The Mythean Arcana Box Set

by Linsey Hall

  He reached out and cupped the back of her neck, his thumb sweeping over her cheek. “Lie down.”

  “Are you sure?” She reached out and grasped his cock in two soft hands.

  “Oh, fuck.” His hips jerked uncontrollably at the feel of her hands. Thoughts of spreading her out and licking and sucking and drowning in what he’d been missing fled his mind. He was nothing but the feel of her hands stroking his cock.

  He felt like a gods damned wreck.

  Her steel-gray eyes met his as she brought her lips to the head of his cock. Her pink tongue darted forth to stroke up the sensitive flesh. The sight was so hot his knees almost buckled.

  “Gods, you doona have to.” The words were torn from his throat—the truth, yet laced with desperate hope that she wouldn’t listen.

  Her answer was to envelop the head of his cock in the heat of her mouth. Unable to help himself, his eyes squeezed shut.

  “I’m no’ gonna last.”

  She sucked, made him jerk again, then drew away. “We’ll see about that. Lie down.”

  He followed her down onto the bed, yanking the pants from his ankles and the socks from his feet. He let her push him onto his back. It’d been his plan to kiss her, stroke her, make her feel good. Show his appreciation for the gift she was giving him. He levered up on his elbows, tried to rise over her.

  “Nay.” She grasped the iron collar around his neck and pushed him to his back.

  His collar. It was unbearably hot, and unbearably fucked up, to be maneuvered by the collar. He shouldn’t like it, but fuck, he did.

  “Let me take care of you,” she whispered at his ear.

  A shiver shot down to his cock and a ragged moan escaped his throat. He watched her kiss her way down his chest, desperately trying to memorize the feel of her lips and tongue on his skin.

  She ran her hands up his chest and over his shoulders.

  “You’re so hot,” she said against his stomach.

  Vaguely, through the heat of her mouth and the buzz in his mind, he was aware of pride. He wanted to please her, was glad she liked the way he looked, so different from his past self. But mostly his mind was on her. On her mouth, on her breasts, which brushed his throbbing cock.

  His arms shot up to the headboard when her mouth neared his cock. His hands bit in to the wood when he felt the brush of her breath against the throbbing shaft.

  Teasing, not alighting.

  “Please.” The word broke from his throat as he looked down.

  “Patience,” she murmured, her eyes meeting his. “You’re starving. This is like your first meal in a century. It could be fast and frantic or slow and decadent. Either way it’ll be over and gone. Will it no’ be better if it’s savored?”

  A groan escaped his throat and he dropped his head back onto the pillow.

  Her hot breath returned to his heated flesh, shivering over him until he had to grip the headboard to keep from thrusting up toward her mouth. He felt her hand slide up his chest.

  “Give me your hand,” she said.

  He let go of the headboard and reached for her. She took his hand and drew it to her head. Her soft hair tangled about his fingers.

  “Show me what you like,” she whispered, then returned to his cock.

  Her lips closed around him, hot and wet and soft and perfect. But she stayed still, waiting for him. Gods, he’d never pushed a woman’s head onto his cock before. Wanted to maybe, but it’d seemed damned rude.

  Damn hot too, and knowing that she wanted it forced good manners and misgivings from his mind. His arm trembled as he pressed down lightly on her head. Watching his hand control her as she sank down onto his cock was insanely hot, made more so by the fact that she’d used his collar to control him just minutes ago.

  She added her hand to the base of his shaft, a delicious friction that kept him from pushing too far. Together they found a rhythm, and soon his hips were rising off the bed, helplessly seeking her mouth.

  Gods, she’d turned him into a fucking animal after all. Tension and heat and need coiled hard and fierce. He was so close—

  She stopped. Withdrew her mouth and kissed his thighs.

  “Fuck, I’m sorry, I should have told you I was close.” Bastard. Of course she didn’t want him coming in her mouth.

  She bit his thigh and looked up at him. “I knew you were close. That’s why I stopped. I’m no’ done, though.”

