by Aubrey Ross
He eased her leg down from his shoulder and she groaned. Why was he tormenting her?
“Offer me your clit and I’ll pay homage to it.”
He had the oddest way of putting things. She hesitated, feeling self-conscious. Her body throbbed impatiently. Closing her eyes and averting her face, she reached down and parted the way for him.
He only touched her with the tip of his tongue and occasionally brushed her with his hair. Her legs pressed against the edge of the bed as his tongue circled her clit, then flicked across it. Cool and soothing, yet undeniably arousing, the sensations were incredible.
He slowed, making each pass a distinct caress. Her core throbbed hungrily. What would it feel like to have his thick shaft sliding in and out of her, stretching her to the point of pain? Another titillating circle and she shattered, unable to hold off the forceful climax a moment longer.
She sank to the bed and he helped her lie back, draped both legs over his shoulders. His mouth settled over her drenched folds and the rest of the world fell away. He was bold and demanding, licking and sucking, thrusting into her like he would with his cock.
She twisted her fingers in the bedspread. He tipped her hips up, pushing his tongue deeper. In. Out.
“Promise you won’t scream.”
“I promise.”
He thrust in with his tongue and Cayenne panicked. She’d given the promise too quickly! His tongue was ice cold! And that strange, swirling tingle he’d sent into her breast coated the walls of her cunt.
Oh God! This couldn’t be right.
He thrust again, deeper, colder. She shivered. Clawing at the bed, she arched. The hard, rhythmic waves went on and on. She wasn’t sure where one ended and the next began, or if he had somehow triggered one incredibly long orgasm.
Colors danced before her eyes. She laughed. They looked like rainbow-colored snowflakes. She was hallucinating! This had never happened before.
She felt him shift positions and looked down in time to see him guide his cock to her entrance. Lethargic and jumbled from her marathon release, she didn’t think to object or question. He carefully lubricated himself with her juices and held her wide open while he pushed inside.
Closing her eyes, she concentrated entirely on the feeling of his cock moving into her, filling her, stretching her. It pinched. It stung. She tried to relax, to accept him.
“Hold your legs open, rijnna mi.” He guided her hands to the bend of her knees and showed her what he meant. This freed his hands and he immediately put them to use, stroking her breasts, belly, and thighs.
He gently traced where their bodies joined, moving her juices up to her clit, stroking her tenderly. His shaft created uncomfortable pressure inside her. She held perfectly still, clasping the bend of her knees, wondering how she’d bear it once he started thrusting.
His other hand slipped beneath her and she nearly let go of her legs. What was he doing? He burrowed between the cheeks of her ass and found her tight little hole.
“I’m not into that at all!” she objected vehemently, but his finger was cold, so she knew it was already too late. “Malik, I think dealing with your… This is really…”
Her protests trailed away into a strangled moan as his finger gently breached her virgin orifice. Icy sensations swirled up her anal passage, while heat flooded her cunt. Cayenne cried out. She drenched his cock with cream. She could feel it seeping out and running into the crack where his fingers played.
“Thank you,” he said with a playful smile.
He pulled back slowly, his cock sliding easily now.
She was on fire!
No, she was freezing!
Her cunt burned, boiled while his thick shaft moved carefully in and out. But his clever finger was still in her ass, sending occasional pulses of chilly sensation spiraling through her entire body.
She lifted her hips, pulling her legs wide. He moved faster, deeper, more forcefully.
“I… can’t… wait,” he grated out between thrusts.
He gently removed his finger and grasped her hips with both hands, increasing the impact of each penetration. She tightened around him, amazed that it no longer hurt. Driving deeper than he’d ever gone before, he threw back his head and shuddered with the force of his release.
His seed exploded inside her and Cayenne cried out. It was cold! Like his breath and the sensations he created with his fingers, Malik Cendar’s semen was ice cold.
Chapter Two
Knowing his mate was struggling to accept the reality of their bonding, Malik didn’t argue when she retreated into the bathroom a short time later. He heard her activate the shower, so he sent a cleansing pulse along his naked body and conjured pants before descending the stairs to the main level of the house.
Cayenne was not the only one struggling to accept reality. Their dream wooing had been a pale foreshadowing of the feelings his mate aroused in him. Tingling aftershocks of pleasure zinged through his body. Malik smiled. He had never imagined that bonding would affect him so profoundly. He felt content, replete, yet ravenous for more. His smile broadened. The next twenty-four hours would be very interesting.
Light from the kitchen invited him into the cozy little room. Breathing highly concentrated Frost iede into his cupped palms, he formed a translucent ball of ice. He retrieved a specific psychic resonance from the extensive catalog in his memory and saturated the ice with the rhythm. The image of a dark-haired man formed within the ball, fluctuating, wavering as the resonance searched for its source.
Malik gradually intensified the iede until he could see his friend clearly. Jax Severn pushed back from a computer desk and turned to face the empty office behind him.
“Show yourself!”
“It’s me, Jax. I can’t come to you just now, but we need to rendezvous soon.”
