Mona Lisa Darkening m-4

by Sunny

  "I think that answers the question of whether or not we can feel pleasure together." His smile was sharp and feral, an aggressive male intent upon the woman he was about to mate. The sight of him looking up at me like that, with his red lips, branded by me, moist with my body's most intimate fluids, rolled another shudder of gratification through me, inside me.

  "Take off your pants," I panted.

  He did so with a quick economy of motion, not taking his eyes off me, burning, bright, intense.

  I moved my gaze over him — those brawny arms, wide shoulders, wide muscled chest tapering down to a flat abdomen, every part of him strongly cut, perfectly defined. And then lower to where he lay thick and pointed.

  My gaze slid hungrily over his shaft. Watched it bob under the hot caress of my eyes. Moved down his bulging thighs, the thick muscles of his calves, the delicate arch of his feet. I moved my gaze just as slowly back up. Licked my lips, smiled. Shook my head when he started to rip open the packet.

  "Not yet." Brushing his hands aside, I knelt between his legs. "My turn." My turn to run my hands down the backs of his thighs, to flex my hands there, testing the hard muscle. To sink my short nails in, just a little, into that taut, supple flesh. My turn to lick him, taste him, encircle the thick base of his male organ with my hand and take him slowly, luxuriously, into my mouth. To smear every inch of that hard rosy flesh with the red paint of my lips. To suck and draw on him, and watch that red rosy flesh begin to glow luminously bright, spread from there out to the rest of his body. I watched him glow with lunar light. Watched him glow with pleasure as his hands buried themselves in my hair, gripping tight, pressing my mouth down over him just an instant before he eased me gently back.

  "No more, please, or I will go, and I don't want to yet. Not until I'm inside you for the first time."

  "You were inside me before."

  "But not here," he said, fingering my swollen folds. "Not touching your womb. Not facing you, kissing you, feeling your heart beating hard against mine as I take you. Don't make me wait any longer."

  "No. No more waiting."

  With his face etched fierce with desire, he ripped open the packet and slid on the condom like a pro. I knew he'd never used one before; I'd had to explain to him what a condom was a couple of weeks ago.

  "You practiced."

  "Yes," he growled, drawing me to my feet. One easy lift and he hoisted me up, so effortlessly strong, and began to sink me slowly down on his shaft. My legs wrapped tightly behind his back, his waist, and I cried out, my body dancing with little twitches and shudders as I felt him enter me, penetrate me, sink inside me as he kissed me and drank up my cries.

  "Look at me," he whispered. My eyes fluttered open, locked with his. How gloriously bright and beautiful he was. A creature of light, all aglow. With his strong body, beautifully handsome face, and blond hair turned almost white in the luminescent light, he looked like a fierce warrior angel. All he needed was a pair of wings and a sword in his hands.

  Then he sank into me that last final inch, and all thoughts of angels and wings disappeared and it was just Dontaine and me, this beautiful Monère man making love to me — a creature broken, unable to return his light, though my body tried for one stuttering moment. Tried and failed.

  "I can't glow," I sobbed.

  "I don't care." He lifted me with those strong hands, careful and aware of his strength. Lifted me up, and let my weight sink me slowly back down onto him. I felt him, every single hard sliding inch of him as my greedy sheath slowly, voluptuously swallowed him back in with fluttering wet pleasure, as his eyes bound us together in even deeper intimacy.

  "I don't care," he said, jaw clenched tight. "I don't need you to glow to tell me that I'm pleasing you. I can feel your body's hot, weeping response. I can see every emotion, every feeling in your eyes."

  Lift and slide. Eyes locked together. I felt enveloped by him, surrounded by his light. Bonded with him.

  "Sweet Goddess," he muttered. "The way you look at me. It almost hurts how nakedly you look at me. And yet I need it, crave it like a starving man. Had to see it again in your eyes."

  Another lift. Another slow, wet glide back down.

  "What do you see?" I whispered.

  "I see your soul — beautiful, generous, and bright. I see that when you share your body, you also share your heart."

  "How can it be any other way?"

