Paladin (Graven Gods Book 1)

by Angela Knight

  But I’d still be left with nothing. Again.

  Chapter Seven

  “Damn it, Summer, I…”

  I sighed. “Paladin, I have my memories back. I know what it means to be a Demi now. My parents raised me to understand my responsibilities, the main one of which is to preserve the god of justice -- you -- for the next generation. You don’t have to rationalize anything to me.”

  “It’s not a rationalization!” He raked his hands through his hair and huffed in frustration. “Look, let’s go for a walk.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” I wanted to get away from the feeling that I was always last on everybody’s list of priorities. That sounded a little too much like self-pity for any daughter of Barbara St. Clare. I reached for his hand, ready to step outside. A stroll through the crisp fall air would…

  The light was suddenly blinding.

  Startled, I cried out, ducking my head and blinking furiously. When the dazzle faded, I saw we were standing on a beach. And not a South Carolina beach, either.

  I tried not to gape like a trout as I gazed around us. The sky blazed so sharply blue it made my eyes ache. The sand underfoot felt as white and fine as powdered sugar, and the shallow water of the lagoon beyond was turquoise, instead of the deep Atlantic blue-gray I was used to. “This looks like the Caribbean.”

  He shrugged. “It is.”

  “We’re… not really here, are we?” Could he actually have transported us more than a thousand miles, just like that?

  Paladin smiled slightly. “I could, but it would take more power than I care to spend. Especially when I can do this.” He nodded out at the blue horizon.

  And he had a point. The scene didn’t seem like an illusion. I could feel the warm sand underfoot, hear sea gulls crying as they winged across the brilliant sky. “Uh, yeah. I see.” I turned in a slow circle, savoring the warmth of the sunlight, as I inhaled the salt breeze that was just cool enough to compensate for the bright sunlight.

  Of course, the fact that my jeans and tee had turned into a tiny white string bikini might have something to do with that. I looked down, brows lifting. It was a hell of a lot less fabric than I’d started out with. “Have you ever heard of the law of conservation of matter?”

  “Yeah, but none of this is real. Whatever ‘real’ is.”

  I eyed him. “I notice you’re still dressed.” He still retained his jeans and tee. I usually approved, since the fabric clung to his powerful build with great affection. But still, it didn’t seem quite fair next to my near nudity…

  Magic rolled down his body in a wave of glitter.

  When it faded, I blinked. “You’re one of the few men in America who can actually rock a Speedo.” My tongue did not unroll from my mouth like the wolf’s in that old cartoon. Quite. Which was an act of superhuman self-control, because the Speedo made his shoulders look as wide as the wingspan of a 747. His sculpted torso formed a rippling, perfect V down to narrow hips. He could have posed for Muscle and Fitness.

  “Your eyes are beginning to glaze.” He grinned wickedly.

  I snapped out of my lust-inspired trance as my cheeks went hot. “Ah, yeah.” I swallowed. “You know, that suit’s doing a really lousy job of containing the boys.”

  “Well, that top’s not doing a great job with the girls, either.”

  I looked down, narrowly managing to suppress a need to thrust out my chest and suck in my stomach.

  Paladin leaned around to give my ass an exaggerated leer. “The view from the back’s not bad either.” He grinned wickedly. “That’s a really spankable butt you’ve got there.”

  I dodged his grab for my wrist, laughing as my heartbeat accelerated into a happy gallop. I loved submitting to Paladin. In my dreams, I’d been his slave, his concubine, his sacrifice, his princess, his ravished captive, his taunting captor. But none of those dreams had ever had this hyper-reality.

  Which didn’t mean I’d make it easy. I gave him a deliberately goading glare, though I was already going wet. “Think again, buddy!”

  “Oh, darling, I am thinking.” Grabbing my wrist, he dropped onto the office chair that suddenly appeared on the sand, just beyond incoming waves.

  I yelped as Paladin tumbled me butt-up across his knees. He pinned me there with one big hand and gave me a swat hard enough to make me buck.

  “Bully!” I kicked in mock outrage. My inner feminist should be raising hell about this, but my inner kinky bitch ate it right up. “Go pick on someone your own size!”

