All he felt was a sense of rightness.
Reaching up, he brushed back a strand of blond hair from her face. "You sure you're okay?"
"Are you?"
"Yeah. I kind of am.... I mean, I truly am... okay. Guess I was prepared for anything but that, if it makes any sense?"
The smile that bloomed on her face was nothing short of the sun's radiance, the expression transforming her features into a beauty so resplendent, she took his ever-loving breath away.
So kind. So compassionate. So accepting.
He wouldn't have been able to do this with anyone else.
"Mind if we try that again?" he said in a soft voice.
Her cheeks flushed a deeper pink. "Please..."
The tone in her voice made his c**k jump inside of her, her slick, tight heat stroking it on a oner, making him ready to roar and start pounding away again.
Except it wasn't fair to ask her to lie on that hard bench.
Tunneling his arms around her, he held her close to his chest and let his heavy thighs do the work of picking them both up. When they were on his feet, he kissed her again, tilting his head and working his mouth over hers as he palmed her bottom and braced himself to start moving. Using his arms, he lifted her up and down on his arousal, kissing what he could of her throat and her collarbones as he penetrated her at a different, deeper angle.
She was incredible, enveloping him, holding him tightly, the friction making him want to bite her just for the taste of her.
Faster. Even faster.
The robe was swinging wildly, and No'One must have hated the flapping as much as he did, because she abruptly dumped the thing, scraping it free of her shoulders and letting it fall to the tile. As her arms returned around his neck, she tightened her hold - which was just fine with him.
Digging in with his fingers, he got closer and closer to the end point - and it was the same with No'One. The sounds she was making, the incredible moans, her gorgeous scent rising up, her braid slapping -
Abruptly, he slowed down and snagged the tie that secured the plait of her hair, ripping it off and freeing the lengths. Shaking the thick waves out of their confines, he drew them over her shoulder and his own, blanketing them both.
Something about that undoing led to his own undoing: Two pumps later and his body pitched off its ledge, the release taking over everything until he cursed on an explosive breath.
Careening through the pleasure, he squeezed her hard and put his face into all that blond, breathing in, smelling the delicate shampoo that she used. Shit, the scent of her cranked him even higher, until his orgasm abruptly became the rough-and-tumble kind, racking his body, throwing his balance out of whack, rendering him temporarily blind.
It must have been the same for her - from a distance, he heard her call out his name as she locked her legs around his hips, melding them together.
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. And he rode out the pleasure for as long as it lasted - on both sides. When he finally stilled, No'One's head flopped onto his shoulder, her body collapsing against his chest, her lovely flesh going loose as her lovely hair.
Unbidden, one of his hands found her spine and followed it upward to the base of her neck. As his breathing eased, he just... held her.
Before he knew it, he was rocking them both from side to side. She weighed next to nothing in his powerful arms, and he had the sense that he could have kept them linked and against each other... forever.
Eventually, she whispered, "I must be getting heavy."
"Not at all."
"You're very strong."
Man, that did his ego good. Matter of fact, she hit him with anything like that again, he was going to feel like he could bench-press a city bus. With a jet plane parked on its roof.
"I should get you cleaned up," he said.
"What ever for?"
Okay, that was sexy. And it made him want to do... other things to her. All kinds of things.
Over her shoulder, he eyed the pool, and thought efficiency was actually the mother of invention.
"How about we take a dip?"
No'One lifted her head. "I could stay like this..."
"Forever?"
"Yes." Her eyes were low-lidded and glowing in the blue-green light. "Forever."
As he stared at her, he thought... she was so alive. Her cheeks flushed, her lips swollen from his being all over her, her hair lush and a little wild. She was vital and hot and -
He started to laugh.
Oh, for f**k's sake, he had no idea why - there was nothing funny about anything, but suddenly he was laughing like a lunatic.
"Sorry," he managed. "I don't know what the problem is."
"I don't care." She beamed at him, showing her delicate fangs and her even, white teeth. "It's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard."
