“How much do you want me?” he asked.
“Please…don’t torture me,” she panted.
He eased a finger inside of her, and she nearly came. She arched at the unexpected pleasure, and her heart thudded against her chest. He slid his finger in, then let it glide out and she was in paradise. The second time, he inserted two fingers instead of one. Her body rocked.
“You’re so tight,” he said. “I can’t wait to be inside of you.”
“Then don’t.”
He found her breasts again with his tongue. He sucked the nipple into his mouth while he stroked her clitoris with his thumb. She screamed out when be began making little circles on the sensitive flesh while he eased two fingers in and out of her. Her body was on fire. Every part of her was a mass of erotic sensation. Everywhere he touched came alive, and she didn’t know if she could take the teasing a moment longer.
“Please, Raven. Please. Now.”
He removed his fingers from her depths and got to his feet. In seconds, he’d removed his pants, his shirt, and loosened his hair so it fell over his shoulders like a cascade of silk. Then he was on the bed again, settling himself between her thighs and covering her body with his. He rested his weight on his elbows.
“If only this night could go on forever,” she said.
“Beg me,” he ordered, needing suddenly to hear the desire in her voice. Before she could speak, he rested his erection at her opening and felt her body stiffen at the touch.
“Ooh, you feel so big. My gosh, what if you don’t fit?”
“Oh, I’ll fit.” He rocked his hips against her. “And you’ll love it.”
“Yes, please. Now. I’m begging you.”
She wrapped her legs about him, and her delicious scent filled him. He knew he couldn’t wait much longer, knew he had to have her. He pressed the head of his cock to her moist cleft.
She stilled.
“You know I’m not human, that I’m a fallen angel. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Even the sound of his voice sent shockwaves through her. As he spoke, his lips moved against her skin as gently as if they were butterfly wings.
“Tell me you want my dick.” He said, flexing his hips so the head of his erection pressed firmly against her cleft.
“Yes!”
“Then say it.”
“I want your…dick.”
He flexed his hips, and the head of his cock slid into her warmth. She arched her back and panted. Pleasure, heretofore unknown, came at her in waves. It felt so good, but she had to have more.
“More,” she pleaded, clasping his shoulders and quivering beneath him.
He rocked his hips slowly so another inch slid in. His arms quivered as he struggled for control.
“More,” she repeated.
It was such a perfect torture. The ecstasy and the agony, the friction of his entrance, and the unfulfilled desire as he slid in inch by delicious inch. She would go mad. She would swoon. She wrapped her legs tighter around him and pulled him towards her.
When he felt her urgency, looked into her eyes and saw the primal need there, it was all he needed to push him over the edge of control. He gritted his teeth, braced his weight on his arms, and drove into her.
“Yes!” she screamed, not caring if anybody heard her. Waves of liquid fire drove up her channel, filling her womb with an explosive heat as Raven filled every bit of her. Rapture unlike anything she’d ever known coursed through every part of her body. She bucked beneath him, out of control and loving it. Nothing had ever felt this good or could ever feel as good as this.
Slowly, he began to move inside her.
What intense joy, what pleasure, what compete fulfillment she felt as the friction of him inside of her produced. She could lay there forever, be his forever if only he kept moving inside of her. Pure bliss washed over her and as she lay there, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled herself closer to him. Desperate to kiss him and feel him and taste him. Stars danced above her, and pure pleasure filled her.
He rocked his hips, driving his cock deeper inside of her. She moaned and threw her head this way and that.
“You feel so good,” he said, loving the sight of her losing control. This was what he had wanted when he left the heavens, this feeling of completeness and rightness that had eluded him for so long until this very minute.
“You feel better,” she said, then moaned his name. It was all she could do. Each thrust brought her closer to the edge, every time she felt him pull back until he’d almost slipped free of her, she’d brace herself for the sensation of having him fill her again. Each time he slid back, he’d thrust in deeper. Eased back and sank in. It felt so good.
“Never want this to end,” he said, closing his mouth over hers and delving deep inside with his tongue.
She loved the feel of him sucking her tongue as he kissed her, letting his thrusts get harder and the friction more intense. He pummeled her with his body until pleasure began to build in the pit of her stomach. It built and radiated out of her very core, spreading until she lay beneath him, panting at his kisses and gasping with every thrust. He crushed her beneath him, letting his weight rest on her body as he forced his cock deeper inside of her. He claimed her mouth, ravaged her body, thrusting his cock in and out of her until she could scarcely breathe.
“Come for me,” he whispered against her ear.
The last shreds of her control evaporated as pleasure erupted inside of her, and an orgasm so intense she thought she’d swoon rocketed throughout her body. Raven pressed his lips to hers, swallowing her gasps. She trembled beneath him, bucking her hips.
“Oh, Raven,” she huffed, “Oh, my gosh, it feels so good. Oh, gosh."
As her body shuddered from her release, Raven loosed the reigns of control and let his body become a sensor of pure sensation. He thrust harder, gritting his teeth as she answered every thrust with one of her own. It wasn’t long before he felt his body cresting, felt sensation after sensation build until finally the waves crashed and pleasure filled him. He felt the seed spill from his body, felt pleasure at knowing it was spilling into her. She moaned beneath him, hungry for him, and he thrust harder. Once, twice, three times, then he collapsed atop her.
