Conception

by Sarah McCarty

  “Do not try to control it. Just open for me.”

  His “Come to me” breathed against her lips with a comforting rush. She slid her arms over his shoulders and linked them around his neck. Deuce shuddered against her. His pleasure shimmered around the perimeter of her consciousness. Her body wept its eagerness as her mind fought to stay apart. It had always been so much easier to keep to herself. To believe that if she maintained her control, her separateness, she could control everything. But she couldn’t, she knew she couldn’t. But she didn’t know if she was strong enough for this. To surrender her mind, her identity, and give herself over to Deuce. Strong enough to trust him.

  His breath hissed between his teeth, blowing tendrils of hair off her face. “You are not wrong to trust me, Edie.”

  She opened her eyes as his chest settled against her breasts, the soft mat of hair prickling lightly. “I was projecting again?”

  “Yes.” He kept the slow rotation of his thumb on her clitoris as he kissed her forehead. “I do not mind.”

  She just bet he didn’t, considering the array of images her aching pussy was transmitting to her brain. Wild, crazy things she wanted him to do to her. Impossible things.

  His smile let her know he was reading her mind. “You are a wild woman.”

  She wrapped her legs around his lean hips. “Are you going to try to convince me that you don’t like it?”

  His laugh was pure pleasure to hear. He so rarely laughed. “No.”

  She cupped his cheeks in her hands, savoring the remnants of his laughter with her palms. “I liked it before. It was more than I expected, overwhelming, but it was wild, passionate and the most incredible thing.” She traced the crease between his dark brows with her index finger. “I want it again.” His whole body jerked. The air thickened with his scent, his need. “Give it to me, Deuce.”

  “It might hurt.” He angled his cock into the well of her vagina, the deliberate gesture at odds with the concern in his voice.

  “I won’t care if you make it feel good, too.” She lifted her hips into the descent of his cock, taking his hand and bringing it to the ring he’d given her, knowing how it turned him on to see it, feel it. “Make it feel good.”

  “I will.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Make it feel good.

  Deuce threaded his finger through the hoop, tugging firmly, urging Edie’s hips up, letting her impale herself farther on his cock, pushing himself deeper into the heat he craved, her pleasure floating to him on a shimmer of pain, both emotions so intertwined that he couldn’t sort one from the other. He tugged the hoop harder, feeling her startled wince, followed immediately by a surge of delight so intense she lost her breath. He looked away from her face, down over her flushed breasts and damp belly to where she hung suspended from the hoop—his mark—her desire strung as tightly as her body, her need carved as deeply as the ancient words that bound them together.

  “You look good like this, Edie mine. Open and needy, your body begging for my cock.”

  Her fingers scraped across the sheets as she arched her back, pressing her pussy higher. “Then why don’t you give it to me?”

  “Because it pleases me to see you like this.” He twisted the ring again, harder. Too hard to put her over, hard enough to make her pause. He pulled her higher, twisting the ring gently this time. She cried out. Cream poured from her body. Her chest flushed and her pussy pulsed. “You are almost there, aren’t you?”

  Her teeth bit into her lower lip as she nodded. “Where are the colors?” she gasped, pressing up.

  “What colors?” He moved with her, keeping the pressure on the ring steady as he extended his fingers between her plump labia until he touched the tautly stretched skin surrounding their joining.

  “Before, everything was red, blue and swirling black.”

  She was talking about the interpretation her mind had superimposed over the alien violence of the stranger’s battle to keep him out. “Only you and I are here now. They will not come back.”

  More hot cream flowed with a slight twist of the ring “Good.” Her scent flooded the room, her pleasure mixed with his, thickening the air around them, driving him wild with the demand that he claim her hard and fast, take her as her body demanded, with no further consideration.

