Arrows of Desire: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 3

by Lynne Connolly

  Although embarrassment made her clumsy, Portia clambered on to the bed, but she didn’t pull the sheet over her as she longed to do. She’d never felt so open to anyone and her uncertainty made her tense.

  Edmund only smiled, shook his hair back behind his shoulders and continued to undress. He stripped out of his shoes, stockings and breeches, careless of where he left his shoe and knee-buckles, which she felt sure must be diamonds. He followed her gaze. “You’ve married a wealthy man, my love. I intend to shower you with beautiful things, although nothing compares to your honest loveliness.”

  She unclasped the pearls from around her neck and unhooked her earrings. Not knowing what to do with them, she tucked them under the pillow. Edmund was removing his breeches, leaving him in shirt and underwear, so he didn’t see her attempts to take absolutely everything off. Her nipples had furled into tight little peaks. When she grazed them with her forearm after disposing of her jewellery, she shivered at the sensitivity they evoked.

  “Lovely,” he murmured, and pulled off his shirt. His gaze fixed on her as his head emerged from the voluminous folds of fabric. She gasped and let her gaze slide over his body. The unexpectedly powerful muscles on his shoulders and upper arms flexed in unconscious display as he removed his last item of clothing.

  He straightened and smiled at her. “See how much I want you?”

  His staff was upright, hard and reddened, the tip glistening with liquid. Unabashedly, he touched it, taking the liquid on his forefinger and spreading it around the head. “I would like to persuade you to do that again in the near future. Not now. Although…” He tilted his head to one side, frowning. “No. I have enough control to take enough care with you. Shift over a little. Let me in.”

  At first she couldn’t do it, but when he climbed on the footstool by the side of the bed, preparing to get in with her, she found some coordination. She moved over enough to make a space for him.

  When she would have moved further, he captured her, sliding one arm around her naked waist and the other over her head. He pushed down and she lifted her head so he could slide his arm underneath. “Now, lovely one,” he murmured, “I have to find a way to relax you. Did your mother prepare you for this? Talk to you about it?”

  She licked her lips and nodded. Not only her mother, but her married sister and her father, although he left the details to her mother. “I know we won’t have a child unless we wish it. And that I cannot catch any diseases from you.”

  Unexpected laughter rocked him. “Well, that’s good to know! I have no intention of giving you a child tonight. I want you to myself for a while. As for the other—why on earth would she tell you that?” He touched his lips to hers. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Just kiss me, sweetheart.”

  As she leaned forward into his kiss the realisation came over her. This was Edmund, the man she loved. She wanted this so much, especially when he deepened the kiss. Her body warmed, heated, and when she moved, skin brushed against bare skin in a wonderfully intimate way.

  He was so very different to her. His strength was far more obvious when out of his clothes than when he wore the smoothly elegant outfits he generally appeared in. They must be very well made.

  She whimpered into his mouth and pressed closer, her nipples rubbing against his chest, bringing her some relief. Though not enough. When he touched her there, she sighed and moved back, so he could caress her. He’d kissed and caressed her breasts a few times this last month and always stopped when she squirmed against him, silently begging for more. This time he did not. He sucked and teased until she grasped handfuls of his hair and tugged. Then he lifted his head, grinning.

  “Keep doing that. Hold on tight.”

  Shudders racked her when he moved down, kissing and licking around her navel and then her hips. He fulfilled his promise to kiss every part of her, tasting her with delicacy, sucking her skin and caressing with his tongue.

  He skimmed her most private parts to nuzzle and kiss down her legs, to her feet and back up again, but stopped at her crotch. Propping himself up on his elbows, he gazed at her, his eyes glazed with passion, his mind flooded with it. “I want to taste you there too. Open for me, my darling.”

  Portia swallowed. “Can a man…?”

  A wicked smile tilted his lips. “Open up and I’ll show you.”

