Medusa's Heart: A Contemporary Paranormal Erotic Romance Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  “Medusa.” John was not touching her, and she realized why. She had her hands clasped in tight fists at her sides and she’d backed away to take a defensive stance. How he sensed that, she didn’t know, but his voice was calm, tender. There was also a hard note beneath it, the kind of hardness associated with the walls of a gate, meant to stand between her and her fear. How she wished that was true, but fear was a parasite that latched on and burrowed into the mind, blood and body, with no way to purge it.

  “I suggested it because it might give you pleasure,” he said gently. “The choice is yours. If you do not desire it, I can finish with you watching at a safe distance.”

  “It was easier when you didn’t know I was here,” she admitted. “Though it’s the first time that has happened. Except for the day on the beach, you always seem to know I am here.”

  “Well, in this case, it was because you were already here. At least in my head.” Tapping his temple, he gave her an appealing twist of his lips and flex of cheekbone and jaw. If she could see his eyes, she expected they would have glinted with an intriguingly intent look. “I think that’s why you startled me so much. I was imagining you on your knees, looking up at me. Your hand rested on my thigh and your lips were parted as if you wanted to taste me, put me in your mouth.”

  He paused, as if he thought that might be too much, but when she said nothing, he continued. “I was going to spill my release on your beautiful breasts. Then I’d clean you with my mouth, work my way to your nipples. I’d love to suck on your nipples. Hear you moan, sigh with pleasure, and get slippery between your legs because of the things I was doing to you. For you.”

  He stopped. “So when you touched me, it was like my fantasy became instant reality.”

  “It made you fall in the water.”

  “In all fairness, you pushed me.”

  “I did not. I—” She stopped, thought it through. “Well, maybe. But not on purpose.”

  “And you laughed at me,” he added in an aggrieved tone. “Just deflated my ego entirely. Among other things.”

  “Did talking about it…help fix that?”

  “I think it did, yeah.” The growling purr came back into his voice, sending a shiver down her spine. “I’m going to get out of the water now and finish what I started. You can come as close as you want, touch me however you want. I won’t touch you unless you ask me to do so. That’s a promise. The one thing you’re always going to be with me is safe. Okay? And if you’re not sure of that, remember, all you have to do to kick my ass is take off this blindfold.”

  “I don’t want to turn you to stone. Even if I had to…kick your ass, I wouldn’t want to do that.”

  He smiled. “Good to know. I can’t wait to spar with you, woman. I think it will be fun as hell for both of us. Okay, getting out now.”

  He hefted himself up onto the rock ledge in a shower of water. She watched as he stretched his long, powerful body out on the heated rock. When he put one hand behind his head and reached for himself, she spoke, stopping him.

  “You said I could do it, if I liked.”

  “Yeah. I did say that.”

  She moistened her lips. “Can you show me how? I’m afraid of hurting you with….my nails.” Claws came to mind, but she didn’t want a verbal reminder of their differences right now.

  He was still partially erect. As he took her hand, guiding it to him, the organ jerked at her touch. She stayed on her knees, eyes trained on the fascinating evidence of his arousal. While it was impressive and intimidating, her fear was absent for a blissful moment. Perhaps because of the distracting pulse between her legs as he curled her fingers around him.

  “Not too tight. Loose enough you can move the skin under your palm as you stroke up to the head and back. Ah, Christ, that feels… Fuck…”

  “Tell me what you imagine,” she said, her voice barely a breath of sound, her eyes fastened on the slit, where more of that pearl-like fluid gathered and gleamed. She leaned forward and tasted it with a flick of her tongue. Her gaze shot up as he groaned.

  “You’re killing me, darling,” he muttered in a husky voice she liked, his other hand dropping to her shoulder to stroke and fondle her hair, grip it. Earthson slithered through his fingers and away.

  “Tell me,” she asked again. “Why would I be on my knees in your imaginings? Is it to put you in my mouth as you described?” He seemed to like it, very much, when she took just that one taste.

