by Anthology
Thinking of Grandmama reminded him of her prediction last New Year. He glanced down at the Celtic tattoo that banded his upper arm. Entwined in the knotwork was his sorcerer’s mark. When that mark appeared on another, and his own turned red to match, he’d know he was mated. It was still green and black. So far, so good.
A whisper of sound brushed against his ear. Was it music? His better-than-human hearing focused in on the beach. There was something out there. Something almost…calling him.
“Black is the color of my true love’s hair…”
A voice. Possibly the most hauntingly beautiful voice he’d ever heard. She was singing a song he’d heard back in Ireland as a child. It was a love song, but his mother had altered the lyrics to sing to him as a baby, in honor of his dark curls. The voice singing now, however, was seductive rather than maternal. It was strong, pure and richly feminine.
“His smile is like the roses rare…”
A deep powerful need filled his body, hardened his cock. He didn’t understand it, but he had to find the woman who was singing. He had to see her with his own eyes and touch her with his own hands.
“He has the sweetest lips and the strongest hands…”
Closing his eyes, he raised his hands to the night sky and summoned his power. There was a blinding flash. Moments later the world re-coalesced around him and his bare feet touched the cool sand of the beach.
* * * * *
“I love the ground on which he stands.”
Lyra lounged on the rock, her face turned up to the stars as she sang. She leaned back on her hands with her legs stretched out in front. She didn’t know why she’d chosen this song, one she hadn’t sung in probably a hundred years. It had simply emerged from her throat when she’d perched on the rock in the moonlight to sing.
She’d waited too long this time, easily a year since she’d last answered her body’s call to summon a lover. Her breasts were swollen, achy with need, while her cunt was wet and wanting. She poured her heart into her voice and let her song soar to the heavens like a prayer.
She’d grown so tired of this existence, of her body’s insistence on the meaningless cycle of song and sex. She’d tried other ways to find a lover—even dressing in human clothes and going to a singles bar—but it hadn’t satisfied the demand. The siren’s destiny required that she sit on the rocks in the spray of the waves and sing until a lover responded. Nothing else could calm the raging need that gripped her body and soul. She’d even appealed to the river god himself, Achelous, the father of the siren race. He’d dismissed her as if she was an adolescent and told her to solve her own problems.
As one song ended, she began another, letting all the longing she couldn’t suppress infuse her voice. She rubbed one hand through the slick cleft between her legs, trying to assuage the pain of emptiness, but her own touch only made it worse. Gods, she hoped that a lover answered her song and soon. Someone with the skill and patience to make the most of an anonymous moonlight tryst. If the Fates were kind, he’d also have a really nice, hard cock. Her own pleasure wasn’t required for the energy absorption magic, but it would be nice to enjoy herself while she was about it.
There was a flash, almost like lightning off to her left and Lyra glanced over her shoulder to see the cause. Her breath caught in her throat and her voice actually stopped.
She hadn’t heard any footsteps. Where had he come from?
Standing barefoot in the sand was a man. And oh, what a specimen.
His hair was dark and worn in short curls close to his head. Silver moonlight glinted off the sculpted planes of broad shoulders, muscular chest and rippled abdomen. A narrow line of dark hair bisected the abs and disappeared into a pair of low-slung dark silk lounge pants. Lyra blinked as her eyes continued downward. Tenting the front of those pants was the most impressive erection she’d seen in decades, if not longer.
“Who are you?” His voice was strong, brusque. He’d succumbed to her call, but this was no meek spineless sailor. For the first time her song had brought her a man.
She wet her lips and pressed her thighs together to quell the ache which had grown worse at the sight of him. “My name is Lyra. And yours?”
He stepped closer to the rock, close enough for her to see his eyes. They were bright, almost luminous in the moonlight and they narrowed as he raked his gaze across her. He gave a single crisp nod. “Siren.”
