by Cara Lake
Tani tried to step back but he didn’t let go. His lips brushed across her brow as he pulled her back in again. A reluctant caress. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he growled.
“I don’t need to. You’re killing me right now,” she moaned, trying to twist away from him.
As if he could sense her fear—fear that he might attack her, rape her, Tani felt his anger intensify, even as his fingers withdrew to a lighter, gentler grip. “I don’t want to kill you or rape you,” he said harshly. Her own fear increased. It wasn’t that she was scared he would kill her or even rape her. She could combat that. What she couldn’t fight was the strength of feeling that had surged to the surface with the touch of his skin against hers. She knew it was wrong, knew she should fight. But Jaro’s essence surrounded her. She was drowning in him and he was dragging her under.
Oh, but drowning was sweet! Tani couldn’t stop the movement of her hands as they were drawn to his nape, seeking the soft blue-black strands that brushed his neck. Fingers entwining, she curled her hands to fist the silky waves and pulled his head down. Her lips sought his, and as they met, one thought screamed in her ear—this is so wrong. But Gaia have mercy, it feels so right!
Tani couldn’t stop herself. She hated that he made her feel this way but her body had no safety brake, no pause button where he was concerned. She was a train headed for a collision and nothing was going to stop the inevitable wreck.
Jaro’s lips were firm but hesitant. She felt a momentary resistance. Her breathing ragged, Tani’s mouth persuaded his open and their tongues collided. Dueled. She felt his response as her challenge was met. Jaro deepened the kiss, sucking at her lower lip, his breath a hot furnace. Scorching.
Breaking the grip on her arms, his hands traveled down, seeking her hips, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. He forced her closer, hesitancy forgotten. Insistent. Tani’s brain lost all coherence. She didn’t care who he was. Couldn’t care. He was a slave. A criminal. A rapist. But he made her burn! The fire that raged within was so hot she thought she would turn to ash. It was an inferno. As suddenly as it had begun, Jaro’s mouth left hers, leaving a chill of regret. But she wasn’t sorry for long. His lips trailed downward, suckling at her neck, finding the exact same spot he had marked before, his teeth scraping her skin, sending tremors down to her core and fanning the flames of their mutual desire.
He continued to blaze a trail of hot kisses across her throat, his hands coming to rest on the curve of her ass. She expected him to grab and thrust, the heat between them sizzling as it had outside the club. Surprising her, Jaro slowed his movements, stroking her backside gently, his fingers gliding down the back of her thighs, exploring. “You’re driving me crazy, Red!” His voice, a deep rough growl of resonating darkness in her ear. Such a contrast to the gentleness of his touch.
A whisper away from her breast, the vibrations of his voice thrumming with the rhythm of her heart, his mouth explored the taste of her skin. Nipples aching, throbbing with a need so strong, so urgent that she was powerless to stop herself from pressing into him, she moved to force his lips to close over one swollen bud through the fabric of her vest. Then her top was lifted and her naked breast was in his mouth, his tongue teasing her nipple. Her brain fogged as she lost the capacity to move, bones liquidizing, body floating. Jaro’s hands were all over her now, leaving an indelible mark wherever they went.
He was the one who made her burn. And Gaia save her, did she burn! The blood in her veins at boiling point, the heat of it crawling across her skin sensitizing every nerve. His hot lips sparking flame wherever they touched, her skin under his hands threatening to detonate. Jaro inflamed her. Branded her. Ignited her.
He couldn’t stop. He just couldn’t stop. Even as his body adored hers, his mind raged against it. She was the most dangerous thing in existence and he was on a knife edge of a precipice. If he continued this, he would fall and there would be no soft landing. One last thought of resistance flashed in his head and then he was gone, toppling over the edge. Savoring. Devouring. The urge to explore every part of her imprinted on his psyche. Jaro surrendered to the insistent tug of the threads that had woven filaments embedded into every cell. He no longer cared that what he was doing would eventually kill him. She had nearly died! She hadn’t seen how close the lacerti had been to striking.
