by S. K Munt
Tristan lowered himself onto her. He knew what she wanted to hear, or rather-what she didn’t want him to demand. ‘An admission that you were scared tonight because you truly do love me, not because of what I can do to you…Multiple orgasms…’ he smiled wryly. ‘And nothing more.’
She ran her hand up along the back of his thighs. ‘But if I say I love you again…’
‘Then you’re just admitting what I already knew-not that you love me the most. You’ve still got two weeks to sort out that hot mess of a brain of yours.’
Ivyanne’s fingers traced his brow tenderly. ‘I love you Tristan Loveridge.’ The words were heavenly to his ears. ‘And not just because you’re sex on a stick.’
He laughed at that, glad for her humor because it helped conceal the vulnerability her words brought out in him. ‘Now was that so hard?’
‘You have no idea.’
He smiled. ‘Well it’s out there now. So making love can just be something we did for fun this weekend. I won’t run off and tell Link, nor will I take it as a down payment on a queen’s heart.’ He bent his head, pressing a gentle kiss to her rib cage, then another below it, near her navel. ‘And speaking of down payments, I believe I have a debt to repay...a very overdue one.’
But Ivyanne’s hand caught his shoulder. ‘Tristan not that! It’s too intimate!’
His stomach tightened against an uprise of jealousy, and he swept his gaze up over her body to her face. ‘A fact you’d only know if you’d allowed someone else such intimacy first!’ He growled. ‘And if you’re trying to stop me from kissing you for hours, making me feel possessive is not the way to go about it!’
‘But I’d stop him too right now!’ Ivyanne cried. ‘Please Tristan, don’t. I thought I wanted to make love...I thought I needed you slow and gentle to prove that what we had was more than animal but-’ She exhaled with pursed lips and rose, pushing him up to his knees.
‘What?’ He asked, confused and a little scared. Had her admission doused her fire?
But Ivyanne took him in the palm of her hand and slowly stroked him, making his eyelids flutter. ‘I don’t want you to be gentle,’ she whispered, her hand sliding faster, making him pant. ‘I want you to lose yourself, and take me with you.’
‘Oh..’ Tristan chuckled self-consciously, realizing that she was asking for something he wasn’t sure he was in the position to do just yet. He shook his head, feeling butterflies in the pit of his stomach. ‘God I don’t know if I can switch off like that with you right now…not after what we’ve been through tonight.’ He was desperate to take his time with her, to tease her and slowly build a fire under her heart. ‘You’re afraid of the intimacy Ivyanne but...that’s all I have to give you.’
Ivyanne’s palms rested against his shoulders, pushing him back slightly. ‘Well that’s a shame. Because there’s no way I’m going to be able to relax enough to do this if I’m sitting here worrying about your feelings-’
Tristan snarled at the very idea of her backing out now, bringing his mouth down over her stiff nipple and sinking his teeth into the aureola, eliciting a gasp from her. His erection pulsed once more, his anger and desire merging into one flash fire that spread over his entire body and engulfed his heart and mind in unison.
‘Hold on to something, sweet princess,’ he growled in her ear, his body constricting around hers. ‘I’m going to fuck you every way I know how. And there are a lot of ways I know.’
Ivyanne cried out her assent and wrapped her legs around him, opening herself to the moment and wiping his mind of all thought.
*
Ardhi stared out the grimy window of Callum’s hilltop hovel late on Saturday night, glaring broodingly down at the twinkling lights of Airlie Beach as held an ice pack to the lump on his forehead.
‘She did it!’ He whispered to himself. ‘She made that wave!’
‘So you’ve said,’ Dallas looked up at him, taking a break from surveying the numerous scratches on his arms and legs where the mangrove forest had practically torn him limb from limb. ‘So what does that mean? She’s like you?’
Ardhi sighed. ‘I don’t know...I’d have to create a storm to do what she did.’ He tossed the ice pack onto a rust stained metal and glass table near the front door. ‘That was something else. She used her hands though, I know that much.’
So when I go to her, magic won’t be enough-she’ll need restraining. He thought silently. Seeing her beautiful body taut with anger, those emerald eyes glowing fire had done nothing to quell his desire for her. He was more determined than ever now to see his plan through. But he felt more anxious now that maybe he’d find it a lot trickier than he’d anticipated.