  "Only with you," he said. "Only with you. Sex is not casual for you because you share yourself with so few."

  "I have five lovers, Dontaine."

  "As I said, few."

  I smiled, nipped lightly at his low full lip. "How differently you see things."

  "As do you, thank the Goddess. As do you."

  A rapid lift and slide. Another, then another, his hands helping now, faster, harder, deeper, his hips lifting and thrusting in thrilling counterpoint to the fast rhythm he set with his hands. And with each deep thrust, each thick slide in, small sounds were pulled from my throat. He held me with such easy strength. Tilted my body forward so that my breasts, the hardened points of my nipples dragged across his chest with each slide down and up. So that my swollen, sensitive clit rubbed against his body with each spearing upstroke. So close together that our breaths mingled in the intimate wholeness of sharing, loving.

  "Love me," he cried.

  "I do!" And with that final added emotion — love — my arousal peaked, and I splintered into brilliant climax. I closed my eyes. Saw — felt — a spark flicker and die in me — my body trying to match his light, and failing still to glow.

  I opened my eyes as Dontaine groaned and thrust even harder into my spasming sheath, his eyes glittering, his face wild and tight. I watched and felt my climax detonate his own. Watched him give himself over to his own heaving, pulsing pleasure, sharing that final intimate moment.

  With a soft cry, he pulled me against him, holding me so tight I could feel his heart beating against mine as his light faded back into him. His lips brushed my temple in a tender kiss as tears, both his and mine, mingled together in happiness and sadness. In things both lost and found.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  we had dinner at a charming restaurant off Bourbon Street. I didn't ask if it was mine. The fact that we didn't need to pay told me that it likely was. On the drive home, we held hands and spoke little. I drowsed, waking as we pulled in front of Belle Vista. A relaxed lethargy seemed to hold me in its grip. Inside the house, I smiled and nodded as the others complimented me on my new glamorous look. As soon as we politely could, Dontaine and I retired upstairs.

  He stopped in front of my room. "You seem tired. Should I leave you alone to rest?"

  "Oh, no, you don't." I opened my door and pulled him inside. "You're responsible for putting all this stuff on my face. It's up to you now to get it all off." I yawned and plopped into the chair in front of the dressing table as he brought all the things up into my room. "Do you remember what to use for what?"

  Thankfully he did. My face seemed oddly naked and bare after it was cleaned. Maybe because of my hair.

  Hopefully, once I washed away the salon-perfect style, it would look more like the simple me I was used to seeing in the mirror.

  The bed beckoned to me and I crawled onto it.

  "Do you want to go to sleep?" Dontaine asked, stretching out beside me.

  "It's too early, hours yet before the sun rises." I snuggled against him on top of the bedspread. "I just want to rest here for a little bit, like this, with you holding me."

  My last thought was how surprisingly comfortable it was in his arms.

  I woke up beneath the sheets, naked, my head resting on top of Dontaine's chest. He was wide awake, a warm smile on his lips, a tender light in those green eyes.

  "What time is it?" I asked.

  "Six."

  "I only slept one hour? It feels longer."

  "It is much longer. It's six the next morning."

  My eyes popped wide in disbelief. "I slept for ove
r twenty-four hours again?" And yet I still felt so tired.

  "You needed it."

  "Oh no," I groaned. "I missed dinner! Rosemary's going to kill me."

  "You wake up in bed with me and your first thought is of Rosemary's wrath?" He rolled, bracing his lithe, muscular body over me, his weight balanced on his hands, feet between mine.

  "I must not be doing things right," he murmured and lowered his body down to brush the lightest kiss above and below — his lips soft and tender over mine, the hard silky rub of him lower down between my legs. It pulled a hungry sound from my throat, and my lips and legs opened wider in invitation.

  "Much better," he murmured, rolling away to open the bedside drawer. Grabbing a condom, he ripped it open, slid it on, then slid back on top of me. "Rosemary saved us some dinner, and she's not mad."

  "Good;" Lifting my head, I nipped those luscious lips hovering so close to mine. "What did you want my first thought to be?"

