Awakening Beauty (11 page)

When Vee stood to go, Aurora was almost disappointed, perhaps because she felt she hadn’t begun to understand her.

“I’m having a little birthday soiree at the house next week,” Vee said as she buttoned up her jacket once more. “I hope you’ll swing by. Both of you,” she added with a quick smile that encompassed Aurora before her gaze came back to Joel’s. “All the party representatives will be there. It’s make up your mind time, my dear.”

“What did she mean by that?” Aurora asked, frowning, when Joel had finally closed the door behind her and wandered back into the living-room.

Joel shrugged and walked across to the cabinet to refill his glass. “She has a long waiting list of clients. She needs me to decide what I want to do.”

Aurora stared at him. “You mean she still wants to marry you?”

“I don’t honestly know,” Joel said ruefully, bringing the bottle with him to the sofa to top off Aurora’s wine.

“Isn’t that a bit odd of her?”

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean, shouldn’t she be bothered that you and I…” She broke off, flushing hot under Joel’s suddenly lecherous gaze. As he sat beside her, his thigh pressed into hers and she had to make a strong effort not to squirm with the sudden upsurge of lust. How could she want him again so soon when her sex still felt rubbed raw from their previous encounter?

“Vee’s just not the jealous type,” Joel said. “That’s one of the reasons I like her, and one of the reasons a marriage of convenience with her might have worked.”

Aurora opened her mouth, questions about his intentions ready to spill off her tongue. But Joel, as if he knew and didn’t want to answer them, hurried back into speech. “Didn’t you like her?”

Aurora considered. “Yes,” she said slowly. “Of course I liked her. She’s funny and direct and unusual—even for this strange age—and very charming. Only…”

Joel sighed. “Only what?”

Aurora hesitated, trying to find the words. “There’s something strange about her. As you know, I didn’t get out much before you found me, but I had a lot of time to observe the people around me—my parents, nobles, ministers, servants, merchants, even magical beings—and none of them had her…reactions.”

Joel frowned. “Reactions? To what?”

“To everything! To your coming home early from your holiday, to the fire in the hotel, to my sudden and quite unexplained presence. Didn’t you notice? She asked me my opinion on a couple of points, but she never once asked who on earth I am, where I come from, what I do. And I’ve been in your age long enough to know that isn’t normal.”

“Not everyone behaves in the same way,” Joel said, a crease of irritation between his brows. “Vee is a bit single-minded, maybe even blinkered at times. As for not prying into your life, I think we just have to put that down to Vee’s sensitivity and be grateful for it.”

Aurora jumped up, unable to bear the censure in his voice. She wanted to stamp her foot and shout at him for his willful misunderstanding, and only just remembered in time that she was an adult with a mission to make him recognize his love for her.

Summoning what dignity she could muster, she said, “As, of course, I am.” And she set her glass on the table before walking steadily out of the room. He didn’t call her back or follow.

Numb, Aurora went into the bedroom and sank down on the bed. She’d managed to quarrel with him without even trying. Over Vee, whom she had, in fact, liked. She’d just been trying to think aloud, to understand with him the vague unease the woman had inspired in her. What would he do now? Decide she was too difficult and go and marry Vee who would never be so rude as to comment on his relationship with another woman?

Have I lost him even before I began the fight?

Suddenly terrified, she lay down, burying her face in one of the pillows and inhaling the faint, evocative scent that was purely Joel, while she tried to think what to do.

“Aurora.”

Startled, she lifted her head and saw him framed in the doorway, large and solid and so desirable that the very sight of him released a flood of sexual moisture into her borrowed pants.

“Are you crying?” he asked gently.

“No.”

“Liar.” He came toward her and sat on the bed beside her.

“I’m merely a bit emotional just now,” she said hastily, dashing the back of her hand across her eyes. “It’s nothing to do with you.”

He took her hand and kissed the damp fingers. “I don’t want to make you cry. And I don’t want to talk about Vee. I want to make love to you.”

Aurora looked at him through strands of her rumpled hair. She’d already won, but refused to give in at once. “Will you think of her?”

He smiled at that, a quick, open smile that held nothing back. “Of course not. Even when I’m not touching you or looking at you, I find it very hard to think of anyone or anything else.” He ran his fingers through her hair, drawing it back from her face. “I think you’re a witch.”

“A good witch?”

“A very bad and very sexy witch.” He leaned over her and kissed her mouth until, with a slow and delicious surrender, she opened for him and let him in.

She could tell herself she was following her mission, binding him to her as he was meant to be bound, but the truth was, she couldn’t resist him. She didn’t want to. The brush of his lips, the touch of his hands, brought an instant clamor of desire, a need that his caresses both soothed and aroused. As she burrowed under his T-shirt, flattening her palms across the hot, smooth skin of his back, he undressed her, pulling off the oversized pants and top before pausing to gaze down at her, his hands poised to remove his own shirt.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he whispered and stripped off his clothes to lie over her on the bed and kiss her mouth as if he’d never leave it. His fingers caressed her breasts, flicked and pinched at her elongated nipples until she arched upward into him. His fully erect cock slipped between her thighs, and she gripped it there, wriggling, to try and slide it inside her.

