by C. L. Wilson
“Ignoring the pull toward you.”
Her pulse sped just a little. This conversation was taking a dangerous turn. She was afraid not to stop it. She was even more afraid to stop it.
“I know what you mean,” she said. “I've never felt so free with anyone.”
“You mean our physical attraction for each other?”
She nodded. “Yes, certainly that, but also, I've spent my whole life trying to shut people out. Most people, well, I can't handle their energy. But you're different. Your energy and mine just seem to fit.” She let out a nervous laugh. “That sounds silly, doesn't it?”
His lips curved slightly. “It's not so silly.”
“But I barely know you,” she insisted.
His gaze turned thoughtful and his voice carried the cadence of old sorrows. “You've known the deep agony of loss and have felt the sting of being isolated from your people for seeing the world differently than they do.”
“Yes,” she agreed past lump in her throat.
“You know me,” he said. He cleared his throat and abruptly changed the subject before she could respond. “Isn't it time you kept your end of our bargain?”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I'm ready now to hear you weave song for me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mona forced herself to focus. Songs. Singing for him. Right. So much for confessions. He had clearly broken the mood on purpose.
Mona retrieved her guitar and resumed her seat on the coach. He sat on the other end. “Okay. So, what should I sing?”
“Whatever you'd like,” he answered.
“Well, it's that time of year, so how about some holiday tunes? 'Let it snow?' 'Silent Night?' 'Silver Bells?'“
“Delightful,” he agreed, though she was doubtful he even knew what she was talking about. Something told her on Nibiru they had different ideas about holidays and carols.
An hour later, she had made her way through every Christmas carol and holiday song she could wrestle from her brain. She'd even thrown in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman.”
Roan had sat perched on the edge of his seat the entire time, still as a statue, a look of pure bliss suffusing his handsome face. Once or twice, she could have sworn his icy-blue eyes glistened with moisture, but she wasn't sure if it was just a trick of the firelight reflecting off of his wintery gaze.
“That's my entire repertoire of holiday songs,” she told him, moving to set the guitar aside.
“Don't stop,” came his husky plea. That's when she looked at him more closely. She peered at his aura. Waves of violet and indigo wove through his energetic field, dancing around sparkles of silver and flashes of white. Good gracious! Had her singing done that to him? Warmth flooded her at the thought.
“I don't know what else to sing,” she protested.
“Anything. Perhaps the song you were singing last night? When the trackers came to you.”
Mona swallowed. That particular tune was one of her more personal creations. She hadn't decided yet whether she'd play it for another person. Ever. “It's not really finished yet.”
“I don't mind.” Roan gave an encouraging smile.
His handsome face was so open, so accepting. She just couldn't say no to him.
“Okay then.” She picked up her guitar again and held her fingers in place over the strings. She let out a deep breath and began.
“With every goodbye I shed a tear.
With each hello I face this fear.
With every kiss I'm filled with wonder
until the rain, until the thunder.
With each new day I hope and then
the coldest rain falls down again.
The coldest rain inside of me
cools the heat that you can't see
The coldest rain inside and out
can't heal me now, can't end this drought—”
Before Mona could begin the next verse, the guitar was unceremoniously yanked from her hands and placed to the side. Roan was beside her, quick as a heartbeat, his hands cool against her neck, his forehead warm as it pressed to hers.
“Ah, Mona!” he gasped, his words pained. “The sorrow of your song . . . You should never have to feel such pain. I can't abide it.”
Just his hands against her neck, his breath against her cheek, was enough to send her heart racing and fill her belly with butterflies.
It seemed they stayed like that forever, suspended in time, touching in a way somehow more intimate than sex. She cradled his hands in hers, awed to realize his big body was trembling, just slightly.
“Mona,” he whispered. Just that. Nothing more. Her heart swelled at the emotion she sensed hidden in that one small utterance. She could barely breathe, waiting, unsure of where to go next, knowing only that she longed for him with a fierceness she couldn't quite fathom.
“What are you doing to me?” she breathed.
“We're doing it. Together.”
Between the feel of his body so close to hers, his scent—sweet musk and all man, cradling her like a cloud—and the magical dance of their auras colliding, Mona could barely speak.
But she tried anyway. “How? Why?”
“Because we can,” he said in a voice deep and fierce. Then his mouth claimed hers.
###
The time for talking was over. There was only so much a male, Anunnaki or not, could take. And Roan had reached his limit. The raw vulnerability in Mona's voice and the loneliness threaded through her song had called to a place inside of him he couldn't ignore.
No matter how hard he tried.
All that was Mona filled Roan's senses and suffused his brain, his body, his heart. Her lips soft as silk. The dangerous curves of her body pliant against his. Her fragrance, an intoxicating blend of wintery herbal notes and feminine desire. Heat emanating from her body to his.
His mouth left hers to taste the flesh of her neck. His hands tore at her clothing. Suddenly, he couldn't stand the barriers of material between them.
Mona's surrender was immediate and total. She lifted her arms over her head and watched through half-lidded eyes as her sweater slid up and off. He tossed the garment to the floor where it landed in a pool of green. He moved to yank the scrap of black material covering her breasts off her in the same manner as he had her sweater, but she gave him a shy smile and shook her head.
