Chapter Nine

He froze. Shock and uneasiness warred within him, until hunger swept forward on a fiery steed and took the battle with a single blow.

Spar felt it down to the soles of his feet. In all his thousand and more years, he had never experienced anything of its like. It threatened to knock him to his knees, to offer him the sort of defeat with which he had never been threatened. He had not lied when he had told Felicity her weapons were potent, but he had never expected her to wield any against him.

Her lips alone packed a greater punch than any mace or flail ever swung. The force of them made his head spin with the gentlest of touches, but she did not remain gentle for long.

She huffed a soft breath into his mouth, pushing on him the taste of cinnamon and clove and dark, sweet treacle. He drank it in and felt a groan well in his chest. His skin itched and pulled, feeling too tight to contain him, and he fought back against the urge to shift back to his natural form. Something inside him wanted to use fang and claw to mark her, to show the whole world she was his, but he feared hurting her. She felt so small and fragile in his arms that he knew his true self could rip her to pieces, and he would rather throw himself on his own spear than cause her the slightest harm.

Conscious of his own strength, he pressed her closer. Her lithe form, wrapped only in her unbelted robe, fit against him as if it had been carved in mirror image. Curve and valley nestled perfectly against angle and plane, but where the material around her gaped open, he could swear his skin had turned to lava. The heat generated by the feel of soft, silky skin pressed to his thicker, rougher hide could have melted mountains.

He needed more.

The hand still grasping hers lifted and guided her fingers to his shoulder so that he could be free to wrap her entirely in his embrace. She never hesitated. Sliding both hands up, she linked them behind his neck and used her grip to haul herself higher against him. One of his arms hooked under her bottom to support her, and in an instant she had her legs up and twined around his hips. The position pressed the hot core of her directly against his groin. He broke the kiss with a low snarl.

“Be certain you do not resent my claim, little human,” he panted, desire digging like talons in his gut. “If you give yourself to me, I will not be able to let you go.”

Her green eyes had darkened to the color of ancient moss, the lids heavy and languorous. “I can’t think about it, Spar. I can’t think. Just don’t let me be taken. Unless you do it yourself.”

He growled and bent his head back to hers. “They shall not touch you, baby. I swear it. None shall touch you but me.”

“Then touch more of me.”

If he had his wish, there would not be an inch of her he would not touch. Every part of her would wear his scent, his primitive claim on her. No one would doubt that she belonged to him, not even her.

With long strides he carried her from the bath and into the next room, laying her carefully across the bed. She clung to him, arms and legs refusing to let him go, so he followed her down and pinned her to the soft mattress. The sound she made reminded him of the purr of a cat, all warm pleasure and approval. He wanted to pet her like a cat, with long, slow strokes, and gentle pressure, but desire and possessiveness rode him hard. He didn’t think he could make this easy.

She didn’t help matters by arching beneath him, crushing her breasts against his chest and her soft belly against his painfully hard erection. He let his breath out in a hiss. The touch both soothed and inflamed him. He needed to be as close to her as possible, but with every passing second the need for “close” turned more and more to a need for “in.”

His hand nearly trembled as he curled his fingers around the smooth silk of her leg just above her knee. Her skin felt warm and tender, softer than the softest thing he had ever touched. The contrast between the feel of her and his rough, callused hands fascinated him, as did the sound of her breathing catching in her throat as he stroked higher.

The tips of his fingers dipped beneath the edge of her short robe and found the lingering dampness of her skin in the crease where leg met hip. He traced the line down and in, feeling her tremble. When he brushed his knuckles over curls wet with more than bathwater, he couldn’t hold back his growl of satisfaction. She desired him.

“Spar.”

His name quivered on her lips, and he kissed it away. He didn’t want her speaking, or thinking, or doing anything but letting him discover her.

Her taste, he already knew, offered a rare pleasure. He explored further, discovering the depths of her mouth while his hands pushed and tugged and freed her arms from the sleeves of her robe. Her flavor went to his head faster than any alcohol ever brewed by man, and he knew that if he were ever to find himself drunk, it would be on her.

