Finally, he lifts his hand from me back toward himself and props himself up on his side. "The choice is yours."
He chews on his cheek waiting for me to make my decision. Through the fog, I can hardly see my way to the stairs. Every inch of my skin buzzes with excitement, drowning out any sort of logic I might be able to listen to. I tell myself I don't know why I do it but I do. I shift on my side just as he is and lift my hand up to his neck, ignoring the way my fingers tremble. I sink my hand into the hair at the bottom of his scalp. Rumi smiles slightly as I pull him to me, parting my lips.
“May I?” He leans in closer making the air between us buzz.
My teeth dig into my lip to hold in a laugh and his brows furrow. "The devil's son and you're asking for my permission."
"I might be the gateway to the afterlife but that doesn't mean I don't have manners or some form of general respect for others."
"Oh," I answer with half a smirk. He lifts a brow at the still unanswered question. "Yes," I try again, feeling my entire body heat with excitement. "Yes."
I swear a shiver runs up his spine. His throat bobs. His fingers follow the curve of my arm between us. The gingerly touch tingles over my skin, building the kindling of the fire between us. Those black eyes stare at the searing path he creates from my knuckles to my shoulder and across my collarbones.
Rumi brushes the hair from my face, then brings his fingers to my mouth. He tugs at my bottom lip, my breath catching in my throat, my mouth watering at the thought of tasting him. He doesn't move quickly. No. He takes his time committing to memory every dip and curve of my body.
The tips of his fingers, the slightest bit of nail, drags down my throat. One digit drawing a perfect line down to the peak of my breast and dragging over my puckered nipple. I tremble under his touch. My entire body aches for more.
Shouldn't he be undressing already? This is already so different from my experience with the few other men I've allowed to bed me. That was already a messy tangle of limbs and the gnashing of teeth. A few minutes of pulsing, pumping, excitement, and a quick ending with an even quicker goodbye. Rumi hasn't so much as reached for his belt buckle.
With that thought, my attention drags down to the buttons of his pants. The length of him creates a bulge in his trousers making it clear that this isn't all without want. He catches my gaze, smiling briefly before he closes the space between us. His lips hover near mine. My eyes close and I arch into him.
"Are you sure about this?" he whispers against me. When I look at him, his features are tinged with concern, or maybe that's something else. I can't really be sure.
"Please," I practically beg softly. "Please, touch me."
I can’t bear it anymore. I've wanted to touch him since the moment I met him. I've wanted him to touch me too. All the bickering, all the taunting, was just a shield to hide the confusing well of desire that had sprouted when I least expected it to.
He's so near I can feel his smile, there then gone as he presses his mouth to mine. Rumi kisses me softly at first, longingly, like he's content to stay here with me the entire day. I open myself to him, letting out a small moan as he wraps his arm around me and pulls me fully against him.
Something like a growl bubbles up his throat in response. His hand, that soft silken touch, caresses along the shape of my body, traveling from my waist, down my back, around my backside, and down my hips to where his fingers slide further until they dig into the meat of my thigh as he pulls my leg up over him. The firmness of his cock presses against my sex.
I clench my thighs in response and his kisses deepen. They quicken. Rumi tastes bitter like dark chocolate. His kisses feel like a delicacy, rich and rare.
In one fluid movement, he rolls us. I gasp as he presses my back into the mattress and my eyes fling open. All of the shadows in the room surround us, letting in only the slightest trickle of light. Our bodies together had pulled them to us like sponges soaking up an ink spill.
Rumi kisses and nips along my jaw then down the tendons of my neck. My hand roams up over his shoulders, then down his back feeling every muscle along the way. His shadows stretch out for my hand and I reach up to pet them. Rumi freezes, his teeth digging into my shoulder, as he groans.
"You can feel that," I say quietly.
"They are a part of me. An extension of me. I can feel it."
I close my eyes, stroking the darkness, as the sound of his words travels through me. His hips press forward, hands sliding down to the hem of my bunched skirt. The fabric lifts from my skin. Rumi sits himself up, guiding me up with him as he pulls the dress up and over my head. His attention falls from my face down to my breasts, his breath shallower now.
