Siena jerked back suddenly in shock as she felt the collar abandon her throat in order to be replaced by his hands. She grabbed up the collar before it could slide down her chest and then looked from him to it in disbelief.
“That’s not possible,” she whispered, shivering as he once more closed the distance between them to nuzzle her bare neck with his mouth, his cradling hands holding her to him though she was trying to keep a specific balance to her body. She moaned at the astounding sensitivity of the area. It had not been exposed to the touch of anything but gold and moonstones for her entire lifetime.
“Put it aside,” he urged her, his tongue tracing her carotid artery up the entire length of her neck in a way that turned her legs to jelly. She gasped with pleasure, her eyes closing as he repeated the circuit in the opposite direction, adding the teasing scrape of his teeth until she was trembling with chills. Siena felt as though her entire body was moving out of her control, just as her world careened off its axis.
“Elijah, the collar…” she tried to explain, her words little more than soft pants of sound.
“Put it aside,” he commanded again, enunciating each word firmly.
Siena let it fall from suddenly nerveless fingers and tilted her head so he had increased access to her neck and throat. He made a sound of male approval that sang through her with an operatic note of delight. He was encircling her with the steel bands of his arms a moment later, lifting her up to the tips of her toes. He seized her mouth and kissed her into a state of total breathlessness and numbness of thought. She felt light and utterly feminine. He could make her forget her own strength so easily with his large, powerful hands and demanding masculine body.
Elijah lifted her off the floor, swinging her easily around until her feet touched the bed. She laughed when she found herself standing on it, looking down into his eyes. Her laughter faded the moment she realized the access their new positions allowed him to her breasts. His lips twisted into a devilish smile as he lifted his knuckles and skimmed over first one nipple, then the other, teasing until she could no longer bear the sensitivity. She was fascinated by the instant response of her body, the reactive thrust seeming erotic even to her as she watched him taunt her with his touch. She could barely catch a full breath as he leaned into her, nuzzling her through the fabric of her dress. The silky material seemed like nothing to him as he drew one of the points into his mouth, sucking until she thought she was going to collapse from the intense pleasure. He lifted his head away only long enough to hook the strap of the dress with his pinkie, peeling down the dampened silk until it was no longer a barrier to his mouth.
Siena cried out soulfully as his mouth, so full of wet fire, surrounded her once more, drawing her deep onto his tongue and then releasing her to pull his teeth across her teasingly. This time her knees did buckle, but he held her in place as if she weighed no more than her dress.
Elijah reveled in the taste of her, the feminine fullness of her breasts, the sensitivity of the gold-and-rose point of her nipple as he flicked his tongue over it until she made another of those sexy little whimpers of unmistakable pleasure. He sucked her deeply into his mouth when she did, and she jerked bodily against him. He felt her hands clutching at his head and shoulders, the mindless grasp of a woman lost in her bliss, and it rushed through him in ripples of tightening need.
As he tormented her with sensation, she slid against his body, feeling every contour of the sinew that was roped like bundles of steel cords over his frame. His feet were braced apart, his entire form as rock hard and rigidly set as a great stone statue. When she grasped his arms with clutching fingers, they hardly made an impression in his skin. He reeked of passion like he reeked of power, unapologetically and dominantly. This was not a man who liked to second-guess himself. He preferred to drill himself with skill and knowledge so that when the moment came, he would react with instantaneous decisiveness. That was what he had done at the mineral pool. He had seen, wanted, and acted. Ever since then he had forced himself to rethink what had come so naturally to him in that chain of minutes.
So now he was back in his element, one hundred percent, and thrusting himself fully into what had originally felt so right. He devoured her with a voracious and passionate mouth, and all the while he was touching her long body with bold, searching strokes of his hands. He was careening down the slope of her back and backside one minute, and then dipping under the hem of the dress to splay searching fingers over the back of her thigh. He stroked upward over her satiny skin, her bottom as bare as ever beneath the dress, her flesh fitting his palm as it moved over her to the arch of her lower back, around to her belly and along her breastbone.
