Becoming Red (The Becoming Novels)

by Black, Paula

  Connal was fiery gold, tawny skin set over the ripped, sculpted perfection of muscles thick and corded with power. The injuries she hadn’t seen, those criss-crossed his thighs and gouged deep, but she didn’t fancy she could see bone any more. He looked almost normal, if normal was six-feet-seven, growly, muscle-packed deliciousness. Ash’s eyes dipped and flew over the bared planes of his body, locked, and skipped away ... and locked some more on the part of him she’d felt and desperately wanted to feel again. Beautiful came to mind, the kind of predator beautiful, stunning, and immensely overwhelming. There would be no breathing for her for a while.

  She was still lost in a shell-shocked daze, her nerves liquid and flowing molten to her centre, when she realised he was talking, or had said something. His rumbling tone set off a whole new set of sparks that skipped her arousal to blinding awareness. But, focus, dammit. He was ... dismissing her? The notion couldn’t have been more powerful if he’d flicked his hand at her and commanded she leave. Ash controlled the small catch in her throat that signalled tears, weariness an exhale leaving her lungs, her own acceptance forced around the need that was brimming to overflowing.

  ‘Oh, right, yes ... Of course ...’ So formal. She backed up, gaze refusing to leave the sight that was him sprawled out in a tub full of very see-through water. Ash cut the connection, severed the line of vision and took the steps he asked of her to leave. Her hand was on the draped fabric sealing them off when words unsaid shimmered on her tongue were swallowed again and again, but they choked up, raw and hungry. ‘I ... fuck, I want you, Big Bad. I want you so fucking much it scares me ...’

  The reaction was lightning fast, his head whipped around in her direction, eyes at half-mast, dark as storm clouds, pinning her in a look that was deep-penetrating and resonated with feral desire. His arm fell out from the lip of the bath, palm up, beckoning, and his voice was gravelled and raw. ‘Come back here, Little Red.’

  She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of his body shifting in the water and got stuck like that. If he had been an invitation inches away from her lips before, now, he was the god of invitations. That large hand, that had caressed her body as they danced, was open to her, eyes that shone like steel now burnished with desire, molten metal in a caging gaze. No breathing, and no denial. Ash hesitated only a second longer to gather strength into weak knees, before she pivoted slowly, gave herself over to the arousal purring at her to yield to her hungers ... and obeyed.

  That strong hand hooked around her forearm, reeling her in. His grip tightened as their gazes locked. ‘Don’t be afraid, Little Red,’ he growled up at her from beneath hooded, lust-darkened eyes.

  ‘I’m not afraid, Big Bad.’ Shaking, burning up and nervous, but not afraid. His fingers were so gentle, but there was no time for resistance. Lured into the steaming bubble around the bath, her skin shivered electric under his touch as she stepped closer. Ash took a breath and it trembled out on an exhale, her eyes never leaving his, falling into his scorching metallic gaze like he was the flame and she was the moth, wings getting burned. At a touch. At the tension. It was too much and if someone had poured ice on her then, it wouldn’t have made it past the flames in her desire. She wanted his hands everywhere, the rough pads of his fingertips stroking up her arm, drawing her in, closer, closer, until she could seat herself on the lip of the bath, at the perfect vantage point to stare. A lot. There wasn’t much of Connal you couldn’t see through the water.

  Ash swallowed, lifted her eyes from her low-lashed peeking and got lost. So lost that when his fingers tightened she barely noticed it.

  And then she was sputtering for air, free-falling into a hot wave of water and a not so soft landing. Gracelessly, she was sprawled, submerged and left gasping laughter that bordered on a hysterical shock. She reined it in, if hysterics kicked in she’d be a goner.

  Ohhhhh ... Muscle, deliciously wet, gloriously warm male. For the second time since their meeting, she was sat on Connal.

  The sloshing wriggle of her drenched curves rode his naked body as she struggled to right herself in the confined limits of the high-walled bath. Arms bracing the lip of the tub, her knees planted the only place they could, either side of his hips, seating her down hard. A growl of pleasure breached his lips. Her hair hung in a sodden curtain that grazed his shoulders, closing their laughter into a very intimate space. The steamy air was infused with the drugging scent of that intimacy and it only fuelled his need. Neck arching up to speak against the soft silk of her mouth, he all but purred. ‘Did I get you wet, Ash?’