With both hands, he pulls me back to his face. My bare skin meets his and everywhere we align burns like a wildfire. Rumi kisses me deeply now. His tongue parting my lips, teasing me, tasting me back. And I let him. My body is torn between wanting to go lax in his arm and demanding I hold him to me as tightly as I can.
Slowly, his hand slips from my face, drawing another line down to my chest. His fingers find my nipple, gently rolling it between them. Something inside of me tightens. It begins to wind up as the sensation creates a telling wetness.
Rumi lowers himself to my breast. His tongue lashes out, swiping over my nipple before he takes the fullness of me and sucks it into his mouth. I arch, closing my eyes, letting myself fall into the pleasure that he gives me.
A hand goes to the waistband of my underwear. He draws a line there, his fingers sweeping back and forth for a minute before he slips them under the material. Rumi doesn't hurry as he draws a finger into my slick folds and finds one perfect spot to circle.
I grab ahold of his shoulder, letting my nails dig into his skin, clinging to him with some absurd fear that the way he touches me now might send me into flight and I need him to hold me here. His hand lowers just a fraction and he slips one finger inside of me, slowly pumping it in and pulling it back out. I tighten around him, lifting my hips when his teeth scrape over my breast.
My hands scramble over him, loving his skin on mine, searching out his curls. With his hair between my fingers, I point his face up to mine. His finger slips out of me and back up where every swipe of his touch pulls me even closer to the edge. Something between a moan and a gasp leaves me, my cheeks flooding with warmth.
"I want all of you," I say.
Rumi's throat bobs, a vicious smile creeping up his cheeks. The warmth of his body slides up mine until we're eye level again. His hand no longer between my legs but wet with my want under my chin.
"And I want to hear the sounds you make when you come."
Our hearts pound against each other, our chests choking away the space when he presses a firm kiss to my lips. No man has ever talked to me in such a way. No man has ever touched me in this way...
I slide my hand down his chest, fingers tugging at the buttons that keep him hostage. He takes my hand, circling his fingers around my wrist, and pins it by my head, before interlacing our fingers. His lips are on mine, then they’re on my neck, on my breasts, my shoulders, down my arms, and all the way to my knuckles. Rumi worships my body torturously slowly.
"Please," I whisper, to him...to his shadows...to whichever will answer.
"Are you in a hurry?" Rumi murmurs against my skin, slipping down my hips. Fingers hook into the waistband of my underwear. The material drags down my legs as he stands, dropping them to the floor.
And I'm completely bare before him.
Black eyes creep up my body. When they reach my face, Rumi smiles, kneeling on the bed still in his trousers. My hands rest nervously on my stomach, fingers spreading to cover some small fraction of me.
Rumi isn't my first, but I've never had sex in a room where the lights were on...where the guy took his time...
His hands trail up my thighs, nudging my legs further apart. He lowers, face aimed...
"What are you doing?" I breathe.
Half a smile and one arched brow are all h
e gives me until he's close enough that his hot breath is fanning against my sex. "You didn't think I would miss my opportunity to taste you, did you?"
Taste me? He's going to taste...
Hot and wet, his tongue slides up the middle of me. A growl rumbles through him, vibrating against my most sensitive parts. With a sharp inhale, my eyes flutter closed. Rumi laps at me, concentrating his efforts directly on the spot that sends shocking waves of pleasure clear through the rest of my body.
Lifting my hips, he seals his lips around me, sucking gently and circling with the tip of his tongue. He repeats this again and again until I can't focus on anything else. Until something coils inside of me. Until it releases.
And I'm free falling into euphoria. My legs tremble around him, my hands fisted in his thin blanket. I can't breathe around the bliss that he's created in me.
Rumi sits up, hands finally falling to his pants. He unbuttons them and his erection escapes the prison it has been trapped in. He licks his lips, but his face still shines with the evidence of what he'd just done to me. What I want him to do again...and again...