  "Of me." His eyes heated to deep green as he lowered his mouth and kissed me thoroughly, tongue pressing in slowly, delicately. "Of this." His body followed, his full weight sinking me down into the mattress, his arousal seeking its own wet kiss down below. "Of what we are together." The hot slide of his erection in — deep, deeper, deepest. My soft moan, his deep groan.

  My lips sealed around his tongue and sucked deep. Down below, inside, I clenched tight with hidden muscles around his throbbing hardness filling me so sweetly, so fully. Felt him flex inside me at the twin embrace in sweet reward.

  We moved in languorous rhythm, building the heat slowly. His shimmer of light started as a gentle glow, building with each unhurried stroke, each lazy kiss, some deep, some delicate. Savoring me with contentment in his eyes and happiness. Gone was that yearning intensity, that unfulfilled need. Whatever he had searched for, he had found. Never had things been so easy, so right with us.

  His light brightened above me, around me, deep inside me. I felt my body try again to match his light. Sharp rending pain from the torn part of me pulled a soft cry from me.

  "Did I hurt you?" His hands cupped my neck, his thumb brushing the side of my face. The pain stopped as soon as my body stopped trying to glow — to express the pleasure he was giving me.

  "No, you didn't hurt me."

  It was true, he hadn't hurt me, and it came suddenly to me what was so different, what was missing between us — that electric buzzing sensation I had always felt from him whenever we touched. It was missing, gone.

  "Dontaine, I don't feel you," I said in surprised realization.

  He mistook my meaning and resumed the deep strokes he had stopped in his concern. Green eyes shimmered above me with sparks of energy, energy that I didn't feel from him, only the stroking, the deep push and pull of him rocking above me, inside me. He quickened the tempo, almost brilliant now with light. His hand slid down my chest, brushed over my nipple. He touched me perfectly, expertly. His hips began to plunge in and out of me with rapid weight and speed, thrusting me down into the bed, dipping the mattress with each stroke. I felt him there, only there, at those two crucial points — my beaded nipples that brushed his chest with each stroke, and my tight quivering sheath. And could only lie and take what he gave me, my limbs suffused with an odd languor as my body began to buzz with sensation, not the electrifying spark that usually flared when he touched me, but the simple buildup of heated passion, of cresting pleasure. Cresting then exploding like a bomb inside me, gripping me, arching me back in hard convulsions that spasmed my entire body.

  He thrust through my clenching contractions, once, twice, a third time, then with a tight ecstatic grimace, his mouth opening in a silent cry, he gave himself up to release, his hard body shaking, shuddering above mine. His heavy weight came down to blanket me, his arms wrapped around me, holding me in close embrace. I felt his heart beating strong and fast against mine, faster than my own, which was unusual. My base heart rate, already slow by human standards, was usually double his.

  As if conscious of my attention on it, my heart slowed even further, grew even weaker. My sight hazed, my consciousness dimmed.

  As if from a distance I felt Dontaine pull away from me. I heard his muffled voice spiraling down to me as if through a long corridor. "Mona Lisa, what's wrong?"

  All sound faded until all I heard was the hesitant beating of my heart. Ba-boom. . pause… ba-boom. A much longer pause. Then nothing, no more beats. Just echoing, empty silence, the silence of my body. The realization — I'm dying.. I'm dead. And nothing with that thought, no emotion, no fear. Just nothing as death claimed me once more.

  I'd always thought of death as an active thing. But it was simply a cessation… a ceasing.

  Into this floating mass of nothingness, crackling energy — excruciating pain — struck me like a lightning bolt through the heart. Sound and sight returned, life resumed, messy and chaotic. My eyes shot open as I gasped in a breath, as my heart leaped within my chest and resumed its slow and labored beating… ba-boom… ba-boom. Sound was both loud and muffled — Dontaine's words, fierce and strong, "No! I won't let you go."

  His green eyes had changed to silver, I noted distantly. Sparks of light, of energy, so much energy, crackly like tiny lightning bolts in those glittering eyes, lifting his blond hair around his face like an invisible wind. His hands, pressed down over my heart, passed another burst of electrical current through me. It felt like needle-thin knives were stabbing me.

