Then again, nothing he’d said so far made a lot of sense to her.
What was he trying to tell her?
“You’re bad at this, huh?” she said finally. “Communicating?”
“Yes,” he said frankly, not returning her smile. “I am.”
“Do you want me to stop this?” She bit her lip, but forced herself to go on. “I could. Stop this. We could go to sleep on the couch. Or watch a movie or something––”
“No.” He shook his head. “This is not regret. It is not indecision, Marion. It is…”
He hesitated, looking at her.
There was another silence.
Then his deep voice added,
“…My brothers. Both of them. They are married to humans. Human women.”
Marion stared at him.
She had no idea what she was supposed to do with that.
Clearing her throat, she forced herself to meet those dark eyes.
Immediately, she was lost there again, somehow swimming in the fire she saw in the center of each black pupil. She had no idea how his eyes did that. She had no idea what it was about those eyes that drew her in, but they made her feel like she was falling into him.
Something about that sensation, about seeing him behind that silence, caused her to stop dancing around what neither of them were saying.
“Do you want to have sex?” she said, still holding his gaze.
“Yes.” He nodded, pressing into her, his fingers curling into her hair. “Yes.”
She let out an involuntary sound when his weight pressed into her again.
She was touching his face then, like he was hers, stroking his hair, watching his eyes close as she traced his features. He bent down, kissing her throat, then her jaw, his fingers tightening on her.
She felt that longing intensify, until she let out a heavy cry.
She honestly couldn’t tell whose desire she was feeling, not anymore.
“I can’t read minds here,” he said, raising his head.
He looked down at her, breathing hard, his skin flushed. His eyes were glassy now, and she could see the desire there, not just feel it.
“I can’t,” he added. “I know I can’t. But I can feel you. I don’t understand it. But it’s making me want to fuck so badly…”
She felt her whole body flush at his words.
Feeling something in him losing control, she gripped him tighter.
Then she was pulling on his shirt, tugging it up his chest, up his shoulders and then his arms, pulling it over his head. He didn’t help her so much as let her do it, pulling his body off hers with obvious reluctance, but only long enough to let her yank the shirt over his head.
Then he was pulling insistently on her shirt, taking it off her almost roughly, pulling it off her body and her arms, letting her untangle it from her hands and wrists while he slid his hands behind her, unfastening her bra.
He was tugging that off her seconds later, then pulling his lower body off her, yanking down on the leggings she wore, then her underwear.
The urgency in his hands, the heavier sounds coming from his chest… everything about it drove her out of her damned mind.
She was staring at him then, watching as he yanked off the brand new, black sweatpants, pulling them off over an erection that had her gasping as soon as she saw it.
She’d never wanted anyone so badly in her life.
“Fuck,” she muttered, staring at him. “Please, please don’t change your mind about this.”
For the first time, he chuckled.
He kicked off the rest of the sweats, then gripped her wrists, yanking her up the leather couch, forcing her legs apart with his. Those dark eyes looked even darker now, yet also more filled with that deeper, burning fire. She felt his muscles clench over her, every part of him tightening as he hung there, staring down at her face.
His long jaw clenched as she watched, but he never took his eyes off hers.
He was still staring at her when he lowered his weight, pushing her legs wider apart, his movements insistent as he watched her face, looking for a reaction, looking for her to match him in this… or else to pull back.
She writhed, trying to get her hands free so she could touch him.
At the same time, she coiled her legs back around his waist, closing her eyes to will him into her. She felt some part of her pulling on him as she did it, pulling so intensely…
He groaned, louder that time.
“Fuck,” he gasped, looking away from her for the first time.
His eyes were on her again, right as he lowered his weight.
“Now,” he growled, staring at her.
It was barely a question.
She could only nod, staring up at him.
Then he slammed himself inside her, and she let out a broken cry.
She heard herself talking to him, urging him harder, deeper, and he groaned again, that time so heavily, it was almost a lion’s purr.
He ground her into the leather couch, and both of them were talking then, but Marion found she couldn’t make sense of either of their words. She felt like she was drowning in the feeling behind them, that sense of pulling and connection and knowing that somehow lived behind it. All of it, the words, his voice, those more intense, heartbreaking, almost disturbingly intimate feelings… all of it only made the sex more graphic, somehow more real.
Nothing she said seemed to be enough.
No physical sensation seemed to be enough either, even though she thought she was going to lose her mind somewhere in the middle of that––like really, truly lose it––especially when he gripped her hips in both of his hands, changing the angle of their bodies so he could go deeper.
He found a sweet spot… for him, for her.
He let out another of those heavy groans, pinning her wrists to the leather.
She felt him lose control.
His eyes closed. His whole body seemed to grow liquid.
He slid into her sensually, slower, deeper, and she could no longer talk to him.
She panted, back arched, hips straining up against him as he held her there. He ground into that sweet spot again and she lost it, winding her legs around him tighter.
