Mona Lisa Craving Page 7

  I stuffed the condom in my pocket, freeing my other hand, and laid it across his forehead, pushing my disquiet aside to just concentrate on him, the poor suffering creature before me. My palm flushed and tingled as that pain-easing power of mine spilled into him, soothing the jagged edges of his mind and body. His eyes closed and his jaw clenched. Wetness spiked his lashes.

  “It’s okay. You can groan if you need to. It just startled me that first time,” I murmured. But he didn’t, and I was glad he didn’t. I still felt uneasy around him. “I’m taking away some of the pain, removing the symptom. Not curing the disease,” I told him.

  His lashes lifted, dark wet crescents. “How can we cure it?” He spoke with less strain, but his voice still sounded rusty, sore.

  I hesitated, then answered him with his own words. “Touch me.”

  His right hand lifted slowly, hesitantly, the chains clinking with his movement. It came to rest cautiously on my shoulder. “Your shirt is wet,” he said. But it was his body that shook as I brought my other hand to his face and traced both hands down his cheeks, his neck, moving to his shoulders, pausing there a moment, then drifting down his arms, back up. Smoothing across his chest in gentle, tingling sweeps.

  “I fell in a river,” I said, explaining why my shirt was wet.

  Chains rattled as his left hand came up to rest on my other shoulder. He began an echoing refrain of my motions, gliding them down my arms. Back up.

  “When you touched me that first time, I knew I could not let you go.” His voice was a raw and husky murmur. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t,” I promised, even though my heart sped up in disquiet at his words. The thought of being held by him, captured by him…I shook off the unease. “I won’t leave you unless you bite me. That is the only thing that will make me go,” I said, continuing my ministrations, learning his body, easing his pain. I tried to lose myself in the pleasure of touching him, my hands drifting down his abdomen, sweeping up his sides, skimming lightly up and down his back.

  “I won’t bite you,” he said in that ragged voice of his.

  “No biting. No blood. All other things you may do.” Meeting Nolan’s eyes over Dante’s shoulder, I gestured for him to leave and he slipped from the room, closing the door softly behind him. Taking that mental step, committing myself wholly to this, I swept a hand lightly over his groin, finding him long and hard, swollen full.

  His teeth ground together audibly, and his body tensed to rock hardness. His skin stretched taut over the sharp blades of his cheekbones, and his pale blue eyes glittered down at me. I looked away, finding it easier to touch him, be with him, if I did not look into those eerie, familiar but unfamiliar eyes.

  “This is the cure,” I said softly, taking the verbal step. “Touch me. Make love to me.”

  His hands gripped my shoulders tightly before he consciously eased his grip. And that one moment of force, that hint of strength, drew my breath in.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said, alarmed, almost panicking, lifting his hands away.

  “I’m not.” Warmth spilled across my cheeks in an embarrassed blush. “It was…nice,” I admitted softly. “I liked that firmness, the hint of your strength. Touch me more.”

  I felt him heat at my words, but he stood there in an agony of stillness, fear that I would be frightened into leaving battling with his desire to do as I said—to touch me more.

  I took his hands in both of mine, and some of that frightened tension left him as we connected once more. Until I slid them under my wet T-shirt and laid his hands against my bare skin. Then tension roared back into him again. Simmered between us as I swept my hands over his hips and slid them down his buttocks. He sucked in his breath, expelled it out when I continued on my journey, sweeping my palms down the back of his cloth-covered thighs.

  He trembled as if a fever shook him, his cheeks slashed red. Breathing hard, his hands drifted slowly up my torso. The metal of his right restraint bumped up against my side, and I winced. In pain this time, not pleasure. His hands stilled. “You’re hurt.”

  “Bruised a bit. There were some big rocks in that river.”

  “Let me see.” He waited until I nodded, then drew up my T-shirt. And hissed.