His tongue demanded a response from her, initiating a game of hide-and-seek that had them both breathing in labored gasps. She moaned when he pulled free and teased her lips with nibbles both soft and sharp. The edge of his teeth grazed the line of her jaw, following the smooth curve up to the shell of her ear. She shivered at the first touch of his lips and moaned when he tugged gently at the lobe.

Her hands helped him press the side of her robe open, spreading it on the bed beneath her to expose her fully to his heat. She seemed to relish the freedom, arching and squirming and rubbing her skin against his as if begging to be touched everywhere. Spar was happy to oblige her.

While his lips trailed a path from her ear along the side of her throat, his hands traveled the opposite direction, skimming over her hips and up her sides. Every soft inch of skin made him want to stop and linger and simultaneously see if the next could possibly feel as gorgeous. It always did.

He dragged his mouth across the faint ridge of her collarbone, letting her feel just the edge of his teeth, then soothing the scrape with the gentle lap of his tongue. The urge to consume her rose within him, and he felt his jaw ache where his fangs should have been. He offered up a quick thank-you to the Light for his dull human teeth that couldn’t cause any serious damage. He wanted to cause her no pain, only pleasure.

“Stop teasing,” she moaned and tugged hard at his shoulders. “I want you.”

“And I want more of you,” he rumbled. “You will have to be patient, little one, for I intend to take my fill of you.”

Her breath shuddered out, then drew back in with stuttering steps. His lips coasted down to her breastbone before beginning the climb up a pale slope toward her turgid nipple. He felt her anticipation gathering, her fingers curling into his flesh as she tensed in anticipation. He considered prolonging the agony, but he’d only be torturing himself. He craved the taste of her, needed to feel that little bud hardening against his tongue. He would be willing to bet it would be delicious.

He was not disappointed, not by the experience and not by the way she cried out helplessly and offered herself up to him, urging him to take more. One hand lifted to grip the back of his head, her fingers sifting through the painfully short strands and failing to find anything to which she could cling. Spar didn’t want her to cling; he wanted her at the mercy of the heat that rose between them, as helpless against it as he felt.

Reaching up, he closed his hands around her wrists and pinned them to the bed beside her. She moaned again and struggled weakly, but he ignored it, switching his attention to her other breast and devouring it in turn. Every time he drew on her nipple, her body quivered beneath him, and when he brought his teeth into play, nibbling carefully at the sensitive peak, she cried out her pleasure.

“God, you’re killing me.” Her voice sounded thin and choked, and it still made him hard enough to pound nails. “Spar, please.”

“Sh. Let me know you.”

Felicity gasped, but he felt the way she forced her muscles to relax. Her willingness to give herself to him made him want to throw his head back and roar like a beast, announcing to every living thing within the sound of his voice that she was his. He had to have her. Soon.

Keeping her hands pinned at her sides, he slid his body down the mattress on a train of kisses. He tasted the concentrated flavor of her skin just beneath the curve of her breast, the hidden crevice of her belly button, the quivering curve of her stomach. All the way, he found himself lured by the sweetness of her scent, its intensity increasing with every inch he drew closer to her center.

He filled his head with her perfume, rich spice, warmed honey, and her own intoxicating femininity. Too earthy for a flower, too sweet for a musk, it reminded him of the heady smoke of frankincense, something even the gods themselves would find pleasing. Not that Spar was willing to share her, not even with them.

She breathed in ragged pants punctuated by tiny whimpers that went straight to his cock. Knowing she might desire him even half as strongly as he did her was the most powerful aphrodisiac in the universe. He needed to show her how much she pleased him, but more than that, he needed to taste her.

When his lips brushed the soft curls of her mound, her body jerked. She attempted to tug her wrists free of his grasp, but Spar had no intention of letting her go. Instead he angled his shoulders and insinuated himself between her thighs, forcing them to spread around him. He created a place for himself he would have slain a thousand demons to defend, and he intended to make the most of it.

With an appreciative hum, he let his tongue press against her soft fold, and savored the first taste of her. Sweet and wild and incredibly hot, it only fed his hunger. He licked again, this time parting her to delve deeper; she spilled across his tongue like honey from a comb, awakening a sweet tooth only the taste of her could assuage.

