by Dannika Dark
“I’m on bended knee, Silver. Tell me you want me.”
It wasn’t about sex; he wanted me to accept his claim. Logan Cross was indirectly asking me to stop running and choose. I thought about what he once told me: “Make the men in your life run for it; if they tire of the chase, then they’re not worth your affections.” I wasn’t ready for a life-changing decision. I just wanted this night.
“Take me to the bed,” I whispered. My legs were not going to hold me up any longer.
He lifted me and I held onto his neck. “I’ll take you… anywhere you ask me to,” he murmured.
My heart pounded when the sheets cooled my back. Logan measured the distance from my thigh to my breast with his tongue. The darkness brought such an unexpected intensity of heightened awareness. Even the exaggerated sound of the sheets rustling beneath his knees was erotic.
“Oh, Miss Silver. You do have the loveliest bosom.”
A laugh almost erupted from me until his mouth latched onto my nipple. When he swirled his tongue, I moaned in a soft breath. I’d waited for that moment for so long—the one place I wanted to feel his lips, and they were so generous and attentive.
“I’m a man of patience,” he said, kissing around the curve of my breast, “but I’ve waited an excruciatingly long time to taste you.”
“What would you have done if I made you wait years?”
“I would have learned how to give you an orgasm from a kiss.”
My heart quickened. His bedroom words were even better than his bedroom eyes. I luxuriated beneath his expert touch and melted into a pool of desire. Nothing else existed, just the feel and smell of a man who handled me like a goddess.
Seconds? Minutes? It seemed like hours that he marveled over every inch of skin with his tongue until I was writhing beneath him. His arms caged me, hair sliding across my chest, and the rhythm of his wet tongue and whiskers left me breathless.
There was a tug as he pulled the mood ring off my finger.
“I thought it didn’t bother you?” I asked softly.
“It’s yours, but when I take you I want nothing on you—especially a token that another male has given you.” The ring tapped on the bedside table to my left.
I cupped my hand around his neck and stroked my thumb against the bristles on his jaw. “Logan, I want to touch you while I still can. It requires concentration to keep my light reined in, but this is something that I need to learn how to control.”
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Lie down on your back,” I said.
He growled, pleased with my take-charge command. We switched places and I sat beside him.
“When you can no longer touch me, then it’s my turn,” he said.
“Fair enough.” If I lost concentration and my energy leaked, a shock would rip through him and embarrass me for the rest of my life. “Do you trust me?”
“Implicitly.”
“Grip the headboard.”
It creaked as he stretched his long arms behind his head. Logan’s anxious breath filled the silent room when I ran my fingers up his leg, as if I had all the time in the world. Every place I touched, the texture of his skin changed. From the soft bristle of hairs to a smooth spot on his inner thigh, and then his stomach was warm and taut with grooves of defined muscles. I scored my nails across his hip and the headboard made a loud complaint.
“Do you want me to touch you?” I asked.
His hips lifted in response. Logan was a caged animal and it was exciting to feel the dangerous power of the man beneath me.
My fingers wrapped around his shaft—so smooth and rigid. With long strokes, I slid my palm to the head and then back to the base. His entire body responded—tensing as his heels dug into the mattress. I grew apprehensive when I felt the length of him; he was more man than I’d given him credit for. I leaned forward and circled my tongue in a spot on his chest. A deep rumble gathered in Logan’s throat like a roar waiting to be unleashed.
“Stop,” he groaned in a hoarse voice. His fingers curled in my hair.
“Why?”
I could hear his teeth scraping against his lip as he moved his hands away. “Our females…”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never had a woman pleasure you,” I almost said in disbelief. Silence replied. “So I’ll be your first?”
The headboard made a terrible creak as if it might snap into pieces and temptation took over. I leaned over and licked his stomach, so near to him that he roared out and tensed all at once. “Silver, please. I’ll lose control.” His voice was a harsh warning and frightened me as I decided that we’d have plenty of time to explore dangerous ground.
His skin smelled masculine, sticky with heat beneath my fingertips. I ran my tongue over a spot on his lower belly and his body tensed as I kissed my way up to his Adam’s apple. I licked it. Strange thing—I’d never done anything like that before. His thick purr tickled against my lips.
“You smell so good,” I said in a soft breath, running my nose around his neck and through his hair. “Why do you smell so good?” I took a long, deep inhale.
When I slid farther up and nuzzled his cheek, Logan let go of the headboard and held on to my hips. “I’ve never been with a Mage before, Silver.”
“I’ve only been with human men, so this will be new for both of us,” I said, nibbling his ear. I hoped that Logan wouldn’t compare my novice ways to the experienced immortal women he’d slept with. That thought alone almost sent me running out of the room. I was overwhelmed with how gentle, firm, and insistent Logan was in seeing to my needs. Truthfully, I felt inferior with a man who had at least a hundred years practice on me. No pressure.
He groaned beneath his words. “I’m afraid I might hurt you.”
“Why?”
There was a pause and I kissed my way up to his chin, feeling the bristles against my lips. “Tell me.”
“Sometimes during sex, when it gets intense, we flip our switch.”
