It faced a sloping garden of grass and manicured bushes that resembled large smooth boulders in the dimming light, and beyond that a broad lake surrounded by trees.
The agony clawing at him began to fade as he looked at it, breathing easier as he sensed only Aiko nearby, and smelled the water and the coming rain.
The skies opened.
Esher grabbed her slender wrist and ran with her, trying not to pull her along as he raced towards the teahouse and used what little control he had over his powers and the weather to ensure not a drop of rain hit them.
When they reached the slight overhang above the exterior glass panels of the teahouse, she tucked closer to him, breathing hard. He released her, used his telekinesis to unlock the doors and pushed them back to allow her entrance. She stooped on the high stone step to remove her shoes, and then stepped inside.
Rain poured off the roof in torrents, cascading like a waterfall behind him as he removed his boots and followed her inside.
“I didn’t get wet.” She looked down at her clothes, over her bare arms, and then at him. Her expression shifted, going from one of surprise to something else, but if she noticed anything in his eyes, she kept it to herself.
She pushed aside one of the paper panels and stepped into the main, open room of the small building, her purple stockings a contrast to the creamy yellow of the traditional straw tatami mats. He trailed after her, catching her just as she moved to the front of the building and pushed more panels open to reveal the garden.
Aiko eased onto her knees in the middle of the open panels, her back to him, eyes on the outside world. The grass looked greener in the rain, and the surface of the lake had gone dark grey as it rippled with the heavy downpour.
It was beautiful.
She looked over her shoulder at him, her long black hair brushing her bare shoulders.
She was beautiful.
He moved towards her, drawn to her, unable to stop himself from closing the distance between them and easing onto his backside beside her.
Her dark eyes moved back to the world beyond the glass. “I like the rain… the melody it makes. It soothes me and seems to carry my troubles away.”
When she glanced at him, he smiled at her, wanting to show her that he felt the same way.
She blushed and looked away again.
How old was she? Megan had mentioned something about being in her thirties, but Aiko appeared younger than her. Mid-twenties if he had to hazard a guess. She had barely seen this world, probably knew very little of its darker side other than what she had seen on the television or in movies.
Fuck, he wanted to keep it that way.
He wanted her to always be this pure, this full of life and hope, and happiness. He wanted to shield her from the darker things, to keep the light inside her shining.
Her blush deepened. Because he was staring at her?
Because they were alone?
That had a hint of colour rising onto his cheeks too. He wasn’t sure he had ever been alone with a mortal, and he couldn’t remember being alone with a female like this before either. He hadn’t considered that when she had offered to take him to the teahouse, or when he had broken in with her.
He had just wanted to escape, to find peace, but he hadn’t wanted to part from her.
“Do you feel better now?” Her gaze bravely came back to him. He nodded, and relief flitted across her face, and he wanted to say something, but could only stare into her eyes as she looked deep into his, and murmured, “You have eyes like the ocean.”
He averted them, and she leaned towards him. His breath seized in his lungs as she moved closer to him, her soft floral scent teasing his senses, and her body heat brushed against him. He froze when her hand neared his right arm, his body coiling tight as he waited for her to touch the scars and mention them again, a spike of fear driving through him as he willed her not to do it, because he was finally on even ground again and he didn’t want the memories to surface once more.
Rather than touching his scars, her fingers stroked a line over the trident mark on his inside wrist.
“The gods watch over you,” she whispered, and he looked down at the favour mark, given to him at his birth by Poseidon, his uncle.
When she looked up at him, her face so close to his, he forgot what he had wanted to say.
He swallowed hard and stared at her, battling an urge that felt more powerful than any he had experienced before.
Not an urge to hurt her.
Far from it.
This urge had nerves sweeping through him, a fierce flood of them that left him shaking as he stared at her, his heart thumping against his ribs. She blinked slowly, shuttering her warm brown eyes, stealing them from view for a heartbeat before they locked with his again. Her pupils dilated, devouring her rich earthy irises, echoing the need that surged inside him.
He raised his hands, focused to stop the damned things from trembling, and swallowed to wet his parched throat as he edged them towards her, and finally, carefully, placed his palms against her cheeks.
Touching her.
Gods, she was warm, soft beneath his callused palms. His little butterfly, beautiful and delicate, trembling in his hands.
He meant to leave it at that, to release her and not risk anything else, but she shifted on her knees, placed her hands against the mats to support herself and brought her lips up to his.
Fire and lightning crashed through him as they brushed his, the sweetness of her lip gloss coating his, filling his mouth with the taste of strawberries, and hunger surged through him, a need to taste more of her, to completely devour her.
On a low growl, he slid his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her to him, his mouth claiming hers.
He tried to hold back his strength, the raging tide of his desire, the maelstrom of his need, but it was impossible as sensations collided and detonated inside him. He kissed her deeply, fucking clumsily if he had to admit it, his hand shaking against her nape as he stiltedly swept his lips across hers, and she blissfully responded, her own actions as jerky as his, as if desire was overcoming her too, stealing control.
