by Ann Macela
How long they stood like that, Clay never knew. He didn’t notice she was crying until they had to loosen their grip enough to breathe and his lips slid to her cheek. “Francie?” he whispered. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, no,” she answered, shaking her head but she hiccupped with tiny sobs. “Of course not. Just the opposite. It’s relief. I was so scared you’d say no, and . . .”
“Oh, darlin’,” he chuckled. “There was no chance of that.” He gave her a comforting kiss, ran his hands up and down her back, and felt her catch her breath and relax against him. He gave her a moment, then pushed her away enough to see her face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she answered with a smile. Then she frowned slightly. “So we’re soul mates, right?”
“Yes, we are.” He couldn’t help grinning at the thought.
“What happens next?”
He grinned wider at her innocent question. “Now, Francie, we mate.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Clay kissed her again, softly, tenderly, before she could respond. He didn’t care what she might be about to say. She’d said the most important things, the exact words he needed to hear. They’d done enough talking.
He wooed her with light kisses first. His little butterfly kisses wandered over her face, landed lightly around her jaw, nibbled at her ear, sipped the nectar of her skin. Every time she tried to say something, he kissed her lips until she quit trying.
He let his hands lightly wander here and there over her body, never lingering long. Later he’d touch, or kiss, or taste every inch of her, but for now, it was enough to explore, to luxuriate in the feel of her in his arms. He felt her tremble wherever he touched her. When she spread her hands over his back and pressed those magnificent breasts to his chest, he couldn’t suppress his own shiver.
A faint humming, a low melody seemed to fill the room, and he began to move from side to side in a slow dance—rubbing the most important parts of their two bodies together.
Too much, it was almost too much. Too little, it was definitely not enough. He grasped her hips and pulled her into the cradle of his thighs, into the rock-hard rigidity of his erection. Ah, that was better. She sighed and tilted her hips just right to match his movement. They hadn’t danced together until now, but it was all right. Now was when it counted.
She followed his lead, swayed with him, reciprocated when he kissed her mouth, did some of her own nibbling when he bent to taste the creamy surface of her neck.
Clay slow-danced her across the living room and didn’t stop kissing her even as they climbed up the stairs to his bedroom. Once next to his bed, he abandoned his slow approach to concentrate on serious kissing, his tongue plunging deep, thrusting, claiming, possessing. His, she was his at last. She moaned, twined her arms around his neck, and he felt his blood heat to the boiling point.
Kissing was no longer enough. He needed to feel her skin against his, and he tugged at her sweatshirt. Francie whimpered when he released her mouth to pull the garment over her head, but when she realized what he wanted, she breathed, “yes,” and pulled his T-shirt out of his jeans. Arms tangled as each tried to undress the other, and finally they succeeded to the point where Clay was bare-chested and above her waist Francie was wearing only her bra.
Her pale pink, lace-and-silk, almost-transparent bra.
“Oh, Francie,” Clay whispered, his fingers lightly tracing the edge of the material. “If I’d known what you wore under those awful clothes, I’d have had you out of them earlier.” His fingers met on the front clasp and released it, then slowly lifted the sides apart to let her breasts spill into his hands. She filled his hands to overflowing.
He froze, transfixed by the sight of her loveliness—full pale globes topped with peach-colored nipples, already taut, calling to him. He bent and kissed each tip, took one, then the other, in a more thorough caress. She tasted like peaches, too, and he suckled and flicked until each peak curled tight and she threw her head back and moaned. He smiled in rampant satisfaction as he weighed her now-swollen breasts in his hands.
It was almost too much, Francie managed to think as she arched her back and held his head to her, seeking a stronger touch. It wasn’t enough. Her breasts had been aching, and his hands soothed the ache, but his lips caused lightning bolts through her body and produced another, almost excruciating, ache between her legs. She needed soothing there, too.