“Seriously?” I frowned. Then I remembered how fiercely he’d fought to protect me while in that condition. Deep down, Logan was in there, he was just at the mercy of his instincts. “I trust you.”
“But I don’t trust me.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said against his lips, kissing the corner of his mouth. “I’ve seen the dark side of you, Logan, and we get along just fine. I guess when you think about it, we could both end up killing each other in the bedroom.”
He flipped me over and I felt like a clock about to unwind as he laid himself on top of me.
“Mmm,” he purred. “My turn.”
When I tried to open my legs, he closed them with his own—but I felt his arousal like a solid fact against my thigh.
Logan placed a kiss on my swollen lips, tasting them like nectar. There was a raw intensity behind every stroke of his tongue against mine, and suddenly our desire erupted into something wild. I pulled his hair; his fingers bit into my waist; flames erupted from the press of our skin, rubbing so hard that the energy snapped in my fingertips, so I pulled it back.
This is how Justus was with his women? Containing my energy forced me to become detached from the full experience; it was like eating without tasting.
The curve of his strong back against the palms of my hands made it feel like Logan was mine. I took hold of his glorious backside as memories of our hotel stay resurfaced, along with that brief moment of temptation when I saw him naked for the first time.
“I can’t touch you anymore. I’m sorry,” I said through shallow breaths, letting go.
“Put your hands over your head. I can feel your energy rising.” Logan kissed the delicate spot on my neck that I loved the most.
“What’s it feel like?”
“Like every hair on my body is standing up.”
I grinned. “That’s not the only thing standing up.”
He rolled off me, stroking my thigh.
“Sorry,” I said. “I thought it would last longer, but I lost control.”
“Control is the one thing that I forbid you to have tonight. No holding back—there’s no hiding who we are in here, Silver. I’ll take you as a woman, as a Mage, and as my female.”
His words rushed through my head like a storm. His female. I fought against the way the idea overlapped in my mind like layers of devotion.
His fingers on my inner thigh smoothed away my nerves. Not seeing what was coming was the most erotic experience and his hot mouth on my breast was so unexpected that I squirmed beneath him. He did things with his mouth that sent light shooting through my fingertips. I gripped my pillow tighter.
“You have a very greedy tongue, Mr. Cross.”
Without warning, he slipped a finger inside me and I nearly threw him off the bed from the desire that licked over my body like a flame.
“Spread them,” he demanded in a dark whisper against in my ear. I complied. “I want my mouth there,” he growled, stroking me once more. “When I get that privilege, I’m going to take my time. Do you understand me?”
I shook my head. Hell no, I didn’t understand. When his fingers found a rhythm, a moan escaped that sounded more like a plea.
“You’re a seven-course meal, and tonight is only the first course.”
Now I knew. Each time we were together, there would be something new for us to share. His version of a slow seduction wouldn’t be abstaining from sex, but feeding me experiences slowly. Nothing was predictable about this man.
“Please… I want you.” My voice cracked, legs clamping together and trapping his hand.
Logan climbed over me, tracing his eager lips across my neck. “Say it again.”
My pillow was about to become nothing but stuffing. “I want you.”
“No,” he said. “Not like that. I’ve waited since the night we met—when you stubbornly challenged me—to say those words. Whisper it in my ear. Slowly.”
The San Andreas Fault had nothing on the power dividing within me. Logan’s ear brushed against my mouth. It was so intimate speaking to him that way—so close that he could hear my shaky breath. “Take me,” I said impatiently. “Because if you don’t touch me, then I’m going to have to touch you.” When he rocked his hips against mine and I felt a thickness press between my legs, I gave in. “I want you, Logan. Only you.”
A heady, intoxicating scent filled my nose. Pheromones, aphrodisiac, ambrosia—clashing into the most powerful mix I’d ever experienced. It was dominating and sinful, with a power so primal it triggered all kinds of responses in me.
I arched my back and just as soon as I felt the blunt head slide upward, he thrust himself to the hilt.
“My female,” he growled in my ear.
My knees clamped against his hips and my entire body locked up. This was more than I’d imagined. Logan filled me to capacity and my body yielded to him in ways that I didn’t understand. My legs were shaking.
Did that spectacular pattern erupt across skin? I didn’t want him to contain his animal the way I did with my light. I wanted to learn everything about Logan Cross.
He dropped his left arm over my wrists to keep them still while the right caressed my body. Logan drove himself into me—over and over again. His persistent hips slammed against mine until it felt like we were conjoined. There was a thunder in our hearts and he kissed me so salaciously that he was everywhere. My mouth. My core. Hands on my body. Scent in my nose. Words resonating in my mind. My past. My present.
I struggled beneath him, yearning to touch as he kept my hands pinned. He growled and nipped my shoulder with his teeth. “Let’s do this a different way.”
Logan lifted me by the waist and turned on his back, grabbing my hips to straddle him. I tentatively climbed astride.
“Hands on the headboard, and hold on tight,” he said.
Did he know what he was doing to me?
Logan guided himself inside and I held the damn headboard, ready to snap it in two. He caressed my hips, waiting patiently for me to move. I felt brave and scooted my knees up.
Logan knew me better than I knew myself.