Sweet gods.
The rain lashed down, striking the roof so hard that it shook the wooden structure, the weather turning more violent as a new need surged through him.
He wanted to touch her.
Intimately.
A growl tore up his throat, a need to go through with that driving him to obey, and he barely leashed it, holding it back as he broke away from her lips, shock rippling through him.
He couldn’t believe he wanted to do such a thing, or the ferocity of his hunger to be inside her.
A mortal.
Esher stared at her, breathing hard, fighting to restrain himself and tamp down that need. She looked at him, lips swollen and red from his brutal kiss, her pale skin darkened beneath his palm by the pressure of his grip. He had been rough with her, but she hadn’t pushed him away, and she still looked at him as if she wanted to kiss him again, as if what he had given her wasn’t enough for her either.
Fuck, she was beautiful as she looked at him like that, something soft and almost affectionate in her desire-hazed eyes, her shy smile luring him in together with the way she was hiding nothing from him. Her warmth and honesty, her openness, drew him towards her, and he wanted to drown in her.
That scared him.
What the fuck was he doing?
It was dangerous for her to be around him, but he couldn’t let her go. He needed her. He couldn’t have her though. All it would take was the moon’s sway to get to him, or his memories to overwhelm him. It would take only a momentary slip in control and he would hurt her. His powers had always been strong and as unpredictable as the ocean, and since what had happened to Calindria, he had been more than dangerous.
Aiko was strong, he could see that, but it was a strength of spirit, not of body. She was delicate, and he wanted to protect her because of it. He wanted her to always smile.
He released her and eased back, the hardest fucking thing he had ever done, and looked at the world outside. The rain was so heavy that he couldn’t see anything beyond the glass. His fault.
As much as it killed him to stop, he needed to find some calm again, some sliver of control.
Because he didn’t want to hurt her.
Gods help him, he didn’t want to fuck up and be the one to kill that smile of hers.
CHAPTER 8
Aiko watched the rain, fascinated by it as it began to ease again, growing lighter the longer Esher was silent beside her. She could feel his struggle, that he needed time. Time she would give to him.
As the garden began to appear through the haze of the rain again, she wished her nerves would ease like the weather, and fade away. She couldn’t believe she was sitting in the teahouse with Esher, that they had broken into this place. She knew she should feel bad, or it should feel wrong, but being around Esher only ever felt right.
Her lips still tingled from his kiss, her body alive with sensation as he sat beside her, his hands planted behind him to support him and his long legs stretched before him, the black denim wrinkled around his ankles where it had been jammed into his boots. His eyes remained locked on the world beyond the glass, and while he was close to her, she felt as if he was miles away.
She wanted him to come back to her, wanted to kiss him again, and feel his hands on her.
She glanced across at him.
He was on edge though. She could feel it in him. Something was troubling him. The same thing that had been troubling him when she had left the shrine and found he had moved away from it?
The moment she had stepped over the threshold of the shrine, she had sensed the gods’ unease, and something that had felt like anger to her, and part of her had felt certain that it had been directed at Esher.
Because he was a foreign spirit in their land?
An intruder?
She moved onto her backside and drew her knees up to her chest as she studied his noble profile, focusing on him and trying to understand the sensation that swirled in her chest as she watched him. He didn’t feel like a threat, but she could sense the darkness in him, just as she could feel the power of the tides surging through him.
He was one with nature, very in tune with it, and it awed her.
Her grandmother had been a shrine maiden in a small village high in the mountains, and she had always amused Aiko with stories of how she had danced with the gods and seen the spirits. Aiko had thought they were only tales, but after her grandmother had passed, and she had visited the shrine to pay her respects, she had felt the presence there and had been able to see a faint shimmering in the air that moved as if it was something crossing the space before her.
Over the years that had followed, her ability had developed, growing stronger, and now she could clearly sense spirits and had even seen one or two manifest themselves for her. It was the reason she visited the shrines as often as she could, so she could pay her respects to them.
Esher was different though.
He was flesh and blood. He lived and breathed, and even smiled at times. He was stronger too.
Was he more of a god than a spirit?
And if he was a god, was he benevolent or destructive?
His head tilted towards her, his gaze coming to meet hers, and in it, she saw a tempest building.
Or was he both?
She was tempted to peer deeper into his feelings, but she had learned not to abuse her powers. Her grandmother had always warned her that people were private creatures, and that she should treat them with respect. She hadn’t heeded that warning until she had pried into the private feelings of some girls who had befriended her in high school, and had discovered they were only pretending to be her friend. Now, she read people the old-fashioned way, and Esher’s body language told her enough about his feelings.
He was struggling with himself.
“I should go,” he muttered as the weather turned worse again, the rain so heavy it was almost deafening as it struck the teahouse roof.
She wanted to ask him to stay, but there was something about his eyes that made her hold her tongue. They were haunted, shadowed, and she could feel fear in him. Unease. She could feel something else in him too, that what he wanted and what he said were two conflicting things, the complete opposites to each other.
