How he feared.
She was beautiful as she stared up into his eyes, a tremor of nerves echoing through their link, speaking to him of the fear she held inside her too. The pure light from the flowers on the trees bathed her clear fair skin in hues of white and blue, making the sensual soft bow of her lips appear even more lush and red, tempting him into claiming the kiss that had been on his mind for days now. He wanted to kiss her.
He wanted to claim her.
Her dazzling blue eyes held his and he picked out every fleck of silver as he wrestled with his desires, his overwhelming need for her, struggling to come to terms with it and keep it under control. It drove him to touch her, to lay his hand on her fair skin again and brush his fingers across her flesh to feel her silkiness. Her warmth.
Little Wild Rose.
His ki’ara.
His breath lodged in his throat, trapped there by her beauty and brightness. She was too bright. Too pure. Too good for him.
But he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her.
He couldn’t hold himself back any longer.
He reached out to lay his trembling hand on her shoulder and she reached for him too, her left palm aimed at his bare chest. He stared at it, his chest cranking tighter with each millimetre closer she came to touching his flesh.
He couldn’t take it, no matter how fiercely he desired it.
He growled, spun her to face the tree and shoved her dress up to her shoulders, exposing her bottom. He raked his gaze down the line of her back to her black cotton underwear. He wanted to touch her where she had been. The sight of her pleasuring herself, a look of unadulterated bliss on her pretty face, had frozen him in his tracks and had him hard in an instant.
Wanting her.
She tried to touch him again, her hand fumbling behind her and he growled. She froze, her heart pounding in his ears, her scent laced with the heady aroma of her arousal.
His female hungered and he would give her what she desired. He would pleasure her and satisfy her.
“Vail?” she whispered and tried to turn towards him.
He grabbed her shoulder and forced her back towards the tree, unwilling to let her face him while they did this and uncertain whether he could retain his grip on his sanity if she did. He wouldn’t let her be in control. He couldn’t. She whimpered, the erotic sound sending a bolt of hot lust through him, making his aching hard length throb against the tight confines of his black trousers.
Gods, he wanted her.
She needed him so fiercely that it rocked him and drugged him to a degree, addling his mind until all he could think about was satisfying his dark need to be inside her, filling her and taking her.
Her hips swayed, thighs rubbing together, and the scent of her arousal increased, swamping his senses and sending his need soaring.
Vail held her shoulder with one hand and pulled at her black underwear, exposing her bottom. He growled at the lush twin peachy globes and released her shoulder so he could shove her underwear down to her knees. He rose behind her again, length pulsing with need, so hard that he hurt. He ghosted his hands over her bottom, his gaze falling lower, to the point where she had been touching when he had come upon her.
Pale curls covered her, hiding her from view. He bit back a growl, grabbed her hips and pulled them backwards, forcing her hands to slide down the trunk she grasped for support. She stood bent over before him, all of her exposed to his hungry eyes. A feral need replaced his desire, a consuming hunger to take her.
His gaze flickered to her face, catching her watching him, her wet blonde hair strewn over her shoulders. Her cheeks blazed and she rocked her bottom upwards, the dark hunger in her eyes calling to him. His female needed him. She desired him.
Wanted him as fiercely as he wanted her.
He snarled and tore at his trousers, freeing his steel-hard length, grasped it tightly in his fist and entered her in one stroke.
She cried out as he drove himself to the hilt, her wet heat gloving him as tightly as his fist had.
He withdrew and thrust back in, her whimper of pleasure encouraging him to do it again and again. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been the one to do this, the one to initiate and be in control. It was intoxicating. Drugging. He liked that he was in command. He could do as he pleased and she was at his mercy. His slave.
He was the master now.
Vail pumped her deep and hard, withdrawing almost all the way from her before plunging back inside her tight channel. Her heat scalded him, her wet walls gripping at him, coaxing him deeper as she moaned. He drank down her cries of pleasure, savouring each one, desiring to elicit more.
His own pleasure blasted through him, so intense that his knees trembled and shook, weakening beneath him, and his breath stuttered. It overwhelmed him, fiery bliss that poured through his veins, setting every inch of him alight and making him burn for more.
He had never felt like this before, knew that with a certainty that sent him reeling. Nothing he had ever experienced had felt this good, this intoxicating. This heavenly and perfect. No one had even come close to making him feel as Rosalind did. His mate. His female. She truly had been made for him.
She reached back with one hand again, attempting to touch him.
He growled at her, darkness rising swiftly to obliterate the softer emotions flooding him. She wasn’t allowed to touch. He was in control now. He needed to be in control.
He grabbed the back of her neck with one hand and her hip with the other, holding her immobile as he increased the pace of his thrusts, filling her deeply with each fast stroke. He grunted and growled, his balls drawing up as each thrust sent pleasure shooting through him. He pounded into her, out of his head with need for her and a slave to his thirst for her, to the hunger that had been building within him since the moment he had set eyes on her.