There was so much sensation inundating her from so many places at once that she was light-headed with her pleasure and arousal. She was searching his body with her hands, the tendrils of her hair eagerly joining the exploration. She surrounded her senses with the feel of him, burying her face in his blond curls. Muscles rippled beneath her hands, twitched as she glided over them with her sensual, searching touch.
His burning mouth came back to hers as her stimulating touch sent his body temperature skyrocketing. He released her in increments so that she slid down his body and onto the bed. He followed every inch of the way, his mouth clinging to hers as he drank deeply of that hot cinnamon flavor so unique to her. His hands braced his weight above her as he moved over her body. When she felt him settling against her, she purred with encouragement and delight. The sound struck him exactly as it had before, only this time he was going to act freely on those feelings.
Elijah instantly swept his hands under her dress, stripping it from her in a single motion that included the careless toss into the room beyond. The torrid speed of the exposure caused Siena to arch against him, bringing her hot skin in contact with his with unbelievable sensuality.
Oh, how he remembered the burning feel of her skin, how he had craved little else but a repeat of the sensation since it had originally occurred. Even then, she had been chilled by the lake water, so it paled in comparison to now. She was a sheet of seductive satin beneath him, enveloping him in the rare purity of suppleness and richness that only came from so perfect a source. Her legs slid out from beneath him until her thighs framed his hips wantonly, settling him deeper into the feel of her, fitting them together like lock and key. Elijah gripped at the bedding as he felt himself settle into that heated cradle of her hips, only his clothing providing an obstacle between them, an obstacle that felt like nothing, like so much wind. His fingers gripped with such pleasurable agony that they punctured the ticking of the mattress, even without a reflexive growth of sharp claws. Those lengthened into existence a heartbeat later, when she ran eager hands down the slope of his spine and over the hard muscles of his backside, clutching him to her so she could shift her hips and rub her heat against the hard length of his sex.
“Siena!” Her name was a vicious growl in his throat, but she felt the shaking of his body as he looked for restraint and control, as he fought his vulnerability to her methods of encouraging his excitement.
In return, she moved her mouth to his ear, her lips rubbing breathily over it until he shuddered, and then slowly, softly, she drew out his name. A guttural gasp hitched into the single word as she felt him moving intimately against her.
“Kitten,” he groaned from the bottom of his tormented soul, “Sweet Destiny, kitten, you feel like paradise. My paradise.”
Siena responded with a smile against his neck as her hands began searching him with flawless intimacy. She stroked strong, graceful fingers back up to his shoulders in a caress sealed tightly to his damp skin. She moved around to his chest, down his sides once more, where she paused to drink in the feel of his rapid breathing. Her fingers slid down his flank and then beneath the waistband of his pants. She felt the defined muscles of his backside tighten under her enticing touch, but she was not satisfied with only that reaction. She drew her legs up just a little farther, allowing her hands the freedom to sl
ip around his hips and into the heat and hardness resting so close to her.
Elijah had been stroking his tongue against the vital beating of her pulse in her neck when her fingertips brushed over that sensitive part of his body. He lifted away from his tasting of her, his back arching reflexively as he swore vehemently under his breath. Siena was not disturbed in any way by this. She had never touched a man in this fashion before and she was not about to relinquish the experience too soon. She wrapped silky fingers around him, feeling with fascination as he pulsed against her palm. He shuddered from head to toe as she stroked the length of him slowly, learning his shape, his weight, and especially his sensitivity. She had never imagined that flesh could become so incredibly hard. There was heat so intense that it nearly burned the pads of her gliding fingers. Most importantly, every touch, light or firm, had him practically contorting with a pleasure that seemed to border very close to pain. Again she came to understand a single truth. Power. The power to drive him mad with just the skill and intentions of her hands.
