by Holley Trent
“I was skeptical. Do you remember that?” His fingertip barely grazed down the seam of her. He was exploring, parting, looking, and already, her toes were curling into the carpet and legs trembling.
“What?” Her voice was a husky rasp.
“I didn’t think you could handle me, but you did.”
Tightening her grip of his hair, she pulled some air through her teeth. “I seem to recall something of a challenge. You assumed I wasn’t used to big men.”
Had he the ability to make the noise, he would have growled at her impertinence. Instead, he slid his finger into her entryway and stilled the tip there, watching her belly and thighs spasm from her effort at stillness.
“I didn’t want to hear about your big men.”
“You made an assumption. I corrected you. You can’t get pouty. I simply gave you what you wanted.”
“Be quiet, woman.”
“No.”
“I think you will be.”
He withdrew his fingertip and added a second. He pushed them both in deeply enough to make her gasp.
In case she’d forgotten about the talent he held in his thumbs, he reminded her with a brush across her clit.
She let go of his hair, then, gripping the air instead, her fingers likely cramping. She clenched her teeth, but she didn’t back away. “Damn.”
“Hmm?”
He’d said that he didn’t want to hear. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t dwell on it, but he couldn’t help but wonder who she’d found her pleasure with in the past centuries. Had they given her what she needed? Did they know her cues? Did they fear her fierceness and back down at the exact times they should have been giving more?
Again, he withdrew his hand. He slipped his fingers between his lips as he stood, and sucked them as he worked the fly of his jeans down.
She made some sound that seemed to be half sigh and half gasp—a quick in and out that suggested both surprise and resignation.
Keeping his pants about his waist, he freed himself, and her gaze followed hungrily. Her mouth had been on him countless times, but he didn’t want her mouth—not right then. Taking her hand, he pulled her forward. She left the panties behind, but that was just as well. He needed her legs around him.
He scooped her up by the bottom and settled the head of his cock against her entrance.
The black of her pupils flooded her irises and made her usually pale eyes appear stormy.
“Is that fear I see, elf?”
Her thighs tightened against his ribs, and she blinked like an innocent doe.
She most certainly wasn’t that.
“Maybe it’s been a while.”
“We have something in common, then. How many hundreds of years has it been since you’ve fucked someone?”
Her eyelids drifted downward and her air came out in a long gust. “You’re unkind. Do you know that?” She clenched against him, warm, wet, tight, and he ached to be inside her, plunging as far as he could go.
“I never insinuated that I was kind, only that I could be good when I wanted to be.” He ground her against his hardness, enveloping the head of his cock in her folds, needing to claim back what had been his.
“Do you want to be?” she whispered.
“No.”
“Good.” Her arms, slung over his shoulders, were shaking. She wasn’t that weak and, besides, he was holding the vast majority of her weight in his forearms. She crept down his torso, pulling the tip of him within her.
Fuck.
He widened his stance. He’d forgotten what heaven felt like, but thought Noelle’s body might have been a close second. Gripping her hips, he guided her down onto him, hardly able to wait to give her body time to adjust. He was so needy, but she was fragile compared to him.
She pressed her knees against his ribs and jammed her eyes shut, pausing halfway down his length. She could go a little more, though, with some effort.
“There’s nothing reasonable about me. Never forget that.” He dipped his head and found the tender arc between her shoulder and neck and nipped.
She’d liked that once—being scored by his teeth—and apparently she still did. She melted in his arms.
“Do some work, Noelle.” He raised her by her bottom, teeth grinding at the pleasurable squeeze of her muscles as he slid her up.
She wasn’t helping.
He wasn’t sure if she really wanted to, or needed to, to get her pleasure, but he needed her to take some control. He was keeping his passion at a low simmer, but there was only so slow he could go and not turn into that frustrated, wild creature who’d be all about speed and depth. Although he’d been thinking about doing so on and off for centuries, he didn’t want to fuck in a frenzy. He spent too much of his life in frenzies of other sorts.
“Ride me, Noelle.”
Sighing, she laid her cheek against his chest and whispered, “I am.”
“No you’re not.” He nuzzled her hair with his face and swiveled his hips, trying to make more room inside her. She was clenching, perhaps, but too tight for speed. He’d wanted a little more. He wanted her breasts bouncing against him as she rode. He wanted sweating and swearing and desperation.
“Do you require incentive?” He slipped his fingers beneath her and traced slowly up her other cleft.
That made her jolt upright. “I will squander the bit of magic I have left and try to end you.”
He clucked his tongue.
“No. We’ve discussed this.”
“I believe what you said at the time was that it’d be a cold day in hell before you let me have you there. I’ll have you know that hell can get plenty cold. Hell is in the mind.”
He drummed the tip of his middle finger against the pucker and grinned.
She moved violently against him, swearing in Gaelic about sadists and sociopaths. He imagined she was referring to him, and he wasn’t so sure she was wrong.
Again, he clucked his tongue.
