Bonds of Darkness

by Joyce Ellen Armond

  "Hey, that's not fair.” She shook her trapped arms, to make the point.

  He looked up the length of her body and tilted his eyebrows. “Do you want fair or pleasure?"

  "Both. Maybe."

  He wiggled his tongue in the crevice of her belly button. The tickly jolt made her jump.

  "See, you should be sure about these things.” His slow grin exposed the edges of his teeth. “I don't want to be fair. I just want pleasure."

  Still holding her arms, he slowly stretched up on his knees toward her left breast. He was so beautiful, kneeling before her.

  Paul's parted lips hovered just above the ridge of her nipple, but he refused to close the distance. Kate watched her own flesh harden and reach towards the touch that she wanted so badly.

  "This is payback, isn't it?” she whispered. “For touching you in the hallway."

  She felt the warmth of his chuckle on her straining nerve endings. His grin showed his teeth again, and he scraped them ever so gently down the length of her nipple. Her spine bowed with the flow of his caress. When his teeth ran out of flesh to tease, his tongue flicked against her nipple and Kate gasped at the shock of it.

  "I think,” her words were breathless, “I liked it better when you couldn't control yourself."

  Paul laughed, candlelight reflecting in the depths of his eyes. He tugged on the sleeves until her arms were freed. The dress drifted into a puddle of cool cotton around her feet.

  Kate ran her fingers through his hair, marveling at the way he looked at her. She felt like she was glowing inside, like she had swallowed the stars and her heart was shot through with silver light. She closed her eyes and floated on that feeling.

  Paul put his open mouth against her belly and slowly glided her panties down, his hands molding her legs. It was as if he breathed light into the center of her, and it glowed up her spine, warmed her breasts, softened her mouth, and exploded in shimmers from her hair. She laughed and hugged him to her. She couldn't help it. It all felt so wonderful, her skin and her heart wanting the very same thing.

  He came to his feet, circling her in his arms. “Made you laugh. I win."

  She put her arms around his neck and lifted her face to him. He kissed her, and Kate knew that she could never be separate from him again.

  His hands opened against the small of her back, closing any space there was between them, bringing them skin to skin. His mouth worked against hers, deepening the kiss. Sensations rushed her like waves at her back, pushing her closer and closer to him with every heartbeat. The barrier of skin didn't seem to stop her. She was falling out of herself and into his kiss.

  He lifted her suddenly and she lost all sense of balance. Her feet left the floor. The world tilted. She floated in candlelight, glowing inside and out. Then the bed caught her. Her breath left her in a delighted laugh. She felt Paul straddle her, his knees on either side of her hips, and she opened her eyes.

  Paul stared down at her, at her body. Something he saw made him smile, just a slight quirk of his lips. Both his hands reached out, gathered her breasts and slid over them until only the tips of his fingers touched her nipples. She took a deep breath, brushing skin to skin. The slight touch danced down her nerves. Paul closed his fingers, and lightning flashed through her.

  "You look,” he murmured, “wildly beautiful like that."

  "Like what?” She hardly recognized her own voice.

  "Excited.” She couldn't help but recognize the smug, self-satisfaction in his.

  She moved her hips. “Am I excited?"

  He tilted up an eyebrow, trailed one hand over her stomach and gently pressed a finger between her legs. A hot melting rush rolled up over her body, closing her eyes and filling her lungs. When she opened her eyes, he touched his finger to his lips.

  "I think you are."

  Kate ran her hands up over his thighs, the soft hair there. She drew all ten fingers down the length of him. Every one of his muscles moved under his skin. His head tipped back, his spine arched. A long, humming sigh escaped from his chest. Kate circled the very tip of him with the very tip of her fingers and he came down, his hands landing on either side of her head, his body looming over her.

  He searched her eyes for a moment, no other contact between them. Then he bent his arms and carefully lowered himself for a kiss. His lips nudged hers. She licked out with her tongue, and, for an instant, their lips hovered, not touching, the only point of contact the tip of her tongue to his, until he pulled back.

