.
His nostrils flared as the golden flecks grew and nearly glowed. The power from him made her feel like she could levitate, and then she remembered she could fly.
One more pass with the dust against her neck and shoulder and Gideon pulled her roughly to him and with a total lack of control sank his fangs into her neck. She fell against his chest, her palms on his buttocks. She squeezed the flesh of his cheeks as he took her blood hungrily.
She was drunk on the sensation he was consuming her.
“Take it all, Gideon. Take it all.”
With that, he stopped. Blood still remained on his lips but his fangs did not show. His handsome face was wracked in pain and then she noticed the tears streaming down his cheeks.
She rimmed his lips with her forefinger, spreading the blood over his mouth and then stepping on his feet, tiptoed, and kissed him, tasting her own blood. When they parted, he was still crying. His eyes were closed.
“God, help me,” he whispered.
“Why, Gideon?” Her hands shook his head. “Why? Tell me why?”
“I have taken too much, angel. I have been so selfish.”
She was totally confused. She furled her eyebrows together and then shook her head. “You have not taken what I have not freely given, Gideon.”
He opened his eyes, but the tears still came as he looked back at her.
“Forgive me, angel. Please forgive me.” His head fell against her chest as he dropped to his knees.
Persephone turned off the water and stood, holding his head against her as the drip drip, drip, of the water and dissipating steam fell until at last there was a vacuum of sound.
Her fingers massaged his scalp, his temples. She kissed the top of his head, but he refused to let her go, his arms about her thighs, clinging to her like a child, still on his knees.
“If it makes you feel better, I forgive you, Gideon. But there’s nothing to forgive. You took what I wanted you to take, no more and certainly no less.”
She pressed the sides of his face and angled it up so she could gaze down at him again. “There is nothing to forgive. I am yours, Gideon. Completely. Every part of me.”
He buried his forehead in her belly and nodded. “It’s time. I have to show you something.”
“Okay.”
He stood, examined both sides of her neck, adding more spittle to her left side and rubbing it aimlessly.
“Watch this,” she said as she made dust in her right hand and spread it over the little bumps that remained of his bite. As she smoothed, the bumps disappeared. She felt rather cocky about it. “Cool, huh?”
It still didn’t elicit a smile from him, even after she lowered her head to meet his downward gaze. “What the devil is the matter with you, Gideon?”
He didn’t say anything, but took her hand, leading her from the shower. His fluffy towel dried off her body, sifting his fingers through her hair as if it were a comb. With tenderness, he rubbed the back of one hand against her cheek. “My angel. You have caught me defenseless. I am defenseless to your charms.”
But his half-smile wasn’t filled with the joy warming her insides. The edges of her bright and sunny day began to darken.
“How do you feel?” he asked while he finished patting down her legs and thighs.
“Needy. Famished.”
Again, he gave her a half smile. “Are you ready?”
“I told you two hours ago I was ready. I’ve been ready ever since you took my hand at the clockmaker’s table.”
“So much has changed in such a short period of time.”<
br />
“But we have each other, Gideon. We found each other.”
“And we are changed, my angel.”
“Yes. Yes, I freely admit it. I will not be the same Guardian I once was. I am all grown up now. You have healed the cavern in my soul, Gideon. You are what I need. Or is there something else?”
He nodded and held her hands between them. “Yes, there’s something else.” He kissed her briefly, which left her puzzled. Slowly, his hands atop her shoulders, he turned her body and stood behind her so she faced the large bathroom mirror.
Her attention went to the pained expression on his face as he watched her reflection. His warm body behind her gave her courage and strength.
Until she looked at her own face and discovered her eyes were now black.
Chapter 14
Persephone fell back against Gideon, who had been prepared for her reaction. So the stories were true. Her fate had been sealed. But the most painful thing about it was that she feared Gideon regretted everything they’d done. Instead of a doorway and golden stairs to a life of happily ever after, she’d taken the elevator to the pit of whatever lay behind those black eyes of hers.
Her fever for him hung with her, weakening her emotional shields as he picked her up and laid her on the bed. The morning had jump-started the day. Cars were on the roadway outside the Inn. Birds were chirping. Sounds of water bounced off the stone walls, echoing and magnifying the noise, and cooling her nervousness.
Everything was normal outside her beating heart, but her soul had caved in on itself.
She flashed in and out of consciousness as she played back the flesh-colored ministrations in the shower, the feel of the sheets tangled around their legs and the way her fingers gripped the smooth cotton bedding. Everywhere was Gideon, bending to kiss her, turning her, bringing her arms up over her head and showering her with lustful whispers and looks as he completed her in every way she could be filled.
Exhausted, she’d pressed herself against his back, and cried, letting herself go. She’d been flying somewhere between Heaven and Hell. Gideon. Her master who had made a slave of her heart and took the only thing she could give: Everything.
The covers were pulled up to her neck. Her arm draped across her eyes to keep them in darkness. The shock of what had occurred eclipsed any question she could form. It was as if the whole world suddenly landed on her chest and there was no air to breathe.
But Gideon was there. Steadfast. Holding on to her so she would know in her delirium, that he was not shirking away from the reality of where they were.
But who were they? Star-crossed lovers or doomed fallen angels on a death spiral down into the inky pool of uncertainty? The loss of immortality was a possibility, but it in no way was as important as the knowledge that now she was a burden, something that caused him pain. She was supposed to be his protector. She hadn’t been able to protect him from the biggest danger he could face, and therefore hers as well.
His heart beat against hers as he formed a curled shell of protection like a nautilus, his legs entangled in hers, one arm under her neck and the other possessively crossing her waist with fingers tucked in tight against her side. Her deep breathing caused him to fall into the rhythm of their bodies as the hush of heat, regret, uncertainty, pain, and everything else surfaced. Everything, other than hope.
