by Lisa Ladew
“Crew, I don’t know. I haven’t been here long and I don’t leave the room at night.”
He glanced in each direction, then decided not to risk it. He put a hand behind her shoulders, then bent to catch her behind the knees, and picked her up. Her smile made him glad to be a male, and glad to be alive and to be hers, no matter what world they were in. She locked her arms around his neck.
“You’re mine,” he growled, walking swiftly in the direction of the room she’d pointed out. “And I’m going to show you exactly what that means as soon as I can get those clothes off you.”
She sighed again and her hand went to her throat as her hair tumbled over his arm and swayed freely in the air. In his mind, he saw her peekaboo nipples from the night they’d shared, after she’d pulled her hair over her shoulders to cover them. His already stiff cock hardened and lengthened until he groaned from the need and pressure.
At her door, he got them inside, setting her on her feet just long enough to bar the door, then picking her up again and holding her as he surveyed the room. He carried her to the bed on the far side of the room and set her down gently, kissing her until she melted like butter, pressing her body against him. She didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get anywhere and he approved. They knew each other sexually already, a bit, but he still wanted this first time to be special, for both of them.
As he kissed her, he continued to work on the ties at her back, until her dress loosened and he was able to pull it down and off her. She stepped out of it and he threw it onto the bed, staring at her in wonder. Underneath the dress, she wore a one-piece white undergarment, at least two more skirts, and a stiff piece of fabric that cinched her waist and held her breasts up to the ceiling.
“Sweet baby Jesus,” he whispered and Dahlia laughed merrily, the sound ringing off the stone walls.
“Crew, you shouldn’t say that.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t─.” He couldn’t form a thought in his head. She was too gorgeous for words.
“I forgive you,” she said demurely, spinning in a circle. “If you help me take all this off, I’ll put this piece back on for you.” She tweaked the corset thing and smiled at him.
Crew made fast work of it all. She turned around so he could only see her lovely backside, then pulled the fabric back on and indicated he should fasten it. He did with slipping fingers, unable to concentrate on the knots when so much of her skin was on display.
Still facing away from him, Dahlia pulled her hair forward and took a moment to position it exactly how she wanted it, then turned to face him slowly. While she turned, he could count every time his heart beat by the six strong throbs in his cock. His animal howled inside him and he let it, but didn’t loosen his control of his actions one bit. It wasn’t time for that.
Her hair covered her nipples again, so that he could scarcely see the pink peaks of her creamy skin through it. He licked his lips and almost forgot what he was supposed to be doing. Almost.
He locked eyes with her, then pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor, kicking his boots off, then shedding the rest of his clothes as quickly as possible. He loved that her eyes went to his cock and her fingers closed like she had to touch it. Her tongue came out to wet her lips.
“I’d forgotten how big…” she started.
He hooked his fingers inside the one piece of clothing she still wore that covered only her belly, accentuating above and below like arrows pointing out where he should go, then pulled her to him. “Don’t say that, doll, don’t start to imagine it’s going to hurt.” He slid his hands over every inch of bare skin he could find, tweaking her nipples, pulling at her hair, kissing the spots that seemed most sensitive. She groaned against him and he thought he’d never heard anything that sounded quite as beautiful.
He picked her up, kissing her as he walked her to the bed and laid her down, stopping to watch as she spread her hair out like a fan around her. Pure sex, that’s what she was, sent to torture him in the most delectable manner he’d ever experienced.
He knelt before her on the side of the bed, hearing her quick intake of breath as he kissed her inner thighs and her soft, “oh,” as she realized what he was going to do. He sensed he was her first in this manner and that thought made him fiercely glad. He would show her how a male should treat a female. How he would treat her every day for the rest of their lives.
He started slowly, his intention to drive her mad before he took her where he ultimately wanted her. He kissed her softly as her whimpers and moans directed him where to go, and where to stay away from… for now.
