by Marilyn Lee
“This skin is of no importance, sheenea. None. Nothing has changed between us that need worry you.”
How could he say that when everything had changed? “I want the old you. Not this one.”
“You are loved and cherished now as you always have been.” He stepped back, extending his right hand. “Come to me willingly and let me show you the depth of my continuing adoration.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Come to me.”
She bit her lip. “Malikinder?”
“Come to me, my sheenea.”
She hesitated. “I don’t understand.”
“There’s no need to be afraid of me.” “Trust me…trust me.” He projected a wave of warmth at her, which ignited a fire in her core that consumed her doubts and fears.
She knew he wasn’t Malikinder, yet the knowledge that she wanted to be with him shamed her.
“There’s no need to be ashamed with one who would willingly surrender everything for just a moment of time with you, sheenea.”
His words touched her and made her feel cherished and adored. How could she resist a male who felt such devotion to her?
“As long as I exist, you will always be loved, cherished, and adored, my lovely one.”
She believed him and wanted to be with him in the most intimate way possible between a woman and a man.
“Then trust me, my love.”
She placed her hand in his.
He lifted her hand to his mouth.
The touch of his lips against her fingertips sent a shiver of pleasure and anticipation through her.
“Trust me.”
She was still confused, but she felt safe with him. “I do.”
He dropped to his knees in front of her.
She stared down at him, her heart racing.
He looked up at her. “I’m yours to command, my sheenea.”
She reached out a trembling hand to touch his hair. It felt soft.
“I adore you, sheenea, as only one of my kind can.”
She trembled with the shameful knowledge that she ached to be one with this strange male. She longed to feel him swelling inside her…to feel his lips on her breasts…her nipples…her thighs.
Fearful of what she was about to do, she remembered that she had Malikinder’s blessing. “Show me,” she whispered, stroking her fingers through his hair.
He cupped his hands over her rear.
She inhaled, slid her palms over the shoulders as broad as Malikinder’s had been.
He leaned forward, sliding his tongue along her slit.
She closed her eyes, sighing with contentment. Yes. Yes. This is what she wanted and needed from him.
He eased his fingers inside, testing her readiness for him.
She curled her fingers in his hair while thrusting her hips forward. “Take me…please.”
Keeping one hand on her bare rear, he used the fingers of his other hand to part her folds.
She opened her eyes and stared down at the stranger kneeling in front of her. Malikinder had been her only lover. It felt odd to take pleasure from being intimately touched by another male.
He licked and nibbled at her sensitive flesh until desire tightened her belly. She made a small helpless sound and ground herself against his face.
His warm lips settled over her pleasure knob.
She shuddered.
In response, he thrust his fingers in and out of her as he sucked at the sensitive bulb above her core.
She arched into him and came against his warm, probing lips.
He quickly rose and lifted her left leg. “Open your eyes and look at me.”
The voice no longer belonged to Malikinder. Lost in the afterglow of her release, she no longer cared. She just wanted the magic and bliss to continue.
“Look at me.”
She obeyed, opening her eyes.
Staring into her eyes, he rubbed his shaft along her slit.
The breath caught in her throat. He was going to enter her.
He reached down to take one of her hands in his. “Touch me, sheenea…hold me…feel my need to be one with you.”
The thought of touching his pale cock, so different from Malikinder’s, excited her. She reached down to close her fingers around him. He felt warm, thick, and hard against her palm. She brushed her thumb along the big head.
He groaned, still staring down into her eyes.
Around them, the rage of the storm increased, almost as if mirroring the intensity of emotions she felt and knew he did as well.
“Feed my hunger for you. Take me inside, my sheenea. Surround me with your warmth.”
She positioned the head of his length at her entrance.
“Do it. Take me inside. Love me and fulfill me as only you can.”
Unable to deny the urgency in his plea or her own need, she pressed him against her entrance. “Oh…” Feeling him lodged just inside her body, she tingled.
He gently pushed into her and lowered her leg.
“Oh…” To fully savor the delicious taboo of having him inside her, she slipped her arms around him, rubbing her breasts against his chest.
His heart pounded against her. His eyes almost seemed to glow with the violence of his feelings. He cupped his palms over her bottom and held her body tight against him. “Mine…mine…you’re mine at last…my sheenea…mine…all mine…if only for a brief period.”
“Yours forever.”
He bent his head.
She opened her mouth. As his hard cock pulsed between her legs, she wanted his tongue in her mouth.
He devoured her lips and sucked her tongue into his mouth while he slid his length back and forth into her with a force that sent waves of pleasure tinged with pain through her.
She closed her eyes and surrendered completely to him. She tightened her internal muscles around him.
He pushed in and pulled out of her with a rapidity that took her breath and quickly sent her soaring toward yet another eruption of pleasure. Within seconds, she was lost in the intimate delight raging through her. She wanted more. She convulsed around him and shoved her hips forward, eager to have him surge deeper into her.