Slowly his panic subsided as he held her soft flesh in his arms, the reality of it convincing him that she was safe. Then she had all but dragged his mouth to her lips. She had kissed him! All he knew now was that she had stolen his soul. Everything he had was in her possession and he was powerless against her radiance, the sweet taste of her breasts lingering on his tongue as she fused into him. Insistent. Demanding.
Jaro groaned, sliding his hands up the satin soft skin of her back and he sank to his knees before her, bracing her lush curves against the nearest tree. He’d lied when he’d derided her body. He loved her lithe athletic frame that although toned with muscle, still had gentle contours that flared enticingly where her hips met her waist and breasts spilled like ripe peaches in his hands.
She was stroking his hair, keeping his head in contact with her flesh where his lips lingered over her taut belly and forged a path downward to the apex of her thighs. His mouth brushed against the fabric of her shorts as he pulled open a button and his eyes flickered upward, catching her gaze in a silent quest for permission.
Her amethyst eyes held his steadily as she wriggled out of her shorts and pants. He dipped his head, loving the sound of her breath hitching in a gasp of pleasure as he pressed a kiss to the soft red curls and the V of her sex. But still, she didn’t stop him or protest, so he continued to worship her there with more kisses, nudging her thighs apart, his mouth giving in to desire.
The taste of Tani was intoxicating, a drug that addicted him into craving more. He was already a slave to it. Laving the pebble of her clit, he relished her soft cries of pleasure, loving how she writhed against him circling her hips beneath the searching caress of his tongue. Jaro lifted one of her legs over his shoulder, making it easier to taste all of her, one hand reaching up to fondle some more attention on her breasts. Her hands followed his, echoing his motions as she squeezed her other breast and encouraged him to pinch the bud of her nipple.
Tani was dying from pleasure. Wave after wave crashed over her as Jaro stroked her to a climax with his mouth. Just as she was about to go over the edge, he stilled. “We should stop this,” he whispered, his lips pressed against the fleshy mound of her sex, hot breath inflaming her more. She was feverish with need, her sanity gone.
“Don’t you dare stop, Jaro, please!” she begged. “I need more!”
He didn’t deny her. His name on her lips a command. Sliding his fingers along her inner thighs, he pushed into the moist heat between her legs, his mouth finding her sweet spot, he sucked hard. Her body shuddered as she came, clenching tightly around the thrust of the fingers that plunged inside her wet channel. She cried out his name, releasing it into the darkness. Tani fell apart. She was no longer lucid. She was lost in the midst of a silver mercury ocean, drowning in its depths. Jaro. It was Jaro. He was her anchor, her life raft.
He had never seen a more beautiful sight as Tani shattered in front of him. He felt every tremor as she climaxed, watched with satisfaction as her eyes rolled back, heavy lidded, and her lips parted, screaming his name. When her shudders subsided he laid her down on the ground, palming her cheek in his hands. Capturing her lips with his mouth, he gave her a taste of her own sweetness, needing to be inside her in any way he could. “Red, Red,” he murmured, in between kisses. “I need more of you.”
The iron spear of his erection lay hard on her belly, the weight of it evidence of his arousal. Tani could only whimper as he scorched her lips with a kiss that threatened to consume her body and soul. She was helpless. He was impossible to resist. Her tongue sought his, eager for the decadent thrill of his mouth. The urge to explore every part of him an overwhelming force that saw
her responding to his kisses with equal ferocity. They were both lost from that moment, drowning in silver mercury flames, floating on the sea of desire. There could be no going back.
Chapter Twenty
Regret
She had screamed his name. His name. She was lying in his arms, silky crimson hair soft against his shoulder, vibrant red against the bronze of his skin. Her cheek pressed snug into his chest. She was lying in his arms. His arms.
Jaro was in shock. Any moment now she would vanish and he would find himself in Phenex’s palace in the middle of some battle he’d been charged to fight on his master’s behalf. Any. Minute. Now.