“No bras on Nibiru?” she teased. Before he could respond that he thought a second garment covering something as beautiful and natural as the female breasts was not only unnecessary but insane, she said: “Here, let me.”
She reached behind herself, and with a flick of her wrist the garment unhooked and landed next to her sweater.
Her breasts were full, perfectly formed. Her nipples stood erect, the areolas already darkening with her desire. His sex immediately hardened and he released a low growl before he took first one, then the other nipple into his mouth and suckled. Hard. Her back arched. She cried out her delight.
He kissed his way down her quivering belly and slid his fingers to her waistband, tugging at the fabric of her pants. Her hands twisted in his hair, urged him on.
He made quick work of her remaining clothing, then once she was naked, he lifted his head and looked at her. His stomach muscles clenched at the beauty before him. Mona naked wasn't as he imagined. The reality far exceeded the fantasy.
Night had fallen sometime during Mona's musical serenade. The flickers of the fire behind them cast shadows over the valleys of Mona's flesh and illumed the tantalizing peaks.
Roan stood, still watching Mona. He purposely disrobed, slowly, letting her see him fully. He was not ignorant of his effect on women. He knew this woman, in particular, found him more than pleasing to look at. He wanted to watch desire fill her beautiful, brown eyes as he bared himself to her. Desire for him. She shifted and lay on her back, her gaze like fire over his skin, her breathing noticeably shallow, fast.
He imagined what she must be seeing as his clo
thing hit the floor. Hard pale flesh caressed by shadows. White-blond hair that fell around broad shoulders, a curtain of ice against a body hard and chiselled from battle. The evidence of his desire sprang long and thick from the nest of pale hair at his groin.
Roan joined her on the couch once more, his heart skipping when his hands parted her thighs and found them slick with longing. His mouth found hers again. This kiss was demanding, plundering. Her lips opened to him, her tongue slid against his, hungry for more of him.
He moved over her, his flesh meeting hers, cool against hot, hard meeting soft. At the touch of his chest against her breasts and one of his muscled thighs between her two, a sigh escaped Mona, quickly mirrored by his own husky murmur.
Hands slid over sensitive skin. His. Hers. Mouths clashed and vied for dominance. Roan had spent the majority of his existence fighting. He was done fighting himself; Anunnaki law be damned. He wanted this woman. She wanted him. And he could no longer fight their attraction. No. The time for fighting was over.
She pulled her mouth from his and cradled his face in her hands. Her beautiful eyes were filled with longing and desire and a question. Was he sure?
He didn't know it until then, as she watched him, waiting for his next move, so open and vulnerable and beautiful, that he'd lost the battle to fight his need for this woman the moment he'd first heard her song. A song full of longing and sorrow and loneliness. Emotions he, too, had experienced for far too long. Every moment since then had been leading to this.
His surrender had been inevitable.
“No more fighting,” he whispered to answer the unspoken question, his voice uneven to his own ears and his chest tight with unnameable emotion. And to his amazement, he didn't have to explain further. Mona's understanding was mirrored in the deep reflection of her eyes, eyes that saw into him, into the very heart of him, and just knew.
###
Roan's response made Mona's heart swell. He wanted her enough to break the laws of his people. She wanted him just as much. She didn't sleep with men she barely knew. She didn't let herself go so easily with anyone. But this was different. Roan was different. There was something about almost dying that made her suddenly want to live. Really live. Now. And something about this man made her feel alive in ways she couldn't explain.
And it wasn't just her body that desired him. In that moment, as he hovered above her, watching her so intensely, she felt their hearts merging. Her hands moved over the hard lines of his chest and torso. Beneath her palm came the thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat accelerating.
She pulled his mouth back to hers and kissed him. He released a sigh of pleasure against her mouth and kissed her back as he lowered his body closer to her. He held himself just slightly off and to the side of her, but the hardness of his desire pushed hot against her thigh.
His fingers found her soft folds and slid over them, teasing her clit, then dipping inside of her. She gripped his back tight, racked with waves of bliss and a sharp jolt of deep, aching need.
He lifted his mouth from hers. He watched her as her desire built at the flick of his thumb on that most sensitive nub between her thighs, as his thick fingers moved in and out of her, their entrance made easy by her wetness. Waves of pleasure washed over Mona.
His sex twitched against her thigh. Her small hand circled his engorged length and slid up over the shaft. Roan groaned. He felt good in her hand. Powerful, hard, hot. It had been a long time since she'd touched a man this way. A long time since she'd wanted to be this close to anyone. Suddenly, she realized it had been too damn long.
She stroked him harder. His big body jerked in response. His icy gaze met hers with a look both raw and real. The reclining arm that held his weight from her wavered slightly.
“Mona,” he murmured, “I want to be inside of you.” She was well aware that these were the very same words she had said to him not long ago, a request he'd refused.
Mona gave him a seductive smile that dared him to make good on his promise. “Yes,” she murmured. “Now,” she breathed.
Roan shifted his weight and slid inside of her, filling her, claiming her body as his lips once again claimed her own in a kiss that scalded with the heat of its passion.