He slowed down, going slower, slower… excruciatingly slow, fucking her harder, deeper, his eyes turning glassy.
He groaned her name.
She wanted to scream at him.
He held her there, in that in-between space. He held her back, fighting to get inside her even now, and not only physically. Something about what he was doing made her frantic. In the end, she could only lie there, her legs coiled around him, her whole body seeming to pull on him.
She grew aware she was speaking again, murmuring, barely conscious she’d been saying anything until she made herself listen.
“Please,” she murmured, kissing his face when he lowered it. “Please. Please.”
He gasped. For a few seconds, he just fucked her.
She thought he would say no.
She felt that longing on him worsen, right before he arched into her harder.
Then he let go, and when he did, she was coming, spasming around his cock, unable to do anything else. Her eyes closed as she ground up against him, fighting to breathe, and she’d never felt so insanely open in her life.
She felt him drink that up somehow.
She felt the longing in him purr like a cat, even as it pulled on her.
He was still pressing into her when she could finally see again, when she could finally pull her mind back together enough to have any clue where she was.
She was gripping his arms.
His hands were on her hips, and she realized he was orgasming. His face was soft, his shoulders tense as he pressed his weight into her, fucking her and groaning in that heavy, purring way.
Wings or no, he really was like a giant cat.
She’d never felt so much contentment or release on a man before.
She watched him reach the height of it, and everythi
ng about it turned her on. She felt him notice, right before his eyes found hers.
Desire filled his expression, so intensely, she struggled to hold his gaze.
She found herself speaking, before she knew she had anything to say, anything to ask.
“Is that what you wanted?” she murmured, still grinding and pressing her body up against his. “Did you get what you wanted, baby?”
Her eyes closed, longer than a blink, even as she continued to murmur words.
That intense longing surged back in him.
It grew so overwhelming, she fell silent.
Her eyes closed, her heart pounding in her chest.
When she opened them, he was looking at her, his long black hair sweated partway to his neck, his black eyes fierce, glowing with that internal light. They were already tipping deeper into that denser, more predatory look, even as his hands gripped her around the waist.
“If you’re asking me if that was enough… no,” he growled.
His voice lowered, rolling into that deeper purr.
“If you’re asking me if this is what I want… then, yes,” he said.
He ground into her again, and she moaned, tightening her legs around him.
“…If you’re asking me if I want to do it again. Then yes,” he said, clenching a hand in her hair. He lowered his face to hers, kissing her cheek, murmuring in her ear. “You’re probably going to have to tell me when to stop, Marion. You might have to yell it.”
She laughed, and he raised his head to smile at her.
Studying her eyes, he shrugged as his fingers continued to grip her hair, tugging on her.
Leaning down, he kissed her face, murmuring against her skin.
“I don’t understand this,” he confessed. “This isn’t… usual for me.”
She slid a hand between them, massaging his cock and he lowered his head, gasping a short breath against her neck.
He continued to press into her as he shook his head.
“I do not know how to explain this. I can feel it. Between us. Even before you put your hands on me in the car… even before I nearly tried to fuck you right there. Even before that, I felt it. I felt it when I saw you in the bar. When you danced for me.”
Still thinking, he added,
“We know one another, Marion.”
He said it with absolutely certainty.
No doubt colored his deep voice.
“Do you feel this?” He raised his head, studying her gaze. “It is so close. It is so, so close, Marion. It is making me want to fuck, making me think about fucking constantly. It is driving me crazy, as you said. It feels like a compulsion, but more than that. It isn’t only sex. It’s more that I don’t know how else to express it. Do you understand?”
Her skin grew warmer and warmer as he spoke.
She found herself nodding when he grew silent.
“Yes,” she said simply.
Raising her face to his, she kissed him, caressing his cheek with hers.
“Yes,” she repeated, murmuring in his ear.
She felt him shiver and gripped his arm, the fingers of her other hand curling into his hair. Everything about this terrified her.
It also felt utterly, terrifyingly normal.
Natural, even.
She wondered if that’s exactly why it scared the hell out of her.
She thought about losing the people she loved, about this person disappearing too, as he inevitably would, and she gripped him tighter, unable to help herself.
“I feel you again,” he gasped, lowering his weight onto her. “I feel you.” He wrapped his arms around her, gripping her with iron-like arms. Pulling her roughly up against him, he seemed to exude heat, a kind of pulsing, fireplace warmth.
He was talking to her then, in her ear.
He didn’t speak English that time, but something in his words calmed her.
She found herself leaning her face on his shoulder, letting him hold her, and something about it washed all of that base, animal terror away.
She didn’t know how long they stayed like that.
She just knew by the end of it, there was no way she would get out of this unmarked.
Something in that realization made her fear of him, of this, exponentially worse… even as it forced her to let it go.
It was too late.
It didn’t matter anymore, because it was already, entirely, utterly too late.