“Tell me what you want,” he said. I tensed, causing his fingers to grip tighter. “Tell me.”
Most of my sexual liaisons were brief interludes, with the exception of the failed relationship. My ex never wanted me on top because, in his eyes, it was empowering. Sex was never about me, but his own gratification followed by a critique on why I couldn’t please him. It made me self-conscious about taking control.
This was exactly the position I wanted to be in, yet telling Logan what I needed was harder than I thought it would be.
“Uh…” I took a deep breath. Get it together. I could already feel myself blushing, even with this delicious man inside of me. I just couldn’t say it out loud. Why was it so difficult?
Logan wasn’t having any of it. He hooked his arms over my shoulders to keep me in place. “Neither of us will be going anywhere until you tell me what you want.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
He pushed himself up and spoke against my cheek. “And you’re making me angry. You think whatever you say will frighten me off? Your scent only tells me so much; what I really want to know is what’s on your mind. So tell me what you want.” He slid his arm around my back and stroked the curve.
“I want you to…”
“To what?” Logan fell back down against the pillow, waiting patiently for an answer.
Even in the dark, I rolled my eyes. I knew exactly what my body needed to send me over the edge, but asking for it wasn’t a dialogue I was used to having. Why couldn’t I just be like other women and take what I wanted, say what I wanted, do what I wanted? I had no problem doing that with every other aspect of my life. Damn my inhibitions.
Instead of asking, I leaned forward until my nipple brushed across his parted lips. His wet tongue circled around.
“This is what you want, isn’t it,” he murmured. “Then say it.” His mouth came away and he waited. Damn him.
“Suck on me,” I said in a small breath.
Logan did more than obey; he devoured me, taking pleasure in using his mouth to light up every nerve. His hand cupped my breast while his other stroked my body.
That unflinching gesture spiraled within my belly like a wound-up coil. I dropped down hard, repeating the motion again and again until each thrust caused him to moan. I don’t know how many minutes went by before we were fast approaching the edge.
“Perfect,” he breathed against my sensitive skin. I was on the brink as I picked up speed—reckless and focused only on my own pleasure, my own release.
I couldn’t stop. My body became a locomotive and the bed thumped against the wall. He pinched my nipples hard with his thumb and index finger, twisting them until I cried out. My legs trembled and I grew dizzy as a flush of heat went through me in waves.
“Come for me, Little Raven.”
Five simple words unraveled me. My body tightened as his hands spread over my hips and thrust me against him in his own needful rhythm. I grabbed a handful of his hair, pulled it back, and firmly bit his neck as I came.
Logan roared out during his release and smothered me in his scent. One he managed to keep contained the entire time and thank God for that. It only heightened my arousal, causing me to climax even harder. I cried out, unable to stop riding the wave as I moaned his name once again.
I transformed into jelly against his sticky chest. A cool sheen of sweat never felt so sweet. He tenderly stroked my damp hair away from my shoulder as our chests filled with heavy breaths.
When I sat up, an aftershock slammed into me and he immediately responded—rocking me into continual pleasure with his hands on my hips as tiny bursts of light filled my head. I suddenly became keenly aware of the meaning behind “parting is such sweet sorrow”.
“That’s it. Give me everything,” he murmured. “I’m not leaving this bed until my female is sated.”
His words were all the stimulation I needed. I collapsed on his chest and p
ressed my soft lips to his throat, feeling the wonderful tickling vibration of his purr mingled with his racing pulse. He stroked my back and shoulders with a gentle touch.
When I started to pull away, my heart stopped. Something was very unfinished. I still felt him thick inside of me. “I thought you… weren’t you satisfied?”
He moaned. “Intently.”
“Then how come—”
Logan cleared his throat with a dark laugh. “Chitahs are known for our stamina.”
“Oh.” I smiled impishly. “Do you want to finish?”
Logan rocked with laughter. “Silver, you’re spent. Come lay beside me.”
He hissed when I rose and settled down on the mattress. Once his arms wrapped around me, I wondered why we’d waited so long.
“Is that how it normally goes for you?”
Logan slid my hips closer and the air stirred between us. “No. This was different. Twice I almost flipped my switch and that’s never happened before. I’ve never felt that out of control.”
“Not even with your mate or all the women henceforth?”
He snorted and pinched my arm. “Most of the females I’ve chosen were submissive in the bedroom with a few aggressive tactics.”
“Sounds like war.”
“More like routine. Some things come natural and most of the act is anticipated. But with you… I don’t know what to expect.”
Logan’s leg wove around mine. “Most females stay on their backs and that’s what I’m used to. I only let you get on top so that I wouldn’t get hit by your sex lightning.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s one way to put it.”
His soft kiss against my ear stirred another flurry of butterflies. “But I must say, Silver, I’m a converted man. We’re doing that again,” he decided.
“If Justus heard us, I’m going to die,” I mumbled against his chest.
“Nothing he hasn’t heard before. I’m sure,” he replied coldly. “They’re upstairs and I requested privacy.”
“You didn’t.”
He snorted. “I thought you needed rest. Had I known your intentions were otherwise, I would have asked them to drive into the city for the evening. Justus was working in his study when I came down.”