  “That bad, huh?” I swallowed. “Best to take the T-shirt off so you can see where to touch, and where not to touch.” I smiled as I said it, but inside I was not smiling. As my shirt was lifted over my head and tossed away, inside I was cringing. I was built modestly on top. Neat and compact were the best words to describe me. And the vivid purple and red bruises discoloring my left side and right arm did not help make me any more attractive. Despite my bold actions with him, I was far from confident when it came to sex. The men I’d been with had loved me, and I them. Dante hardly knew me. And his vision of me was not colored by love. My turn to tremble, to feel horribly vulnerable. I could not meet his eyes. Did not want to see what expression filled them.

  If only Monères glowed from embarrassment. How easily then it would have been to cure him.

  “Take off your pants.” A brief pause. Then he added, “Please,” like it was a word he was not used to saying.

  Well, heck. Why don’t we just make it harder? But I nodded, and despite the trepidation filling me, undid the button, pushed down the zipper, and stepped out of my wet jeans and underwear, completely bare to him now. Still, I could not lift my eyes, even when he removed his own pants. He folded them neatly—an odd thing to do in this situation, I thought—and laid them on the floor. Then taking my hands, he drew me down to sit across his thighs as he leaned back against the wall.

  “You’ll be more comfortable this way. And I’ll be less likely to hurt you,” he said. And it put me in control, as much as a woman could be in control when you made love with a man. It touched me, the gesture. The thoughtfulness behind it. The heavy chains, though, clinking and rattling with each move were distracting and annoying, setting my already jumpy nerves even more on edge.

  “Let me remove the chains,” I said, reaching for his shackles.

  “No,” he said sharply, pulling his wrists out of my reach. “It’s not safe. I’m not safe yet. Leave them on.”

  I mentally dug a hole and buried the last of my unease in it. Yes, I thought, he’s a man worth saving. But instead of making me feel better, it made me feel worse. Never had I felt the burden of my own pleasure so keenly. My initiation into sex had been a painful thing. With humans. Humans that Monère are not compatible with because we’re of a different chemistry, a different race. It wasn’t until I came across another Monère, across Gryphon, that I had found the joy and pleasure that could be had in being intimate with a man.

  I’d never had a man’s life—a virgin, to boot—dependent on my glowing in pleasure before. Of him going mad and being executed by his own father if I didn’t. It wasn’t so much his lack of lovemaking skills I was doubting as much as I was questioning my own adequacy. A woman is harder to stir up and please than a man. Pure, unalterable fact. And right now, bruised and unsettled among strangers, bare skin to bare skin with someone I felt I should know but didn’t, I did not feel up to the burdensome task that pleasure had suddenly become.

  Dante was calmer, saner now, after I’d eased his pain. Maybe we could wait until we returned to Belle Vista and Dontaine was there to help us. I knew that I could glow with Dontaine.

  “What is your name?” Dante demanded in a gritty voice.

  “Mona Lisa.”

  “Mona Lisa,” he repeated. And while his next words were said in a soft whisper, they were tinged with strain. “Can you…touch me? It’s starting to hurt again.”

  My faint hope died. Nope, we weren’t going to be able to wait.

  I shifted up on my knees and laid a hand on his chest, another on his forehead. Praying while I did so. Please. Help me be enough for him.

  He closed his eyes, relaxing beneath my tingling touch.

  As the pain seeped out of him, my touch changed from soothing to caressing, str
oking the slight swell of his chest, trailing down the bristly side of his face to trace his slightly chapped lips. Such a smooth-rough contrast. Like what he was—dangerous pleasure. I leaned even closer until our lips were just a breath apart. “Dante,” I whispered, brushing my mouth against his. “Come dance with me.”

  We kissed and it was a sweet, light thing. A mingling of breath, of scent. A simple pleasing of our senses.

  At first his lips were soft and yielding, pliant. As if he’d never kissed anyone before, and perhaps he hadn’t. As if he were just absorbing the feel of me. Then they firmed, moved across mine in a light caress, brushing across my lips, easing back, coming back at a different angle. He danced with me as I had asked him to. With his mouth, with his lips, only his lips, closed and gentle-rough against mine. He kissed me now as an active participant, with pleased discovery, with growing delight. With quickly learned skill, and slowly budding pleasure. Finding what he liked. What I liked. Building that slight, fragile connection between us with soft caresses, gentle touches. Until I yearned for more than just the feel of his lips brushing against mine. Until I yearned for the taste of him, too.