  The heat of her mouth enveloped him once again. Hot and hard and fast, she sucked him. The orgasm rose more quickly this time.

  “I’m close.” His arms were shaking and his hips moving, helpless.

  She drew her mouth away. He reached down to finish the job and she swatted his hand away.

  “Mine.”

  “What?” he breathed.

  “Slow and decadent, remember?”

  Then her mouth was on his cock again, and all he could do was feel and moan and grip the headboard.

  She stopped again and again, the graceless thrusting of his hips easily alerting her to when he was close. He thought he’d shatter every time she left him dangling on the precipice.

  “Please.” He couldn’t help but beg. Every muscle in his body strained with tension from his desperation, his head spun, and his cock ached.

  Her mouth returned, hot and wet, along with one hand on his shaft and the other cupping his balls. This time, when his body shook and his heels dug into the bed and his hips arched, she didn’t let go. Her hot mouth licked and sucked and rubbed until he finally felt the orgasm coil within him, hot and harsh and fierce.

  “I’m close. Gods, please.” His body and mind strained toward that explosion. When her mouth didn’t leave his cock, he cried out in gratitude. The orgasm roared through him, a force that pounded through his mind and body and cock until he felt it burst from him and into her mouth, jet after jet of the most incredible pleasure.

  She stayed with him, taking what he gave and working his cock with hands and mouth until he was sure he’d come so hard he’d never come again.

  When it was over, as his breath heaved in and out of his lungs and he stared blindly at the ceiling, he realized that her hands ran gently up his sides, soothing him as he shuddered and gasped. The tenderness made his chest ache. He felt exposed, raw, and part of his mind wanted to curl up and hide.

  She kissed him once more, then crawled up his body to rest at his side. He used a trembling arm to drag her to him. The feel of her against him was a miraculous connection, the glory of which he’d forgotten about entirely.

  His pride, his gratitude, made him want to turn the tables. Stretch her out and kiss every inch of her, fuck her pussy with his mouth until he turned her into the mess that he was.

  But damned if he could even move right now.

  “Thank you.” His tone was embarrassingly reverent, but he couldn’t fucking help it.

  “I wanted to. I liked it.”

  “You’re damned good at it.”

  “You were easy to read. All those gasps and moans and curses.”

  “Damn.” He laughed, embarrassed.

  “Nay, I liked it.” She stroked his cheek.

  “So did I. So much so that I canna even move. I’ll need a few minutes, if it’s all right, before I see to you.”

  “You doona need to do anything. It’s no’ something you need to pay back.”

  “The hell it is no’.” He leaned down to kiss her, the effort sapping him even more. “And I want to. No’ just out of gratitude, but desire. I have no’ touched a woman in a century. Let me touch you. Let me make you feel good.”

  Let me be in control. He needed it now. As much as he’d needed the full body and mind fuck she’d given him with her mouth. He hadn’t had a need for control in his first life, but after so long following someone else’s orders in prison, and after losing his mind and body in Fiona, he wanted to be the one with the power.

  She nodded.

  “Good.” He stroked her back, dozing in a twilight state, as he waited for
his muscles to come back to life. It didn’t take long. The scent of her arousal pulled him out of the twilight within minutes.

  “Come here.” He pulled her beneath him and grinned down at her. “Forgive me if I doona have your patience.”

  He pressed his lips hard to hers. She was hot and sweet and sexy as hell. Her body pressed full against his as he explored her mouth. He couldn’t get enough of feeling her against him, warm and soft and there. There when there had been no one for years upon years.

  Unable to wait any longer, he dragged his lips down her neck to her chest, licking and nipping along the way. He was going to kiss her everywhere, taste her everywhere. He was going to savor and spoil her.

  She shifted beneath him, her thighs parting and her luscious scent drifting up to him.

  Oh fuck.

  He yanked her down the bed until her hips were at the edge and he was kneeling on the floor. He couldn’t wait, had been crazy to think he could. He’d been so long without this. She might have made him go slowly before, but his control was shot.