Clay’s lips and hands worked their way down to the belt at her waist. Unbuckling the belt, he unzipped her jeans. His lips never left her body as he knelt to pull off her shoes, socks, jeans, and panties. She tried to cooperate, but her movements were sluggish. The sensations he was calling forth stole her energy and diminished her ability to respond. All she was capable of was feeling—the slightly raspy slide of his fingers, the soft suction of his lips, the smooth glide of his tongue.
Francie ran her hands through his dark hair, holding him to her, using him as an anchor in a world of sensation. Then his mouth reached the dark golden curls at the apex of her thighs. The shock that zinged through her trembling body when his exploring tongue stroked first her feminine folds and then the hidden little bud arched her back and thrust her hips forward.
“Clay . . . .”
“Yes, darlin’,” Clay murmured as her legs buckled and he caught her with one arm. “I’ve got you.” Rising, he stripped the bedcovers back with his free hand and then lifted her as though she weighed nothing—again the sensation Francie had not felt since she was a small child.
He laid her down and leaned over her stiff-armed, taking his time looking, running his gaze from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. No man had ever looked at her like this before, a potent mixture of lust, need, want, desire, and possession. She could see silver flames in his eyes, and she knew hers returned every nuance of the same expressions.
She liked him to look at her, she realized as she made no attempt to cover herself. She couldn’t help blushing, however, and it drew forth a chuckle from Clay.
“You’re just perfect, Francie,” he said as his gaze traveled again up and down her body. And she was. Her luminous skin beckoned him, her pouting nipples called for his lips and tongue, the flare of her hips attracted his hands, and her thighs . . . and the blond thatch of curls between her legs . . .
His cock, hard almost to pain before, now began to throb, and he fought the urge to simply spread her legs and thrust himself into her warm depths. But he couldn’t act like a rutting bull. She was his soul mate. Control, he told himself, control. Remember, she hasn’t done this in a while.
He gave her a light kiss and stood straight to remove the remainder of his clothing.
Francie just lay there and watched. She’d known he was strong; his arms around her had been steel bands and he had lifted her easily. She’d known he had a rangy build; she’d felt it under his clothes and seen it in the way he wore his basketball uniform. But she hadn’t known how his unclothed body exuded masculinity, a gorgeous maleness of long bones and lean muscles, a contoured chest lightly sprinkled with curly dark hair that drew the eye downward to a flat stomach and farther to his manhood rising from its own nest of curls. Her fingers itched to explore him, and she held out her arms to him. “Come here.”
He slid onto the bed and she turned so they faced each other, lying on their sides. When he took her in his arms and pulled her close with no barriers between them, it felt so unabashedly right, so excruciatingly good. She groaned with pleasure.
“Oh, yeah,” Clay purred, “we fit together perfectly.” He lowered his head to hers.
Their lips met, tongues played, legs intertwined, and hands explored. Her fingers speared through his chest hair, felt his abdomen quiver, noted the play of his back and shoulder muscles, and kneaded his buttocks. His stroked her breasts, traced the line of her rib cage to the flare of her hips, drew her top leg over his hip, and stroked all the way to the bottom of her foot and back up. He kissed her so tenderly she thought she would cry.
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Smiling. She could feel him smiling against her lips, and she smiled in response. He drew back, and their gazes locked for a long moment. His silver eyes shone, bright with desire.
Her brown eyes were no longer smoky, but burning with a golden flame far in their depths. Just for me, Clay thought, and he murmured, “Francie . . . “
“Clay . . . “
He caressed her breasts, molding, teasing the nipples with his thumb, and the resulting sensations caused her to thrust her hips forward, sliding her soft, damp folds along his rigid shaft nestled between her legs.
Her movement made him catch his breath. Oh, God, it was almost too much. He had never had such an explosive reaction to a woman or her touch before. On the contrary, he’d always been able to draw out his lovemaking for the better part of an hour until it was the woman who trembled, not he. Not so with Francie, it appeared. Not so with his soul mate.