  "Ow!" I mumbled. My tongue felt thick and heavy. As were my limbs as I tried to push his hands away. But it was enough to lift Dontaine's hands off my chest. No more jolts of electricity passing like a live current through me. But it still hurt! I looked down and saw that my skin was blistered red and was actually smoking!

  The door flew open and people started pouring in — Rosemary, Chami, Aquila. Dontaine pulled the sheet over us a second before my brother, obviously pulled from sleep, rushed into the bedroom.

  "What's happening? What's wrong?" Thaddeus demanded, his voice raised up over the others.

  "She was dying. Her heart stopped beating," Dontaine said, his eyes still wild and sparkly.

  "He jump-started it, I think," I mumbled weakly, my voice slurring. "S' tired."

  "I'll get Hannah," Rosemary said, rushing out.

  The only one in the room that I sensed was Dontaine, and I likely only felt his energy because he was so close to me and revved up so extraordinarily high. The others… utterly nothing. I wondered if it was the same in return, if they felt nothing from me. No presence.

  In an amazingly short amount of time, Hannah was there, pushing her way through to me. I saw her but didn't feel her, and that inability to sense her was like having one of my arms or legs amputated.

  "Hannah," I slurred, "am I still here?"

  "Yes, child. You're still here." She glanced at the others. "Some privacy, please."

  Everyone left the room but Dontaine. "I cannot leave her in case her heart stops again," he said stubbornly.

  "Her heart stopped?" Hannah asked.

  "It slowed and then it stopped and she wasn't breathing. I sent a surge of energy through her heart, and it started beating again."

  Hannah turned back to me, her face, her voice, serene and gentle. "I'm just going to touch you and examine you, milady."

  She placed her hands around my head. I felt her then, the dimmest, faintest presence. She ran her hands down my face, my neck and shoulders, inhaled sharply when she lowered the sheet and saw the red burn marks on my chest. She did a complete head-to-toe exam, and for once I wasn't bothered by being naked in front of her. Exhaustion and worry about what she was sensing… or not sensing… fretted me more than my modesty.

  She covered me with the sheet again and turned to Dontaine. "Tell me everything that happened."

  He did, elaborating in far more explicit detail than I liked.

  Hannah turned her gaze back to me. "Yesterday, your body did not emit light during sex."

  It wasn't really a question,
but I nodded anyway. "Not for lack of pleasure," I said, speaking slowly. I found that if I spoke slowly enough, I didn't slur my words. "Felt my body try, though."

  "Try what?" she asked.

  "To match his light… but couldn't."

  "You were tired afterward?"

  "Slept for long time… didn't help… just as tired when woke up."

  "And when you made love this morning?"

  "Didn't glow."

  "Did you feel your body try to match his light again?"

  "Yes… but couldn't. What did you find… when you touched me?"

  "Your aura, your energy, is dramatically less than it was two days ago when I last examined you," Hannah said. "In the week since you returned to us, you hadn't improved but neither had you worsened much."

  "Much?" I whispered.

  "Your energy was a tiny bit less each day. I didn't mention it because I was hoping you would stabilize."

  Only this morning, I'd had the same thought and had felt sad at the thought that I might be like that for the rest of my life, as weak as a human. Now it seemed like a state of uncommon fitness compared to the condition I'd deteriorated into.

  "I made her worse," Dontaine said grimly.

  "Having sex… making love… made her worse," Hannah said gently. "It seems to have expended a great deal of her energy each time. She's no longer a closed, regenerating circuit. What energy she loses, she does not seem able to get back."

  "Why didn't you tell us this sooner?" Dontaine asked, deeply anguished.

  "I didn't know. She's been relatively stable up till now."

  "Can you help her?"

  "The energy she pulled from me last week — and it was quite a lot — didn't even make a dent then, and she was in far better condition than she is now. I, alone, cannot do much. We must take her to High Court, see if the other healers there can help her. Perhaps with several of us working on her, she might be able to regain some of her strength."