  He wanted to sink into her, to disappear in the wetness and softness at her core.

  ~~~

  Fiona trembled when she felt his big hands grip her thighs. She leaned up on her elbows to see him kneeling at the foot of the bed, his eyes glued to her pussy. When he pushed her thighs wide apart, she gasped.

  She was so exposed to his gaze it made her want to snap her thighs shut and hide.

  “Beautiful,” he breathed, then swept his big thumb up the length of her slit, parting her.

  “Really?” She knew she should have played it cool, just accepted the praise, but damn, she couldn’t help it.

  His eyes met hers, hot with desire and need. “Aye. The sight of you, pink and wet, makes me hard as a damn rock.”

  “Oh.”

  She watched, breath caught in her throat, as he draped her thighs over his shoulders and gripped her arse in two big hands. Suddenly, his mouth was on her, tongue seeking and stroking and making her arch into his mouth.

  “Fuck, you taste good,” he said against her flesh.

  She could do nothing but whimper. He was ravenous, licking and sucking and making a glorious mess of her. Soon, she was arching off the bed, her spine curving uncontrollably to get her closer to his mouth.

  “That’s it, love,” he muttered against her flesh.

  “More.” She gasped. She wanted more. She wanted him inside her.

  “Aye, lass, I’ll give you more.” His fingers traced the edges of her sex, probing, exploring.

  One thick finger slipped inside her and she jerked. His tongue was fast and frantic on her clit now, exactly what she needed, and when he pushed another finger inside of her, the need coiled tight inside her.

  She dragged her head off the pillow, desperate for a glance of him working so hard between her thighs. The sight of his arm moving caught her eye. Was he touching himself?

  The thought of his hand on his cock, turned on by what he was doing to her, pushed her over the edge. The orgasm tore through her, so hard that she felt her muscles clamp down on his fingers.

  He groaned against her clit, his arm moving faster as he picked up speed on himself. The harsh noise that escaped him, as close to a growl as a man could make, threw her over the cliff again as he jerked and shuddered between her thighs.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Something heavy pinned her to the bed. Fiona's eyelids flew open. She lay on her side in the dim light of the small bedroom.

  Ian’s heavy arm clutched her to him, his head nestled in her hair. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck. They must have dozed off after he’d finished giving her so many orgasms she’d lost count. Her gaze jerked to the clock on the bedside table.

  Only eight thirty. Her shoulders relaxed. So she’d only dozed for a few minutes, no doubt completely drained. Nerves over the coming night had been an excellent alarm clock.

  Nerves that she’d somehow ignored to be with Ian. Memories of the last few hours flashed through her mind.

  Holy crap. She’d had crazy sex with the prisoner she’d busted out of the university prison. The iron band around her wrist felt heavy, a physical reminder of her responsibility.

  That she’d ignored.

  But he wasn’t just any prisoner; he was Ian. And she was naked in bed with him after the most incredible sex. She hadn’t woken up like this with a man since before the book entered her life and she’d become obsessed with finding it.

  Ever since she’d failed to find the book nine years ago, the time when the prophecy had specifically said she’d recover it, she’d started retreating from everyone around her. She’d been vaguely aware that she’d been doing it, but she’d told herself she was just focusing on work and fixing what she’d screwed up. It was more important than anything else.

  Which was true. But looking back, she supposed that she’d been pushing people away. It was probably unhealthy, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. It was how she operated best.

  Until Ian. Until he’d somehow weaseled his way into her mind and maybe even a tiny corner of her heart. The idea terrified her and made her vaguely queasy. He’d be going back to prison, and now she was afraid she couldn’t get enough of him.

  No, it was just sex. Nothing serious. They barely knew each other. She’d just been in a drought. One she hadn’t really noticed because of work, but a drought nonetheless. So had he. They were just helping each other out. And now she’d focus on work.

  She nodded decisively, even though she knew it was a lie.

  Ian made a sleepy noise and shifted. Quietly as she could, she crawled out from beneath his arm and crept out of the bedroom, intent on a shower. They still had at least an hour before they could break into the museum.

  It didn’t take much time to get cleaned up, but it was long enough that her mind started to zero in on her goals again, on the magnitude of the opportunity she’d been given.

  By the time she made it back to the bedroom, Ian was sitting on the side of the bed.

  “Hey.” His voice was rough from sleep, his hair tousled.

  Oh, he looked good. But she didn’t know what else to say to this man who’d quickly become much more than a one-night stand. “Hey.”

  “Thanks for that.” His eyes were sincere, and she felt heat climb into her cheeks.

  “Sure.”

  The towel wrapped around her didn’t feel nearly big enough. She walked to her bag, which sat on the chair, and fished around for jeans and a shirt. The heat of his eyes burned into her back as she dropped the towel and tugged them on. It was unexpectedly intimate to change in front of him and a shiver went down her spine.

  “I’m going to shower.”

  She didn’t turn to face him. “Okay. We’ve still got an hour before it’s quiet enough to break in. I’m going to go keep an eye on the museum through the window.”

  “All right.”

  Her grip on her shirt loosened when she heard pipes squeal from the running water. A great sigh heaved out of her. Treating this as something casual wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped.