  “Somebody my own size wouldn’t turn me on nearly this much.” He ran a big palm over the curve of my ass, then caught the string of the bikini bottoms and pulled it down. “Ohhhh, very, very tempting.”

  “Then you’d better resist the temptation!” Half laughing, half yelping, I tried to jackknife and get my feet on the ground.

  “Sorry, I don’t think so.” Holding me pinned with no effort at all, he started swatting my butt.

  I kicked and writhed, more on general principle than out of any real desire to escape. The sting of his descending palm morphed into an outright burn. Perversely, the heat only added to my arousal.

  The next few pops fell in merciless succession, all of them perfectly placed to build my desire. I arched and yelped, loving it anyway -- the hard muscle of his thighs beneath me, the strength of his hold.

  Swat. Swat. Swat…

  He reached underneath my bare torso and cupped my breast. His thumb and forefinger found a nipple and began to tug and twist, adding a grace note of pleasure to the erotic proceedings.

  Swat. Swat. Swat. His cock got even harder, something I hadn’t thought even possible.

  Swat. Swat. Swat…

  When he stopped, I hung helplessly over his knee, panting, my pussy slick and swollen. His impressive hard-on had escaped the Speedo. I could feel several inches of thick, smooth flesh thrusting above its thin waistband.

  “Ahhhh.” There was a distinct rumble in his voice, a purr of arousal. “I don’t think you want to fight any more.” He laughed, the sound hot with male anticipation as he paused to trace a forefinger down the dip of my spine, right to the cleavage between my ass cheeks. “Come to think of it, neither do I.”

  He caught each of the neat little bows on either side of my hips, and deliberately tugged them loose. Then, slowly, oh so slowly, he tugged the narrow triangles of fabric off. I sucked in a breath.

  “Oh, niiiccce.” His fingers dipped down between my legs, traced over my bare nether lips. And between them, making my breath catch in my throat. “You’re already slick as a sliced peach.” Paladin’s voice dropped into a low, dark croon. “And just as tempting.”

  I shuddered, responding helplessly to his blatant dominance. It made no difference if this was happening outside my body or inside my head, because the end result was the same. I was naked, turned on… and precisely where he wanted me. Feeling what he wanted me to feel.

  “Which would be helpless,” Paladin told me. “Give me your wrists.”

  I hesitated, knowing his erotic triggers as well as he did mine.

  He didn’t disappoint me. “I won’t ask you again, Summer.” He spoke in a dark velvet purr layered over a delicious note of threat.

  I grumbled something rude enough to give him an excuse he didn’t need, then put both arms back. He caught them in the same big, long fingered hand and began to tie me up with a length of rope he must have conjured.

  His Speedos had disappeared too. The long shaft of his erect cock pushed against my elbow like Calliope demanding strokes.

  I twisted my head around, and there it was, pinned against his six-pack by my body. A long, thick curve with a broad mushroom glans, veins snaking its length. It felt like a lead pipe sheathed in velvet against my arm.

  And I wanted it. Wanted to feel it thrust into me right to those fat, furry balls of his. “Paladin…” I began.

  “Quiet.” Paladin stroked my ass cheeks. “Such a hot little backside.” A long finger slid down the cleft,
traced the rim of my asshole, then slid down to discover plump pussy lips. He slipped between them, found my opening. And thrust deep as I sucked in a gasp.

  He chuckled. “Very, very hot.” And added a second finger, dipping deep. I squirmed, but his hand curled tighter around my breast, and I froze.

  I moaned as his fingers busied themselves with the nipple he was teasing. “Lovely,” he purred. “Such perfect, pretty breasts.” The stroke and pinch made me draw in a breath in pleasure. “I always loved your nipples.”

  “They’re yours too, narcissist.”

  “Not exactly. I’m definitely a god, not a goddess.” Testing my pussy again, he purred in pleasure. “I think you’re ready to play.” Paladin lifted me off his knees and put me down on the sand, then rose to his feet.

  I knelt there, eye to eye with his jutting cock. I studied it, licking my dry lips.