  She trusted him. Stiffly at first, she widened her thighs, then, when he showed no sign of retreating, did it a little more. He must be able to see all of her and he was staring with the avidity of an artist at a new canvas.

  “Lift your knees,” he said throatily.

  She did so, sliding her feet against the smooth sheet. The scent of her arousal wove around her and she wanted to slam her legs shut, but she couldn’t. He’d curled his arms around her thighs, his palms flat on her skin. Then he bent his head.

  His first lick tasted her from her opening to the front. Disbelievingly she heard his sound of appreciation, as if he’d sipped a fine wine. His voice came straight into her mind. You’re perfect. A connoisseur’s choice. His voice held a teasing edge. He must have picked up her comparison.

  He sucked in that knot of flesh at the front of her opening. It’s a clitoris, sweetheart. Have you never played with it?

  It seemed natural to answer the same way. Yes. She could say no more. Divulging one of her guilty secrets had come hard, and if she didn’t trust him so much she wouldn’t have admitted it. He was sucking it now. Familiar and not-so-familiar sensations were heightening her senses, but she couldn’t squirm. When she tried, he slid his hands down to her hips and held her steady.

  Every lick counted. He caressed then sucked, his actions unpredictable, except he centred them on her clitoris. Every pull sent shards of pleasure rocketing through her, adding incrementally to her arousal.

  More intense than when she’d touched herself, harder and higher. Then he stopped and kissed down to her opening.

  Reaching down, she grabbed his hair again and tugged. She was so close. “Noooo!”

  “That’s just to give you a taste of what’s to come,” he murmured against her thigh. Then he began again. This time he touched her as well, stroking her crease and then down, softly running a finger around her opening and then pushing just the tip inside her. Uncomfortable, she tried to move away, but then he kissed her clitoris again and sucked it deep.

  “Oh yes!” Past any considerations of immodesty, she pushed down. He moved away, still sucking but ensuring he didn’t push any deeper or cause her more discomfort than he had already. At least she thought so, but she was too busy concentrating on what he was doing. With her clitoris in his mouth, he flicked it with his tongue. Her body arched up to him almost of its own accord, and she clutched the sheet under her hands, needing something to hold on to.

  “Oh!” He took no notice of her cry, pulling away again. She glared at him. His mouth was full and wet, attesting to his recent activity, and his eyes gleamed pure silver. She was seeing the immortal, not the man. No civilised veneer remained. His hair was in tousled disarray, more a lion’s mane than the smooth locks he’d started the day with. She’d grabbed handfuls of it, used it as her anchor, and inadvertently turned it into a halo of silver-gold.

  He prowled up the bed to her, and for the first time she wondered—was he as minor an immortal as he claimed? Power radiated from him, heating her, making her the helpless victim. The sacrifice to the angry god.

  When he was poised over her, no smile graced his face and no sign of respect marked the lithe power of his body. Naked they were and they would remain for as long as he wished it.

  “My lord,” she murmured, watching him.

  His pupils contracted even more, before expanding. “As you say,” he purred. “Prepare yourself, my lady.”

  He didn’t touch his rampant cock, but moved over her with primitive grace, nudging her legs even further apart and propping his elbo
ws either side of her. Without apology he bent and covered her mouth with his in a savage taking, plunging his tongue into her. She drank from him, her taste on his lips pushing her further away from the world outside and encompassing her within his domain.

  I have taken sacrifices before, he said, but never one I have desired so much.

  No words of tenderness, but plain fact, hard and certain.

  The head of his erection touched her, and she softened for him, actually felt her body mould around him. He pushed the very tip inside her.

  She gasped. He lifted his head. “Watch me,” he commanded. “Don’t look away.”

  If she’d tried, she’d have failed. She couldn’t look away.

  He moved again, and this time she felt definite discomfort, a sensation of him wedging his cock inside her. “I barely moved,” he murmured. “Hold still.”

  That was an order she was helpless to disobey.