  Infuriating male. She couldn’t seem to draw a full breath against his lips, he was pressed up too close to her and hitched purrs were the answer to his every movement. He shifted and she felt it, heat between her thighs, water lapping her skin, muscle rolling as her hands found more secure purchase on his shoulders. The bastard had pulled her in!! Fist balled up, it struck his chest as laughter shook through her. ‘Yes, you got me fucking wet, Connal.’ Her tongue flickered out to gloss at her lips, her teeth tugging at her lower one, voice dropping to a whisper. ‘You tend to have that effect on me.’

  Not knowing where to focus his hunger, his eyes feasted first on the outline of her curves, highlighted in perfect detail by the thin fabric of her clinging dress, plastered wetly to the flush of her skin. Lifting his eyes, he tracked the glistening sweep of her tongue, parting lush lips, envying the even, white teeth that sank into her flesh where he would bite. ‘You look beautiful fucking wet.’ Closing the breath of distance that separated them, he claimed her mouth, tender at first, a reverent brush of velvet skin, tasting her lips. The pliant crush had him swallowing back a snarl that ran bolts of raw lust through his aching body. Harder then, rougher, her mouth demanded more of him and he let himself drown in the sensation, sinking down beyond the depths of his control. Rasping drags of wet stubble abraded her cheeks as he ravaged her with starved kisses. His body surged beneath her, a fluid undulation seeking to weld them impossibly closer as his hands grasped blindly at the puddle of wet fabric barring him from her skin. Fistfuls dragged up her body, peeling away the sodden sheath. Hands rode the sensitive skin over her ribs, low moans escaping the lock of their mouths as he grazed the underside of her breasts.

  He was consuming her. Devouring her mouth as she fell into the wonderland of his kiss, tender, it felt like a prayer, a reverent communion of tentative stroked velvet deepening into a battle of fire and need. Fused and colliding, he was the breath in her lungs, the blood galloping through her veins, he hammered her heart against her ribs and wound her body to a hypersensitised dance of grinding female lust. His kiss was heaven and she was floating, grounded only by the slip of sodden fabric against her skin, callused fingers grazing the softness of her body, baring flesh he’d never seen as he peeled her dress higher. ‘Connal ...’ She meant to break then, to breathe and ... what? Stop him? No way. She wanted to help, but her lips crushed back to his and her hands raked down his chest in a claw of nails, a show of frustration that circled her hips in his lap and arched into the wet brush of his fingers. Too many clothes, she was still wearing too many clothes. A growl tore her from his lips, a whimpering, severed connection as her hands gathered the drenched fabric caught above her breasts and pulled, shedding the plastered-on dress to a wet-squishing, puddling heap on the tiles.

  The break in contact as she wrenched the dress over her head was but a momentary absence, and yet the fever pounding his veins left his breathing ragged. His head fell back against the copper wall of the bath as he ate her up with the wanton lust burning in his eyes. Her smile was shy, teeth hooking into her lower lip, but the look in her eyes was brazen. Bracing up on her knees, her hands reached back to unhook the clasp of the black satin bra encasing her full breasts. His heart stalled, his throat went dry with the fire of his hunger as one by one, she slipped the delicate straps off her creamy shoulders, baring herself to him. ‘Ash ...’ She was exquisite, lusciously curvaceous, perfectly pale skin. The chill air and the heat of his
eyes on her rose goosebumps and tightened her nipples to dusky peaks. The drive to possess her was a feral thing inside of him, a primal drum, beating out the pulse of his arousal. ‘Fuck Ash.’ His palms rode the curve of her waist until the heavy swells of her breasts spilled over in his hands. Wet callused thumbs grazed the dark flesh encircling her nipples and he moaned low in his throat as they rewarded his touch, hardening to tight pebbles. His tongue slaked over dry lips that ached to close over that sensitive flesh, to suck and bite until she whimpered for him.