She bowed her head, wrapped her arms around her knees and let her hair fall forward to curtain her face. “Yes.” He had to be a magical being himself to know of her existence. Moisture seeped from her core onto the rock as her need intensified. She’d never had a supernatural lover. Usually her song summoned only the weakest-minded of humans.
“Why have you called me?”
Unwilling to look up and meet his piercing gaze, she merely shrugged. The very fact that he was questioning her meant that he was not properly enthralled. She had no idea what to do, or how this had come to be.
Cian stared at the siren, trying to ignore the persistent throb of arousal. Even while his gaze took in the phenomenal body that reclined on a flat boulder and the flowing platinum hair that cascaded down her back, his magical senses spread out, looking for trouble. He’d made more than a few enemies over the years. This could easily be some sort of trap.
Nothing.
None of Cian’s senses showed any trace of a third being braving the chilly fall air on the darkened beach. There was magic aplenty, but it all belonged to either him or the naked temptress. Even now that she’d stopped singing and lowered her head to her updrawn knees, he could feel the power swirling through and around her. It was almost as seductive as the sheen of her ivory skin gleaming in the moonlight.
An involuntary step drew him closer to her perch. He knew at once that he’d erred as her musky feminine fragrance tickled his nostrils and his cock stiffened even further. He’d never encountered a siren before, but his studies had given him a basic understanding of their nature. She was an immortal being who needed sex the same way humans needed oxygen and vampires needed blood. Or the way sorcerers needed magic.
But he’d never heard of a sorcerer being vulnerable to the siren’s song. So he asked again, “Why have you summoned me?”
“My song summons whomever it wishes. I don’t control it.” Her words were spoken softly, almost as though whispered on the breeze off the lake.
He was inclined to believe her, but he was too horny to completely trust his own judgment. “Who does?”
Her pale shoulders shrugged and she raised her face to look up at him. “The magic controls itself, I suppose. It never occurred to me to wonder.”
Cian took another step and brought his hand up to cup her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. Looking into the soul of another being was dangerous, even for a sorcerer of his power, but it was one certain way to determine whether she told the truth.
He could feel her body tense at his touch and he could smell the thread of fear that warred with her body’s obvious arousal. But she opened wide pale eyes and met his gaze.
Cian almost forgot to breathe. Staring into Lyra’s soul was perhaps the single most intimate moment of his life. As he’d expected, she was a carnal creature, but there was no malice or cruelty in her makeup. She needed a man, but she would give pleasure in return rather than simply taking. She hadn’t lured him here to his death. And she hadn’t called him specifically. He could read the confusion in her mind as clearly as he saw the desire that coursed through her body—desire so powerful that if left unsatisfied it could literally mean her death.
There was something else there too. Something as thin and delicate as a gossamer thread that stretched between them. He could feel the loneliness of her existence and it called to something within him. For the first time he felt the solitude of his own existence and at the same time he felt a powerful need to protect and care for this woman who was so sad, so complex, so desperately in need of love.
She gasped and he knew she’d seen
into him as well, though probably not as deeply since she wouldn’t be familiar with the process. Before that changed, Cian broke the link and let his eyelids droop. He studied her lush mouth that quivered with every breath and he couldn’t help but envision those plump pink lips wrapped around his rigid shaft.
“You want me.” Her small soft hand caressed his erection through the thin silk of his trousers, making him even harder than he’d already been. Her quiet breathy voice was just as musical even when she panted rather than sang. “Will you take me then? Please?”
He heard the urgency in her tone. She needed this to survive and damned if Cian didn’t feel almost the same. For all of about two seconds he thought about resisting. Losing control of his desires was anathema to him, but he knew he was going to give in. Instead of answering with words, he dropped his lips to hers and replied with a kiss.