  He jabbed deep, driving hard. Shards of pain shattered her concentration. They dissipated as fast as they’d exploded inside her, leaving the distinctly strange feeling of a man’s shaft buried deeply inside her.

  “There,” he said. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

  “You should know,” she said on a gasp. He’d kept his senses mingled with hers, his mind reading hers. No, it wasn’t. She’d known worse. “Falling off my horse hurt more.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He kept himself rigid inside her. She felt his tension, his muscles hard, his body poised, for what she didn’t yet know. “There is more. Better.”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t withdraw, or make any sudden movements. Instead, he rotated his hips, a slight movement that eased his passage inside her, widening her for his entry. Finally it appeared possible he could move. He nudged a part of her inside that made her gasp and arch up, an involuntary response, pleading for more.

  “Wait.”

  He moved again, working her slowly, and she cried out when he touched her again. “That place—inside—”

  “It’s special to you. Tell me when you like it best.” He’d lost all endearments, all civility, and she loved it. The sparseness of his words gave her permission to be equally terse in return.

  “There.” She gasped as her senses rose, curling around him.

  “You’re mine. Say it!”

  Never had she imagined an experience so intense. “I’m yours. Just don’t stop!”

  “Open your mind. I want it all,” he growled in a tone totally unlike his usual mellow voice.

  She stared at him. “What?”

  “Let me in, my love. Mind and body.”

  She understood. He wanted more than mind-to-mind, he wanted heart-to-heart. She wanted it too, so much. But as he watched her, she couldn’t do it. Something blocked her ability, and however hard she tried, she couldn’t break through.

  His expression gentled, and he kissed her. “Never mind. We can’t have everything at once. It gives us something more to anticipate. I’m too greedy, that’s all. Brace yourself, sweetheart, because I’m going to make you come now.”

  He was hardly moving, but then he did. He pulled back, so he almost left her body but before she could protest, he plunged back in. Not quickly, but steadily, with purpose, until his pubic curls meshed with hers and his bollocks grazed the sensitive skin under her entrance.

  Her startled cry was drowned in her next, when he did it again. And again. Every stroke touched the spot inside that excited her to a level she didn’t know if she could bear.

  She bore it. Waves of heat surged through her. If he weren’t holding her so firmly she’d have twisted out of his grasp, away from him, but he was reading her. She trusted him to keep her safe, although that wasn’t the right word. Delirious with pleasure, her thought processes flew out of her grasp and she gave herself to him completely.

  His thrusts grew harder, more demanding, and she cried out as everything heated and blossomed. Her channel convulsed, tightened around his cock, and he groaned before bringing her close to kiss her mouth, his tongue thrusting as ruthlessly as his shaft.

  Two short jabs and he flooded her, wet heat bathing her in utter perfection.

  Portia had overwhelmed him. Her modesty had charmed him, then her response to his lovemaking conquered him. He couldn’t have wished for a more responsive bedfellow. The only way he could retain control was to reveal his godhead. Some of it, at least. He’d pulled back his humanity and let the other side of him free. Again he had cause to bless the duchesse, who had taught him exactly what he could do. Unlike his bitch of a mother, who had held him back so much he’d gone abroad unaware of who he was or what he could do. If he’d discovered Portia on the way there instead of the way back, he’d have been done for.

  He’d wanted total melding, mind and body, but he had nearly wrecked everything with his impatience. He would woo her, and as she trusted him more and more, she’d let him in.

  His talent was for love and passion and the madness he could drive lovers into. Including himself, if he didn’t control his instincts. He could make men and women fall in love to the exclusion of everything else. That would have driven them both insane. He always had the gift, and considering how tight a leash his mother had kept on him, it was a wonder he hadn’t created complete havoc. She may have counteracted his powers. She’d told him he was an immortal, but not how powerful he was or what he could do. Had she meant to harness his powers for herself?