“Talking about yourself, sweetheart?” he teased. “I’m the one who’s been unceasingly punished.”
She dug her nails into his back and rode him up and down, grinding her teeth.
He gave her ass a slap. “Faster.”
“You—” She growled, but did what he’d asked. She set her knees in deep atop the shelves his hips made and bounced faster, harder—dropping herself down low on him and squeezing him for all he was worth.
He could do a little work. Had to. He needed completion like he needed a deep breath. Being inside her body was a far cry better than taking himself in hand, and he hadn’t done much of that in the past several centuries, either. There was always the risk that he’d want more, and he hadn’t wanted to succumb.
“Is it as good as you remember, Noelle? Good enough to keep you atop me, licking me, kissing me, touching me, for hours on end?” He thrust upward, and she stilled momentarily, moaning wantonly before continuing her ride.
“Good enough to make your eyes cross and your thighs cramp?”
“Shut up.” She’d always been a creative sort. She couldn’t silence him when he was touching her the way he was, but she could distract him, and she did with her lips and tongue against his mouth. Pushing herself up higher to reach his face, she thrust her searching muscle into his mouth and tamed his, even as he tamed her down below.
She may have stopped riding, but he continued to thrust.
So good. So perfect.
“I missed you …” she whispered. “You don’t know how much I missed you.”
She settled back into her rhythm in earnest, laying her head against his shoulder and riding hard and fast.
He had no quip for her. No snarky retort about whom she had or hadn’t been sharing her body with, because he didn’t have the mental energy to spare.
He put his head back, closed his eyes, and widened his stance a bit more.
Using his hands, still clenching her bottom, he lifted her and let her fall, and again. He was hard steel and she was satin. Together, a sword e
nsconced in silk. He was unforgiving where she was so bending.
So soft. He didn’t remember her being so soft.
“Fuck.”
He wanted her lips again, but couldn’t reach. She’d made him forget how soft she was, or maybe he hadn’t wanted to remember, because then, she would have been too easy to pity. He hadn’t wanted to pity her. He’d wanted his anger. It’d nourished him just as much as every kill he’d made and every meal he’d consumed.
“I’m not going to … You won’t …” She sighed, and then stilled against him, whispering some self-disparaging comment she didn’t deserve. Her self-control may have been shot, but his was nearly non-existent.
He worked her up and down himself, using her for his pleasure since she’d had hers, pulling her up so he could gnaw at her lips, her jaw, her stubborn chin.
He made her breaths his rhythm, thrusting along with each rasp, each gasp, each small sigh.
And when she tightened around him again, shouting out her release, he stilled. Then he shuddered, anticipating the pain of unused things being pressed to service after hundreds of years.
He wasn’t wrong that it’d hurt. Pinpricks of lightning in his loins became searing stabs of the cruelest angel-forged blades.
You want this? it taunted, and had he been a sensible angel, the answer should have been no.
But he hungered, and his feast was in his arms, offering him generous fulfillment. So he gritted his teeth against the pain and braced his legs, breathing it out. Letting Noelle’s scent be his balm, her touch be his rescue.
And then it abated. His will was strong and he savored his reward as it coursed through him. Coiling around his insides. A sensual tightening that took his breath and made his skin prickle with heightened sensitivity.
And her lips, whispering encouragement in Gaelic against his cheek, were too much. The words, so intimate and personal, did as much for him as being inside her did. He’d never thought he’d experience heaven again, but she was as close as he’d ever get.
“Noelle …”
No words. Just a nod and a tightening of her legs around him. Then the pressing of her sweaty face against his neck.
She was real, and she was his, and he wasn’t going to let go of her again.
Half a thrust and his body could endure no more. He needed relief, and it came with tender kisses on his mouth and chin. It came with the curling of her fingers into his back, and her murmuring his name as if the sounds were a spell she could find peace with.
He didn’t know about peace, but he was sated.
He stood there, encircling his arms around her even tighter, being inside her.
She said nothing. Just breathed.
He did the same for a while, needing to get his grips, but then he carried her to the bed and set her on her side.
The night was young, but she owed him some flesh—some touches.
She scooted up to the headboard, staring as he undid the buttons of his shirt and pulled the garment off over his head and wings.
She watched him doff his pants and underwear.
She widened her eyes as he climbed onto the bed and reached for her.
Slowly, she crawled to him. Wary, unlike way back when.
Still afraid he’d hurt her, probably.
He wouldn’t. Couldn’t, really. She’d said she’d missed him, but he was pretty sure he’d Fallen in anticipation of a woman like her.
He leaned against the headboard and opened his arms for her.
She crawled into his embrace and settled between his legs.
He pulled the covers up over her and locked his arm around her, pondering as the fingers of his free hand traced the outline of her leg.
Passions aside, Noelle was what normal felt like. She gave him a sense of duty and a reason for routine.