Caught up in an impulse he didn't understand, he let out a whoop and took a lunge in the direction of the pool, throwing out a long stride, then another, then a third. With a mighty leap, he sent them both flying into the still, aquamarine light source.
They landed in the warm water as one, soft, invisible arms gathering them into a temperate cushion, and insulating them from gravity's heavy-handed pull, sparing them both any kind of hard landing.
As his head went under, he found her mouth and claimed it, kissing her under the surface as he planted his feet and pushed up so that they found the air....
In the process, his c**k found her core again.
She was right there with him, linking those legs of hers around his hips once more, echoing his rhythm, kissing him back. And it was good. It was... right.
Sometime later, No'One found herself naked, wet, and stretched out on the side of the pool on a bed of towels Tohrment had arranged for her.
He was kneeling next to her, his wet clothes clinging to his muscles, his hair glistening, his eyes intense as he stared at her body.
A sudden insecurity struck, chilling her.
Sitting up, she covered herself -
Tohrment captured her hands and gently put them at her sides. "You're spoiling my view."
"You like...?"
"Oh, yeah. I like." He leaned over and kissed her deeply, slipping his tongue inside of her, easing her back down so that she was prone once more. "Mmmm, that's what I'm talking about."
When he eased back a little, No'One smiled up at him. "You make me feel..."
"What." He dipped his head and brushed his lips over her throat, her collarbone... the tip of her breast. "Beautiful?"
"Yes."
"That's what you are." He kissed her other nipple and sucked it into his mouth. "Beautiful. And I think you should ditch that damn robe for good."
"What will I wear?"
"I'll get you clothes. All the clothes you want. Or you could just go naked."
"In front of the others - " The hiss that curled out of him was pretty much the best compliment she had ever been given. "No?"
"No."
"Then mayhap in your room."
"Now, that I can get behind."
His lips drifted downward and to the side, until he ran a fang over her ribs. Then he was going across her belly, the kisses soft and lazy. It wasn't until he went even farther, lingering on her hip and then brushing very close to her sex, that she realized he had a purpose.
"Spread your legs for me," he urged in a deep voice. "Let me see the most beautiful part of you. Let me kiss you where I want to be."
She wasn't completely sure what he was suggesting, but she was powerless to deny him anything when he used that tone with her. In a haze, she brought up one knee, parting her thighs... and she knew when he looked at her, because he growled in satisfaction.
Tohrment moved around between her legs and stretched out, palming either side of her and widening her further. And then his lips were upon her, warm and silky and wet. The sensation of soft on soft kicked off yet another orgasm, and he took advantage of it, entering her with his tongue, sucking at her, finding her rhythm and taking her further.
Her hands dug into his dark hair as she rolled her hips.
And to think she had liked the sex....
Little had she known that there was so much more to discover.
He was mind-shatteringly attentive and painstakingly thorough in his explorations, taking his time unless he was taking her to the height of pleasure. And when he eventually lifted his mouth, his lips were slick and reddened, and he ran his tongue over them as he stared at her from under his lids.
Then he rose up and gripped her hips, tilting them up.
His erection was impossibly thick and long, but she already knew he fit her perfectly.
And he did again.
This time she paid more attention to the sight of him than the feel of him. Rising above her, he moved in that powerful, potent way of his, pleasuring them both as he curled his hips up and back, moving himself in and out of her.
His smile was dark. Erotic. "You like to watch me?"
"Yes. Oh, yes..."
That was as far as she got as another wave of release crested and assumed control of her thoughts, her speech, her body... her soul, wiping everything clean.
When she finally quieted and was again able to focus, she recognized the strain in Tohrment's face, the tightness around his jaw and his eyes, the pumping of his chest. He had not found his release yet.
"Do you want to watch," he gritted out.
"Oh, yes..."
Withdrawing from her body, his arousal was as his lips had been, glossy and swollen.
