Elijah. Jacquelyn Frank
and instinctively resisted any pressure that would potentially reopen the healing flesh. Even to save herself, for some reason, Siena could not bear the thought of causing him harm. She was not that noble a creature in general, and certainly not when she was feeling threatened, so the impulse to protect him left her baffled and disoriented.
By the time she had finished curbing her escape impulse and contending with her feelings of confusion, she was being swamped by a thousand other sensations and emotions.
All of them were centered around heat.
So much amazing, delicious heat. Heat from his body burning its strength and form into hers as if she were a soft putty meant to take the impression of his fit into the memory of her own shape. They were like a puzzle. Two pieces cut apart but always meant to be perfectly reunited at some future point. They locked together like the flow of nature, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, and breast to breast. Even the water running down her steaming skin could not come between that perfect seal. There was heat from her body burning into his, blazing in places she had never felt such intensity before. The sensation was so baffling as it ran along her entire body, even the incongruous places like the small of her back, under her arms, and the soles of her feet, that it was just shy of being ticklish.
She could not laugh at it, though. She was far too engaged by his kiss to even consider it. His mouth was like a demanding and wet fire, his velvet tongue thrusting past her teeth to demand reciprocation from hers, leaving more licking flames in his wake as he went. Had she ever thought his lips to be almost feminine? He was nothing but male, the fit of his lips skilled and aggressive and very, very masculine in their flavor and force. He was drinking from her mouth in long, satisfying drafts, until Siena could hardly catch her breath. She felt her body bowing backward. She was being held so tightly that her body was forced to fit into the aggressive lean of his embrace. Her hair skimmed through the water, the ends recoiling in shock at the contrast of the cold in the face of all that heat. The very same cold she had been enjoying only seconds ago.
Elijah did not know what was propelling him to do what he was doing, and for that blissful moment he didn’t much care. Her sweet mouth, her feminine body, her increasing warmth—all suited him with inexplicable precision. She was passive with her shock at first, but it faded rapidly as her senses and sensuality were held in rapt attention by his actions. It was only a matter of a minute before her long, deft fingers were weaving deeply into his hair, sending chills of erotic awareness down his spine as she held him to her mouth and commenced an aggressive seeking of her own.
Siena’s tongue slipped over his, slinking across his taste buds and into his mouth with astounding womanly demand. She was just as curious, just as dominant in her nature as he was. The warrior groaned as her sweet, erotic flavor filled his senses, her bold, sweeping tongue forcing every nerve in his body into a clutching clarity of sensation. She tasted like cinnamon and honey, spice and sweetness. It was a confection of flavor and feeling he could not remember ever knowing before, or imagine ever feeling again. She made a small sound, then an aggressive one that sounded like a growl as it radiated past his lips. What that simple sound did to his body was purely indescribable. Like molten iron it burned through him, scorching him, an agony, a heat of pain and pleasure that hardened every muscle, every plane of his body.
Elijah’s hands were suddenly surrounding her face, cupping it between his palms as he pulled her away from his mouth. It took an entire minute to accomplish the separation, the delight of her mouth impossible to part from as much, it seemed, as it was for her to part from his. Their mouths glistened with the passionate exchange of flavor, each now residing on the other’s sense of taste for what seemed to be all time. When he finally could look at her face, the sound of her rapid breath and the sight of her flushed skin were damning. But they were nothing compared to the liquid, golden desire in her dilated eyes. Had she not looked at him as she was doing in that moment, he might have convinced himself that he was prepared to back off from her. It was a self-deception no matter which way it was viewed, however, because his entire body was gripped by opposing desires, none of which intended on going in any direction other than toward her.
They remained separated for all of a few heartbeats, and then he dragged her back to his mouth and into the dominant planes of his hard body, seemingly just as she lunged back into him to imprison him with her own needs. She made one of those primitive sounds that made his blood boil in his veins, urging his hands to her supple back in order to seal her to himself as tightly as the lick of a tongue sealed an envelope.
Elijah felt her on so many levels. Her body, so lush and aroused, locked tightly against his so that he felt every curve, every beat of her heart, and every swell of her breasts as she drew for air. Her eyes were wide open, bold and brave and mesmerizing as they locked with his. He had never realized how arousing, how enthralling such a simple thing could be. She was the purest art of courage, clearly blanketed with awe and delight as she absorbed his taste, his scent, and the press of his urgent, hardened body. Her fingertips slid with silky elegance down the length of his back, all the way from his shoulders to the edge of the towel slung low around his hips. The return trip up his spine bludgeoned him with sensation and a shaft of heat that clutched brutally down his belly and into his groin.
Elijah jerked his mouth from hers, gasping as hard as she was for that broken moment, but then she was being dragged up high against his body by his hands, her knee hooking over his hip in sensual aggression, her bruised and beautiful mouth already opening for him as he understood she was not in any frame of mind to tolerate his doubts, if indeed he had any, any longer.
It was beyond the fact that she tasted so fine, so sweet. It was how she boldly stroked and played with him. It was the way her essence seemed to become branded upon him. It was also the clarity with which he came to understand that it was exactly the same for her. Somehow, he was as perfect for Siena as she was perfect for him. In all those ways, and so many, many more.
Elijah ravaged her full mouth like a man starved for breath after nearly drowning. He took everything about her kiss deeply into himself, feeling it scorch through his body like wildfire.
It was utter insanity.
Siena should have been the last woman on earth he would have touched. She should have throttled the bloody hell out of him like he was very aware she could. Instead, she had burst into willing flame, her heat licking over and through him until he thought he would become only ashes in her hands. Ashes she could blow away with the softest puff of cinnamon-sweet breath. Elijah learned how to feel an entirely new level of arousal. He was hard and heavy with it, the sensation a raging demand that would brook no denials, no refusals. He felt the message urgently. There was only one way to be satisfied, only one woman who could accomplish it, only one refuge that would be home to the throbbing hunger clawing through him. Elijah knew she was aware of his state of appetite. She moved like liquid need herself, her body rubbing against his with blatant suggestion. She reminded him of her nudity, of her heated nearness, of how easy she was making it for him to simply shed any remaining barriers between them and find his heaven deep, oh so deep inside her.
Elijah could feel her hair coiling around his wrist and forearm, the erotic, living strands caressing him like thousands of tiny hands. Her actual hands were sprawling over the expanse of his chest, his shoulders…down his back and over the muscles of his backside. The touch made him shudder against her and he felt her sound of satisfaction vibrating into his mouth. She slid those seeking fingers down to his thighs, then reversed course back over his buttocks, this time beneath the heavy weight of the saturated towel slug so carelessly around his hips.
This time he was the one uttering a primal growl, accompanying it with an abrupt burst of movement. The warrior broke his kiss and hauled her up out of the water with one arm around her waist. He heard her release a short, delighted laugh that was pure sexual invitation. She wrapped her hands around the back of his head as his actions brought her breasts to the level of his mouth.
“Yes,” she said, the word a hiss of demand and urgency.
He smiled wickedly with his own dominant satisfaction before touching his tongue to one rigid nipple. She threw her head back, sounding out with more encouragement, almost begging him between her needful sounds and twisting body. At last, Elijah drew the crested peak of her nipple into the warmth