  My tongue swept lightly across his lips. His eyes, still closed, twitched with surprise. I smiled and did it again. A light, deliberate wet stroke across the seam of his mouth. “Open for me,” I whispered.

  He did. Our mouths mated again with our lips open, and I tasted him. A light sweep in his mouth, a gentle foray, retreating then. I did it again—gentle probe in, a teasing flicker of my tongue against the tip of his. When I retreated this time, he followed, delving into my mouth with a light stroke of his own. Another, and another. Tasting me as I tasted him. Teasing my tongue as I’d teased his, a sure and quick learner. And all the while our mouths and tongues danced with each other, my hands moved over him. A sweep over his wide shoulders. A caressing stroke down the muscles of his arms. He did not have the thickness and breadth of chest and shoulders that he would have in another century. He had the sweet, budding slenderness of youth still yet, with more. The muscles carving his body marked his entry into manhood, and his claim on a warrior’s body, strength, and will. That will now was focused on finding my pleasure.

  We were playing a more intimate version of Simon Says. He did as I did, went where I went. His hands lifted, touched me, across the shoulders, feathering over my collarbones. He sighed into my mouth with pure unadulterated delight at the raw pleasure of touching me, tangling our tongues together in a wet, intimate caress. He sipped upon me, nibbled on my lower lip.

  When I tensed and drew in a breath as his teeth skimmed across my flesh, he said in a gritty whisper, “No biting, no blood. I remember. But all other things I may do, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled and watched me with half-closed eyes. The hard intent gleam, his rough stubble, the primitive ear piercing, and the darkness I sensed in him tangled up with this gentleness—it all sent a tremor shooting through me. Because playing with him was like playing with a keg of dynamite. Safe until it blew up on you. And that darkness that dwelled within me—that had been a part of me even before I took in the demon essence—was both scared and thrillingly turned on by that perilous pleasure.

  With deliberate lightness, he drew his hands slowly down my breasts, learning their shape, their feel, watching my reaction to his touch. Helpless tremors shook me as his fingers skimmed over my nipples. They pebbled in response and those hooded eyes lowered down to them in fascination. His fingers returned to circle the pouting hardness that he’d drawn forth, rimming the brown areolas, brushing softly over the sensitive tips. He watched me respond, his piercing eyes lifting back up to mine, and I was helpless to look away as the control suddenly shifted from me to him.

  “You like this?”

  I nodded, unable to speak with the rough pads of his fingers brushing over my nipples. A light swirling stroke, then a firmer caress. His fingers traced down the slight swell of my breasts. Drifted down my belly. He splayed his hands across my waist, my hips, down my thighs, back up again. With just the tips of his fingers, as if he were a blind man reading braille, reading me, he ran those sensitive rough pads around to the back of me and bent his head down. Again I had the sense that he was reading me, learning me, as he moved his mouth inch by inch closer until his lips brushed my nipple.

  My hands tightened on his arms. Tightened more as he drew that sensitive tip into his mouth and I felt wetness and warmth. And pleasure. Oh my God, so much pleasure. He played with that nipple the same way he had kissed me, with slow, deliberate intent, with loving thoroughness, with pleased discovery.

  I leaned into him, increasing the pressure, asking for more, and he gave it to me. A firmer lick, a harder suction, the dangerous tease and scrape of his teeth across the budded tip while his hands cupped my bottom, kneading the rounded flesh in a firm, caressing grip.

  He drew me to him and our naked flesh met. Our bodies pressed together and he was unable to hold back the groan that welled up in him, that seemed to come from his very soul. It came tumbling out of his mouth as he released my tender bud and buried his face against me. His stubble scraped across my erect nipple and it felt good, so good. I moaned softly and moved against him, increasing the friction against the rough abrasiveness of his beard, twisting like a cat in his lap, purring with delight.