  ~~~

  An hour later, Ian followed Fiona down the stairs and out onto the rain-dampened street. They’d spent the last hour at the window, surveying the museum to see if any of the god’s demons would try to get in, but he hadn’t been able to keep his mind off Fiona.

  He couldn’t help but feel like he’d been cleaned out. Like the worst of the fog that prison had cast over his mind had dissipated. It’d been a hell of an introduction back to the real world, but it had worked.

  The whole time he’d been in prison, as new prisoners had told of the changes that were occurring in the outside world, he’d thought that the biggest thing he’d have to adjust to would be changing culture and technology.

  He’d been wrong. It had been connecting with another person. He’d known he was lonely in prison, but he hadn’t realized how much so until Fiona had shown up. The connection he felt with her re
minded him that he wasn’t broken after all.

  She had done that for him. He felt pathetically grateful to her and helplessly intrigued. He’d wanted it to be just another shag. Like any of the nights with countless women before he’d been thrown in prison.

  But it hadn’t been. It’d been more. He liked her, more than ever now. Sure, maybe it was infatuation because she’d sprung him from jail. And she hated that he was a thief. Probably didn’t even trust him.

  But she’d been with him today, been more generous than he’d had any right to hope for, when he was at his lowest low. He wore a collar, for fuck’s sake.

  He glanced at her as she strode across the street toward the museum. Confidence blazed from her, brighter than the car headlights in the distance.

  No woman had ever been with him when he hadn’t been at his best. It had taken him nearly forty years to figure out the true extent of his powers and learn to use them well. Once Ian had accumulated some wealth, life had been fine. Women had flocked to him.

  But when he’d been poor and powerless, no woman had ever wanted him. He couldn’t blame them. Poverty had made him a mean bastard. Without charm or wealth, there’d been no woman willing to take a risk on him, especially not when they’d lived in a time when, more often than not, a woman needed a man to take care of her if she didn’t want to face a life of poverty and never-ending drudgery.

  But Fiona lived in the modern age. She took care of herself and had the freedom to choose anyone. Even a criminal. Thank you, women’s liberation.

  He shook his head. None of it mattered. As soon as they got to the book, he’d have to use it to force her to free him. She’d lose her job and hate him for it. Then he’d have to flee Scotland so that the university never found him again. There was no future for them.

  Hell of a mess.

  The blare of a car horn dragged his attention back to the present. They strode down the street in front of the museum, headed for the alley with the side door. Two figures stood at the alley.

  “Shite,” Fiona said.

  Police. Right at the entrance to the alley, either guarding it because of last night or just running patrol on the popular street since it was a Friday night and the pubs were bursting.