His thighs brushed hers and he snarled as he sensed her magic, couldn’t stop himself from gripping her tighter and being rougher with her. Witch. He tried to shut his mind to the flashbacks that began to fill it, a thousand moments of Kordula restraining him with her power and riding him against his will. She had stolen all control from him.
He would be in control this time.
Little Wild Rose was his now.
CHAPTER 18
Rosalind gripped the tree trunk, torn between the pleasure ricocheting through her body with each deep plunge Vail made and the pain in her heart. She cursed him in her mind, hating how he had changed and now refused to let her participate. She hated how he rutted her and that she was too lost to the pleasure to take back control, too drugged by the feel of him inside her, filling and stretching her, intoxicating her.
His grip on her neck jerked tighter and he grunted. His cock throbbed and pulsed, spilling his seed within her, and he went rigid and still. His hands trembled against her.
She reached for the link between them and the glimmer of emotions she could feel said that his orgasm had shocked him, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it.
She dug her fingers into the bark to steady herself. As soon as he had pulled himself back together, he would pull out of her and leave her wound tight. She knew it. This had been a terrible mistake.
His grip on her hip and neck loosened and she braced herself for the inevitable rejection, preparing to feel used and hating him for it.
Vail tensed and released her neck, but didn’t pull out of her. He trailed his fingers down her bare back, his touch surprisingly soft and shocking her. He murmured quiet things in the elf tongue as he swept the pads of his fingers down the line of her spine.
She kept still, breathing hard as he gently caressed her, exploring her with a tentative touch while still lodged inside her. He was nervous. Afraid. Unsure. She could feel it and she wanted to take away his fear, to find the source of it and vanquish it for him. She didn’t have that power so she relaxed and allowed him to take the lead, letting him do as he pleased and hoping it would bring them back to a more intimate level and
ease his nerves. And hers too.
He stroked lower and she arched her back into his caress, unable to stop herself as the pleasure of it consumed her and seized control of her body. He shocked her again.
He groaned.
The sound of pleasure emanating from his lips sent a shiver through her, keeping her arousal at a low boil in her belly together with the feel of him still inside her, intimately connected to her.
Rosalind closed her eyes and clutched the tree, the bark rough beneath her fingers. She forced herself to relax again and didn’t move as he explored her. He would bolt if she startled him. She could feel it. He was on the edge, torn between touching her softly and clawing her and pushing her away. Punishing her.
Why?
What had happened to him to make him like this?
Heat rushed through her veins when he shifted and she felt his warm breath on her bare back. Anticipation curled through her, a hunger to feel his lips trailing over her skin, as softly as his fingers had, stirring her desire and sending trembles of pleasure through her. He halted above her, his breathing coming quicker, and she could sense his panic rising.
“Vail,” she murmured, hoping to encourage and soothe him.
He snarled and grabbed her hips.
He shoved into her, his length hard again, and she cried out in pain.
He stilled.
“My ki’ara hurts,” he whispered, his lips so close to her back that they brushed her skin with each word, making her quiver and heat wherever he touched and where their bodies joined.
She barely bit back her moan as ecstasy tripped through her, taking her higher, leaving her at the mercy of her desire. She wanted to rock on him, needed him to touch her again and give her release. He swept his lips across her skin, the light touch too much for her, making her shake all over and whimper.
He murmured softly, “I will make her feel better.”
She bit back a moan when he moved again, thrusting gentler this time, slow and deep at a steady pace that threatened to send her out of her mind.
She held on to the tree and loosed a moan when he placed his hands on her hips and shifted his left one lower, over her belly. He dipped it into her folds and fumbled with her sensitive nub, his actions a little clumsy, telling her that somehow this incredibly gorgeous elf prince was new to touching a female there.
He curled his hips, each plunge of his cock into her and flick of her bud tearing another moan from her and sending heat shooting through her, fire that pooled in her belly and made her want to beg him for more.
Desire got the better of her and she shifted back against him.
He snarled and gripped her hips so she couldn’t move, his claws pressing into her flesh. He thrust into her, rougher again, wild and fierce, grunting each time their hips met. It bordered on painful.
She looked over her shoulder at him.
He was lost again, black blotches marring his beautiful eyes. Crazed. Dangerous.
She did the only thing she could think of to bring him back from that dark place he went to often.
She whimpered.
He instantly stilled again, his purple eyes softening and clearing, and moved more gently, rocking into her with steady strokes. He touched her again and held her gaze as he slowly pumped her. It was so erotic and arousing that she moaned low in her throat, her blood heating to a thousand degrees and body shivering in response.
No man had ever looked at her as he did, and certainly not while making love to her, his gaze devouring hers, commanding her attention as he took her. It was powerful and intense, and divinely masculine, and it left her trembling.
She kept still, giving control over to him. He needed it. She knew that. He hated it when she touched him. He hated it when she rocked onto him. He hated it when she participated, rather than letting him be in command.
Someone had done a real number on him.