With one big hand he gripped himself, and with the other he braced his weight against the floor so that he could stretch out over her lax, open body. Twisting his shoulders, he provided her with plenty of view as he stroked up and down, that blunt head of his appearing and disappearing in and out of his fist.
His breath grew louder and harsher as he showed her just how it happened for him.
When the time came, his shout rang out in her ears and his head shot back, his chin punching forward as he bared his fangs and hissed. Then with rhythmic pulses, jets sprayed out of him, hitting her sex and her lower belly, making her arch sure as if the satisfaction had been her own.
As he finally sagged, she extended her arms. "Come here."
There was no hesitation as he complied, bringing his chest to her own before he turned on his side to cushion her weight.
"Are you warm enough," he murmured. "Your hair is wet."
"I do not care." She snuggled into his body. "I'm just... perfect."
A rumble of approval came up his throat. "That you are... Rosalhynda."
At the sound of her former name, she jerked back, but he held her tight. "I can't keep calling you No'One. Not after... this."
"I don't like that name."
"Then another."
Staring into his face, she had the distinct notion that he was not going to budge on this. And he was also not going to refer to her as she had so chosen long, long ago... when that word was what she had felt she was.
Mayhap he was right, however. She suddenly didn't feel like no one.
"You need a name."
"I cannot choose," she replied, aware of a stout pain in her heart.
He looked up to the ceiling. Wound some of her hair around one of his fingers. Made a clicking sound with his tongue.
"Autumn is my favorite season of the year," he said after a time. "It's not that I'm chicking out or anything... but I like the leaves when they turn red and orange. They're beautiful in the moonlight, but more to the point, it's an impossible transformation. The green of spring and summer is just a shadow of the trees' true identity, and all that color as the nights grow cold is a miracle every stinking time it happens. It's like they're making up for the loss of the warmth with all their fire. I like... Autumn." He stared into her eyes. "You're like that. You're beautiful and you burn brightly - and it's time for you to come out. So I say... Autumn."
In the silence that followed, she was aware of a pricking at the corners of her eyes.
"What's the matter?" he rushed in. "Shit - you don't like it? I could pick another. Lihllith? How about Suhannah? What... Joe? Fred? Frickin' Howard?"
She put her hand upon his face. "I love it. It's perfect. I shall henceforth be known by the name you have given me, and the season of the year when the leaves burn - Autumn."
Lifting herself up, she pressed her lips to his. "Thank you. Thank you..."
As he nodded solemnly, she wrapped her arms around him, and held him tightly. To be named was to be claimed, and it made her feel... reborn.
Chapter Forty-Senven
It was a long while before Tohr and Autumn reemerged from the warm, humid confines of their pool. Man, he was never going to go into that place again without thinking of it as "theirs."
Holding open the door into the corridor for her, he took a deep, easing breath. Autumn... the perfect name for a perfectly lovely female.
Walking side by side, they made their way to the office together, his feet leaving wet prints, because the damp pants he'd squeezed himself back into were dripping at the hems. She, on the other hand, left no trail, as her robe was dry.
Last time she was going to wear the damned thing.
Shit, her hair looked good all loose around her shoulders. Maybe he could get her to lose the braid, too.
When they stepped out into the tunnel, he put his arm around her, tucking her in against him. She fit well. She was smaller than... Well, Wellsie had been much taller. Autumn's head was lower on his pecs, her shoulders not as wide, and her gait was uneven, whereas his mate's had been smooth as silk.
But she fit. Differently, yes, but the lock and key of their bodies was undeniable.
Approaching the door that led up to the mansion, he dropped back and let her go up the stairs first. At the top, he reached past her, punched in the code, and opened the way into the foyer, holding the heavy panels wide for her.
As she pased through, he asked, "Hungry?"
"Famished."
"Then you go upstairs and let me wait on you."
"Oh, I can get something in the kit - "
"Nope. Don't think so. I wait on you." He took her around the base of the grand staircase. "You go up and get into bed. I'll bring the food."