‘I can’t believe how quickly they got to us-like they’d been waiting in the bloody driveway for an attack!’ Dallas lamented.
Callum crouched down to pick up the things Ardhi had knocked over when he’d first rushed inside. ‘Which means I’m not looking forward to going back for my car.’
‘I know. Just go in broad daylight and stick with the story we agreed on, okay? It was stolen. You never saw me. They won’t ask you enough questions to arouse a human’s curiosity.’ At that moment, the couch began to buzz-Ardhi’s new phone. He flipped it open, took note of the number and half grunted: ‘Sherri?’
‘Oh my god!’ Sherri’s voice was as screechy as a whisper could be. ‘Ardhi, you will not believe what’s going on down here!’
He frowned down at the purplish bruising along his hip, where he’d been knocked onto the edge of the dock before sucked out in the rip. ‘What?’
‘Okay... don’t freak... but I’m up in the garden, near Tristan’s old room.’
Ardhi’s heart somersaulted. ‘Are you serious?!’ he hissed. ‘That’s too close! Sherri-you’re insane!’
‘No, I’m not. This place is pumping! The music is so loud I can barely hear myself think, and it’s a heavy metal crowd, so let’s just say-I blend right in.’ She spoke in that same, hysterical whisper. ‘Besides, I lifted a gun from one of the boats we saw at the Marina…’
Ardhi paled. ‘A gun? You have a fucking gun?!’ He was trembling, he was so mad. ‘Do you even know how to use one?’
Sherri snorted. ‘Farm girl, remember? Anyway stop interrupting me-this is important!’
Ardhi exhaled noisily and went to the window. ‘Well?’
‘Well-I’m in the bushes with Lorens, minding my own business, when the whole lot come outside with some random, wet drunk, all acting majorly excited and smacking Lincoln on the back like he just got elected president... and do you want to know who the wet drunk guy was?’
Ardhi didn’t know if he could handle another word. His brain was fried. ‘Who?’
‘Remi’s husband Michael. Seems like ‘ol Link pulled him out of the pool and breathed new life into him... and when I say new life... I mean, our life.’
Ardhi gripped the windowsill. ‘Lincoln….Michael?!’ He didn’t say the word out loud-guessed instinctively that if some of the others heard he had a rival for that power too, they’d begin to question his relevance. As he suddenly was!
‘Fraid so! They’re losing their minds with excitement and he can’t stop grinning. It’s insane-wait-’ There was a pause, and Ardhi could hear some quiet chatter in the background.
‘Okay... Bane and Marcus just went back inside with Adele, leaving Link and Bane’s little sister out here. I’ll need to talk quieter. God, he looks amazing Ardhi. And happy!’
‘This is unbelievable,’ Ardhi muttered. ‘It was one thing to laugh when they were giving him credit for saving you-but if he can actually turn…’
‘Tristan’s screwed.’ Sherri whispered. ‘But think of what this can mean for us! What if I can turn too? What if a few of us can, because of you?’
Ardhi rested his head against the glass and spoke quietly. ‘It’s not that great. Ivyanne would be more liable to let me exist in peace if she’d thought I could offer the one thing no one else could.’ He sighed. ‘In fact, life would
be easier for all of us if you’d just point that thing of yours at his head and pull the trigger.’
Callum’s head snapped up. ‘Say what?’
Sherri inhaled sharply. ‘No way!’
Ardhi rolled his eyes, holding a hand up to Callum. ‘He’d kill you.’
‘Maybe I’d deserve it.’ Her voice was hushed. ‘I looked in the mirror today and I didn’t like who I saw. Maybe we should just tell Lincoln, Ardhi. We could right some of our wrongs by gifting him with the news, instead of detonating him with it along the line, as I know you intend- Oh my god!’
The hairs on Ardhi’s neck rose. ‘What?’
‘That little freaking ho!’ Sherri sounded scandalized. ‘She just kissed him! Bane’s little sister just kissed Lincoln!’
Ardhi’s mouth fell open. ‘Grace?! Are you serious?’