Sweat melded their bodies and their wet hair tangled together as if it belonged to one person. They clung to each other, sated for the moment, but knowing well this wouldn’t be their last joining for the night.
Chapter Eight
The fire had begun to die down nearly an hour earlier, and a brisk chill filled the room. Alaric didn’t seem too interested in such newfangled inventions like electricity. Any and all illumination came from candlelight, and any heat came from one of the many fireplaces within the house. She had to wonder what on earth he did in the summer when the temperatures rose. But if his expensive tastes were anything to go by, Alaric probably had another house to live in during the summer.
Pushing those thoughts aside, Charity stirred in the bed. Sex with Raven had been the single greatest event in all her life. She never dreamed she would ever experience lovemaking with so skilled a partner. He knew exactly what to do to her and when to do it. He was the perfect man, even if he wasn’t a man. But she supposed that didn’t matter. If he was to be believed, she herself was only half human. So in truth, it was a match made in heaven. No pun intended.
She shifted in the bed, careful not to disturb Raven, who had one muscled thigh thrown over her stomach and one arm splayed across her chest. It felt so good to be lying here with him. With a man who truly cared for her and wanted her for who she was, not what he wanted her to be. Though they’d been together two days, she’d only really known him this day, but she felt closer to him than anyone else she’d ever known, except maybe her mother.
“You’re awake.”
She grinned and rolled to face him. She noted she was still sticky with his juices, but she didn’t mind. “I thought you were asleep,” she said.
“Been watching you sleep.�
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He wrapped his leg around her and pulled her close, folding her in his arms. The kiss was sweet, wet, and deep, and she could feel his limp cock rising to life against her thigh.
“You’re insatiable,” she admonished with a laugh.
“And you love it.”
She did. She reached around him, grabbed a handful of butt and squeezed. “I do.”
Growling low in his throat, he rolled on top of her, pulling her arms from around him and pinioning them to the bed. “What do you suggest I do about my insatiable appetite?”
“Whatever you want. I’m yours forever.”
He paused mid way to kissing her and stiffened. A second later, he was rolling off of her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I just want to make sure you understand how it has to be between us.”
“What’s to understand?”
“That forever can only be for the time I’m here, but no more than that.”
She started to sit up, but he pressed her back into the bed.
“Why would you say that?” she demanded.
“Don’t forget what I am, Charity. My place isn’t among men. It took me centuries to learn that simple lesson, but I’ve learned. My place is in the heavens. When I complete my task, I’m going home. I must go home.”
Her face began to crumple. Wasn’t it just like life to offer her a glimmer of happiness, then snatch it away. She couldn’t understand why he was saying this. Was this some new torture he had devised with which to torment her. “You would leave me?”
“Don’t cry. I would never leave you alone. Trust me when I say everything will be fine.”
“How could it be fine if you’re gone?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t want to answer. Leaving her would be the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. But it had to be done. For his own sake, for Figlio’s sake, and for her sake. “Trust me.”
She shoved his hands away and sat up. “Trust you. How on earth can I trust you when you sleep with me one minute and tell me to shove off the next?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.” By now, he too was sitting up in the bed, staring at her with those huge, sable eyes of his. “I don’t belong here.”
“Then take me with you. If I’m half Nephilim, then—”
“You know I can’t do that. You have your whole life ahead of you, which isn’t inconsiderable. Do you understand what being Nephilim is?”
“I don’t care what it means if I have to be away from you.”
“It means you’re immortal. You don’t have to live your life in merely a few decades. You’re timeless, like Myrddin and Alaric…and Figlio. Like Aliceanna will be at the end of her training.”
“I don’t care about Myrddin or Alaric or Figlio, whoever the hell he is.”
She pushed the covers aside and stepped from the bed with him fast on her heels. Grabbing her forearm, he twisted her around. “You should spend your time with a man who is immortal like you. A man you can truly share yourself with.” He paused for a moment and gazed into her eyes. “A man like Figlio.”
“I don’t even know Figlio. And I don’t want to know him.” She tried to jerk away from him, but she might as well have been trying to bust through a brick wall with her bare hands. He was truly that immovable.
“The choice is not yours to make, Charity. It’s been decided for you.”
She stilled in his grasp and stared up at him. “What are you saying?”
“Figlio is your chosen mate. Not me. The choice has been made.”
She gaped at him. “Oh, has it?” His grip on her had slackened so she was able to pull free of him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he demanded.
“For a walk.”
“Are you crazy? You know Azriel could be anywhere lying in wait for you.”
“Yes, he could. And I wonder if he’d cast me off after he’d had his fill of me and shove me into the arms of another.”
Raven grabbed her arms and pulled her against his chest. “I don’t want to leave you, Charity, but I have to. And I don’t want to give you to Figlio, but it isn’t my choice. Michael, the archangel wills it, which means He wills it. It’s out of our hands.”