She wound her fingers into his hair and tried to grind against him, but he resisted her, curling his arms around her legs for better control, keeping his pace and pressure light and teasing until she cried out.
“Crew, oh my God, I can’t. You have to─”
He didn’t stop long enough to answer her, instead using the flat of his tongue exactly where she wanted it, stroking her in her softest spot again and again until her legs trembled and she screamed his name. Her wetness drenched his face and he loved it.
When she pushed him away, he stood and took his cock in his hand, pushing against her, holding tight to his control, still unwilling to hurt her even a little.
Her eyes were closed and her hands limp upon the bed, her fingers curled, her calming scent of lavender everywhere. He smiled to see her so open, so trusting, so relaxed. When he pressed his cock into her opening ever so slightly, her eyes flew open and locked onto his. “Shhh, doll, don’t tense.” He pressed in another millimeter, relishing the feel of her hot, wet, tightness. He’d known she would be like this. Like liquid velvet wrapped in silk. His. He eyed her creamy shoulders, then pulled his gaze away.
He gritted his teeth and focused, not wanting to lose himself to the pleasure of the moment. Dahlia’s eyes closed and her hands fisted the rough blanket beneath her.
Crew leaned forward, laving first one nipple then the other, not moving an inch inside her, until she relaxed and put her hands in his hair again.
He worked his way up to her sensitive neck and ears, then murmured, “That’s right, relax. I promised you I would never hurt you and I never will. You’re in control. I’m not moving till you do.” He held his lower half perfectly still, kissing her lips, her eyelids, her temples and cheeks, gratified as she began to relax again underneath him.
When she wiggled her hips, he knew he was golden, but still he didn’t move. She opened her eyes, kissed him back hotly, then tried to pull him forward, her nails digging into his ass. So fucking sexy.
“You ready?”
Her eyes were wild. “Yes, Crew, yes.”
He moved forward just an inch, tightening his hold on himself. “I want to be certain you’re ready.”
She wiggled again and tried to scooch down the bed and drive him deeper into her. Crew locked his hands around her slender arms and pinned her to the bed. “What are you doing, doll?” he drawled, his hips like steel, unbendable, unmoveable.
Her eyes flashed. “Are you teasing me?” she shot at him, her fingers curling into her palms.
“I might be,” he said, “just a little. But mostly I want you to want my dick so much you draw me inside your tight little pussy. Maybe beg me a little.”
Her eyes went wide at that and he suppressed a grin. He loved her innocence. And her opposing heat. He wanted to read more of her stories, her fantasies on display, to see if any of the lines she used in them would fit him.
Her lids lowered until she was gazing at him under long lashes. “I want you,” she murmured. “But if you try to make me beg you might regret it.”
A sudden wind picked up in the closed room, ruffling his hair. Crew looked around at nothing and smiled, giving her what she wanted, easing into her as she sighed and the wind disappeared. He praised fate and everything that brought this female to him. He couldn’t have picked a more perfect mate if he’d used a dating service.
He whispered into her ear again as he eased his wa
y inside her and she accepted him, her walls stretching to fit him like a glove. He kept his hands clasped around her arms, pulling her slowly onto him.
“I can’t say I wouldn’t love to hear you beg me, but we’ll save that for another time.”
***
Dahlia’s cheeks heated and so did her insides. Now she was glad they hadn’t had sex before, because nothing could top this. This unhurried, sweet but spicy interplay. She wanted it to go on forever.
Crew groaned as he finally seated himself fully inside her. She lifted her hips experimentally, loving the fullness, how he stretched her to her limit and every slide of his skin against hers sent her towards another climax. Heaven. That’s what this was. Heaven on earth… or wherever they were.
He pulled out, then moved back inside her just as slowly, his strong hands pulling her to meet him. Her gaze traveled over his chest muscles, his tattoos, the thick veins that encircled his arms and hands. She leaned to one side and bit his forearm, hard, not knowing where the urge came from and not caring.