  “That’s part of it, yeah. The other reason I’ll explain another day. Just answer me one thing. Why did you kneel in front of me when I didn’t know you were watching? Was it only for the best view, or to give you the best escape route?”

  “Both.”

  “Any other reason than that? Just a feeling like maybe that’s where you felt most comfortable?”

  Comfortable wasn’t the right word, but she wasn’t sure which one fit. She slid her grip along his length, her body aching. Her core felt so empty and throbbing. She wanted him inside her, and nothing about her desire for that connected to the pain and fear of the past.

  It startled her, but not so much as it once would. She’d been that girl too long ago. Even in isolation, as she matured, she’d been able to look on the past with a woman’s greater understanding. Although that same isolation left many gaps in her knowledge. Despite being a virgin, Glykeria probably had more sexual experience than her.

  He was thrusting into her hand, his words deserting him except for her name and some reverent expletives. He gripped the rock close to her thigh and hip. She wanted him to hold her like that. She did. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask.

  Then his cock convulsed beneath her grip and his release fountained over her fingers. It startled her so that she almost stopped, but his hand curled around hers, holding it in firm fingers, so they both worked his shaft. She watched, fascinated, heart pounding as he came, his body a thunderstorm of energy, pouring a crackling heat over her skin to match the heat of his seed. His lips were drawn back from his teeth like a baring of fangs, and she wanted to touch his mouth, graze the sharpness of his teeth with her own.

  She bent as he was coming down, as his chest was rising and falling so rapidly, and brushed her lips over his mouth. She jumped when he cupped her neck to hold her. Lifting his head from the rock, he sealed his lips over hers, every contact point demanding and strong. He shifted, rising to a sitting position to put his other arm at her waist, holding her as he kissed her so thoroughly.

  She expected the snakes to react adversely to his demanding motion, but they did not. They continued to move upon her shoulders and head, curious but not intrusive, allowing her to experience all he was making her feel.

  Curling his tongue around hers, he stroked it, and nipped her with his teeth. He acted as if he wanted to devour her, his passion that living, demanding thing he’d described.

  Her head swam with visions of the past, present and future. He was making her think of possibilities she’d buried. It was too much.

  She wrested away and shot into the air. Her wings didn’t coordinate, a problem she hadn’t had in years. The snakes hissed in alarm as she nearly dashed herself against the rocks and pitched herself into the pool as he’d done. Fortunately, she regained her balance, moving away from him and all the confusion. Her body didn’t agree with her decision. Its flushed heat and tingling nerves wanted only one thing. Him. The throbbing between her legs, and what she’d seen the priestesses do, told her she might be capable of a release somewhat like his own. She wanted to know what it felt like.

  She’d stroked herself between the legs as she’d told him. She’d even started to climb toward that pinnacle, but the memories always interfered, making her stop before she reached it. Only when she’d dreamed of him had it worked, and usually she climaxed in the dream, or from a single touch as she came out of it, her body already falling over that edge.

  If she was dreaming of him, she reminded herself. But it was weak, her attempt to imagine otherwise failing miser
ably. Of course it was him. Not just because of him calling her snake-girl, but because of his touch, his scent, his voice. His presence. It was all him.

  When she landed on the patio outside her home, she was as aroused as she was in those dreams. Putting her hand against her sex, she was shocked by how strongly her body reacted. It demanded that she stroke, rub, pinch. She braced her other hand against the wall, to help her fight the dizziness that this overflow of need brought.

  Her mind seemed magnetized to the vision of John Pierce stretched out on the rocks, muscles rippling, his face tense as he focused internally on his body’s desires. He’d experienced a near violent passion, but had not done violence. He’d promised her never without her consent, never against her will.

  She didn’t believe promises, but she wanted to believe his. He’d come to her from another world, another time, from some place altogether different. Could she believe he was different, or was she giving in to something that would only bring her tragedy?