“Oh!”

Her cry was short and sharp, breathless with surprise and pleasure, and it only spurred him on. He feasted on her, on her delectable cream, her breathless cries, on the strong, beautiful essence of her. The way she melted against his tongue, growing softer and wetter on every pass, fascinated him. He felt her thighs trembling and straining against his shoulders and wanted to feel them clasped around his hips, clinging while he eased himself inside all this welling heat.

Lifting his head, he let his gaze run up over all her glorious curves to see her throw her head back and gasp for air. Her skin glistened with a fine sheen of perspiration brought on by the heat they generated together, and Spar knew he had never seen anything more beautiful.

Sensing his gaze on her, she forced her eyes open and met his, her own hazy and unfocused. A tiny crease appeared between her eyes. Her hands began to twist and pull in his grasp, demanding to be set free. When he released his grip, she lifted one small hand and cupped his cheek with tender intensity.

“Now,” she urged him in a hoarse whisper full of need. “Come to me.”

*   *   *

For a long, breathless moment he continued to watch her, his dark eyes gone black and glittering like his gargoyle’s. Fil felt not a twinge of unease. This was her Guardian, her protector, and he would die before he allowed her to be harmed.

Her hands shifted, tugged, urging him over her. He had stirred a need inside her that part of her feared would never be satisfied. Her pussy literally ached, empty and wanting, clenching around nothing. She had to have him, now.

“Please,” she begged, and like her own guardian angel, he answered.

With his gaze still locked with hers, Spar nudged her legs wider and settled his hips between them. She felt the head of his erection slide against her crease, a heavenly sensation made slick by her moisture and his. She arched helplessly into him, her body urging the joining she craved, and she heard his rough whisper tell her to relax, to be calm, that he would take care of her.

She knew that, trusted that more than she trusted herself at the moment, but it didn’t fill the aching emptiness. For that, he needed to take her.

Her nails dug into the smooth skin of his shoulders as she gasped out her plea. “Inside me, Spar. Please.”

He groaned as if the sound were ripped from his very soul, and in one powerful thrust he joined them.

Fil cried out, breathless and overwhelmed. She felt her body stretch to accommodate him and reveled in the flash of discomfort, in the way it melted into pleasure so great she wanted to weep for joy. Nothing in her life had ever felt like this, had ever shaken her so deeply it felt like dying and being reborn. She might as well have been a phoenix, consumed by flame and simultaneously created by it.

Spar was her flame, and she wanted more than anything to feel him burn along with her.

With hands, voice, and body she drove him on, rising into every thrust, clinging through every withdrawal. She wrapped her legs around his hips to pull him closer and savored the shift and flex of his muscles as he moved within her. She felt surrounded by him, encompassed, overtaken, and at the same time full of feminine power. By taking him inside her she had conquered him, and now she let him conquer her in return.

They moved together in heat and hunger. Passion might have lit the spark, but something else lived in the blaze, something new and tender. Fil could sense the tendrils growing inside her to curl around her heart, not to squeeze or crush, but to support and protect. It fed on the heat of their desire, growing stronger as their pleasure built.

The tension within her ratcheted higher. Her thighs quivered where they clung to his hips; her fingers trembled where her nails bit into his skin. She could feel the tremors begin deep in her womb and knew she was close. She could almost feel the edge of the cliff beneath her toes and needed only the tiniest little shove to send her flying over.

She found it in him, in the thousand pinpricks of blazing fire that burned behind his night-dark eyes, in the intense focus in his expression as if nothing in the world existed but her, in the shifting angle of his hips that dragged the head of his cock over the most sensitive spot in her passage again and again with relentless determination.

Mostly, she found it in the curling of his lip, in the way he bared his teeth and dropped his chin and pressed his forehead against hers.

“Mine,” he growled, and the sound rumbled through her like a shock wave, setting off a chain reaction that had her clenching hard around his shaft. Her entire body shook and her vision went not dark but bright, like a star bursting behind her eyes.

Vaguely, she heard herself cry out, but the noise meant nothing. All Fil could hear was the echo of that possessive statement, and the hoarse roar that followed it as he joined her in oblivion.