The rush of arousal that followed that understanding was hers, not his. Siena panted hard with it as it flooded her with molten gold, a precious liquid burning through her and then spilling slickly out of the very core of her body. She understood, all of a sudden, that there was only one way to her own pleasure, and that was to dive into his. It was one of those revelations that would change everything, even though it seemed so small a detail. She knew it. She knew it from the bottom of her soul. When her fingertips drifted over the wet tip of his arousal, one after another, coasting silkily through moisture and over highly sensitive skin, she learned a whole new description for stimulation.
Elijah exhaled a low, rough sound of ecstasy, his jaw clenching as he blindly thrust his hips toward her wicked little hands. She got the message, his reaction prompting her to repeat the stroke, only this time more slowly. Elijah couldn’t think straight from that moment on. Not that he had been engaged in much thought beforehand that didn’t center around the luscious feel of her body and skin sliding against him. Siena was relentless in her curiosity of his body and he was utterly mindless under her increasingly bold caresses. Before he knew it, he was on his back and she was stripping him quickly.
Then she slid up his body and sought his mouth. She kissed him and caressed him, trying to outdo herself first with one, then the other. She reveled in the abandon of his reactions, of the sounds that escaped him. She could make every rigid muscle twitch and flex, using the hot velvet touch of her lips and tongue to do so. His hands dove desperately into her hair, crushing the sensitive strands beneath fisted fingers.
Siena had never thought such a stranglehold could actually feel so incredibly good. It was a part of her body as sensitive as any other, and his touch was like wild magic as he grasped her in passion. It was an instantaneous erogenous zone, and she felt him suddenly comprehending that as he began to drag his fingers through the body-length coils.
“Oh!” she cried throatily, her body rising up over his and arching like a sleek python. She was straddling his stomach, her hands braced on his chest, her head thrown back as his calloused fingertips streamed through her grasping, clinging hair.
Elijah freed himself from the golden ivy curling around her body, a smile turning up one corner of his lips. Her position over his body left her vulnerable to an entirely different assault of sensation. His hands dragged rough touches down the center of her torso, over breasts and ribs and belly and hips. Then he went seeking for the heat and the moisture that had called to him relentlessly. His fingers slipped through a tangle of golden curls and touched the flesh beyond. She was slick and swollen with the arousal her manipulations of his pleasure had caused to her own body. Siena squeaked with a thousand impulses, thoughts and feelings crowding for expression, and Elijah plunged a free hand into her hair and dragged her down to his kiss. She gasped into his mouth when the invasion of his touch registered on her nerve endings with violent eroticism. He found the sensitive nub that would respond the most to his stroking fingertips and circled it with a flirting, skilled touch.
She had never suspected how breathless such a seemingly simple caress could leave her. He was touching her in earnest now, forcing her to go weak and wild with the strange, building sensation that flowed outward from that one small spot. She couldn’t concentrate on what she was doing anymore, so her hands fell away from his body.
Elijah rolled her over onto her back, taking back control as she moaned with incredible intensity into his hungry mouth. She was a factory of brash sounds of pleasure from that moment on, the auditory stimulus sending urgent need clawing through Elijah’s soul. He left her mouth quickly, sending uncaught cries into the room by doing so. But he was busy learning the taste of her throat, her collarbone, and breasts once more. He felt her shuddering, closing in on the release she wanted, needed so desperately.
His fingers stilled against her, making her sob a sound of protest.
“Elijah, please,” she cried, her head turning side to side as her mind and body sought for what was missing.
He did not give in to her pleas immediately. He had something better planned. Her exotic scent had taunted him long enough. This was his one and only thought as he reached to replace the touch of his fingers with the caress of his mouth.
Siena’s hips surged upward and she cried out so loudly that the cavern echoed with the sound. Elijah caught her bucking hips in eager hands and held her to his tasting tongue. She was pure aphrodisiac. Flavor and scent combined together with the perfection of strawberries and cream. She was shaking so hard in his hold as her pleasure was coiled up tighter and tighter inside her that he could predict the power of her coming release by it.