  He’d planned to love her with consideration this time, to keep his primitive side carefully hidden. Prove to her he could be as tender as any human male. He’d intended to control his passion for once, but she made it impossible. With every beat of her heart, every flex of her pussy around his cock head, she called to his primitive side, demanding her satisfaction. With a stroke of his thumb, he gave it to her. “Come for me, Edie.”

  She did, in a screaming, quivering rush, taking him with her as her pussy milked his cock in hard, rhythmic pulses, his shout echoing off the walls. When the violent wave subsided, he cupped her breast in his hand, gentling his touch when he felt how hot, full and hard it was. He squeezed the base, plumping it up to his mouth until her breath caught and she clenched around him again. He held her there with a steady pressure that had her body grasping at him, weeping in soft, hot pulses of entreaty. She was so soft, so delicate, but her soul was so strong. He wanted her to come again.

  He laved the hard point of her nipple with the flat of his tongue, knowing from the bite of her nails in his shoulders that it wasn’t enough. He caught the sensitive nubbin between his lips, grinding gently as he rolled her clit between his fingers. Her shriek reverberated in his ears. Her juices flooded his cock. He curved his fingers in, scraping her clitoris with the sharp edges as he pressed her engorged nipple between the points of his fangs. Deuce gave her a little of what she wanted, biting down gently, piercing her flesh that first tiny bit, the sweet taste of her blood bleeding into his mouth as she arched, one breathless moment, one tiny lave short of completion.

  He didn’t give it to her. He released her instead.

  “You are so beautiful like this,” he whispered against her areola, smiling as she turned in his arms on a half-formed curse, seeking to reestablish the connection of their bodies, “hot and hungry with desire.”

  “I need you, Deuce.”

  And he needed her. Her scent, her desire, her broken breath all tore at his restraint, but he’d waited so long for his mate, he wanted to draw out every moment, every nuance. He wanted to savor her. He nibbled at her neck, teasing himself with the heat of her skin and the pulse of her life force. This time he would not settle for less than a true mating.

  “Come to me.”

  She whimpered and then stilled. He ran his fangs over her skin with the utmost delicacy, pulling back when her shudder would have caused a nick. He rolled to his back, pulling her above him so she sprawled across his torso, her cheek pressed against his breastbone, her legs dangling limply along his sides. She lay above him, her ribs pushing at his in short heavy lurches. His Edie was very close to coming.

  Deuce eased her hair off her face, smiling as her curls tangled around his fingers in a silken demand as imperious as the call of her soul to his. His cock lurched against his stomach, responding to the hot, swollen need of her pussy. He brushed the edges of her mind with his.

  She glanced up at him. In her big blue eyes he saw the confusion weaving through the desire. But she didn’t pull away or throw up barricades.

  He brushed his finger over the curve off her cheek. “Earlier you said you waited for me.”

  She blinked. Shock quivered along the edge of her consciousness.

  “Needed me.” He held her to him when she would have rolled off.

  “Cried for me.” He let her push up as far as her arms allowed. He didn’t flinch from the resentment in her gaze. “And I did not come.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  He would never adjust to hearing that pain in her voice. He stroked her shoulder blade with the tip of his finger, soothing her tension. “Because I am here now, Edie. And I want you.”

  The resistance i
n her expression bled into her tone. “You have me.”

  “Not as I want.”

  That pulled her up short. “What do you want?”

  He shifted her left elbow out of his ribs. Her breasts swung with her exasperation, the nipples dangling like sweet berries, the right one beaded with blood. He touched his fingertip to that droplet and worked it into the velvety soft tip. He held her gaze as he gave her the truth. “I want my mate.” He opened his hand, nestling that tender nipple deep into his palm, cradling her breast the way he wished she’d let him cradle her. “Not a woman I’ve seduced past her resistance.”

  She stared at him for seconds that seemed to stretch for hours, her frown more prevalent than her desire until she withdrew. Once again, that pain that only she could deliver sliced through his control and wakened his beast. He kept his reaction from her, wrapping it in layers of calm, smothering it under sheer determination. “You have made a decision.”

