Oh, dear God.
He worked her three more times.
Three more times.
Three more outrageous screams at the ceiling, more orgasms that were no doubt blinding her for life. The pleasure was so intense that tears streaked from her eyes and rolled into her hair.
She lay panting, again, a hand pressed to her forehead. “I don’t think I can take much more.”
“Parisa,” he said, his voice almost singsong.
Her hand fell away and she lifted her head and met his gaze. Such teasing, laughing eyes, so happy, so very wicked.
He rose up from his kneeling position as though moving in slow motion. He pushed his hair back with his hands and laced his hands behind his neck.
Her mind had turned to mush but her gaze had sharpened. He knew exactly what he was doing as his pecs and arms swelled and his abdomen tightened. Male beauty personified.
She took her time looking. Despite all the orgasms he’d given her, hunger drove her all over again. As she took in the wonderful size of him, the beauty of his crown, the veins bulging and filling what needed to be filled, the heavy sac, she heard a growl and realized that her throat had formed the sound, a predatory and extremely possessive sound—a vampire sound.
He lowered his arm slowly to hold his sac in one hand and show her one long stroke of his c**k with the other.
“You want to finish this, vampire?” he asked.
She met his gaze and for a moment time stopped. Never in her life had she felt more of a sense of belonging than she did at this moment. Vampire. She rolled the word around in her mind and something clicked into place. Maybe there was a reason why she’d felt so separated from those around her. Maybe she’d never really belonged on Mortal Earth.
But she belonged here, in Antony’s bed. Of that one thing, she was certain. She belonged in this warrior’s bed.
She opened her arms and he glided between her legs as he stretched out on top of her. She was wet but he was big, and it took a few strong, wonderful pushes to make his way inside. As he did, she felt full—as though he wasn’t just connecting sexually but working his way into her heart as well … and she let him, whatever that might mean for the next few hours, days, or years.
He filled her and for some reason she felt whole. Yes, that’s how she felt in this moment with Antony’s body on top of hers, the weight of him pressing into her flesh, her muscles, her bones, she felt whole, as though the healing had begun. After everything she’d gone through, what a surprise that sex with him would make her feel like this.
He looked into her eyes then kissed her, and she tasted all that she was on his lips. He began to move, to thrust, to draw back and push in. She slung an arm around his neck and kissed him back. She drove her tongue into his mouth and he groaned.
This wouldn’t take long. She was already tightening around him, and the potion he’d put into her was still acting like an aphrodisiac to all her sensitive lower flesh. She writhed beneath him, seeking contact in a dozen different places at once, which made all his groans deepen. She bucked beneath the pressure of each thrust until she was meeting him, slamming into him, dragging her internal muscles over the impossible length and girth of him.
He sped up. She gripped his back, sank her nails.
“Parisa, Parisa,” he whispered between groans.
She could hear her voice, almost a high keening sound. The pleasure was intense and building, swelling, rising. She felt the orgasm coming, an enormous wave; when it descended it crashed over her, pushing Antony up as she thrust her hips into him.
He gave a shout, moved impossibly fast within her, pumping hard and with another shout spent himself. The jerks of his thick c**k brought yet another climax, pushing her again to the heights. His eyes were wild as he met her gaze.
Antony breathed through her mind as it had every night for three months. A smile took his lips.
I’m here, he whispered and her tears began to fall once more as she sank into the mattress.
He collapsed on her, which forced a sigh out of her throat. She held him close, her arms wrapped around his neck and all his warrior hair. His breathing was labored. So was hers. She closed her eyes and just let herself rest and breathe with the minutes that began to pass one after the other.
Maybe she didn’t know a lot about what her life should be, but yes, she belonged here, at least for now.
After what seemed like an eternity, her eyes opened. She looked up at the beautiful dark wood coffer beams that formed a three-dimensional chessboard on the ceiling.
As her gaze grew more focused, she saw that words, in what looked like Italian, were burned in a beautiful flowing script along each beam, crossed and crisscrossed, one line running into the next. She followed each line and realized that at one point, the lines began to repeat, probably three times in all from one end of the long room to the next.
“Antony,” she whispered, her voice hoarse, her throat raw from making so much noise.
“Yes,” he mumbled against her neck.
“What is that writing on the coffer beams?”
He turned his head slightly and looked at her. He put his fingers to her lips and a heavy, deep sigh left his body. “A poem my wife wrote.”
“You were married?” Of course he would have been married. He’d lived for centuries.
He nodded. “A long, long time ago, before I ascended.”
She felt the sudden stiffness in his body and wasn’t surprised when he eased out of her and rolled onto his back, his gaze also drifting to the beams. She could feel the pain of those few words as though he’d spoken it aloud. She didn’t want to ask. She didn’t want to know, not the meaning of the words, not why he ascended without his wife, but she had opened the subject, unwittingly.
She turned on her side toward him. She felt his seed and her wetness begin to spill out of her. “Hey, magical one, can you get me a few tissues or a washcloth?”
He smiled then laughed. He folded what she needed into his hand but instead of giving it to her, he rolled toward her and murmured, “Spread your legs.”
Still on her side, she lifted her left leg. He very gently covered the well of her, then cupped her. She lowered her leg, pinning his hand and the tissues in place. Because he faced her, he leaned toward her and kissed her. “Thank you for not asking.”
She kissed him back. “Thank you for making love to me. It was exactly what I needed. Now I feel like I’m home.”
That made him smile.
Some mental health professionals insist that mind-engagement of any kind, including basic telepathy, is a matter more of great trust than of extraordinary preternatural power.