He met her gaze then and gave her a sexy grin that she filed away in her mind for later in a mental file called Biting Crew. She would do that again.
His hands dropped from her upper arms to the curve of her hips and his fingers bit into the flesh there as he pulled her roughly against him. She cried out and so did he. She watched him unabashedly as he threw his head back, closed his eyes, and groaned out his pleasure.
Crew locked eyes with her and pulled out, then thrust into her again. He’d been right, she felt no pain. Only intense sweetness. He grinned at her, almost cockily, and she grinned back, knowing she never would have been able to imagine this playful side of him the first time she saw him. She didn’t know which she loved more, his intensity, or his clandestine mischievousness.
All thoughts were driven from her head as his pace increased and the sound of their frenzied meeting filled the room. She urged him on as she felt herself rushing toward climax, as he steered her there expertly. The pleasure built in intensity and she closed her eyes, her fingers clawing at his skin, her head thrown back.
“Crew, yes!” she cried out, as another, stronger orgasm took her over, obliterating all thought, all knowledge of her as a being separate from him for just a moment, and thick pulses of pleasure rushed through her midsection so quickly, she couldn’t tell where one ended and another began.
Crew pumped into her hard, then stiffened and groaned out his own release as she felt his hot seed spill inside her.
She opened her eyes wide and stared at him in shock.
Chapter 31
“You came inside me,” she said, still staring at him with wide eyes.
Crew pulled out of her slowly, his mind not registering what she’d said at first. “I did.”
He looked around for something to clean her up with, finding what looked like clean towels in a chest near the wall. He tossed the used towel on the floor and flopped onto the bed next to her, curling her into his arms.
But she still looked shocked. “I thought you would at least pull out. I would have said something, but…”
He was confused. “Why would I pull out?”
She hit him on the chest with one small hand, her face incredulous. “So as not to get me pregnant, you dink.”
He pulled her hair around to the front of her and draped it across her neck and breasts, propping himself on one elbow to take her in. “I want to get you pregnant.”
Dahlia’s mouth dropped open. “You what? We’ve known each other for three─” She tried to count on her fingers but frowned and Crew knew she wasn’t sure how to count the night together in his dream world, or the night she’d died, or even the time in between.
She shook her head and erased the air with her hands. “Exact days don’t matter. It hasn’t been very long.”
His heart filled with love for her. “You’re my mate,” he said simply. “It’s what we were meant to do. Our young will be beautiful and strong and I love them already.”
Her hand went to her throat as she thought about it. He could tell she’d never considered if she even wanted babies, but he knew she would love the idea soon. Crew laid his head down on the bed and massaged her hip, the warmth of her body already exciting him again.
She raised up on her hands to stare at him. “Then why didn’t you bite me? Don’t you do that?”
It was Crew’s turn to be surprised and consider. “You mean claiming you?”
She nodded and rubbed her shoulder. “Yeah, isn’t that something werewo─I mean shiften do?”
Crew rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, looking up at the soaring stone ceiling above them. “It is. We call it claiming, and once I do it, it bonds us together in a deeper way than a promise or a ceremony could ever do. I wanted to claim you the other night when we were together, but I held myself back then, because I didn’t know if you would accept it. Tonight… well, tonight I didn’t think about it.”
His gaze shifted and he knew he was lying. He grimaced. “I take that back. I did think about it, and I’m not sure why I didn’t do it. Maybe because I didn’t know you knew the concept and I didn’t want to scare you.” He heard the lie in his voice this time and he grimaced again. “That’s not true either.” He gazed into his mate’s eyes. “I’m not sure. Can I think about it for a second?”
She nodded, and he relaxed, satisfied that she wasn’t upset with him. He closed his eyes and shifted through his inner feelings. Contentment deeper than he’d ever known. Desire to take her again. Fierce joy that she was who she was. A far off worry about what would happen when they returned to their own world. He circled about that one and prodded it, teasing out all of its factors.