“Malik? Malik Cendar? Are you in New Orleans? I can barely hear you.”
“Yes, I’m in New Orleans. Give me your phone number and I’ll contact you through more conventional means in the morning.”
Jax rattled off two sets of numbers. “What’s going on? What brings you to this dimension? I figured you for the Steering Committee. Why are you slumming with the Keepers?”
“Long story.”
“Well, meet me at Café Du Monde in the morning and I’ll buy the beignets.”
Malik chuckled. “Will Cayenne know what that means?”
“Who is Cayenne? What’s going on?”
Malik heard the bathroom door open. “What is an appropriate time?” he asked in an urgent whisper.
“How about nine.”
“We’ll see you at nine.”
Quickly disintegrating the ice ball, he brushed his hands off on his pants and conjured a shirt. Why was he bothering to dress when he had every intention of reveling in Pim Noctar, of indulging every carnal instinct his mate would allow? He listened to the subtle creaking of the floorboards as she moved about upstairs. Should he wait for her to come down? Or go up after her?
* * *
Cayenne shrugged into her kimono-style robe and sighed as the cool silk settled against her damp skin. Her pulse pounded. She had to concentrate just to keep her breathing deep and slow.
She’d analyzed the bizarre situation under the soothing current of the shower. There was no way she was dreaming and she didn’t think she’d gone crazy. Malik was real. And he was affecting her -- stimulating her.
He was in the kitchen, waiting for her. Cayenne closed her eyes. The bond between them was growing stronger. If she could sense him, could he sense her? Probably.
She needed answers.
She needed his throbbing cock moving inside her again!
This was ridiculous. She would not be a slave to her sex drive.
Opening her eyes, she tightened the belt on her robe and headed downstairs.
Cayenne paused in the archway separating the kitchen from the dining room and stared at Malik. She’d never seen him in the light. Or fully dressed.
Though s
leekly muscled and graceful, he emanated danger. She glanced into his smoke-colored eyes and heat infused her face, her neck, her chest, continuing its persistent descent until it pooled between her thighs. His gaze followed the path of the heat as if he could actually see it.
Short blond hair, slightly longer on top, faded from rich antique gold near his scalp to silver at the tip of each subtle spike. Though interesting, the look was about twenty years out of date. His clothing, however, was the height of subtle chic. Collarless charcoal gray shirt and pleated dress slacks two shades darker.
“Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me. Don’t breathe on me,” she stressed emphatically. “Just sit down at the table and tell me what the hell is going on.”
He ambled to the table and pulled out a chair. Instead of sitting, he turned it around and straddled it, folding his arms across the back. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you understand.”
“Did you give me some sort of drug?”
“What is happening between us is stronger than any drug. I was half-crazed when they brought me through the Veil. If I hadn’t been able to find you --”
“Do you do that intentionally?”
“Do what?”
Cayenne shifted, leaning her shoulder against the archway. “Use phrases I don’t understand. When they brought you through the veil? What is that supposed to mean?”
Light gleamed off the silver tips of his spiky hair as he shook his head. “You really have no idea who you are? How is that possible? Where are your parents? They should have been here to bless our bonding. This doesn’t reflect well on the Order of Flame.”
“Bless our bonding? The Order of Flame? Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”
“Why are your parents not here?”
“My parents died when I was a child.” She glared at him and walked fully into the kitchen.
Malik’s gaze followed her, but he said nothing for a long time. “That doesn’t make sense. They were bonded Keepers. How did they die?”
“Their car was sandwiched between a tree and an SUV. No one survived the accident.”
“No automobile accident can kill our kind.”
“Our kind? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Did you see their bodies?”
“I was ten!”
He glanced away, pausing for a moment before he returned his gaze to her face. “Who cared for you after their passing?”
“A friend of my parents. She was designated as my guardian in their will. Look, I learned to deal with their deaths a long time ago. Why is this important now?”
More head shaking. She wanted to smack him.
“It’s all wrong.” He carelessly raked his fingers through his hair. “What you were told about your parents couldn’t possibly be true.”
“What the hell do you know about it? You don’t even know me!” Her anxious steps took her quickly from one end of the kitchen to the other and back again.
“I know you, Cayenne. Apparently, better than you know yourself.”
Where had he come from?
How had he infiltrated her dreams?
The heat within her body was building again, making her long for his -- cold!
“What is a bonded Keeper?” she asked, desperate for something to distract her from the desire making her pussy throb.
“That’s a very complex question.”
She could almost feel his lips parting her folds, his tongue circling her aching clit, blissfully cold. What he’d done with his finger! Even his cum was cold. “Are -- what are you?”
“The question should be what are we?” Malik rested his chin on his forearm and smiled. “We are the same, you and I. The same and yet opposite. We are indigenous to another dimension.”
“You’re from another dimension?”
“We are from another dimension.”
He pulled out the chair beside him and patted the seat. Her gaze never left his as she joined him at the table. “You think my parents were murdered?”
“Did you sense anything the day of the accident? Hereditary connections are very strong among our kind.”