19
Time To Go
M arion woke up slowly, aware at first only that she was lying on something both velvety soft and densely hard, with something excruciatingly soft wrapped around the bare skin of her back, sides, shoulders.
She opened her eyes, staring up at a white-painted ceiling.
She glanced to her left, where some of the warmth was coming from. The hotel room’s fireplace burned from a few feet away, just beyond a white, fluffy rug which sat in a pile on the beige carpet.
She vaguely remembered the fire… she remembered someone lighting that.
She glanced at the long windows, and realized it was dark out still.
She looked down.
The hard thing beneath her cheek was Tyr’s chest, along with the velvety soft of his skin. His eyes were closed, and for the first time, she found herself noticing his long, dark eyelashes where his head pressed into a velvet pillow he must have dragged down off the couch.
Then she blinked, and realized the rest of what she’d been lying on.
His wings were out. Those enormous, black and scarlet wings lay under her, one of them curled comfortably around her back, hip, and most of her legs, acting as an enormous blanket, maybe the warmest, most comfortable blanket she’d ever felt. She’d been burrowed into his side, her arm around his waist, his wing wrapped around her while he slept.
Swallowing, she found herself watching him sleep, taking in as much of him as she could see through the feathers of that protectively coiled wing.
He couldn’t be real.
He couldn’t possibly be real.
She couldn’t maintain that illusion for long, though.
Even now, with him unable to hypnotize her with those dark eyes, or confuse her by her own insane emotional reactions, not to mention the fact that she’d wanted him, pretty much from the moment she first laid eyes on him… he looked damned real to her.
She found herself stroking his skin, tracing the outline of his chest with her fingers, his ribs, his collar bones, his biceps, his forearms… his hip bone on the side not covered by the blanket of those unbelievably soft feathers.
She felt him stir under her hand.
She glanced at the night sky through the window, and wondered if he still wanted to go see her father that morning, in the hours before dawn.
Personally? Marion was okay with putting that off for another day.
Maybe even a few weeks’ worth of days.
When he spoke, his murmur made her jump, despite how soft it was.
“No,” he said, sighing.
She looked over.
His eyes were open. He reached up, caressing her face, fingering the curtain of dark hair back from where it fell down one cheek and jawline, pushing some of it behind her ear. Leaning up, he kissed her mouth lingeringly.
Then he stretched, arching his back.
It was the strangest sensation, feeling his wings stretch under her too, wrapping around her tighter as they did.
“No,” he repeated, sounding regretful, even frustrated. “We must go now. Soon. I can feel we have only two hours of darkness left.”
Marion nodded.
She knew he was right.
She started to get up, but his wing curled around her tighter, almost in a hug, and she found herself kissing him again.
That time, they kissed longer, and it was harder to pull away.
She made herself do it anyway.
As much as she might want to, she couldn’t risk letting her dad get dragged into a war just so she could spend more alone, naked-time, with he
r new, not-human boyfriend.
Below her, Tyr chuckled, one arm cushioning his head.
He released her with the wing that had trapped her against him, and again, she felt that longing on him, a denser reluctance to separate.
“I would be very derelict in my job,” Tyr admitted, pushing himself up on one arm. Yawning, he pushed himself the rest of the way to a seated position, blinking his eyes to wake himself up.
Glancing at her, he announced,
“I’m making coffee. Do you want some?”
Marion smiled, then nodded.
“Desperately,” she confessed.
Pulling herself up carefully off his wings, not wanting to hurt him or pull out feathers, and not sure how easy it would be to hurt that part of him––or any part of him, for that matter––she climbed to her feet. As she did, she grew conscious suddenly that she was naked, that she was sore, that a part of her was still obsessed with sex.
But he’d said two hours.
They only had two hours.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” she announced. “While you make coffee.”
Tyr reached over, his fingers circling her ankle so that she looked down.
His dark eyes stared up at her, burning with that fire.
“You are so beautiful, Marion,” he murmured.
He kissed the top of her foot, then released her, and she felt herself flush all over. Something in even the smallest things he said felt so sincere, so completely guileless, they hit her at a ridiculously deep level.
She knew she had to reign that shit in.
At least until she had some idea of how deeply he meant them.
Feeling him want to wrap his wings and arms around her again, even as he climbed to his feet, she looked him over, unable to help herself. Seeing his erection as he stretched his arms over that cut and lined abdomen, she forced her eyes away, walking away from him with an effort and toward the sliding wooden doors that led into the suite’s bedroom.
It only really hit her then, that they’d been sleeping on the floor.
They’d also more or less trashed that part of the room, leaving dirty food dishes all over the glass table, breaking one of the lamps and an end table from their, well… enthusiastically athletic sex.
Gods on Earth: Complete Series (Books 1-3): Paranormal Romances with Norse Gods, Tricksters, and Fated Mates Page 46