Shaking with the effort, he clamped down on his control. He had meant to take this slowly, to entice, to linger, to savor, but his hunger and need demanded release, and every movement of her body, every soft moan from her throat, every urging clasp of her hands told him she felt the same. “Not too fast, Francie,” he cautioned, his voice raspy with the effort to speak through his lust.
Kissing her fiercely, he turned her onto her back. He let his mouth travel down her throat, he paid homage to her breasts with his lips, and he teased her navel with his tongue as he moved between her legs. He settled himself and turned his attention to her silken inner thighs, then to the nest of curls with their hidden secrets. Kissing her intimately, he worked the small bud of nerve endings with his tongue.
Sensations spilling through her, Francie arched her back, began writhing, then panting, as tension spiraled tighter and tighter within her. She was on fire, and her body urged her on. She had no experience with these tumultuous feelings, this sharp edge of desire, this ruthless demanding need, but her body knew there was more.
She didn’t want him down there; she wanted him up here, she wanted him inside her, and she wanted him now. Fisting her hands in his dark hair, she hauled his head up. “Clay,” she gritted, “come here. Now!” And she tugged on his hair.
A hard, primitive look on his face, he surged up her body, braced himself straight-armed above her, and locked eyes. Slowly, inexorably, he thrust himself into her.
He was thick and long, and she could feel herself stretching to accommodate him, her unused muscles protesting, then accepting. She placed her hands on his arms to hold on and lifted her legs to grasp him around the hips, arching to take him deeper.
“That’s right, darlin’. Take all of me,” he groaned. He pulled back a little, pushed forward, then repeated the motion until he was seated to the hilt.
At the moment of complete joining, they both froze, suspended in the moment, as a rush of electricity rippled through their bodies.
“You’re mine now,” he stated fiercely, his expression savage.
“Yes,” she agreed in a whisper, “and you’re mine.” He stretched her, filled her, completed her. She felt his possession in her bones.
He began to move in long, powerful thrusts.
Around them, Francie thought the air seemed to shimmer, turn all the colors of the rainbow, as they gazed at each other, intent on their rhythm, their uniting. The rest of the world receded from her senses until only the two of them existed. They and their need to complete this act, to become one, to fuse together, to merge, to mate.
She met him, her hips rising to bring him closer, her body straining as tension mounted within her. Each time, at the moment of his maximum penetration, she tightened around him, and a raw cry forced itself from her throat, echoed by a corresponding low growl from his. He increased the pace until it took her breath, the strain became an exquisite torture, the intensity almost too much to bear. She seemed to be standing on a cliff’s edge, hanging right over the unknown abyss below, hanging . . . hanging . . .
A burst of colors blinding her eyes, she suddenly convulsed, waves of pleasure racking her body as it clenched around him. She heard herself cry his name. Then all she could do was hold on to him.
With a harsh, guttural groan and the word, “Francie,” he went over the sharp edge with her, pounding with quick, hard thrusts as he emptied into her.
Clay collapsed into her arms and lay there stunned, laboring to breathe, multicolored fireworks still going off on the backs of his closed eyelids. He thought he’d been prepared, certain he could bring her pleasure and satisfy himself.
Little did he know.
Their First Mating had gone far beyond his expectations. First it had been those fiery kisses, then the stupendous feeling of bare skin on bare skin. But transcendent could be the only description when he had finally thrust into her silky depths, the first time in his life he hadn’t used a condom. Now he knew why the imperative demanded no barriers; the feeling of binding, of merging, of uniting into one being, was incomparable.
He felt euphoric and exhausted. Never had the act of making love meant so much, been so powerful, so intense, so compelling, so perfect. Never had he felt so much at peace.
Eventually he raised his head, lifted himself slightly to lessen his weight on her chest, and looked into her eyes. She gazed back, wonder and contentment on her face. He knew his expression mirrored hers.
He smiled, and she returned it. He kissed her, and she kissed him back.
“Soul mates,” he murmured.
“Soul mates,” she repeated.