There was that phrase again. Our kind. One issue at a time. “The day my parents died…” Her mouth dried up, robbing her of the rest of the words.
His warm fingers closed around hers, squeezing gently. “Go on.”
“I saw the accident in my mind.” Blood rushed so loudly in her ears she could hardly hear her own words. “I started screaming. My teacher thought I’d lost my mind. It took the school three hours to verify what I told them, but I’d described everything perfectly. Except… they were already dead when they hit the tree.”
The brush of his fingers against her cheek drew her back from the past. “I’m sorry, rijnna mi. I would take away your pain if it were within my power, but only a Past Keeper can erase memories.”
“Past Keeper. Is that different than bonded Keeper? You have to start explaining what all this means.”
“Let’s go outside.”
“Is the garden all right or should I get dressed?”
He flashed his sexy smile and heat rolled through her belly. “I have no interest in going anywhere that requires your getting dressed.”
Unlike the famous courtyards in the French Quarter, which were encircled by the walls of the house, Cayenne’s garden was out back. The high brick walls had been added many years after the original construction. Despite the historical inaccuracy of her domicile, she enjoyed the tranquility.
He held the screen door for her as she stepped out onto the back porch. Hot, humid air wrapped around her and she groaned. How had people survived before air conditioning?
“Do you want something to drink? I’m not being a very good hostess.”
“I have no complaints.”
Thank God for the darkness. She was sure her entire body was blushing. She still couldn’t believe she’d allowed him to… do everything they’d done together.
“I suppose I should warn you.” He spoke in a deep, rumbling tone. “When you get excited, I can smell it and it makes me wild for more of what we did upstairs. So if you really want to talk, try not to think about it.”
Mortified, Cayenne inhaled deeply. She didn’t smell anything.
“Relax. Only your mate can smell it. It’s a private signal telling me you want to fuck.”
“We… have sex once and that makes you my mate?”
“Being your mate gives me the right to fuck you, not the other way around.” Malik wrapped his arm around her, cupping her ass through her silk robe. “Do you want to talk or do you want me inside you?”
She twisted out of his hold and rushed down the stairs into the shadowy garden. Was he being a jerk on purpose? Helping her focus on an emotion other than lust?
No. She gave her belt a firm tug. He was an arrogant ass.
Plopping down in one of the padded lawn chairs, she watched him meander around the garden. He looked damn good in moonlight. She suddenly pictured him peeling off his shirt and…
He glanced at her and grinned.
“What is a Keeper?”
“Our dimension is split into two divisions with opposing purposes. Each division has separate Units. Within the Units are Orders. The Orders are devoted to specific abilities or skill sets. Both our Orders fall under the Unit of Energy. There is also Information and Spirituality.”
“Wait. You’re making this sound like a massive corporation.”
“I guess that analogy is as true as any. I’ve heard our dimension likened to a military organization, a professional sports franchise, and a religion. The truth is we are all of those and yet we are none.” He sat across from her, his features partially obscured by the shadows. “We are guardians. We are teachers. We listen, we observe. Do we influence the countless civilizations in which we interact or are we influenced by them? Who can say?”
“Within the Energy Unit you are a…” she prompted.
“Frost Keeper.”
She shi
vered violently, remembering all of the sensations he had created with cold. “I should have known. Am I a Frost Keeper, too?”
“No, you’re my equal and opposite. My mate. You’re a Flame Keeper.”
Fragments of memory flashed through her mind. The scorching heat in the shower. Countless incidents she’d dismissed as imagination. Spicy food. Too much wine. “What you do with cold I can do with heat?”
He laughed. “You damn near killed me without even trying. I’m almost afraid to teach you about iede.”
She crossed her legs, firmly pressing her thighs together. Her mind frantically worked to assimilate everything he’d told her, while her body blazed with the need to writhe and wrestle and be impaled by him! “But you will teach me?”
“Not tonight. Tonight is for us. Pim Noctar will only continue until dawn. Each time we join it reinforces our bond, strengthens our connection.”
“But I have so many questions,” she protested.
“Not tonight.”
Chapter Three
“Come here,” Malik said, scooting to the edge of his chair.
“You just told me I’m an alien! Do you honestly think I’ll just shrug it off and spread my legs for you? How did you get here? Do you have a ship or does it have something to do with this veil? Are there others --”
He grabbed her chair and dragged it across the ground until their knees touched. “I will patiently answer your questions as soon as the sun rises. Has the fever left your body? It has not left mine.”
A sly smile parted her lips. “A compromise, then?” Loosening the belt at her waist, she allowed the robe to gape, revealing the upper swell of her breasts. “I’ll work on easing the ache, while you indulge my curiosity.”
Blood and iede filled his cock, hard, cold, ready. He wedged his legs between hers, resting his hands on her knees. “I can think of a lot more interesting things to do with my mouth than talk.”
Her palm touched his shoulder, startling him with its heat. The stubborn little xalotte. She had to be crawling out of her skin with desire. Why was she insisting on conversation?
He paused. If everything he’d believed about life suddenly changed, there would be nothing more important than understanding the truth.