He stroked her sensitive bud in time with his thrusts, mastering her body, lifting her higher and higher until she felt she was floating, giddy and on the edge of a freefall into bliss.
He withdrew and plunged back in, as deep as she could take him, and she cried out as hot sparks exploded through her and she quivered around him, her body milking his. He looked as if he wanted to pull out of her, clenched his teeth as she throbbed and pulsed, her body bursting with heat and pleasure that left her hazy and a little braver.
Rosalind pressed back against him and flexed her body around his rigid length.
He grunted and his cock jerked, hot release pumping into her with every hard pulse.
His expression turned horrified.
He staggered backwards, pulling free of her, and cast her a tortured glance before light traced over his body and he disappeared.
Rosalind turned and leaned her back against the tree. Her trembling legs gave out and her backside hit a root. She shouldn’t have pushed him, but the incredible pleasure of her climax had overwhelmed her, destroying every fragment of common sense and crushing her inhibitions.
She couldn’t remember a time when she had experienced such an intense, full-body release. She had definitely never felt unable to stand after sex before. She had always laughed when the incubi in the fae towns had offered to leave her legs useless, telling them it was all a fallacy made up by men who thought they were gifts of the gods.
She stared at her shaking knees, feeling boneless and sure she would find it difficult to walk for an hour or two.
Not such a fallacy after all. She just hadn’t met a man capable of giving her that sort of pleasure.
It left her feeling that the whole affair with her dark elf prince was more complicated and confusing than ever. One itch for him scratched, and subsequently replaced with a startling insatiable itch for more.
She sagged back and used her sorcery to find him, a small spell to enhance the connection between them. It was easy when he was still inside her, mingling with her.
He hadn’t gone far.
Relief swept through her and on its heels came a desire to go to him in the hope she could learn why he was the way he was and had what happened to him. He would lash out at her if she did pursue him. He needed a moment, and she would give it to him, and hope that he would return to her.
She kept tabs on him as she cleaned herself up, trying to ignore the fact that she was still achy and hot, hungry for him. She blamed it on her returning power. It was playing havoc with her as much as Vail did.
When she had managed to tamp down her rising desire and felt a little more presentable, all evidence of what had happened gone, she got to her feet and leaned against the tree trunk, waiting for them to steady.
Rosalind sighed up at the twinkling bugs hovering in the dark opening between the leafy canopies of the trees around the glade. She wriggled her toes and bent her knees, finding her legs stable at last.
She tramped around, keeping herself busy by tossing a few more sticks onto the pile in the middle of the clearing, arranging it into a neat pyramid, and using a spell to light it. Flames burst from the centre and quickly spread, blue at first but turning orange as her spell settled.
She sat by the fire, mesmerised by the flames, drew her knees up to her chest and waited.
The sky had grown infinitely darker, and the woods far colder and more forbidding, by the time Vail finally returned.
He refused to look at her as he entered the glade, keeping his gaze downcast. He was wet and the skin of his arms and bare chest was red in places. He had gone to the lake and washed himself, rubbing himself raw right after being inside her.
Rosalind returned her gaze to the fire, her heart stinging, and ignored him as she struggled to erase the hurt that caused in her.
He loomed on the other side of the fire and held a black bird-like creature out to her.
Rosalind cast a scowl at the feathered thing, unsure what she was meant to do with it and not in the mood to talk to him. She looked back at the fire, hugged her knees tighter, and rested her chin on them.
She couldn’t take it anymore.
She hated the oppressive atmosphere that hung over the camp and the tension between them. It wasn’t how things should have been after what they had done together. It wasn’t how she had foolishly hoped they would be.
She glanced at his face. He looked as troubled as she felt but it didn’t offer her any comfort.
“Why did you leave?” she whispered to the fire.
He stilled, his fingers paused at their work and his eyes on the shiny black feathers scattered around his feet.
“I had to,” he said in a distant voice. “It was for your sake…”
She lifted her head, anger rising like an unstoppable force within her, driving her to confront him. She was tired of not understanding him. She was sick of him holding her at a distance and drawing her closer whenever it pleased him before driving her away again.
“I wanted you to stay,” she snapped and a shower of blue sparks exploded from the fire, dancing high into the air between them. Vail scowled at them. She scowled at him. “You hurt me by leaving.”
His gaze shot to meet hers, he blinked, and then looked away again, off to his left. “I would have hurt you had I stayed.”
That sent ice through her that instantly quenched the flames of her anger. She could see that he meant it.
She bravely whispered, “Why?”
He didn’t answer. He shoved the plucked dead thing on a pointed stick and held it over the flames.
Feathers blew around the short grass. She picked one up and twirled it in her fingers, her gaze locked on it.
“Didn’t you like what we did?” she quietly said.
His purple gaze snapped to her, intense and fierce, burning into her and demanding she look at him. She could sense his rising fury and his pain, but it wouldn’t stop her this time.
Tempted by a Rogue Prince Page 22