She was amazed at how their bodies fit together like a complex jigsaw puzzle. Large and angular against small and rounded. Firm against pliant. Male against female.
The velvet of Mona's sex enveloped Roan’s erection. She felt him tuck his hands beneath her, readying to thrust deeper, but the little space the couch afforded them impeded his ability to thrust deeper. He twisted and sat up, taking Mona with him, careful to remain inside of her. He sat with his back against the couch and Mona straddling him. The new position drove him even deeper inside of her.
Roan groaned against her throat, kissing her neck and then her breasts as he waited for her to become accustomed to the feel of him inside her. The fire raging through Mona's veins was almost too much to bear as she lifted herself up and then slid back down over him. She held his head against her breasts, and he licked at a nipple, tugged it with his teeth. She wiggled and tightened her hold on his head, keeping him there, urging him on.
Soon, she was moving with him, using her leg muscles to lift herself with the aid of his strong arms, until they settled into a rhythm that turned both of their breathing ragged with exertion and desire.
Pressure was building inside of Mona, stabbing her sex with each thrust, riding up her spine. She shifted her hips to rub her clit against Roan's groin. Sensing her need, he slipped one hand between them. With the other, he lifted his head so that he could watch her.
She should be embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze, but she wasn't. She could feel his need to see the pleasure dance through her as she came apart in his arms and she wanted to give that to him. She wanted him to desire her more than he'd ever desired any other woman.
He flicked his fingers softly over the sensitive nub between her thighs. Her mouth fell open.
“More,” she gasped.
What was he doing to her? This man she barely knew, but she already felt belonged to her and only her. How was it that he could do to her so easily, so quickly, what no one else had ever been able to do? And he wanted her. Needed her. With a desire strong enough to make him break the rules of his kind. For her.
Roan rubbed her slick flesh harder, faster, thrusting his hips in time with his fingers. Any thoughts other than those of desire fled.
Mona had never experienced anything like this. This sensation of expansiveness, like she would break wide open, like she would burst and lose all parts of herself. But she wanted it. She needed it more than she needed air to breath.
One more caress of his fingers, one more jolt of his sex inside of her, and her muscles tensed with anticipation.
She spiralled into him, shattering, then slowly glued the pieces back together, knowing she was forever bent—forever torn. Realizing that at that moment, she didn't care.
Roan's orgasm came on the heels of her own. He cried out her name and his face went taut with his release, but he never, not once, took his gaze from her own.
Outside, the storm raged on. Icy snow beat against the windows of the cabin and the wind howled like a pack of wolves readying for the hunt.
CHAPTER TWELVE
After she'd caught her breath and her heartbeat had slowed, Mona lifted herself from Roan. He didn't let her go far, however. One strong arm clamped around her waist as Roan pulled her next to him on the couch. He tucked the blanket around her as she snuggled into the crook of his arm.
Neither spoke. Mona wasn't sure what to say. She was still dazed from the ferocity of their lovemaking, of the experience of a bliss she couldn't have imagined in her wildest dreams. Yes, she'd had sex before. But not like this. Not this energetic dance of body and soul.
The fire crackled and hissed behind them. Her sweat-slick skin had cooled sufficiently for her to realize just how cold it had gotten in the cabin. Thank goodness for the stove.
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“Your skin is so cool,” she murmured with her cheek pressed against Roan's smooth chest. “How is that possible after what we just did?”
Roan smoothed one hand over her head, petting her hair distractedly. “My body temperature is always lower than yours. It's that way with all Nibiruans. Our planet is much farther from any sun than yours. Its climate is different from Earth's.”
“So, you've adapted over time. It's the same reason your eyes are so sensitive to light,” she said.
She felt him nod.
The cuckoo clock chimed eight o'clock p.m. She almost wished she hadn't put batteries in the damn thing. She didn't need to be reminded that her time with Roan was running out.
She cleared her throat. “I guess it's dark by now.”
The gentle stroking of her hair stopped. Moments passed in silence. The stroking resumed. “So it is.”
She wanted to stay here, just like this, forever. Cuddled against him, wrapped in his arms, drunk on the pleasure they'd shared. But her logical mind screamed at her not to make the situation more difficult than it already was.
An image popped into her head. Roan kissing her at midnight—after all, it was New Year's Eve—then disappearing out into the night, leaving her alone and aching. Her gut clenched.
Hell no. She was not going to do the sappy kiss-off-at-midnight thing and start the New Year miserable and alone after the best night of her life. No. No. No.
She bolted from the couch and yanked the blanket around herself, suddenly desperately in need of a shield from his probing gaze.
“I'll get dressed then dig up a jacket, scarf, gloves, and whatever warm clothing I can find around here for you. And you should definitely eat something before you go.”
Roan's brow creased. “I don't need to leave immediately.” He patted the space beside him. “Come, relax here with me for awhile.”
She feigned a nonchalance she didn't feel and let out a weak chuckle. “Oh, no you don't,” she teased wagging one finger. “I know what that will lead to again. You'll want to have all your strength to get through the storm and find the ship as quickly as possible.”