Guiding himself back over me, the tip of his cock runs across my middle, poking and prodding until he slips it inside. I feel my way up Rumi's biceps, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him close as he shivers against me. He rocks into me slowly at first, easing himself fully in until I'm aching with the entirety of him.
"Rumi," I breathe his name between us.
He stills, a hand finding my face, stroking my cheek. "Too much?"
"Not enough."
With parted lips, his mouth seeks me out, taking kiss after kiss while he thrusts into me. When he pulls away, I have to blink to be sure that I've even opened my eyes at all. Every ounce of light is gone. My vision is lost to the darkness that surrounds us.
Onyx wisps of smoke pour out of Rumi so heavily that they press in on us at every angle. They touch, tease, and play against every inch of my skin. He's in me. He's around me. He's devouring me.
Together we pant, his body rolling against mine. I hook both my legs around his lean hips, taking him deeper, relishing in the sensation. Every time he drives himself into me, he grinds himself against my sex. Each move is an echo of what his tongue had done to me.
I breathe in his shadows but they don't suffocate me. They don't drown me in the sense Jac had suggested. They do ignite like coals fueling a fire. Heat burns down my throat, invisible hands roaming over my skin, touching me everywhere, and Rumi, above me, moving against me.
Rumi moans against me and the noise is so tormented, so pure...so painfully vulnerable. He whispers, "Millicent," against my throat and it throws me over the edge. Euphoria erupts between us, my body shaking. Limbs reaching, clinging, to every inch of him. He pants against me, reaching his high, and roaring out a cry that makes the boat shudder around us.
His release is hot inside of me, the dampness of our bodies leaving my thighs wet, as he pulls away. I wait for him to get up, to get dressed, to leave without a word. When he stands from the bed my spirit deflates. He crouches, still naked, still shrouded in darkness that gives me so little to see him by.
The bed dips at his weight. My lips part at a smile as he looks at me. He's all seriousness, his eyes wide and full of dancing power. In his hand he grips a small towel, he only gives me the slightest grin when I stiffen, inhaling loudly, when he drags the towel over my legs, over my sex.
"I don't know how...I don't know how I found you," he says under his breath, so low I can't be sure if he's really talking to me. Then he tosses the towel away, finding his way back to my side. Sweat dries on my stomach, his hand sliding up my side. "In an entire crew full of dogs... I have you."
"And I'm not a dog?" I fiddle with a curl that sits against his cheek.
"You're..." his eyes search my face for the words, "fresh air..."
Someone runs across the deck overhead. Their footfalls fill the silence between us. I reach for the blanket pulling it over my naked body to keep me warm and allow myself this chance to scoot closer to him. I trace an hourglass on his bicep, looking down at my own tattoo.
"I've never done that before," I finally confess.
"You've never had..?" The blood drains from his face and I've never seen him look so scared. "You were a virgin?" he gasps.
I bark a laugh. "No. No, I've had sex before. It's just never...I've never." My eyebrows pull together as I try to find a way to describe it.
"Wait." He sits up. "You've never orgasmed?"
My teeth sink into my lip. I shake my head. He looks smug then. "Don't look at me like that!"
He chuckles, the bed shaking with the force of it. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He lowers to his back, staring up at the ceiling. Another pair of boots pounds overhead. For once, his face is relaxed, his smile easy. Both arms are tucked behind his head, making his arms look more impressive. When I curl into his side, he doesn't shy away but lowers an arm to hold me against him. "So you never..." He looks down at me.
"Never what?"
"Touched yourself."
I blink. "Why would I do that?"
"You're twenty!"
Heat darkens my cheeks. "Nearly twenty. My mother says that our bodies are for our husbands..." My blush only deepens when I realize how awful that sounds out loud, how deeply her influence had affected me.
"You don't want a husband."
"No," I agree, thinking of Desmond waiting for me back home. What does he think happened to me? He's in great standing, though, he'll find a good wife.