  “Yes.” Her glorious hair fell forward with her nod, pooling on his pectorals before sliding to the side in a gliding caress. He wanted nothing more than to bury his hands in it, flip her onto her back and hold her as he drove into her, over and over until she admitted what they were to each other.

  Her “Why don’t you?” took him by surprise.

  She could not mean what he thought. The arch of her brow belied the natural innocence of her expression, driving him to ask, “Why do I not what?”

  “Why don’t you make love to me until I admit what you want?”

  Shock held him perfectly still. “You shared my mind.”

  “And you didn’t even notice.” She sounded incredibly smug. And well she should. It was not often a Chosen was taken off guard, but he had been too busy shielding her to guard against her.

  He trailed his finger up the delicate knobs of her spine, relishing her body’s shivers as he slipped his hand up to cup her head in his palm. “A mate should not boast of this.”

  “I have to take my moments when I can get them.” She did not sound repentant, and truthfully, he did not want her to be.

  He pulled her mouth to his, letting her breath mingle with his, holding her gaze as his mind brushed hers. Her flinch was not well-concealed. “What?” he asked against her mouth.

  “How do you stand it?”

  He frowned and rolled her beneath him, keeping his mouth close to hers, his mind locked to hers. “Explain.”

  Her palms brushed his as her fingers pressed against her temples. “There’s just so much coming at me from so many angles, I want to scream.”

  She didn’t know how to filter. He adjusted the flow of information from him to her as he pushed her thighs apart and brought his cock into precise alignment with her hot pussy. “Better?”

  She nodded and bit her lip. “Much.” Her hands slipped to his shoulders and a hot little whimper broke from her lips as he pressed his cock into her receptive body. Her head fell back over his hand. “Oh God, you feel so good.”

  She gave him the gift of her trust, her pleasure. He would not abuse it. He tasted her skin above the pulse in her throat with his tongue. She was hot and salty and incredibly feminine, calling to everything masculine in him. “You are mine.”

  She shuddered and her thighs wrapped around his hips, rocking him a little deeper.

  “Yes.”

  “All of you. Your body, your heart and your mind.”

  She shuddered and turned her head, offering him her throat. “Yes.”

  “Before I rest this day, I’m going to mate myself to you in all ways.” He projected the images into her mind, his cock tunneling into her mouth, her pussy, her ass.

  The last brought panic.

  “You’ll never fit!”

  Along with her panic, he’d also felt her excitement and her guilt at feeling that excitement.

  “Not only will you take me there, you will enjoy it.” He scraped his fangs over her throat, teasing them both with the promise of pleasure.

  Her mind touched his, awkward in its attempt but welcome, very welcome in how it spoke of her acceptance. Beneath her embarrassment and fear he heard her question.

  “Yes. I will come in you there. As often as you can take.”

  Another of those broken whimpers burst against his lips, into the silence of the room. The tender muscles guarding her vagina stretched under the steady pressure of his insistence. Warm juices spilled from her body in a moist welcome. Beyond the tight ring of muscle, the incredible heat of her body beckoned. She shuddered and whimpered again, her thoughts and scent taking on a desperate edge.

  “You need to come,” he murmured.

  She nodded, her chin bumping his head. “Please.”

  “So do I.” He needed the release of bonding with her also. “Relax for me and accept your mate.”

  Her vagina fluttered against his cock in a purely feminine moment of indecision, before she took a deep breath and allowed her tense body to sink into the mattress. He followed her down, kissing her throat as she tilted her hips up. As before, her discomfort hit him first.

  Her quietly whispered “Don’t” halted his instinctive move to block her pain. Her soft hands stroked his shoulders, comforting him through the initial moment when her body took his. Then she surged up against him, taking a fraction more, her breath hissing out on an “Oh God, yes” and he was no longer anticipating her heat, he was part of it.