His hands tightened on her bottom as he rotated his hips and then thrust deep into her core.
She gasped as pleasure and pain sliced through her. Her thighs shook. Her stomach muscles tightened. Close to the most incredible pleasure of her life, she dug her fingers into his back.
He pulled his hips back, pulling all but the head of his shaft out of her before he pushed quickly back into her.
She sobbed against his mouth and shuddered. Her release rushed over her with all the passion and power of the storm now raging out of control all around them.
Clutching her ass to keep her hips pressed tight against his, he licked a path across to her neck.
Still buffeted by her climax, Tanginika was only vaguely aware of his lips moving against her skin moments before his teeth sank into the side of her neck.
She gasped. After the first shock of feeling her blood flowing out of her body and into his mouth, she experienced a surge of delight. Then she was aware of countless detonations deep inside her core. She shuddered and clung to him, lost in the sweet, illicit pleasure in which they both gloried. To have him coming inside her as her blood rushed out of her body. Surely the spirits must be pleased with her to allow her to enjoy such exquisite happiness.
* * * * *
Erin woke, her body drenched with sweat, her pussy flooded, her heart hammering. Lying in her darkened bedroom, she struggled to recall the dream. Or had it been a nightmare? No. The interlude in the jungle with the storm raging around her and her lover had been too wrought with pleasure to even be in the same sentence as the word nightmare.
Or had it been real? She touched her fingers to her neck. Her skin was smooth and unbroken. No matter how real it had seemed, it had been a dream.
She turned to look at the clock radio on her nightstand. Three forty. She slipped out of
bed and walked to the bathroom for a towel. After wiping the sweat from her body, she returned to the bedroom to strip off her top sheet. Then she slipped into bed again, lying on the fitted sheet.
Half an hour later, she lay thinking of Aleksander. Why hadn’t he made an effort to contact her? Had he lost interest in her? How could she possibly face him again if he had? She’d have to avoid him. When they met, she’d pretend their encounter had meant nothing to her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of allowing him to see he still held her interest. Comforted by the cold-shoulder treatment she’d give him when they met again, she turned onto her stomach and slowly drifted back to sleep.
Chapter Four
“So you’re starting to remember?”
Erin met the gaze of Devoni Mitchell, the friend who sat across the kitchen table from her. Several months earlier, Voni had found the man she called her soul mate. Voni kept her apartment and cell phone but had quit her job. Since then, Erin and Voni’s four cousins had learned to accept her frequent and extended absences while she disappeared with Flame.
The five women were very close, and Erin knew that while Voni’s lover had been introduced to them as a tall, dark, handsome black male named Marcus Starling, he preferred being called Flame. Voni had told Erin he often appeared to her as a tall blond with silver-gray eyes.
When Voni had first met Flame, the friends had discussed the possibility that several of them believed they’d lived before or that to be truly happy they might have to take a leap of faith. Voni had taken hers with Flame.
Studying her friend’s smooth, dark, pretty face and sparkling eyes, Erin knew Flame fulfilled all Voni’s fantasies and made her deliriously happy. Erin felt she herself had once known just such happiness.
“Erin? Are you starting to remember?” Voni asked again.
Erin sighed. “I don’t know. I’m confused. Last night I had a dream that… I don’t know if I should be reaching out to Aleksander or turning away from him and waiting for…” She shook her head.
“For what?” Voni probed.
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. I have all these conflicting feelings, but I don’t actually know anything.”
Voni nodded. “For who might be a better question.”
Erin sat her coffee cup down, grimacing. “That’s not very helpful, Voni.”
Voni patted her hand. “I know. What can I do to help?”
“I don’t know if anyone can do anything to help. I think maybe I just needed to talk to someone who wouldn’t think I’m crazy.”
Voni smiled. “Well, that would certainly be me.”
“What’s it like? Being with Flame when you’re not on Earth?”
A smile spread across Voni’s face. “He’s incredible.”
“When?”
“All the time, but especially when he’s himself. Don’t get me wrong; I love when he takes the human form of Marcus or Flame, but when he’s really Flame?” She sighed. “That’s when the wonder of loving a living spirit astonishes and delights me most.”
“Go on.”
“I can’t really explain what it’s like being with him when he’s natural, but I can feel him all around me.” She wrapped her arms around herself, her smile widening. “I think what I like most about the experience is the wonder and joy of losing myself in him. I feel as if he’s part of me and I’m part of him. There’s no more incredible feeling, Erin. I wouldn’t trade being with him for anything.” She frowned and lowered her hands. “Does that make sense?”
Recalling vague memories of a similar experience, Erin nodded slowly. “Yes. Strangely enough, it does. I think I’ve felt like that once. I just don’t know who with or what I should do now.”
“You mean about Aleksander?”
“Yes, about him. Of course I might be worrying for nothing. He’s back, but he hasn’t contacted me.” She shrugged. “That fact alone probably tells me all I need to know.”
“What do you think his failure to contact you should tell you, Erin?”