Her warmth seared his flesh, her weight proof of her existence. The scent of strawberries, ripe and sweet hung in the air and on his tongue. Summer sunshine in his arms.
Panic set in as he realized that this was reality. What had happened was not a fantasy. She had screamed his name. She had told him she wanted more and he had given it. He hadn’t been able to stop and he had given everything. All of himself. But what had she given him? A fuzzy recollection of something he had been half aware of but not paid attention to. He broke out into a cold sweat, cursing himself for an idiot. He remembered what she’d given.
“Take all of me,” Tani had groaned as Jaro lavished her throat with heated kisses. He nibbled at her ear and watched her tremors, fascinated by her response to his hot breath. She wriggled under him, wet and pliant, her soft hands snaking a path down his back with a gentleness that nearly undid him. He knew she could feel every scar, every shredded ridge gouged by the whip. That she was not disgusted was a miracle. Her fingers carefully explored the story of his life, her touch a soothing caress that healed, not just his back but the lashes on his soul. Her eyes met his. The beauty of her amethyst gaze touching the seething darkness he nurtured inside, stroking the black rage until it sighed in awe at her radiance. Jaro kissed her again. A deep, searching kiss of reverence and wonder.
Tani sighed under him, rocking her hips toward his, meeting the hard evidence of his arousal with soft feminine warmth. Her hand fluttered over the tip of his shaft, the tentative contact causing an immediate response. Searching fingers rubbed the wet moisture from the tip down the length of his erection, then enclosed as much of him as they could, sliding up and down. Every stroke inflaming him more. Then she was guiding him in. “Please, Jaro, come inside.” Her whispered words scoring his heart, leaving an indelible mark for all time.
He felt her heat as he entered. Her fire encircling, sparking his arousal, he pushed deeper. She moaned beneath him, her hips lifting in welcome, he surged in, inflamed by the sound of her passion. She screamed his name, distracting him from a momentary thought that fled into his mind then disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. He was lost then, thrusting in and then out, each driving motion echoed in the rhythm of her reply. Their bodies met, fusing, melding until the final climax that ripped through what was left of his soul, leaving him exposed and naked before her, as she gave and he took something precious that he had no right to own.
Her eyelids fluttered and she expelled a breath. It sounded like contentment. Tani’s hands palmed his cheeks. Her eyes wide with astonishment, she searched his face, her expression washing away years of bitterness and fury. She did something then that surprised him. His redheaded witch pulled him closer, her lips skimming his brow with a gentle kiss, she laid his cheek against her breast and hugged him tight. And then he had slept. A sleep without nightmares for the first time in years. But now he was awake and in the cold light of day, reality had become a nightmare.
Jaro cursed himself for a fool. He remembered what he had taken from her. At first he had believed her a whore. Lorcan’s whore. But that belief had merely been a defense against her. He had soon realized that as a fallacy. What he hadn’t realized was her innocence. She had been a virgin and he’d taken that from her. That she hadn’t stopped him made little difference. What the hell had he been thinking! This whole thing was a mistake. She was still Lorcan’s, even though he didn’t deserve her and no matter how much he felt she should be his. She could never be Jaro’s because of who he was.
Rage. He summoned it from the pit. He needed to call it forth and extinguish these other feelings that were threatening to overwhelm his better judgment. He needed to squash this adoration with his fury. How dare she not tell him? Why would she give him that gift, knowing she would ultimately be with his brother? He recalled the bitterness, the hate, the anger. They were his protection, his armor and he needed them now as he never had before. He needed to rebuild his defenses against the redheaded witch.
She moved in his arms. Gossamer silk brushing his cheek. He couldn’t bear to touch her anymore. All-consuming anger, bitterness, resentment bubbled to the surface ready to do battle. She stirred again, murmured warm breath across his skin, soft lips caressing his neck, trying to burrow closer. He had to get away. Jaro shifted his body, easing her as gently as he could out of the circle of his arms.