He shifted one leg to the outside of hers and rolled until she was sprawled on top, but still joined with him. She lay her head half on his shoulder and half on the pillow while he rubbed his hands slowly up and down her back. He felt her breathing slow, her body relax and slide into sleep. He soon followed.
He was floating, he became aware at some point, holding on to a smooth, warm, peach-scented, undulating body straddling his own, a body in whom he was still buried. He moved his hands, first down, then up. Thighs, butt, hips, he identified and sighed with pleasure as he reached higher and found glorious breasts. He would like to see them swaying above him, but his eyelids were too heavy to open. Instead he concentrated on his tactile sense while his mind continued to hover in a blissful doze.
Smooth, soft hands glided over his chest, splayed through his chest hair, teased his flat nipples. A warm mouth kissed his shoulders, drifted across his collarbone and up one side of his neck. A teasing tongue tweaked his earlobe, and he would have squirmed but he was too filled with contentment to move. Except for the part of him that was thickening, growing longer and harder.
“Hmmmm,” was all he could say. He felt rather than heard a chuckle from the body he was holding.
Alluring lips continued their journey along his jawbone, met his mouth for an instant, lifted off, then returned for a longer stay. A flirtatious tongue skimmed his lips, coaxed him to open his.
When he did, it thrust into his mouth and immediately engaged his own in play, advancing, retreating, tangling. Clay was suddenly, irrevocably awake, thoroughly aroused, and . . . completely inside Francie. She was kissing him like she had in his dreams. No, better. She was doing things to him even his heated imagination had not conjured up. When her inner muscles tightened, he felt himself harden and swell even more.
Francie tightened her fingers in his hair and broke the kiss to lean back enough so their eyes could focus. She laughed in triumph at the success of her machinations.
She had awakened, still on top of Clay, still holding him inside her. She felt so happy, so glorious, so . . . mated. There was no other word for it. She lay there for a while, her head on his shoulder. She could feel him breathing, a steady in-and-out, in-and-out that seemed not to notice her weight. She could inhale his scent, a combination of cool shaving lotion, himself, and pure sex. She could hear his heart beat—it seemed to be beating in unison with her own.
Carefully, she had sat up and given his body the same sort of inspection he had
given hers earlier. He was powerful even in repose with those silver eyes closed behind lids with spiky black lashes. She wished she were a sculptor, able to capture the strength lurking in his relaxed body, the anticipation of smooth movement one witnessed in large cats, the hardness of his muscles.
The beauty of his hands. Long fingers, blunt-cut nails, slightly callused, totally male. She knew she must have noticed his hands before, playing on the keyboard, playing with her. If she doubted he was a warlock, his hands would have convinced her as they magically drew trembling, fiery responses she hadn’t known existed within her. It had to be magic.
Their mating had been glorious, beyond any of her expectations, certainly beyond her past experience. She’d never had an orgasm with Walt. He had never given, only taken. Now she knew what had been missing. Well, in truth, a lot more than an orgasm had been missing in that so-called relationship.
Nothing was missing from this one, she was certain. Not caring, not commitment, not trust, not passion. The passion in herself surprised her; she thought Walt had killed it. If so, Clay had resurrected it like a phoenix from the ashes, and the fire bursting forth shocked her.
Then there was love. What was it again, what Daria had said? “They are as in love with each other as it is possible for two people to be.” She had yet to hear him say it, but then they hadn’t done much talking after her apology.
No, she decided, nothing was missing.
Except . . . A tiny vibration in her soul-mate center gave her an idea: he had claimed her in their mating; now it was her turn to claim him.
Careful not to waken him, she had proceeded to have some fun. Now he was awake. She laughed again as she gazed into his rapidly heating eyes. “Hi,” she purred and squeezed slightly with inner muscles.
“Hi to you, too,” he answered, although his voice sounded strained.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” Another little squeeze.
“Oh, no, not at all,” he gritted, and his eyes darkened to black with just a sliver of silver showing at their rims. His hands flexed on her breasts, and lightning shot through her to her womb.