“I’m not going outside,” she said, ignoring his last statement. “Aliceanna said Alaric has an extensive library downstairs. I want to find a book…read…just get the hell away from you.” When he let go of her, she jerked a sheer robe from the armoire and shrugged into it. “Will you let me out, or am I your prisoner?” Last time she said those words, she hadn’t meant it. This time, however, she did. “If Myrddin has set his spell around the house then no harm can come to me. Azriel can’t get in without you knowing, and there’s no way I’m going out.”
Raven stared down at her for a moment, regret heavy on him. Why had he said anything? Why had he assumed she’d understand how things had to be? He reached over the armoire and closed his hand over the keys. “If you’re not back in an hour, I’m coming for you,” he promised.
She followed him to the door and waited for him to unlock it. When she stepped out of the room, she glanced back at him. “I just need time to think, Raven. My entire life has changed in two days time, and I don’t think I’ve had one chance today to stop and think about that. I’ll be back. In an hour.”
* * *
As she made her way down yet another hall, candle held before her, she realized she should have asked Raven for directions. Alaric’s house was huge. There was too much of it and every gloomy corridor held countless shadows. Alaric really should step into the twenty-first century and see the beauty of electricity. She could admit that the candles gave the house a romantic/gothic kind of ambiance that electric lighting would not have, but it would probably take her an hour just to find the library now, let alone getting back to the room. She didn’t want to think about that though. If she thought about that, she’d think about how good Raven had felt inside of her and how right it felt to be with him. Then she would think about how he had deceived her. What kind of man would make love to a woman knowing there was no future for them? At the very least, he should have told her beforehand, given her the choice of whether or not she wanted to make love knowing he would be gone soon. My gosh, once he left her, she’d never see him again.
This sudden realization struck her with the force of a blow. He was leaving her. It would be like he was…but she couldn’t think about that. Wouldn’t think about that. She’d known him but a day, and already she’d begun to fall in love with him. With God knew how much time left to spend with him, how would she keep herself from falling for him even more? She couldn’t. She simply could not.
“On your knees like a good girl.”
She jerked her head up and looked around. Azriel? She wondered, but no, that hadn’t been Azriel. Why would Azriel be telling her to get on her knees like a good girl? And the sound hadn’t come from within her head but from within the hall. Wiping her eyes, she glanced around.
“That’s it. On all fours.”
No, she decided as she made her way slowly down the hall, that wasn’t Azriel at all. Azriel’s voice was different. He spoke unaccented English like television newscasters, this voice spoke English but with an accent. A German accent.
She knew who’d she see before she found the wide double doors and peaked in.
Alaric sat on a leather sofa, his silk shirt thrown wide, his jeans unbuckled and his belt resting casually on his thigh. In one hand, he held a goblet of some syrupy red fluid—blood, perhaps—while he gazed down at a figure crouching submissively at his feet.
Well, she thought, she’d finally found the library.
Aliceanna, red hair wild on her head and naked as the day she was born, bent low to the floor and placed adoring kisses on Alaric’s boots. Her pale white bottom, raised high into the air, reflected the candlelight. From the looks of things, Alaric’s belt hadn’t been as innocent as it now seemed. Bright red stripes lined Aliceanna’s
back and thighs, but she didn’t seem to care.
“You missed a spot, sweetie,” Alaric said with a stern voice. He huffed a breath and got to his feet, mindless of Aliceanna as he shoved her aside with one booted foot.
“How can we forgive you if don’t do a good job?”
Charity turned to see where this other voice had come from. Damon, arms folded and one thigh propped onto the edge of a table, gazed down at the beautiful redhead.
“You, of all people.” Alaric resumed, shaking his head sadly. “I have my pride after all.”
Aliceanna scurried to catch up with Alaric as he tread to a bookcase and began perusing the volumes. As if he had nothing more on his mind right now than reading a good book.
“You are the most beautiful of all creatures, Alaric. But how could I have known?” Aliceanna said, “I never saw her before this day, I swear it.”
Alaric shrugged, unimpressed.
“I’m sorry,” she begged. Had I known she had a face that would remind you of Smenkhare—”
“I told you never to say that name.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry what?”
Aliceanna swallowed hard then took a few deep breaths. Apparently she was having a hard time getting the words to come out. Alaric whirled on her, shoving her back with the toe of his boot so she sprawled on her back. “I’m sorry, what?” he demanded.
Aliceanna stared up at Alaric as he came to stand over her. “I’m sorry, my most beautiful master,” she finally said.
Alaric’s face lit with pleasure. It was a feral look, predatory in every manner. The cat that cornered the mouse.
“Good girl,” Alaric said. He placed a hand over his zipper and began to lower it. “Now I think I’ve something else for you to do with that mouth of yours.”
Charity had never seen anything like this in her life. That Alaric—and probably Damon—had whipped Aliceanna was obvious, that Aliceanna was some sort of slave to them was obvious, but what Charity couldn’t understand was what on earth made Aliceanna submit to such cruelty. That she did in fact submit was obvious. Why else would she kiss the boots of her tormentor if she didn’t enjoy the torment? Where on earth was Myrddin? What would he think of this?
The Nephilim War: Book One Page 10