He didn’t want to go.
His pupils dilated, gobbling up the stormy blue, and his breath came faster as he stared at her, his chest heaving against his navy shirt and grey t-shirt.
The source of his unease hit her, and she knew how to soothe it.
She moved back onto her knees, coming to face him, and didn’t hesitate as she framed his face with her hands and kissed him.
He was quick to respond, his trembling hands instantly claiming her hips and tugging her against his hard chest. She shook too, nerves getting the better of her as she thought about what she was doing, combined with the desire that flared inside her, startling in its intensity.
She drowned in it as he fell backwards, taking her with him, and she landed on his chest, his hip pressing against hers. She moaned as he rolled with her so she was on her back beneath him, his right knee wedged between her thighs and his left arm locked beneath her head like a pillow, caging her against him.
His kiss softened, his breath shaking against her lips as he skimmed his right hand down her arm, his touch surprisingly light, sending shivers of fire chasing over her skin. When his hand closed over her left breast, she arched into his touch and couldn’t hold back.
“Don’t stop this time.” Those words leaving her lips in a breathless rush, both a plea and a demand in them, shocked her and her cheeks burned.
She could feel he was going to pull back and look at her, so she grabbed him around the back of his neck, his short black hair tickling her fingers, and pulled him down to her and kissed him.
His tongue plunged between her lips and she opened for him, couldn’t breathe as he palmed her breast and sent wave after wave of hot tingles rushing through her, lighting her up inside. She moaned and he joined her, his left hand clutching her shoulder as he kissed her, his heart pounding as quickly as hers. He squeezed her breast again, and then hastily released it, and she wanted to chastise him but he stole her voice as he tugged her tank down to reveal her pink bra and brushed his thumb over the curve of her breast.
He groaned as he pulled away and looked at what he was doing, and she shivered as his hips surged forwards and his hardness pressed against her right thigh. Her heart skipped a beat as she gazed up at him, a little dazed, finding it difficult to believe she was doing this, letting him touch her like this, and that she wanted more.
His hand shifted so his palm sat over her heart, and she squeezed her eyes shut, her brow furrowing as his fingers slipped beneath the satin of her bra and brushed her nipple, sending a thousand volts shooting down to the apex of her thighs.
His mouth seized hers again, swallowing her next moan, and she trembled and arched into his touch, lost in the sizzling sensations as they whipped through her, an assault she wasn’t sure she could withstand.
He angled his head and kissed her deeper still, his touch growing rougher as he shifted his hand over her stomach. When she realised where he was heading, when she felt his trembling worsen, his nerves rising, she couldn’t hold back the moan that bubbled up her throat.
Couldn’t stop herself from letting her left knee fall aside, revealing the apex of her thighs for him.
His low groan as his hand sank beneath the frills of her skirt to brush her satin panties had another shiver tripping through her, the burn of desire growing fiercer as she kissed him harder, unable to hold herself back anymore. He moaned as she surrendered to her need and plundered his mouth with her tongue.
He bucked against her thigh, rubbing himself along it, stirring her desire to dizzying new heights, filling her mind with a delectable vision of them entwined. She bit down on her lower lip as he s
lipped his fingers beneath the elastic of her underwear, her breath coming faster as he eased back and his gaze scalded her face. She struggled to open her eyes as his fingers drifted lower and his first caress sent her hips shooting upwards and a white-hot blast of heat through her. When she managed to get them open, they locked with his.
A storm raged in them, the blue of his irises swirling with the tempest, speaking to her of his need, of how this was affecting him as deeply as it was her. She let it sweep her along as she gave in to him, to the need that broke over her like a wave and carried her away. She rocked against his hand as he fondled her, finger teasing her pert bead, intense sparks of fire skittering through her in response to each one. With every stroke and press, the storm in his eyes built and the rain grew heavier, deafening now as she surged towards release.
She trembled as she gripped his shoulders, lost in his eyes as he sank his hand lower and eased a finger into her. Her need spiralled higher as she imagined him inside her like that, stretching and filling her, moving inside her. She needed that. Needed him.
She bit her tongue to stop herself from asking it of him though, aware that his fear hadn’t gone anywhere, lingered even now as he lowered his gaze from her face to his hand where it touched her. He looked as if he was having a difficult time believing they were doing this. She was. She had never been intimate with anyone, had never felt the desire to do it, but she couldn’t control herself around him.
He drove her wild, had her gripping his shoulders so tightly she feared she might hurt him as she reached a crescendo.
He stroked her deeper, rubbing the pads of his fingers over her flesh as he withdrew, and she shattered.
His gaze leaped to her face as she broke apart, a cry leaving her lips, so loud she feared someone might hear over the noise of the rain, and she was sure that he growled as he lowered his head and pressed his brow to her cheek, and his cock to her hip. It kicked and throbbed in time with each quiver of her body around his fingers, in time with each wave of bliss that rolled through her and crashed over her, stealing the breath she had managed to catch each time.
Esher (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 3) Page 8