  "I can't wait any more.” His whisper kissed her cheek.

  "Me neither."

  For a moment her words danced on the candlelight, and then Paul fell on her. His mouth closed on hers, his body crushed her into the bed, kissing her so hard their teeth scraped. An avalanche of buried passion washed over Kate—his desire denied for a hundred years, hers repressed for a lifetime. She wound her thighs around his waist, surprised herself by sinking her teeth into his shoulder. He braced his upper body on stiff-locked arms. She felt his erection fit into the groove of her labia. He slid inside her, all the way, in one smooth rock of his hips.

  Everything stopped. Her breathing. His breathing. The turning of the earth. Everything.

  Above her, Paul's eyes went wide. He blinked over and over and over. “A hundred years,” he whispered.

  Kate reached up and stroked his cheek. The unexpected touch made him jump. He moved inside her. The world began spinning again and she gasped for air.

  He laughed in joy and defiance and awe. He dropped down on his elbows, putting them heart to heart, thigh to thigh. Kate locked her ankles behind his back, flattened her hands over the muscles over his shoulders. He found a rhythm; she matched it. In six strokes she felt the first flutter of an orgasm start deep inside.

  "Don't, not yet, or I'll...” His hips froze in mid-thrust.

  Kate scrambled not to fall with the sudden slipping avalanche of sensation.

  "Shhh, shhh.” Paul's voice was in her ear. “Not yet, not yet."

  She hummed out a groan of frustration. He chuckled and shifted his weight so that he could look into her eyes.

  "Just stay with me,” he whispered.

  His eyes held her. He picked up a rhythm, slower this time. Sensation brimmed in her, but she anchored herself in the dark depths of his eyes. She braced her hands on his shoulders, lifted her hips, and matched him, movement for movement. Sweat-damp, black waves fell across his forehead. She felt his breaths on her face, each exhalation a whispering kiss. A part of her longed to arch her spine, let her head fall back, close her eyes, and let it all peak inside her.

  "Stay with me."

  The words held her, even as he thrust faster and harder. She fell up into his eyes, scrambling to keep from going over the edge. Pleasure shimmered through her, light dancing just under her skin. Faster. Harder. She clung to the edge. She could feel herself slipping.

  "Kate."

  She fell, pulling him over the edge with her. She felt him ram himself home, heard his hoarse shout. The force of it shattered her into a thousand shimmering shards reflecting pleasure through her body, echoing and echoing and echoing, until finally she fell back, whole again, against the pillow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  "That was worth waiting a hundred years for."

  The mattress beside Kate sank in as Paul flopped onto his back. She wiggled over to give him more room.

  "No, no.” He tugged on her insistently, until she dragged her tingling body up to straddle his hips. “Just keep touching me. Keep touching me."

  Kate looked down into his face, his expression of absolute peace. His eyes were closed, his mouth gently turned up in a wisp of a smile.

  Her stomach fluttered and her heart skipped. She couldn't help glancing at the clock beside on bed: 9:35. She had to be back at the witches’ house before two.

  She looked back to Paul, and met his lifted eyebrow. “Clock watching already?"

  Kate put her palms flat on his chest. “This sucks,” she said ir
reverently, immaturely.

  Paul drew her down for a kiss. “I can't say; we haven't gotten that far yet."

  She let his raunchy tone tease away her worries, at least for the moment. She braced herself with a hand on either side of his head and let her hair tumble around them, a messy golden curtain. “I guess it's just like riding a bike, isn't it?"

  "Mmmmmmm.” He ran both hands down her sides, coming to rest at her hips.

  "At least you didn't fall off."

  He pressed her hips against his. “In a minute or two, we'll see if you fall off."

  His sensual joy amazed her, his dedication to the moment, as if what lay outside the heavy drapes couldn't penetrate their candlelit haven. Sander Wald, the ritual that would start at sundown—she felt the thorns of them in her mind with every breath.

  Maybe if I had waited a hundred years ... But she had waited all her life.

  He lifted her chin with one finger. “I can see what you're thinking."