Siena suddenly was surging up into an oblivion beyond mere bliss. Her body locked even as it released. She heard herself screaming wildly, but hardly recognized herself in the unfettered sound. Pulsations of ultimate pleasure rode through her like shock waves, and still his tongue stroked over her, pushing her further and further into the extraordinary abyss of relief and delight.
She had barely settled back into the mattress before he was sliding up her body and sharing the confection of her sweetness with her in the form of a soul-searing kiss. He was so hard and so heavy with need for her that he was slightly mad. Her orgasm had pushed him to his limits, and he needed to be inside her with a desperation he had never known himself capable of. Her thighs fell open for him easily as he settled between them, and he rested against her saturated flesh with a hot, insidious slide.
Her eyes flew open in shock at how astoundingly stimulating the sensation was. He looked down into those golden pools, looking deep into her soul, past the haze of desire and the endless need to be who she was in this moment.
“Tell me what you choose,” he said hotly against her swollen lips. “I have to hear you—” He broke off when she shifted her hips, bringing him right to the threshold that he so badly needed to cross. She swallowed his groan greedily, her mouth ravaging his with unparalleled intensity.
Elijah reached between them for her throat, encircling it to keep her from following after him when he broke away from her kiss. She was heaving for breath, her eyes wide and demanding that he let go. Of her. Of his doubts. Of everything.
“Siena,” he gasped as she purposely slid against him once more. “I need to hear it.”
“Of course,” she whispered seductively, catching him once more in the perfectly poised spot where a single forward thrust would bury him inside her. “Elijah, I want this,” she breathed.
“Do you accept me?” Elijah demanded of her, clutching her so hard it was a wonder she did not break. “Do you choose me?”
“Yes,” she gasped, her body groaning for the completion he kept from her. “I accept you. I want you. You, Elijah…”
Elijah released his restraint with a savage growl of intent. He surged forward, pushing into her body with a single, rending thrust. Siena cried out, but not with any kind of pain. He could feel that wi
th every fiber of his being. Her maidenhead gave way with ease, letting him sink deeply into hot, welcoming heaven.
Heat, tightness, slick surrounding honey. She was a burning sheath of immeasurable bliss, and he was deeply surrounded by her at last. In this she was beyond perfect. She fit him as if she had been hand-fashioned for him. Elijah was blind with the beauty and wonder of it. She was so tight around him it felt as if it should be impossible to move, so for the longest minute he did not. Siena was clinging to him, her hands on his shoulders, her body permanently arched into his, it seemed. She gasped and gasped, her eyes wide as she stared up at him with shock and amazement. As he remained deeply embedded in her, he was deeply embedding the memory of the moment into his brain. He would never forget this, and he would make sure she never did either.
But she was silky and slick and incredibly tempting, so he could only bear it for a few more heartbeats. He needed more of her, needed to give her himself. He began to withdraw and she dug her nails into his shoulders.
“Elijah!” she gasped helplessly, her golden eyes wild with the confusion of knowing something instinctively, yet not fully understanding the method to his seeming madness.
“Oh,” he teased softly, “I am not going anywhere.”
He stroked within her deeply, making her groan until the lusty sound was echoing off the surfaces around them. He loved that sound, loved her raw passion. The thrill of it pulsed through him, hardening him even more until he felt so incredibly thick within her quivering body. He knew she felt the new surge of heat because she purred with a deep, deep rumbling vibration. The sound urged him on, even though he needed no encouragement. It took only a moment for him to find the perfect pace for them both. She met his thrusting hips with natural ease after one awkward second. He guided her with a hand on her slender hip, the other hand trapped in the tangled clutches of her hair. He felt her nails bite into his back and he surged forward with the backlash of the resulting pleasure.
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