  She forced herself to pull her hand from between her legs. Collapsing to the stone, she curled up on her side and held her legs tightly together to kill the desire, the feeling. The wanting.

  Of all the things she knew were a danger to her, the wanting was the worst. Wishing could kill her far more quickly than any other threat.

  She needed to make him leave. But she couldn’t, could she? She was lonely. So lonely, so eager for his company. Would anyone have sufficed? Or was there something special about him? Even as she scoffed at the idea, she knew it had planted herself in her mind. And like a seed, it would take root and only keep growing.

  Unless she made him leave. Which she already knew she wouldn’t.

  Chapter Ten

  “I’m not seeing how this is going to be fair, with you blindfolded,” she said stiffly.

  “Good point. You should let me take it off.”

  “Or we shouldn’t do it.”

  “Reneging already. So sure of your defeat?”

  She sighed. “Annoying man.”

  “Stubborn woman. All right, so we’re doing this with me blindfolded. You’re not going to hold back.”

  Lot sure hadn’t, when he was testing JP’s fighting skills with the advantage of enhanced senses and the disadvantage of the blindfold.

  “Why do you persist about removing the blindfold?” The querulous tone was covering another issue. JP could tell something was bothering her today. He hoped physical exertion would bring it to the top, because so far she wasn’t in a sharing mood. Best to get to it before she changed her mind about the sparring match altogether, though he did answer her question.

  “I will obey your will, my lady,” he said, though he let her hear the regret in his tone. "But if ever you give me that one act of trust, you will see my heart through my gaze, and you won’t be worried about how I see you."

  “I am protecting you. I care naught for how you see me.”

  Well, there was a big, fat lie. Since he expected she was telling it to herself as much as him, he’d let it ride.

  “And you say such honeyed words to confuse, mock or annoy me,” she added.

  Okay, that one he wouldn’t let go. “No,” he said evenly. “I don’t.”

  He’d been gauging her position from her scent, the direction of her voice, and took the advantage of surprise. He was holding one of the sticks he’d picked out for them to use for their match, and swung it now to give her a smart slap on the flank. “And I wouldn’t advise maligning my motives again, unless you want more of the same.”

  “You…” He almost grinned at the splutter of reaction, and danced back as she came at him with her own stick.

  Since he’d arrived, he’d been putting together a profile of the girl she’d been before her transformation. What he’d deduced up until now was that she’d been down-to-earth, playful, inquisitive, and spirited. As a testament to her strength of will, those things had not gone away. She just hadn’t had anyone to exercise them upon in so long, they were rusty. They were also sometimes hampered by the darker traits she’d acquired since then. While she now had more of the advantages that wisdom and experience could bring, they’d stolen some of her joy.

  He wished he could give it all back to her, but he’d do whatever he could. Because over the past couple days, whether she realized it or not, she’d been giving him the same. Before he came here, he’d found his way back from darkness and made a tentative truce with his demons, but he hadn’t remembered that a guy could actually enjoy life like this. He could not only immerse himself in worthy goals, like coaxing a woman to smile or laugh, but he could take as much pleasure in that as she could, no strings attached, no end goal other than to be with her because he wanted to get to know her. Because he was attracted to her, because she fascinated him, and because he hoped and thought she might need him as much as he needed her.

  Stuff a high school kid pursued without thinking about it twice, and it had taken him all his life and a couple years of hellish therapy to get there.

  He’d entered into so many covert operations where the seven deadly sins were daily fare. As bad as that had been, what was worse was the disconnect of seeing a guy who’d dismembered and tortured a competitor on Saturday night play with his son Sunday morning. As the drug lord had pushed Manuel on a swing, JP couldn’t deny the true paternal love in his eyes. Another guy, a dictator destined for hell for all the mass graves he’d created, had asked JP to figure out what his wife’s favorite flower was so he could surprise her with a whole roomful of them in her bedroom, a sorry-for-being-a-prick gesture when he’d snapped at her earlier in the week due to “job stress.”