"It's your body." Rumi pushes the blanket away, cold air finding me. He takes my hand, pulling it with him as he drags our hands together to the apex of my thighs. Each finger he places on top of mine, guiding me, teaching me. "I can't say I know everything about a woman...but I do know that there is this wonderful little bundle of nerves..." He presses my finger between my still naked slit.
Using my hand, he lets me feel around just a little until I twitch when we find it together, when it runs under our touch. He guides me in similar circles to what he had done. It feels just as good as he'd done before. My toes curl, a moan already forming on the back of my tongue.
His hand pulls away, leaving mine alone, between my legs. "Touch yourself, Millie."
Rumi watches. His gaze locks on my face until I repeat what he'd done to me to myself. Then his attention is focused on my sex. His chest rises and falls against my side, something steady, like a heartbeat, creating a rhythm that I replicate.
"Practice. Find what feels good." His lips press into the line of my jaw. My body trembling with pleasure I never knew I could create. "Learn what you need. Then choose partners who want to learn what that is."
Partners...someone else...not him...
I still. A demanding question burning at the back of my throat. What are we? What is this? What if I want more?
More boots. A shout, followed by another. A loud bang against his door.
"Captain! Captain!"
The ship lurches sending Rumi tumbling from the bed. He catches himself, finding his pants, shoving his legs inside. With a flick of his hand, the shadows chase out of the room to where I imagine they'll find themselves under anything they can hide under on the deck.
"Coming!" he bellows, turning toward me when he reaches the bottom of the stairs. "Get dressed. We're almost to the Trove."
Something makes the wood of the boat groan, the world around us tipping me toward the edge of the bed. Rumi grimaces, gripping the doorframe. His skin glows, light bounces from him like a pebble thrown across the surface of a lake, before the boat rights itself, and he's gone, up the stairs, to his crew. The glimpse of the man I’d had in my arms moments before is gone, replaced by a captain.
And I'm alone.
15
After The Deal
Rumi
It's hard to focus. Even harder for me to turn away from the naked girl in my bed. Touching her had felt better than I'd imagined. She'd tasted like sugar and smelled like spring.
My boots slide against the deck, now wet as a wave crashes over the top of it drenching the crew and myself. The water soothes the way the sun scorches my skin.
My power itches and crawls with the familiarity of something born from the Otherworld. A creature that lives here. A hungry beast.
Everything born of darkness has a sense for things made from the like, so either it hasn't sensed my presence or it doesn't care. I care though. As a prince of the Otherworld, I command its creatures too. At least to some extent.
Shade stretches across the ship, the sun hidden behind a large red tentacle that curls toward our open sails. Its shadow passes over us and I send mine to greet it in turn. A warning. A demand. My smoke charges into the sky pushing against the creature’s long arm.
Jac stumbles to my side. "It's huge. It's under the ship from bow to stern!"
Behind her, I hear the weary shouts of worry from the rest of the crew. The ship rocks and even the largest, most deadly men cling to the ship as if that will save them.
"Anything else I should know?" I hiss through clenched teeth, pushing against the weight of the tentacle. My thoughts speed through my head as I try to shove my way past the animal's mental shields. Each command shouted only echoes back to me.
"Not particularly." She grabs my arm to steady me when the boat shakes again. "You got this under control right?"
"Of course I do." As long as I can get into its head…
An answering roar bubbles up underneath us. A defiant monster this is. It's not used to being told what to do. With or without its own free will the animal will not harm us.
I have the control. I am its master.
My power curls against its upraised tentacle that waits to slice this ship in half. Pushing through my own mental fog, I break free and through its barriers not a moment too soon as the creature breaks free of my shadows and its tentacle comes racing for the masts.
Mine to command.
Its arm, covered with red, dagger-like scales, stalls mid-air. I suck in all the air around me just to watch it pull away. It hesitates, trying to fight the intrusive thoughts I force into its head. Finally, the tentacle retracts into the water, disappearing beneath the surface. Only a ripple of water is left in its wake.
Chasing Boston Page 12