  Before I could lean over and get a big mouthful, Paladin’s fingers threaded through my hair, curled into a fist, and pulled my head up.

  He bent, and his mouth covered mine, sucking first my upper lip, then my lower, as I swirled my tongue around his. I gasped, kissing him back, shaking, desperately aroused, hot and ready for the thrust of his cock. Hungry for it.

  For him.

  We kissed until I was breathless, drunk on the lush scent and taste of Paladin, the hard strength of his thighs against my breasts. Finally, he straightened, rising to his full height as he guided my head toward his cock.

  I opened my mouth, eager for the taste of him, and engulfed him in a long swoop that almost made me gag. The salt and musk of male exploded in my senses, triggering a deep, hot pulse of arousal.

  “Easy,” he ordered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I moaned in answer and suckled, drawing hard enough to win a groan. The raw eroticism of the sound made me tremble.

  Longing to tease him the way he’d teased me, I drew off him and nuzzled his erection upward so I could get at the sensitive vein running up its length. I ran my tongue along it in a slow lap, relishing the warmth of his solid flesh. With my arms bound, I couldn’t toy with his cock as I’d like, but the awkwardness actually added to the delicious kink. Kneeling at his feet, sucking him off like a slave in broad daylight. Mmmm.

  Reading my need -- of course -- Paladin caught the head of his cock and aimed it upward, holding it still so I could suck his balls into my mouth one by one. They were furry, the hair soft and springy, and there was a clean Paladin sort of smell to their velvet weight.

  He aimed the shaft down again, and I sucked it in, then paused, tightening my lips, reading his mind this time. He began to thrust, slow, easy, at first, then a little deeper, not quite triggering my gag reflex, fucking my mouth with wicked skill.

  I was just starting to really get into it when he stopped with a frustrated growl. “I want something more than your mouth now.”

  Paladin dropped back into the chair, picked me up off the sand, and hauled me astride his lap. My feet touched the sand as his cock found the opening of my pussy.

  I caught my breath, staring down at the top of his dark head as he looked down to aim the thick shaft into my juicy pussy. He looked up, and I felt the jolt of those arctic eyes. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me down into a kiss that stole my breath.

  Lips drinking his, I impaled myself on his ruthless length, losing myself in his hot mouth and swirling tongue as his cock invaded me by relentless millimeters, a sweet, dark impalement.

  When he was balls-deep at last, we pulled apart, panting, gasping, the thick pleasure making me shudder in helpless need.

  Working my thighs, I rose again in an endless silken slide that stimulated every nerve in my pussy.

  Staring into Paladin’s eyes, I saw blue light flare bright. A spell. He’s working some kind of…

  Oh, Elder Gods! The sensation detonated, and suddenly it felt like my clit was a foot long and being sucked by something deliciously tight and wet. The raw delight of it tore a startled scream from my mouth.

  “And that,” Paladin breathed, “is how it feels to me.”

  Big hands clamped my ass, and he held me still so he could grind up into me. But he hadn’t broken the magical link, so the sensation of my pussy being fucked and his cock fucking me almost blew the top of my head off. Every wet stroke blinded me with the double delight, and I yowled, shameless as a cat in heat, tortured by pleasure such as I’d never felt.

  Thrust. Thrust. ThrustthrustthrustthrustTHRUST.

  I have no idea who came first. All I knew was that it felt like fire detonated in balls I didn’t have, roaring right up my clit/cock, and shot out of me in lava-hot spurts of pleasure. My yowls became full-throated screams, breathless, intense, blinding.

  I barely heard his bellow.

  When the storm was over, I collapsed against his sweating chest as he sat in my desk chair, panting. I listened to his ragged breathing. He wrapped his arms around my waist and just held on. He was, I realized with muzzy satisfaction, every bit as pleasure blasted as I was.

  Clinging to one another like hurricane survivors, we sat stunned as our breathing steadied and our heartbeats slowed.

  No, I thought suddenly. Not our. My breathing, my heartbeat. Paladin wasn’t really here.

  “I thought I’d proved just how much I am here,” he growled, and set me on my feet, the better to glower. “Or do you need another spanking?”