  The woman nestled trustingly into his side stirred. He murmured her name and held her close, kissed her forehead and felt her relax. It was a wonderful thing, to have a woman who believed he could care for her.

  He’d read Portia as much as he could without intruding too much and discovered the truth. Her power was nowhere near his. Most likely she was a nymph. He would care for her. The sexual power that had coursed between them wasn’t solely from his gift. It had been born naturally.

  He’d wanted her before he’d given her the arrow. They had that. Until now his passion for her had hurtled along its path, dragging them both in its wake, a dog racing after its prey. Now they had a pause. Consummation gave them an outlet, a chance to control what had happened.

  She stirred again and opened her eyes. They stared at each other as lovers had from the beginning of time, then he touched his lips to hers in a kiss that rekindled his temporarily quietened desire. Before he could let it overwhelm him again, he forced his humanity to the forefront, the civilised part of himself, and smiled down at her.

  “Better?”

  “So much!” She moved, her breasts caressing his arm.

  He groaned. “You are wonderful. Luscious, beautiful and mine.”

  “All yours.”

  She was adorable when she was sleepy. Come to that, she was adorable when awake too. He knew what to do in these circumstances. He let himself sink into the emotions, to let it have its way because there was no fighting it.

  He would have to tell her what he’d done. Not now, not today. Let them have some happiness first. How would she react when he told her his godhead, as he must? He feared she would reject him, as he so rightly deserved. He should have told her before the wedding, but he didn’t have the nerve. He had to make her his. Now she was bound to him by law and with their love.

  She’d dozed off again, but Edmund decided he’d had enough of her laziness, as he told her laughingly when he kissed her awake. “How are you now?”

  She gazed up at him. They hadn’t taken the time to close the curtains, so the dawn light illuminated them. “Fine.”

  “Tell the truth, now. All of it. How do you feel?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  He moved so she could feel his erection. “Because I want you again.”

  Chuckling, she kissed his shoulder. He had rarely shared his bed with his lovers before this. Since he’d left Scotland he hadn’t h
ad time for many, but now he wondered if he’d have this same sense of togetherness with anyone else. Even before he’d known his identity, he was careful not to forge too much of a closeness with the women he took to his bed. His mother had told him just enough about himself for him to be wary. He would watch them age and die if he grew too close, she’d said, and she’d been right. Except he’d found another immortal.

  He nudged her forehead with his chin and, when she lifted her head, kissed her again. Her mouth was flushed with his kisses, and he loved it that way. “So tell me. How do you feel? Believe me, sweetheart, I can wait.”

  “Happy, sleepy, in love. And wanting you. A spark deep inside me. I never knew—”

  “You do now. I meant, are you sore? Can you take me?” She reached down and touched herself, her fingers brushing his thigh. He groaned.

  “It felt so good, Edmund.”

  He’d taken all the care he could, nearly killing himself with need until he was sure she was ready for him to move, but she must be without pain. He’d prepared her, stretching her a little first. Then his primitive side had conquered him, and he wanted to take her as a man takes a woman, with his cock buried deep inside her.

  He’d meant to take her virginity carefully, with his fingers, but he couldn’t do it. Deep, visceral need had taken its place.

  No, he must suffer a while longer. He couldn’t do this to her, and he’d promised not to inflict any more pain.

  With a move he hadn’t anticipated, she rolled over him, forcing him onto his back, and lay on top. With an earthy chuckle, she lifted her upper body, giving him a perfect view of her breasts. She had abundant curves, though a small waist. He loved shaping her curves with his hands, something he was delighted to do now. He cupped the soft, warm flesh and leaned up to kiss and caress. Those nipples should be hard, not soft as velvet, although they began to peak as soon as she’d awoken.

  “Pretty,” he murmured. Laughing, she sat up, straddling him. He followed her with his hands and cupped them, pushing them into pert plumpness. “Do you plan to ride me, then?” he asked.