  She tried to work up a sexy look, to throw him off track, but he moved the finger against her lips.

  "You know I wouldn't have let this happen,” he wriggled his hips, making her giggle, “unless I had a plan."

  He had a plan? “I thought we already had a plan."

  He narrowed his eyes. “Vern has a plan. One we will have nothing to do with."

  Kate felt her outrage rise at the same time she felt his cock rise to press against the inside of her thigh. What was the sense of fighting about it? She wouldn't let him stop her, and she wanted him. Again. And again. And again.

  She shifted, giving him room to grow. “You're not the boss of me,” she couldn't resist saying.

  Paul rolled his eyes. “That one was old in the nineteenth century."

  Kate laced her hands with Paul's, and then slowly raised them above his head. She leaned on his wrists, and said through the cascade of her hair, “Maybe I should be the boss of you. Switch things around this time."

  His eyes never left hers. “Bad plan."

  With his wrists trapped under her palms and his body stretched out under her, Kate thought it might be a very good plan, indeed. “What's a better plan?"

  "A better plan...” He lifted his hips, probing between her thighs. “A better plan is for me to lose myself in the body of the woman I love..."

  "The woman who loves you,” Kate corrected. She leaned back on her heels, keeping his wrists in check, and lowered her head to his chest. She took his left nipple between her teeth. She heard a low growling start deep down in his throat. She switched to his right nipple, found it already hard. She swirled her tongue around it, then blew lightly across it. She felt his stomach muscles quiver.

  A very good plan, indeed.

  Still teasing his nipple, she took one hand from his wrists and trailed her fingernails down his left arm, over the silky hair in his armpit, down the bumps of his ribs. When she scratched across his waist, she felt the muscles contract again, his hard-on thrust toward her. He gasped and laughed at the same time.

  "Made you laugh,” Kate whispered against his chest.

  Effortlessly, he broke her hold on his wrists, circled her waist, and switched their positions, turning Kate onto her back and looming over her so quickly that she let out a little squeal.

  "Ha ha,” he said.

  "That's not fair!"

  "Aha, we're back to what's fair again.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “What a slow learner you are, Kate."

  She pretended to pout. “You were telling me your better plan."

  "Yes, my better plan.” He leaned back on his heels and reached for her hands.

  Defiantly, Kate moved them before he could catch them, and folded them under her head as if she were relaxing on the beach. “Your plan?"

  His smirk acknowledged her cleverness, and her eagerness for his touch. He cupped her breasts. “These are so pretty."

  He was distracting her. Whatever plan he had, she wasn't going to like it. She tilted her eyebrows and tapped her foot impatiently against the bedspread.

  "My better plan.” He rubbed his thumbs over her nipples. “As I said, is to lose myself in the body of the woman I love, and what a lovely place to lose myself, if I may say..."

  A little distraction couldn't hurt. “You may..."

  "You're too kind.” His hands followed the line of her ribs, across a tremendously sensitive spot on her abdomen, making her giggle breathlessly.

  "You make the silliest sounds when you're naked.” He stretched full length beside her. His hand slid between her legs. The feeling ran under her skin like a hot wave, and she moaned.

  "Such silly sounds,” he murmured against the swell of her breast, moving downwards. He put his lips firmly over her belly button and blew a raspberry. She couldn't stop her deep, happy laughter. “It was always so easy to make you laugh."

  "Hey!” She rose up on one elbow, ready to defend her record at the laughing game. He pulled her up into a sitting position at the bed's edge, while he settled himself on the floor in front of her. Suddenly, she wasn't laughing. He eased her thighs apart and spread her with his fingers. Kate saw him close his eyes, dip his head towards her. Her body tensed in anticipation, but instead of the hot liquid feeling she expected, she felt his breath blow across her. She lifted her hips, heard herself make a high, keening sound of frustrated desire.

  "You are a virtual repertoire of silly sounds.” His tone was smug.

  She looked down the length of her tingling body. Already his hands were sliding up her ribs towards her breasts. “Again, I must protest.” Her voice quivered. “This is not fair."