Finally, he opened his eyes to look at his mate. “Are you afraid that when I do claim you, we’ll go back to our world?”
For just a moment, her eyes took on that haunted look he remembered from when he’d first met her, and then she nodded. “Angel told me I can’t return to our world until you bind my fate. He didn’t say how you would do it, but I guess I assumed the bite would be how.” She pouted slightly. “He also said you couldn’t read my thoughts.”
“I can’t. I just get broad impressions of how you feel and what you want, and I didn’t even realize how strong it is with you until you asked me why I didn’t claim you. I guess the answer is I didn’t claim you because you aren’t ready to go back to our world and you think the claiming will send us there.”
“You can do that with everyone?”
He nodded. “Almost everyone. But I try not to. And it’s strongest with you.”
“Does it get… tiring?”
He grinned. “My entire life has been tiring, but no longer.”
She relaxed her head onto her arm and stared at him, a small smile on her face. “What do you mean?”
He traced his fingers lightly across her hip, then down her backside, dipping them under the corset, then swirling off to her lower belly and thighs, not looking her in the eyes. “You soothe me. Your thoughts, your scent, the fact that you are strong and clever and sweet and gorgeous in exactly the way I like my females. Your spirit always calmed me, made me want to stay still and let you come to me, but ever since I entered this world to find you alive again and acting like a warrior, that feeling has been greater. I could sense your anxiety before you died, and now it’s gone, and your soul is stronger for it. Strong enough to soothe both of us.”
Dahlia didn’t speak for a long time and when he looked at her, her eyes were shining and her face was constricted. He lifted his hand to her cheek. “Oh, doll, I’m sorry. What did I say?”
“The sweetest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
***
Heather beat Graeme into their cabin, flipping on all the lights, raking her gaze over her lizards to be sure they were fine, then ran to their kitchen table, pulling Ella’s pendant out of her pocket and gently placing it on the table, then looking up at her bond partner impatiently. “Put Dahlia’s down, t
oo.”
Graeme did and the pendants chimed once, then fell silent. Heather looked from one to the other, then back up at Graeme. “You sure we should do this now?”
He nodded. “Now that Deborah is settled, we should at least try. We don’t know what they are going through wherever they are. But Deborah didn’t need to be around when we did it.”
Heather nodded slowly. “Shouldn’t someone know?”
“Wade knows. Trent and Troy know. Trevor knows. But we are still on our own.”
Heather licked her lips. “Come grab hold of me. I’ll try holding one in each hand.”
Graeme nodded, crossing to her and grasping her arms. “Fix in your mind what you want before you touch them.”
Heather concentrated, then picked up first Ella’s pendant, then Dahlia’s. She frowned and grasped them tighter, her lips thinning.
After a few moments, she put them down on the table and turned to Graeme in disappointment. “Nothing. I get nothing.”
He nodded, his brow furrowed. “They aren’t ready for us. Crew hasn’t found her yet, maybe. Don’t worry, leannan. We’ll try again soon.”
Chapter 32
“I can’t believe we haven’t left the room in three days,” Dahlia said. “We don’t have a TV, or the Internet, or anything.”
Crew plucked a handful of grapes off the tray of food they’d been brought and returned to her, popping a few in his mouth, his eyes twinkling, his look heating. “Are you bored?”
“No, Crew, not bored,” she said. She loved how they had all day to lie around and enjoy each other. She loved that there were no demons in this world who would kill her on principle. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m getting sore. I’m not sure how much more I can take.”
He flopped down on the bed next to her and ran a finger down her naked chest. “A good pounding will take care of that.”
“Crew!”
He laughed and ate another grape.
She could no longer say she wasn’t as experienced as she wanted to be with all things sexual. Crew had introduced her to positions and moves she’d scarcely imagined before. She couldn’t wait to improve the sex scenes in her stories.