Her broken cry spilled between them but was cut off as their lips fused. He slid his tongue along the crease between her lips and tickled. She opened eagerly, sucking on his tongue when it entered her mouth. He stroked deep, tasting, exploring and staking his claim. She tasted of the sea—salty and sweet and rich with life. Her tongue fluttered alongside his own. The teasing little touches only served to inflame him further. He retaliated by thrusting his tongue in and out in a blatant imitation of what he would soon be doing with his cock. Her hand clenched on his erection, squeezing him through the fabric, which he could feel growing damp where it rubbed against his leaking tip.
His own hands wrapped around her waist and drew her up to stand before him on the sand while his mouth continued ravaging hers. She leaned into him and rubbed her heavy breasts against his bare chest in an open display of want and need. He groaned and pulled out of the hot cavern of her mouth then bent lower to capture one of those luscious globes with his hand and lips.
“Yes,” she cried out when his mouth closed over her tightly beaded nipple. Her breasts were generous and full. While the silky white flesh spilled over his hands, her nipples were dainty and petite. Hard as a pearl, the tiny bud fit perfectly on the tip of his tongue. He circled it until it was damp, then gently nipped with his teeth.
“Please!” She started to sway, caught herself by grabbing his shoulders. “I need you. Now.”
“Not yet.” He knew from the soul-gaze that she wasn’t in imminent danger, as long as she fed sometime tonight. Cian was nowhere near done playing. For some reason it was crucial to him that tonight be special, meaningful for both of them, rather than just mindless sex. He leaned her back against the boulder and dropped to his knees in the sand. “Spread your legs.”
Small but strong fingers threaded through his hair and gripped his scalp as she obediently widened her stance and let the rock bear the weight of her ass and lower back. Cian rewarded her with a leisurely lick along her gleaming cunt. She was as wet as the lake behind him. Thick cream coated his tongue and glistened on the skin of her upper thighs. Her pussy was smooth, with just two small tufts of damp silvery hair guarding her slit. He used his tongue to toy with the tiny curls and the edges of her puffy lips. Even in the moonlight he was somehow sure that like her nipples they were normally a pale shell pink.
“I could eat you all night,” he murmured. He blew a gentle puff of air along her heated flesh and she writhed, more warm wetness trickling onto his tongue. Ravenous for the taste of her, he licked along her opening. His tongue probed deeper with every stroke. Finally, he speared it up into her channel.
Lyra screamed and her thighs tightened down around Cian’s head. He smoothed them with his hands to ease them back apart. His tongue kept up the onslaught, thrusting rhythmically into her snug pussy. Every third or fourth stroke he paused to circle her erect clit. The tender nub poked free of its protective hood and hardened further with each moist swipe.
He knew she was close. Tremors began to course through her taut muscles. Her breathing was rapid and fractured and her cries had dissolved from words to whimpers. He slid his hands over the firm flesh of her thighs and used the tips of his fingers to part her pussy lips while both thumbs slipped into the entrance of her cunt. She was so tight they barely fit. He breathed in the heady fragrance of her musk and groaned. “Let go, Lyra. I want to watch you come apart for me.” His lips closed around her clit and he sucked at the same time he stroked inward with his thumbs.
“Goddess!” Her scream filled the night, crashed right along with the waves as she came. Her vaginal muscles clamped down around his thumbs and her hips bucked beneath his face. He maintained the suction until the ripples of her orgasm had faded then he soothed her with a series of slow, thorough licks. Gasping raggedly, she sagged against the rock. “Thank you. Now please—I need more.”
“Oh, we’re nowhere near through yet, leannan. That was just the beginning.”
“Your turn?” She stretched and made a sound that was nearly a purr. “I want to make sure you have fun too.”
“I have been,” he told her honestly, somewhat to his own surprise. He was never a selfish lover, but he’d never felt like this before—that his partner’s pleasure was far more important than his own. “Watching you respond to my touch is a pleasure.” That was an understatement. He’d nearly come in his trousers like an untried lad.
“Cian…”
He started, then realized she must have learned it during the soul-gaze. There was enormous power in a man’s name, so he rarely gave his real one to the women he slept with. KEY-in. She pronounced it with just the right Gaelic inflection. The syllables sounded musical when she whispered them. Suddenly he couldn’t wait another moment to be inside her.