She hadn’t clipped his wings, but she had grounded him in a way, and he wanted to badly to do the same thing to her. It was time for the elf to make some roots.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The last time Noelle had been wakened periodically throughout the night had been when she and Jenny had lived in New Orleans and rented a flood-prone house. They’d taken turns sleeping so they could watch the water levels, never believing what the forecast said.
Tamatsu wasn’t a weather event, but he was just as unpredictable.
The room was lighter than the last time she’d opened her eyes. Dawn had come, and so had she, more times than she could count.
He slipped into her again from behind and worked his hand over her mound as he slowly thrust.
“Mmm, I guess I’m not going to be able to get anything done at all today.”
“If you have appointments, you should cancel them.”
“No appointments today. No closings, no meetings—” She paused to grip the sheets, and her body tensed into a semi-rigid state.
He always seemed to find her spot sooner rather than later, and also seemed to take great joy in tapping it. He chuckled at her whimpers, and at her inability to do anything of use while he was inside her.
Breathing was a chore—for entirely different reasons than she’d become accustomed in the past eight hundred years—but she managed somehow.
“I don’t intend on doing any showings today, no matter how many needling calls I get.”
“You’ll sleep the day away?”
“Sleep, and …” Mmm. “Other things.”
“I may have to step out for a bit to handle some business, but I’ll try not to leave you pining for too long.”
“Cocky bastard.”
Her phone, wherever it was, chirped a calendar alert.
She wondered what she could have possibly forgotten, and then, remembering, she slapped the mattress. “Fuck.”
“That’s the idea.” He rolled onto his back, drawing a yelp from her at the change in position. The angle—her sitting backward on him—made her feel full, and a bit too exposed.
She fixed her legs beside him and pressed her hands to his thighs.
“I hate this position.”
“And I love the view.” He squeezed the cheeks of her ass, and she got moving before he got any other ideas about things to do with her rear end.
The phone chirped again.
“Gods, that’s distracting.”
“Mind over matter.” He grabbed her haunches and stirred himself inside her.
She made a noise that was neither groan or growl, but some combination of the two. Already, blood began to pool low down and her skin prickled from excitement.
“I need you.”
“Mm-hmm.” She’d guessed that from how rigid he was inside her. “You brought this on yourself. You didn’t have to start this.”
“You’d have me stop now?” He lifted her a bit to illustrate his question, and in response, she clamped him hard inside her. She loved that feeling of too much—loved feeling like she wasn’t just going to come, but to be launched.
His body shook with quiet laughter.
“Don’t mock me. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the person in control here.”
“Are you?”
“Who’s on top?” She closed her eyes, set her teeth into her bottom lip, and tried to block out the niggling tug in the back of her mind that she’d left something undone.
She’d do it, eventually. She just needed to finish doing Tamatsu first.
Another chime.
“Nope,” she whispered. She slowly rolled her hips and reveled in the brazen pleasure of being stretched tight and plundered, and at being watched.
She could feel his gaze on her backside and her hips as they worked, and that spurred her on. She hadn’t learned many new tricks since the last time they’d been together, but the old ones had always served her fine.
She jammed her hand between his thighs and took his balls into her hand.
“You—”
“Now, now,” she said, chuckling. She dragged her thumb ever-so-gently across the satiny pouch and rolled the underside atop her fing
ertips.
She felt powerful watching his thighs clench and his heavy sac tightening in her hand. “I do enjoy how very male you are.”
“I seem to recall you were complaining about the same thing three hours ago.”
“It’s nearly winter.” Slowly, she increased her speed and drilled her teeth into her lower lip. Just a few more taps, a few more strokes. Lovemaking with him was a tightrope between pleasure and pain, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. The stings always gave way to the most delicious relief. “My … My endurance this time of year tends to flag at certain times of the day.”
“So I should try to fuck you only during the day instead?”
“I work days. I—” She unhanded his sac and found something safe to squeeze—the covers—as her body convulsed and sex thrummed around him.
“No worries.” He got in a few more thrusts, gripping her hips tightly, breathing loud and rhythmless. “I’ll find times and places to suit me.”
“What about me?”
“I don’t think you’ll complain.”
His fingers notched into her ass as his vital warmth flooded inside her again.
She sagged atop his legs, feeling boneless and sated—feeling like she could happily burrow against his body and not open her eyes again until March. “I could spend the day inhaling your scent and nuzzling your wings.”
His fingertips skimmed up her spine and then down to her ass yet again. Gripping a cheek, he projected, “I could be convinced.”
“I don’t imagine that would take much work.” She wiggled against his hands.
Her phone chimed again.
“Shit.” At the press of his calloused hand against the base of her spine, she shuddered.
“What is the alert for?”
“Ugh. I’d forgotten that Jenny sent an appointment notification over last night. She coordinated a meeting with Blue and me. I’m supposed to feel him out again and decide if he’s trustworthy enough to be introduced to Willa.”
“Where is the meeting supposed to take place?”
“Henderson Executive Airport. He’s got a private plane and is always on the go. I’ll have to decide whether or not he’ll be checking out Maria tonight.”