‘That bitch! She’s in line for her pick of men! Screw this!’ There was the sound of footsteps against gravel. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?!’
Ardhi’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Sherri, what are you doing?! Get out of there! You’re going to-’ Ardhi’s words were cut off by the cracking of a gun shot. He jumped, almost dropping the phone, hearing the screams from down the other end of the line just as the phone went silent.
*
Ignoring the dull throb in his lower leg, Tristan secured Ivyanne against him with one arm and used his abdomen to pull himself to his knees, never softening the assault on her sweet nipples, nibbling and suckling, one then the other and back again. She was incredibly responsive to the stimulation-greedy almost and it made him wild. He rose to his feet and got her to the bed, feeling her wet sex bucking wildly against him as she attempted to impale herself.
‘Dammit woman if you don’t ease off I’m going to have to start thinking about bald old men.’
‘I can’t-’ She gasped.
‘Reach?’ He supplied, smiling smugly and switching his grip until he had her backside cupped in his hands. Then, he began slowly guiding her up and along him-moving at what was a maddeningly slow pace, especially to him, forcing her clit to connect with every bit of his cock. She left a slick trail along him that coaxed a bead of moisture from the tip of his length in promise. ‘Need some leverage baby?’ He teased.
‘No. Some Loveridge.’ Ivyanne shot back, pushing off his shoulders in a sudden display of her forgotten strength and then sinking down-too quickly for him to catch her. She slid onto the head of his erection and he was so blind-sided by the combustion their interlocked bodies created that his knees gave just enough for him to prevent her falling too hard and too fast. He re-gripped her and strained away, growling: ‘You trying to get yourself killed woman?!’
‘No! I’m trying to get myself f-’
Tristan curled his hand around her waist and half rolled/half flipped her onto her stomach on the mattress beneath them. Ivyanne gasped in surprise and attempted to get up, but he grabbed her hips and pulled her back to the edge of the bed on her knees, widening his stance behind her.
‘You’re not the white flag type in life Ivyanne, and I know that. But in the bedroom, at least until your body is used to mine, you have to surrender some control.’ He smoothed his hand lovingly down her spine and over her rump, and she shivered. ‘I won’t have you hurting yourself and then taking that as incompatibility, when all that’s needed is a bit of breaking in.’
‘But Tristan I told you, I don’t want it slow and- ohhh!’
Tristan has pushed the tip of himself into her, knowing it would silence her. ‘You want to know what’s funny about that, your majesty?’ he demanded, wrapping his hand around her cloud of hair and using it to pull her head back.
Ivyanne arched her back. ‘What?!’
‘This is how I make love…’ Tristan parted her trembling thighs with his other hand, stimulating her heat with his fingertips as he lined himself up behind her. The room was filled with the sound of their haggard breathing. ‘I’m not the orchestral roses and wine type. If you want it rough, I can give you that. But whether I’m driving myself into you or easing my way in-you can rest assured that my heart is relishing it as much as my body is!’
‘Oh god!’ Ivyanne gasped. ‘Fine!’
She’s already pulsing! He thought wildly. I’m going to undo this girl in seconds this time! And she’s going to take me with her!
‘Are you ready for this Ivanna?’ he said as he moved his hand to grasp her hip instead. ‘Because Trent likes it this way. A lot.’
‘Mmm…’ she backed up against him needfully.
Amidst his cloud of euphoria, he gleaned a thrill of satisfaction from the fact that he’d addressed her by her old alias-the one Lincoln had always known her by-and she hadn’t baulked. It was almost like he was taking her virginity all over again. Tristan caught sight of their metallic reflection in the mirror and felt a surge of animalistic lust to see her at his mercy so completely.
God I love you! He thought, sliding himself between her thighs teasingly, biting his lip in satisfaction as she quaked. You will be mine!
‘Oh!’ she gasped, her thighs clenching around him. ‘More!’
Tristan released her hair and slipped his arm under her torso, bringing her back flat up against his stomach. She didn’t want this to be romantic, but he could kiss her with even more passion if he wan’t trying to do it tenderly. He turned her face to his as he impaled her with one swift jerk of his hips, catching her scream of pleasure with his own mouth as he locked his lips around hers greedily.