  One barrier left. She was bare to him from the waist up and he hadn’t done anything but stare at her with eyes that spoke of ravaging lusts. Her cheeks were flaming, desire and the heat of shy self-consciousness warring through the sparks of electric liquefying her arousal until she wasn’t sure if it was the water slicking delicate flesh, or her own, drenching need. He had to feel it, the fire concentrated at her centre, an inferno that blazed with each pass of his hands over her skin, shaping her in strong fingers and large palms. Her spine was bowed and her muscles quivered. His palms owned her flesh, possessed the tight peaks of her nipples, grazing friction brushing at the taut tips and dragging rough whimpers from her throat, feverish and harsh, begging more as she arched into his hands. Ash purred, craving him, fingers diving into his hair and urging him back to her mouth. ‘Touch me more, please, Connal,’ she had him, she needed him and if he didn’t touch her ...

  The answering growl that ripped through the air was bestial. His teeth latched onto her lower lip, fingers clawed down her spine to the dimples that demarcated the peachy-smooth rounds of her ass, dipping beneath the waistband of her soaked panties, palming generous handfuls of that soft, toned flesh. Powerful arms flexed, riding her higher up his body in a wave that lapped sensual heat to chilled skin, until the water-slick barrier of translucent satin was all that separated them, a wet frictioning grind of maddening frustration that tightened the screw on his lust to a delirious fever of tension.

  ‘Yes ...’ It was a symphony of breathy moans and low growls that rumbled through the water as she rode the needy surges of his body, mounted on the throne of his hips and grinding her passion along the iron ridge of flesh nestled in the folds of her sex. Even through drenched satin, his heat seared her swollen arousal, pouring fire to the shaft of his erection as he glided along the liquid seam of her lust. He was exquisite, steely and thick, nudging the barrier of taut wet fabric, kissing up against the hidden bead of her desire until she was mewling with frustration. His hands were everywhere but where she needed them, molding and squeezing the rounds of her ass, guiding the circling kick of her hips, but not touching further, not guiding himself inside her, not filling her up the way she needed. Ash’s fists struck the solid wall of his chest again, unfurling to lock her nails in his skin. Clawing red lines down to his nipples, where she twisted his metal. The sound that left Connal’s mouth was a hissing snarl she remembered well. That first time she’d touched him, fascinated by the glints of silver in his skin, she’d made him animal. The intensity she craved now had Ash tugging as she ground her pleasure to his shaft. ‘Please, Connal, Big Bad, I need you inside me.’ It was a demand if ever she heard one, a bossy growl half whimpered from her throat as sensation swept her head to toe in a race of wildfire.

  He toyed with her, hooking her panties and running rough fingers along the cleft of her sex, dipping in to stroke the delicate flesh that throbbed for more than just a tease. Her heartbeat pounded beneath the circling pads of his fingers, pulsing in the depths of her body, empty and aching for him, and the core of her wept arousal to drown him in something other than water. A fiery, slick lust inviting him in. Fabric slid across her flesh, trapped to one side and exposing aroused satin folds to the lick of water and the inferno of his hot, rock-hard shaft, pressing a brutal grind between her thighs.

  Yanking aside the flimsy silk, his breath hitched as her intimate folds split around the girth of his erection. His hips kicked up, sliding the hard ridge of his cock through the drenched softness of her arousal, guiding him to her tight threshold, where strong arms held her, poised on the brink of penetration. Wrenching himself from her kiss, he sought out her eyes, lashes swept low on the sapphire glaze of her passion. He drew pleasure from what he found there, knowing the ferocity of her need mirrored his own. The tease of penetration held her spellbound, she was caught in his gaze and fixed in a moment she never thought she would get.

  Inch by thick, throbbing inch, he invaded her clenched resistance, watching the erotic moment play across her expressions, velvet sheathing the hard steel of his cock. He played her body slowly, a beautiful instrument that would sing whimpering melodies for him. And she did whimper, right up until the strings of his restraint snapped and a punching thrust splashed up the sides of the tub. His hands clawed her flesh in a bruising grip that slammed her down hard into the seat of his lap in a sloshing slap of skin on wet skin. They both cried out as he kissed her depths, his forehead ground on hers as he wrestled with his control.