She opened her eyes, not knowing how long they’d been lying there, hoping he was asleep. But she’d felt her lashes flutter against his cheekbone and the corresponding brush of his against her forehead.
“Speak, angel.”
She repositioned her head on the pillow, following the familiarity of his face now, forever embedded in her mind, a face she would never stop loving, the face more important than life itself to her.
She rolled to her side, his arm still hanging over her waist, fingers brushing tiny patterns on the small of her back. She caressed his cheek, brought her mouth to touch his lips and planted the whisper there, “What do we do, Gideon?”
His chest filled with air as he thought about his answer, scanning her face again and landing at last on her lips.
“I don’t know what we do. I wish I did. But, God help me, I still don’t feel like it was wrong.”
His eyes were watering and one tear escaped to blot itself in the pillow. His face became obscured by her own tears, turning the vision of his handsome countenance into a watery pool. Her heart was breaking, but there was no turning back now.
“Forgive me, Gideon,” she said as her eyes cleared.
His eyebrows tented up and lines deepened in his forehead, the pulsing blue vein at the center sinking into his hairline. His hands pressed her cheeks together. “Nothing to forgive, my angel. I regret nothing for me. But I have taken more from you than I ever deserved.”
She placed her fingers over his lips. “Stop.”
For several seconds, they watched each other, and then he grabbed her tightly, wrapping his powerful arm around her waist, pulling her to press against the hardness of his chest and thighs, his mouth against hers, commanding she open to him. His tongue searched. His lips sucked the breath and a little moan she uttered right out from her own lungs.
He could crush her with the weight of his body, but she needed his weight to ground her, squeeze all the doubt and worry from her system and make her soft and full of molten love again. With her arms out at her sides, his fingers clutched and woven between hers, she held on to him like the rock her Gideon was.
He was showing her he wasn’t going anywhere. His fearless lovemaking lit the match to the promise that perhaps there was hope out there, somewhere.
She jerked as the small alarm went off. Not sure where she was at first, then she felt the warmth on her backside of Gideon’s frame spooned behind her. Their fingers remained entangled as earlier during their arduous session.
The fireplace had gone cold, but the magic was still in the air. Golden particles from her dust floated in the sunlight, moving around in swirls as if by their own power.
“Who gets up first?” she whispered to her side of the pillow.
“You,” he answered. “So I can watch your naked body walk across the floor just one more time. So I can envision you coming back to bed and loving me for three days solid.” He followed up his beautiful words with a kiss to her ear.
She closed her eyes and concentrated. Slowly, she forced her body to elevate off the bed. Gideon hung on to her, taken by her angel powers until she righted them, landing them gently on their feet with his arms still encasing her.
“Very nice, my angel. I like how you did that. Very stubborn of you, but also very beautiful.”
She turned in his arms, resting her forearms against his muscled shoulders, fingers sifting through his still-damp hair. The scent of him had marked her everywhere. She kissed his neck and discovered a bruise there. She quickly pulled back, questioning him with her eyes and rubbing it with the pads of her first two fingers.
“What did I do, poor Gideon?”
“I asked you to.”
“But I don’t remember! Why don’t I remember?”
“You’d had a lot of my blood.” He showed her his tongue, with several red marks like well-healed, deep puncture wounds. “It was sore an hour ago.”
“I’m sorry. But what are the bruises?”
“You were too careful, my angel. We have to teach you to bite me properly.”
Had she heard this correctly? “Guardians don’t bite!”
“Wanna bet?” His eyes danced with some dirty stories behind them she didn’t want to hear.
“Stop it.”
He allowed his tongue to trace the vein at the side of her neck as he whispered, “Dirty little stories about the things I’ve done and seen. Sweet little Guardians who made me so hot. You would cream in your panties, if you wore them, my angel.”
She pulled back away from him. “Gideon. You play nasty.”
“Oh yes, my angel. You haven’t seen the half of what I can do. I promise. I can’t h
elp myself.”
“What would Father think?”
“Too late, sweetheart.” He reached and yanked her body to him again as she struggled to untangle herself without using her trace. The struggle felt good. The play was intense and dangerous. Stolen minutes that could not continue forever.
“We have that meeting with Manfred,” she blurted as he picked her up and threw her on the bed.
“Not until I fuck you two ways to sunset.”
She giggled, throwing her head back as he buried his head between her legs.
She created an ankle-length, long-sleeved pink dress in a light wool fabric and pink cowboy boots to match. He’d already dressed in the jeans and blue shirt she’d provided him, with a navy-blue leather bomber jacket positioned so it cinched his waist and showed off his well-developed ass and thighs, just the way she liked to see him.
He chuckled and pointed to her boots. “You better have socks on, sweetheart.”
“Why?”
“Well, if they’re new—”
“They’re not new.”
“Okay, if they’re tight and you have no socks on, I might pull the leg out of your hip socket getting them off you. Have you ever worn cowboy boots before?”
“No.”
“Well then, we’ll worry about all that later.”
“Or maybe I’ll leave them on all night.”
“We could do that, darlin’,” he said in a mock southern accent.
“Maybe I’ll kick you out of bed tonight.”
“Not a chance,” he grinned.
“I feel a challenge being laid down.”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re gonna tumble tonight for sure.”
She darted to the bathroom to check her face out in the mirror. The sight of her eyes startled her again while Gideon leaned against the doorframe watching her, fingers riding his angled hips.
“I guess it takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?”
“My eyes were already dark before I met you, but in time, yes, you will. I think they make you look more alluring. Less innocent. After some of the things you’ve done, I have tons of dirty pictures floating all around my brain.”
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