  Before I could give him an answer that would get my butt another swatting, Calliope’s furry head appeared in the air as if she’d thrust it into the illusion. “Are you done?” Her tone was dry.

  And just like that, with a kind of silent pop, the illusion vanished. We were back in my office, and the cat had stuck her head around the door.

  “Listening at the door again?” Paladin asked, just as dryly.

  “I hardly had to,” she retorted, and wafted in, her tail lifted like a fluffy black flag. “We’ll be lucky if the neighbors didn’t hear you -- and by that I mean the ones three houses down.”

  I felt my cheeks burst into a furious flaming blush. I started to dive for my clothes, only to realize they had reappeared as mysteriously as they’d vanished.

  Then again, why not? The whole interlude had been an illusion.

  Paladin certainly didn’t look like a dream as he sprawled in the desk chair, hands laced over his flat, T-shirt clad belly. His big feet were bare and crossed at the ankle, and black jeans sheathed his long, powerful legs. Dark hair curled around his handsome face and fell in his pale eyes, making him look ridiculously handsome and disheveled, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. Which he had.

  Sort of.

  Calliope trotted over and leaped up into his lap. He began petting her absently. I stared at them, wondering whether she was actually in my lap or sitting in an empty chair. Yet her purrs suggested he was really there.

  The whole thing made my head hurt. What was real? What wasn’t? Thinking about it, I guess that was always the question.

  If all we know of the world comes from our senses -- information our brains assemble into our view of reality -- how do we know anything’s real outside our skulls? It could all be an illusion.

  And to a certain extent, that’s all it was. Matter might appear solid, but it’s mostly empty space. Color is only different wavelengths of light, smell and taste only chemicals. Looked at that way, reality is nothing more than a rough consensus. My mind veered away from the thought queasily.

  Brooding, I watched Paladin pet the cat. He used my body as a vehicle the same way the goddess used Cal. The difference, of course, is that Paladin and I shared my body more or less equally, while Calliope was firmly in the driver’s seat when it came to the cat.

  Gods could not speak and act without a living host to do their will. Oh, they could inhabit inanimate matter, as Eris inhabited my mother’s sword, but they couldn’t take action without something alive to focus their magic through. I understood that without being told. The knowledge was just there when I thou
ght of it, the same way I knew how to use my cell phone.

  Trouble was, I had no idea where reality left off and fantasy began. But somehow I was going to have to get it figured out. Especially when it came to who and what I really was.

  So I broke the lush silence with the question that was gnawing at me. “All the stuff I wrote about you -- about Richard Paladin,” I waved a hand vaguely. “All that really happened, didn’t it? They weren’t just dreams. I was describing things you’d actually done the night before. I didn’t actually create anything.” The idea carried a surprising sting. Being a writer -- a creator -- was the core of my personality.

  “Summer, that doesn’t mean you’re not a writer.”

  “Doesn’t it? I’m sure as hell am not a fiction writer.” For the past twelve years, all I’d ever wanted to do was write. From the start, my work had revolved around Paladin -- his adventures, the people he fought, the magical world he inhabited. His world had seemed more real to me than the one I lived in.

  Probably because it had been.

  I’d been a lonely child thanks to my amnesia. Despite my aunt’s best efforts to keep it quiet, an article in the local paper covered my mother’s murder and mentioned the fatal car accident that supposedly killed my brother and father. You’d think all that tragedy would have inspired other kids to cut me some slack.

  Nope.

  I’d either been bullied as a freak, or avoided as if tragedy was contagious. Having been raised to fight -- whether I remembered it or not -- I’d brawled with my bullies, earning frequent suspensions.

  I’d also defiantly embraced my persona as That Weird Bookworm Kid. Because really, what choice did I have? I’d either be TWBK or slink around hoping to go unnoticed. Given my Demi DNA, I was far too tall to slink successfully.

  Paladin had become the playmate I’d desperately needed. His cheerful snark about my tormentors had made me grin and taught me to laugh, both at myself and the local schmuck ecology. He’d been the main reason I’d grown up as more or less sane. Our relationship had evolved still more when I went to college, taking on a sensual edge after my romantic debacle with Ronnie Gordon.