  "Perhaps not at the moment.” His hands circled her breasts, his fingers circled her nipples. “But in a little while I'll let you even the score."

  "Let me?"

  He mock-pushed at her shoulders, and she obliged him by falling back against the mattress again.

  He lifted her left leg, holding it straight and taut. She felt his tongue at her ankle, moving slowly towards the back of her knee, and her outrage melted away. Floating in a cloud of passion, she felt his open mouth slide up the inside of her thigh. She braced herself for another tease, but without a pause his mouth covered her and his tongue reached deep inside.

  Kate arched towards the delightful, hot waves, her body focused on that intimate kiss, finding herself quivering suddenly on the edge again. His mouth moved up, his tongue trailing over her teasingly, until he licked a ticklish spot on her abdomen, at the same moment his fingers closed on her nipples.

  "That's a new sound.” Paul stood straight, his fingers rimming her aureoles.

  How could his not touching her nipples make her wilder than touching them? “Please..."

  "Shhh. Let me have my fun."

  "Let me have my...” He slid his palms over the tips of her breasts, and her body spasmed, a heart pounding between her thighs. She felt him nudge her, slip in just enough to tease. Her hips rode up, chasing after more. He pulled back, eyes glittering.

  Kate dropped her head against the mattress. “You should come with a warning label."

  "Whatever, just as long as I get to come."

  Kate lifted herself on her elbows. “Then why don't you lie down here and let me have my way with you?"

  He gazed down at her, his eyes serious. “Because I'm not sure that I could handle it. Yet."

  Now it was Kate's turn to show her teeth. “I promise to be gentle."

  "What if I'd rather have you rough?"

  Her heart kicked into a higher gear. She eased herself to the edge of the bed, and patted the blankets. “Come on."

  Paul stared at her for a moment, and then slowly lay down on his back. He folded his arms behind his head, just like she did.

  Kate considered fetching a belt or two and tying him to the bedposts. That way when she told him she was going through with Vern's plan, he wouldn't be able to throttle her. She glanced at the bedside clock. Not enough time. She looked from Paul's glittering eyes down the lean line of his body, and wis
hed there was enough time.

  She settled for laying the tip of her index finger against the head of his erect cock.

  Paul groaned, his spine arching. “You don't take prisoners, do you?"

  "I don't take orders well, either."

  "Kate.” Paul's hand closed on her wrist. “Don't even..."

  "I won't lose you.” She refused to meet his gaze, even though she could feel it pressing against her skin.

  "And I won't lose you. Kate, look at me.” He took his hand from her wrist and cupped her chin, tilted her face towards his. “I have a better..."

  Kate circled the crown of his hard-on and stroked down.

  Paul's hips snapped off the bed, a harsh sound ripping free from his chest.

  "If it's such a better plan,” she said, “why haven't you told me the details?"

  "I tried.” He lifted himself on an elbow. “In the hallway, before all this. But you did..."

  "This?” She feathered her fingernails over the very tip of him again.

  "Kate!” Paul lunged, grabbed her wrist, pulled her hand away. “Kate, please.” He struggled for breath. “We have to talk about this."

  "There's nothing to talk about.” Kate straddled him.

  "Kate, stop."

  She did stop, when the tip of his erection parted her outer lips. She knelt over him, offering everything. He stared up at her, his eyes wide, breath whistling through his clenched teeth. It took all her self control not to take him all the way inside her.

  "Just make love to me again,” she whispered.

  Paul set his jaw. “My plan is..."

  She slid down on him, all the way to the root.

  "God!” His body bowed so violently that he lifted her with him. Before she could catch her balance or her breath, his hands gripped her thighs and he began grinding into her, hard and fast.

  "My plan...” he gritted it through his teeth “—is to stay with you until the last minute."

  Kate held on to his shoulders as he drove deeper and deeper into her.

  "Then I'm going to let Sander finish the ritual.” He pushed her thighs further apart. “One last time. Then,” he rocked her, holding her tightly against him, “I'm going to kill him."