Tani dreamed. She was surrounded by a warm heat that diffused into her skin, licking its way through her veins, sparking emotions she had never felt before. Contentment. Security. She was used to living on the edge, walking a fine line between life and death, her status as an Esseni potential a constant red alert. But this heat was a balm that soothed her fears. She had never felt so safe.
The heat moved under her as if trying to get away. She nuzzled closer, not wanting to let go. She would never let go. A loud curse cut through the fog of her contentment and suddenly the heat was gone. She had been cut loose, was adrift, floating in a chilly air that bit into her flesh, gnawing right to the bone. Her fears resurfaced.
Tani’s eyes fluttered open, the haze of sleep still blurring her vision. A man’s fuzzy shape next to her solidified. Her heart sped up. Jaro! Dark. Brooding. Handsome. An erotic waterfall of images crashed over her. Last night Jaro had made love to her.
Made. Love. To. Her.
More than that. She had made love to him.
Love. To. Him.
Clarity. Sudden blinding focus. She loved him! Him. Jaro was the one, the yang to her yin. There was no way Lorcan could be her other half—not after last night. Jaro was the true Esseni, Lorcan the shadow. That had to be true because if not… Tani’s heart stuttered with confusion at the unwelcome thought. Her eyes sought his, but he had turned away from her, his dark head resting on bent knees. The urge to touch him, to feel his heat was an imperative. Tani reached out her hand to brush the arch of his spine, the lightest of touches caressing the deepest of scars. He flinched and pulled away.
“I should never have touched you.” His voice, deep with regret and fury, sliced through warmth of her flesh, cutting a direct path to her heart. She felt it bleed, a small drop trickling through the wound. “Keep away from me, Red. That can’t happen again.” Two drops more.
Tani sat up, confused, his words slashing deeper, the vehemence in his tone leaving her in no doubt that he meant what he said. “What are you saying? Jaro?” She had to know. “Do you regret what happened?”
He still didn’t look at her. “It was a mistake.”
“A mistake!” Two drops became a trickle, her heart bleeding, crying out that he was wrong. “How can you say that?”
“Easily, Red. You were available and you begged. What else is there to say?”
“Jaro!” The trickle now a river, blood choking her throat. He was denying it, denying the connection between them. Why? She touched his back again, her palm seeking the link that he dared to sever.
“Fuck, Tani!” he spat, jerking away. “Don’t! You’re Lorcan’s. You said so yourself and last night you gave me something that should have been his. It was a mistake and that’s it.”
“I…I…but…” Tani could barely speak now. The river a raging waterfall, she gagged as if blood had really gushed to her throat, nausea making her dizzy. He turned to face her, eyes blazing, feverish with rage. “Thanks for the fuck, Red, that’s all it was. A fuck. Don’t ge
t any ideas it was anything different.”
She almost caved under the scorching burn of his anger, her face turning white. But Tani was a warrior through and through and when met with a challenge she would face it head-on. Her own anger burst like a volcano. “You’re a liar, Jaro! You know it was more than that. If I had wanted to stop I would have. I gave myself to you!”
He stood up, his eyes raking her body with scorching insolence, the fire in them a cold white heat. “Yeah, well, thanks but no thanks. It won’t happen again.”
“But this changes everything!” She was yelling at him now, angry at his blank tone of indifference. She matched his stance curling her fists, nails digging into her palms.
“It changes nothing!” He was shouting back at her. “I’m a slave, Red! How could you let me do that to you? It was a precious gift and you gave it to me?”
The question hung in the air between them, floating, suspended in time until Jaro broke the spell. “It was an okay fuck, Red, but I like my women a bit more experienced. Go fuck Lorcan. Maybe when you’ve had more practice we can try it again.”
Tani’s anger burned. At that moment she hated him more than anything. That he could make her love him and then refuse the love she had given! How dare he? He was a bastard, a rapist. She’d almost forgotten that fact. He used women and then threw them away like garbage. “I can see I made a mistake. You’re a bastard, Jaro. Is this what you did to Sami’s mother and the other girl you raped? You take what you want and just walk away. You deserve to be a slave. You deserve every slash on your back for what you’ve done.”