“That I shouldn’t waste my time wondering how to respond in the unlikely event that he finally calls me. Besides, Erica said Aja was on the elevator making a play for him. Maybe she succeeded.”
Voni remained silent.
Erin decided she was taking the time to choose her words carefully.
“I really wouldn’t worry about that if I were you, Erin,” Voni said when she finally spoke.
“Why not? She went after Mark the moment we broke up.”
“I know you don’t like her, Erin, but you’re not exactly being fair.”
Erin stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you’d ended your relationship with Mark, Erin. He was up for grabs. It’s not as if she put the moves on him while you two were still a couple.”
Erin bit back the urge to assert she was sure Aja had made a play for Mark before their official breakup. “So you think I’m unreasonable where she’s concerned?”
Voni shrugged. “She always seemed nice enough, but since you dislike her so much, that must be a facade. Exactly why do you dislike her?”
“I have no idea.” Erin grimaced. “I guess that tends to indicate maybe my dislike for her is a little…unfair.”
“Ah. Then maybe the reason is yet to be revealed. In the meantime, there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t call Aleksander.”
“You mean, besides the fact that he disappears for long periods and I’m beginning to fear he might be a drug dealer or—”
Voni leaned forward. “He disappears? What do you mean by disappears?”
“I mean he goes away for weeks…sometimes months, and he doesn’t appear to actually have a job.”
Voni frowned. “That doesn’t make him a drug dealer. There might be another explanation, Erin.”
“Such as he’s some woman’s boy toy? That’s the one I’m trying not to think about.”
Voni shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I’ll ask Flame about him.”
Erin tensed. “You’ll ask Flame? Does he…? You think Aleksander might be… Why would you ask Flame about him?”
Voni sighed. “Flame might know where he goes when he disappears.”
“Why would Flame know that?”
“I don’t know that he does, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
Erin shook her head. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Okay. Flame once mentioned a living spirit who had waited a few hundred years to be reunited with a lost love.”
Don’t get excited, Erin. “And?”
“And…I don’t know why, but I thought of you and your belief that you’d lived before.”
Erin caught her breath. Was it possible that she had not only lived before but had also been loved by a nonhuman male? “Is Flame with you now?”
“No. He’s at home.”
“And where exactly is home for him, Voni? Where do you go when you’re with him?”
“To a place called the Blue Desert. It’s not his original home, but it’s where he takes me when we’re not on Earth.”
“Why does he go there?”
“Every so often, he has to abandon his human form.”
“Why?”
“He’s old enough and has enough skill to be able to maintain a corporeal form for an indefinite amount of time, but it requires him to expend an incredible amount of energy.” She shrugged and smiled. “And it’s not necessary. I find it very sexy when we’re together in his natural form. He also feels what he calls a spiritual need to be himself sometimes.”
“You make your relationship with him sound so normal.”
Voni nodded. “It feels normal. I love and adore him as much as I know he does me. I’m very happy with him.”
Erin smiled. “I can see that you are.”
“Maddeningly so. Even if I could, I wouldn’t change a single thing about him.”
“I’m happy for you, Voni.”
“Thanks. So what are you going to do?”
“About Aleksander?”
“Yes.”
Erin shook her head. “I have no idea. Part of me wants to see him, while another part feels as if seeing him is wrong.”
“What’s wrong with just doing what feels right? That’s what I did with Flame. If you want to be with Aleksander, be with him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have this feeling that even though I’m attracted to him, he’s not the man I’ve been waiting for.”
“Why does that matter if you feel something special for him?”
“I’m not sure I do. It might just be lust with a capital L.”
“I asked Flame about you and him before, but he didn’t want to out another spirit and wouldn’t tell me what he knew unless I promised not to tell you. I couldn’t do that, so he wouldn’t tell me anything. I’ll ask him again, and this time I’ll press him really hard. If he knows anything, I’ll let you know. If he doesn’t, it’ll probably be a few weeks before I return.”
“Thanks.”
Voni nodded. “No problem. Now what are you going to wear to the pool party?”
Erin grimaced. “Don’t you start on me too,” she said.
Voni smiled. “I won’t—as long as you go.”
Erin cast her gaze toward the ceiling. “Like I have a choice? You know Erica. She’ll never give me a moment’s peace if I don’t go.”
“I’m delighted to hear it. You need to get practically nekkid and shake your ass at a few appreciative males.”
Erin laughed. “I do feel the need to unwind a little.”
Voni glanced at her watch. “Then I’d better get out of your way.”
She walked Voni to the door.
“Have a ball at the party and make sure you do all the things I never had the nerve to do.”
“I just might do that.”
She and Voni hugged each other before she closed the door after her.
* * * * *
Two hours later, Erin filled the tub with her favorite scented oil and the bath salts from her secret admirer and happily sank into their sinfully slick, wet comfort. She enjoyed the sound of a sudden, soft rain falling outside the bathroom window.