  It was the things that didn’t make sense that sometimes cut the worst.

  He’d had to be the man behind the mask throughout all of that. It was ironic that he was wearing an actual mask here, but he was pursuing a goal wholly as himself. Not for the first time, he thanked Lot for the wisdom that had convinced JP to do the dreaded counseling. So trapped behind the façade when he came out of covert ops, he’d had no chance of giving a woman the true parts of himself this freely. He’d been too locked into all the disguises he’d had to don, layer after endless layer.

  The readiness to do violence when needed had been so close to the surface, people had unconsciously given him a wide berth when he was out in public and hadn’t been paying enough attention to keep on his fake “normal” face. Deception had been second nature, a lie easier to tell than the truth, because he’d lost the truth, when it came to who he was.

  But when he’d figured it out, he’d been able to use his true self to help women like Monica. Being a Dom was the first thing the counselor had helped him realize was all him, and he’d built back the facets of his real self on that foundation.

  So no matter what else happened here, he wouldn’t let her believe for a minute that anything he told her was less than the real truth. Even if he hadn’t gotten a glimpse of her, he’d know she was beautiful, because that was what his heart knew. He’d been so good at covert ops because he could be anyone he needed to be, but he never lost sight of the truth of who the people around him were, no matter how much that knowledge could tear the soul to shreds.

  All that passed through his mind in a flash as he fended her off, using the tells of air currents and the slide of her feet through the sand, combining that with his honed fighting instincts. “Hey, we’re not even inside the practice court yet,” he protested.

  “You struck first.” But she did stop and allowed him to lead the way to the court he’d marked out on the beach. “So are there any rules, beyond putting you on the ground?” she asked.

  “Since sometimes one of us might drop and roll to get away from a blow, and that doesn’t really count as being off your feet, let’s make a three second rule. If you’re on the ground three seconds, it counts. That’s one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. And no hitting above the neck. This is all wrestling and strategic body blows to bring the opponent to the ground. By wh
atever method you prefer.”

  “Mississ…”

  “Mississippi,” he repeated. “It’s a way to make sure the count is uniform. Rather than 1-2-3,” he spoke rapidly. “Or 1…2…3.”

  “Ah. I understand.”

  They stepped into the area he’d marked out with stones. “I’m surprised you didn’t eliminate the use of my wings,” she said. “They give me a decided advantage over you.”

  “If you and I grapple, my strength and size give me the advantage. Seems a good way to level the playing field.” Facing her, he took a relaxed but ready stance. “Are you bringing it up to head off any of my whining if I lose?”

  “Perhaps.”

  He grinned. “You won’t have to worry about that, sweetheart. Because I’m going to kick your gorgeous ass.”

  It was all the starting bell needed. She made the first strike, coming in low, which was unexpected. Son of a bitch, she’d thrown out the mention of the wings as a decoy. When he fended off the blow with the stick, she used the shift of his balance to sweep his leg. He rolled before the three second count and was back on his feet, but she was a blitzer, continuing her assault with barely a pause between tactics. A good idea with her speed and agility which, as he’d anticipated, were impressive and deadly.

  While she used her wings to give her some height and maneuverability, he thought she wasn’t making as much use of them as she normally would have. She had a spirit of fair play. Time to help her remember what he’d said about not holding back.

  He seized her mid-body when she was a couple feet off the ground and wrestled her to the ground. Her wings slapped him smartly alongside the head, making his ear ring, but he told himself that was reflex, not a breaking of the rules about head shots. She wriggled and bent her legs beneath him to shove him back and roll free.

  When he captured her ankle and dragged her back, she twisted, broke his grip and spun behind him. Rapping him in the balls between his open legs with the stick, she shoved him face forward into the sand with the tip. She straddled his back in a blink, grabbing both arms and twisting the wrists up to hold him in a very effective pin.