He was about to shove her back down onto all fours when the phone suddenly rang.
*
Ivyanne couldn’t believe it when Tristan reached across to her bedside table and picked up his phone, holding her against him, but stilling his movements and cursing under his breath.
‘You’re going to answer it?’ she demanded hotly, quaking with her need for him to move inside her. ‘Now?!’
Tristan’s heart was pounding against her back. ‘Still on duty, remember?’ he asked her. He held the screen up in front of them. ‘It’s Adele! That’s weird!’
‘Let it ring!’ She spat, moving her hips in quick circles, reaching around behind him to force him against her, her fingers jolting in pleasant shock as she realized that his ass was so firm, so silken, that she couldn’t even get a good grip on it. Every nerve ending in her body was humming in anticipation of the orgasm she’d been seconds shy of. The first of what she knew would be many. ‘You’re busy!’
‘It could be an emergency.’ Tristan’s thumb moved towards the ‘Accept’ button and then shoved her back down with one palm against her back. ‘For once do what you’re damn well told! And shush!’
‘Ugh!’ Ivyanne caught herself on her hands and hissed through her teeth when he slid along her with such musical precision that he struck every note inside her.
‘If this isn’t a life or death situation-it’s gonna be yours.’ Ivyanne heard Tristan answer brusquely, rocking into her swiftly. Ivyanne felt her body grip his, felt the air sucked from her lungs. She was so close, if he moved again-
‘Tristan?’ Adele’s voice sounded tearful-and loud. Obviously Tristan had put it on speakerphone. ‘Tristan... it’s so awful! I don’t know what to do!’
Ivyanne’s head jerked up. ‘What is it?’ she asked, beating Tristan to it. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Ivyanne?’ Adele began to sob. ‘Ivyanne-Lincoln’s been shot!’
17.
Lincoln lost count of the amount of times he slipped in and out of consciousness. He knew that the first two times, the lights above his head were too bright and hurt his eyes, and after that, everything was too dark.
Somewhere around the tenth awakening, when an immeasurable length of time had passed, he became slightly more aware of things. The burning, crippling pain in his right arm, for one, which made him clench his teeth to hold in the screams he knew would bring no relief but only aggravate the pounding in his head, and that he was in a car-lain across a backseat. Every now and then
, a light blurred past above his head, and then there would be stretches of darkness during which the seatbelt plug was rubbing uncomfortably against his left shoulder and the hum of an engine-his engine-were the only things he was aware of. That and nervous, pitchy chattering floating back from the front seat.
Lincoln tried to talk for the longest time, but then the car would hit a pot hole and feed more fuel to his agony, and he would have to groan instead. Lincoln breathed in and out through his nose, trying to breathe through the pain and piece together what had happened to him. The thoughts and memories seemed to float through his sub-conscious, but he didn’t have the strength to pull any closer and examine them. He knew he’d been happy-celebrating, and then he had been terrified.
Ardhi? He wondered, wetting his lips. No, not Ardhi. A girl. He saw the vision of girl with hair as black as night emerging from the shadows and lifting a gun, shouting something. A girl... did I get shot?! Who would shoot me? What did I do?
‘He’s coming to again!’ A voice whispered. A low, husky voice he knew well. ‘Link? Link are you awake?’
Lincoln frowned, trying to place the voice, but it didn’t make sense. ‘Adele?’ he rasped. ‘You’re driving my car?’
There was a chuckle. ‘Yeah I am. Don’t freak out, okay? You’re the only person who had one that could go fast enough.’ A clucking sound. ‘Trust him to focus on that.’
‘Why is he asking about the car?’
A snicker. ‘I was never allowed to drive his ‘baby’ when we were dating.’
‘Oh... right. I forgot you dated.’
‘I think everyone has.’ There was a sigh. ‘I’m being careful Link, okay? We’re rushing you back to Ivyanne so Joyce can fix you up.’
Lincoln grunted. He was in his own car, a crippled passenger with two girls at the helm. Adele, and the other had to be Grace...Grace who he had kissed just as the girl had jumped out of the bushes….
Even amidst his agony, he knew he was in a messed up situation. And there was only one person in the world who was going to make him feel better-and that wasn’t Joyce.