He reached for the drawstring of his lounge pants, but she leaned forward and brushed his hands out of the way. The top of her head brushed against his stomach, making him gasp in a breath. He knew that she drew energy from her partner’s climax, but that it wouldn’t damage him. The siren’s seduction was only deadly if she chose to use it that way. So why did it feel like she was reaching inside him to grasp his very soul? Something shifted in his chest. He didn’t want to think about that. Not right now.
His pants dropped to the sand and he kicked them away from his feet. Warm soft lips brushed against the head of his cock and he gasped again. He reached out with one hand to brace against the rock behind her.
The sight of that pale head bent before him was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen. When her tongue darted out to lick the tiny drop of fluid from his tip, his eyes closed of their own volition. The groan he heard over the crash of the waves had to be his but he didn’t remember uttering it.
“You are beautiful,” she murmured between pressing exploratory kisses up and down the length of his erection.
He managed to bark out a rough laugh. “I think you’ve got that backward, áilleacht.” Beauty. It described her perfectly—inside and out.
She traced her tongue up the ridge of his shaft then circled the flared head. “Magnificent, then. Is that suitably masculine?” He heard the smile in her tone and was unaccountably gratified that she could tease him even in the middle of mind-blowing sex. A warm feeling of contentment washed over him. Instead of warring with the sexual pleasure, the sweetness somehow made it even stronger.
“If you say so.” He wasn’t modest but she was a siren. She’d been with hundreds if not thousands of men. If she was exaggerating to stroke his ego, he didn’t want to know.
“Mmm.” She teased with a flicker of her tongue down into the weeping slit. “I do.” Then she stopped talking to open her mouth and take him inside.
Cian couldn’t have spoken if his life had depended on it. All he could do was push against the rock with one hand to hold himself upright and tunnel the other one through her thick wavy hair.
She drew him deep into the recesses of her mouth, surrounding him with wet heat. Her tongue toyed with the underside of his cock, right where the head met the shaft. Meanwhile her talented little hands were busy driving him to the very edge of control. One cupped his taut sac, massaging
gently, while the other circled the base of his penis, sliding up and down in the same rhythm as her mouth. She sucked strongly, letting him feel the muscles at the back of her throat clench when she swallowed.
“I thought you wanted me to come inside you.” He wasn’t going to last much longer if she kept up this delicious torture. He could already feel his balls tightening, getting ready to explode.
She purred—there was no other word for it this time—around his cock, then pulled free with a loud slurp. Her hand tightened on his shaft, letting him know she wasn’t done. “Oh, I think you’re good for more than one round. I’m willing to take that chance.”
Far be it from him to argue. With her he thought he could probably go all night and still get hard again. He threw his head back and clenched his teeth around a groan. Not only had she engulfed him in her hot little mouth again, she slid her index finger back away from his balls to press firmly against the sensitive nerve endings of his perineum and anus. With one deep breath she pulled him in farther, until he felt himself at the very back of her throat.
Stars burst through his vision. He couldn’t tell if they were in the sky or his eyes. Sparks rocketed through his body from his testicles along every nerve all the way to his fingers and toes.
He called her name and then screamed his pleasure to the skies in Gaelic and Latin and whatever else occurred to him. She drank greedily, swallowing every drop of his seed as he jetted down her throat. The climax rolled on and on, until Cian wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold himself upright when it was finally over.
Chapter Two
Lyra licked the last droplets of semen off Cian’s only slightly softened cock. The bitter salty tang left her hungry for more. She could feel the warm pulse of energy under her skin, energy she’d absorbed from the force of his climax. And for the first time ever, it wasn’t enough. Her need for sustenance was met, but she wanted more. A tightness like a fist closed around her heart. She was very afraid that she would always want more of this man—and in ways she’d never wanted another.