  Our breath came faster, and yet we still held to our individual control. The time had come to loosen it, and I was frightened and scared and excited and impatient. Sex—ultimate pleasure—was about losing control, not keeping it, and I felt eagerness stir within me. My power knew that it would soon be freed.

  Stretching sideways, I grabbed my pants and dug the foil packet out of the pocket. Gripping the condom in my hand, I prayed that it would be all right. That we would be okay in the storm I was about to unleash.

  “I’m going to loosen my power now,” I told him. “I have to let go of my control, but you can’t. You have to stay in control.” My next words were delivered with a wry smile. “I’ll try to be gentle.” Something a man would normally say. “But it’s probably going to hit us hard.”

  I felt it like an eager wave, ready to fall, to crash down.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just remember. No biting, no blood. Or I will leave you.”

  His pale eyes darkened at that threat. “No biting, no blood. My word on it.”

  Trusting in him, I let go of the tight rein I had over myself. We had a moment of quiet, of breathless silence. Then the presence that was within me, the power and attraction that made me Queen, that drew all males to me, emerged, set free. It came roaring out in a dazzling gush of power. And spilled out and onto him.

  “Shit,” he said. His hands clamped down tight around me as it hit him, and then his own power rose up to meet mine so that we were suddenly drowning in biting energy, awash with primitive vital urges. Becoming nothing more than what we instinctively needed. I felt his hunger, his cry for the moon’s light. And within me was pulled forth my own need, my own personal craving. Not the demon urge for blood that I had feared, but the urge that was buried in all Monère women—the need to feel life growing in them. It flared up hot and hard within me, and spilled out onto him. Every hard-wired instinct in us propelled us together in that unthinking need to mate. To bear forth life.

  With a growl, his mouth came back upon me. He drew in my nipple, sucking hard with primitive drive, and that forceful sucking built the need in me even greater until it became almost pain. Give me a child! Give me a baby!

  As if he heard my body’s cry, his finger pushed into me and found me wet, moist and ready. Warm fertile ground. He shifted, laid me down on the floor, and came over me, covering me, braced on his arms. His pale blue eyes were wild, his body trembling with need, but he held back, poised there at my gate. “Say yes,” he gritted.

  A split moment to decide. An endless cycle of time to let the foil packet spill out of my hand. To fall onto the floor, released. “Yes,” I breathed.
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br />   He thrust forward, missed the entrance, and we both cried out in painful frustration. I reached down, took ahold of him, and guided him where we both wanted him to go. He thrust forward again and penetrated me, filled me up, brought forth my light. And my light brought out his—a weak, pale glimmer of my own, as if he were a dying battery, almost completely drained.

  He drew out, surged into me. And it was suddenly not enough. I was the one who went wild, becoming nothing more than a creature of instinctive need, twisting beneath the hard male body thrusting into me. Writhing against him, rising up to him, my legs wrapped around him to help him slam into me. More, more, more! my body demanded. And he gave it to me with grunting force. He thrust deep, he thrust hard, spilling his seed into me in a harsh, choking climax. Then I was coming, too.

  Power crystallized within me and exploded out of me. Light spilled out, illuminating me, blindingly intense. I felt him drink in my light, not a passive process, absorbing it, but actually pulling it into him with the force of his own need, like a physical hand hauling in a rope, and I was that rope. He glowed, suddenly bright like a fire ignited, and my light lessened for one shaking, shuddering moment that passed so quickly I could almost believe it didn’t happen, would have believed it had I not felt it so keenly. A momentary blast, then the light that lit us up, was emitted from us, became normal once more.

  He watched me as ecstasy filled us both. Watched me as I shattered beneath him. Watched me still. “Again,” he said and moved. And with surprise, I felt him still hard within me.

  How could that be? I’d felt him come. Had felt the pulsing jets of his release shooting within me. Had felt the wetness of his spilled seed mixing with my own juice, trickling out of me. But the hard, smooth length moving within me, washing me anew with sharp, edgy sensations was undeniable. One stroke. Two. A fluttered heartbeat. A skipped breath. And then he sank himself down deep inside me like a sword thrusting home all the way into its sheath. And with us connected like that, he rolled us on the floor until we came up against the wall.