  It was a pounding, single-strike collision that bolted him into the soul of her passion. He was ... she had no words, but he was more, more than she remembered, more than she could handle and everything she craved. They were joined in a hard, wet, crashing impact that startled her inner muscles to quivering and bound her hands into his thick, coiling, wet dreads, for purchase, for control, as her hips danced just a little in his grip, testing his strength, asking for movement, for delirious, delicious friction as she blazed up from the inside out. Ragged breaths united them in fierce hungers, and, as her body wound up, thighs tensed, riding her to his tip, his eyes were aflame. He could torture her with his body but if he didn’t move soon, she’d work against his broad-palmed hold on her hips and take him where they needed to go. Everything she’d fought against with him, everything she’d doubted and questioned after their first time, was welling up, corkscrewing her in a tight bind beyond her control, gnawing at chains. It wanted out, wild, visceral desire overflowing in the face of revelation. Her teeth sank into his lower lip, distance closed in a desperate whimper and a rough kiss, a harsh communion that slammed her down his length and seated her solidly in his lap once more, demanding he let go of the leash that restrained his fire. She wanted to burn with him.

  He felt the buck of her hips, wild in his hands, and he released her on a snarl, dragging his flesh through her teeth to fall on her throat with raspy, bitten kisses. His hips thrust up between her thighs, a brutal, pounding rhythm. Water lapped their skin in the wake of every violent thrust, accenting the primal collisions that bruised pleasure into soft flesh.

  Oblivious to his injuries, she enveloped him in the endorphin rush of her scent and her softness. He felt only her, was high on the raw erotisicm of her wanton grinding, riding the thick girth of his cock with wet, dragging resistance that shuddered through the tensed flexion of his muscle and stroked the beast within, coaxing him out to play. His rough palms crushed the weight of her breasts, pinching the tight peaks of her nipples between thumb and forefinger, in time with the splashing beat of his hips to the silky rounds of her ass. His head fell back on the edge of the bath, extended canines biting down into kiss-swollen lips. His eyes were wild with lust, the sounds from the back of his throat primal, growled pleasure, building in intensity with every thrust. 'Come for me, Little Red,' he rasped, 'I want to watch you come apart on my cock.'

  Strumming her to keening pleasure, Connal held the key to her ultimate detonation. She was flying and falling, ridden raw between her thighs, their hips beating out a primitive rhythm, cresting the waves that licked across her flesh with each driving thrust. Fire and water, and they were lost in it, she was lost in him, aflame on the altar of her emotion, consumed by the feral, devouring pace of their lust. Her nails scored his skin, adding passion to the marks of pain in his flesh, jagged, clawing possession clinging to him through the erotic maelstrom tearing her apart with every pistoning punch of his hips. Carnal warfare, that’s what it was, battling dances, f
eline and brutal playing out in a harsh melting of writhing curves and iron, honed muscle, physical and animal expressing a connection she dared not touch upon ... not when they were so raw. Bruises clung to the lines of her desire, printed his name on her hips, tenderised the softness of her ass with resounding, relentlessly owning smacks as she met his thighs and her body arched, violently curved back. ‘Connal ...’ Her palms covered his hands, squeezing him over her breasts, tight strung lines vibrating a quivering tension to the core of her being and reeling her to the edge, holding her over the depths of shuddering bliss ... and dropping her on his command. Ash freefell on a howl that resonated in her soul, her voice a new emotion as she was scattered to the winds, torn into splintered fragments of ecstatic completion. Her heart stammered as her body seized and her core went into contracting meltdown, liquid lust balming the ruthless driving girth of his cock, bathing him in the kiss of her soul as she fell apart around him.

  And just when the tight-sheathing friction of her molten embrace seemed unbearable, he felt her inner muscles clamp down, an excruciatingly beautiful fist of pulsing ecstasy around his shaft. Her body began to shatter in his arms, water surging over the lip of the bath, flooding tile just as his own climax overflowed, spilling deep inside of her in hot, pulsing waves, tensing every muscle in his body to rigid, pumping steel. Flushed and wet, she was a Goddess mounted at his hips, dancing the seven veils, gifting him the shuddering surrender his body demanded. Hips jerking beneath the water, his hands flew out to brace her hips, steadying her, locking her down on the physical force of his release as it pounded through him, a torrent of furious emotion crashing over him, drowning them both in the beautiful, howling agony of erotic death.