  Edie moaned as Deuce came to her. Her whole being centered on the reality of his possession. He was in her. His thick cock stretching her to the edge of exquisite pain, but not taking her beyond, just leaving her hanging there, suspended on a breathless moment of anticipation.

  “Do you accept me as your mate?” The mattress shifted as Deuce propped himself on his elbows. In the dim light she could feel his stare. In the depths of her mind, the seriousness with which he asked the question. “Do you accept me, Edie, as the keeper of your heart, your happiness and your welfare?”

  She’d promise him anything in that moment. She could not survive the emptiness. “Yes.”

  “Then take me.” His passion rolled over her mind with the same irresistible force that his cock surged into her pussy. His emotions overwhelmed her own, leaving her tossed on the waves of his desire, scrambling for security. Through the pounding surf, she heard his whisper. Calm and strong it stretched through the waves and offered her a familiar lifeline. “Come to me.”

  She clutched it to her soul, as she arched into him. Taking more, demanding more, because she needed to be closer to him, couldn’t bear for a breath of air to separate them. She followed the lifeline he provided back to the center of the storm, to a place of sheltered unity where she was part of him and he part of her.

  “I have you.”

  And he did. Mentally, physically he had her, safe and protected from the fears that would drag her under.

  She relaxed into his arms, opening her eyes to find him staring down at her with that fathomless black gaze, and saw the truth. If he had known she hadn’t died, he would have come for her. Nothing, not even the devil himself would have kept him from her. To him, she was all that was important to him in a way it was a struggle for her to comprehend. He was pledged to put her above his happiness and his needs. It was a matter of honor as much as it was a matter of heart. And Chosen or not, he was a man of honor. The last remnant of her defensive wall collapsed, and everything she’d felt for this man, everything she’d tried to suppress rushed before her, spilling into the quiet void, churning the waters anew. She cupped his lean cheeks in her hands, and stroked her thumb across his lips. “I love you, Dusan.”

  His pleasure washed over her, mingling with his satisfaction. He caught her finger in his mouth, sucking it into the moist heat as he pulled back, the broad head of his shaft tugging erotically at nerve endings straining for any stimulation he could provide. He released her finger. His expression changed, became more intent, more primitive. She held on to his shoulders, enjoying the flex of the hard muscle, under her hands as he p
owered back into her. His teeth scraped her throat as his hand skated between them. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. His fingers brushed the top of her hoop, marking her with his touch the way he’d marked her with the gold. As his.

  “Deuce.”

  “Come to me,” he repeated.

  And this time she went, heart slamming, nerve endings screaming, she went into his embrace, welcoming his touch, his guidance, feeling betrayed when he pulled out of her, leaving her empty and aching, just short of completion. He turned her over, bring her to the edge of mattress, pressing gently between her shoulder blades as he drew her knees up to her chest, raising her and opening her for his possession. Featherlight, his fingers traced her spine, dipping between her buttocks, tantalizing her with a forbidden desire. “Stay.”

  She did, feeling the mattress rise as he stood, listening as the drawer opened, stiffening as the distinct sound of metal links sliding against each other punctuated the closing of the drawer.

  “Do not move.”

  The only thing keeping her in place was the pleasure from the last time he’d ordered her still. His hair kissed her first, brushing her ribs with promise, following it up with the heat of his breath, his lips, his touch until he was once again surrounding her with his passion. His tongue traced the edge of her shoulder blade, adding first moisture, then fire to the mixture, tempering her ragged desire to a fine edge as he rode the trail of goose bumps up to her shoulder. She felt the graze of his teeth and the soft press of his lips. His hair slid over her shoulder, falling onto the back of her hands. She wrapped her fingers in the thick strands as something cool and wet pressed against her anus. Her “I love you” melted into the soft rasp of their combined breaths.

  “As I love you.” It felt right to hear him say that now. As right as his finger entering her there, pushing past her natural resistance, lubricating her receptive flesh while opening a well of desire she’d never known she had.