“Sh-sh,” he murmured. “Relax. There’s no hurry. No hard and fast quickie, or furtive, sleepy screw this time, delicious though they were. Just slow and gentle and sweet…”

He punctuated each word with sensual, unhurried kisses that pulled softly at the skin of her jaw and throat and breasts, seducing her away from tension and into a haze of heady sensation. It came to her that Joel was a skilled lover, that he must have known a lot of women to become so, but the knowledge didn’t hurt her. It was part of who he was, and she certainly couldn’t object to the way he played her blissful body like a musical instrument, eliciting moans and sighs and tiny cries of ecstasy as he kissed and caressed her.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered eagerly as his lips began to slide inward between her thighs. That had felt so wonderful before that she was eager to know the pleasure again. And yet sex was a curious thing, it seemed, with infinite variations, for on this occasion, the same act felt very different, if equally enjoyable. Perhaps because he was deliberately taking his time, each stroke of his tongue long and slow between her folds, curling lazily around her clitoris and unfurling along her labia once more. His mouth clung to her lower lips, moving and sucking in languorous kisses that should have brought the climax galloping upon her, and yet didn’t. Even when she tried to push herself onto his mouth, wriggling faster to feel the ultimate joy, he held her by the hips to control the speed of things and went back to teasing her clitoris with his tongue.

When she began to wriggle again, he shocked her by pushing a finger inside her. He lifted his head to see her reaction, and she stared at him.

“What?” he asked hoarsely. “Are you sore there? Don’t you like it?”

She swallowed, feeling the finger move higher and explore until it found a place that made her gasp out, “I like it! Oh yes, I like it.”

“Good,” he growled, and kissed her sex once more, his tongue, his whole mouth moving in rhythm with his finger as it pushed in and out of her body, swirling and plunging and gliding over the sweet spot that brought pleasure rushing and spreading. A second finger joined the first, and the slow fire burned suddenly out of control, consuming her. She writhed so wildly in her convulsions that he had to hold her firmly by the hips, but he didn’t let up. Astonishingly another climax began to flow from the dying first, and Aurora wondered if she could expire with pleasure, especially when his hands roved over her buttocks, kneading, and his thumbs parted her cheeks and pressed.

Aurora screamed, bucking helplessly until he showed mercy and released her. Sliding up her body, he seemed to breathe as hard as she did through her daze of joy. She reached for his mouth, kissing him with wild gratitude, tasting her own musky desire. He smiled against her lips and held her between the legs, as if to comfort her as the orgasm finally faded. Except just when she began to speak, his hand stirred, and to her amazement the pleasure built and exploded once more.

“Oh, goodness,” she said shakily, when she could say anything at all. “I didn’t know so much was possible…”

Joel’s eyes glowed with a fever of lust and triumph, and just a little laughter. “So much? Sweetheart, that was just a taster. I haven’t even begun to fuck you yet.”

Despite the massive satisfaction he’d just given her, she let out a moan at his words, pushing closer into his body, and he laughed softly, kissing her throat and lips. Aurora tightened her arms around him and then pushed so that they rolled over on the bed and she could sit astride him.

“Can I do that to you?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Pleasure you with my mouth.”

“Please, feel free,” he croaked. But she’d already caught the flame of eagerness in his eyes and was sliding down his body to take his rigid cock in her hand. It seemed impossibly large to be able to fit inside one small woman, and yet she knew very well that it could. She traced her fingertips up its blue veins, loving the feel of the soft, velvety skin. She began to stroke, drawing back the foreskin from the purple head. A bead of moisture emerged from the tiny slit there. Intrigued, Aurora licked it. She liked the way he gasped. She liked the way he tasted—a little salty, a little spicy and yet still Joel—and so she kissed the head again and slid her lips along the entire length of the shaft until she found his heavy balls. She took them in her hand in an exploring sort of way and kissed her way back up to the head of his cock.

Emboldened by his obvious enjoyment—his head was thrown back, his lips parted, his hands tangled in her hair as if afraid she’d stop—she took as much of his cock as she could into her mouth and began to suck while she stroked his foreskin up and down with one hand and tenderly caressed his balls with the other.

“Oh, fuck,” he gasped. “You can do that all night…”

Happy enough to oblige, she continued, using her tongue as well to taste him more deeply. He liked that so much she did it some more, tongue-lashing him harder. Abruptly, the balls in her hand seemed to tighten. He gasped and his fingers released her hair to seize her shoulders instead and drag her up his body. Her mouth came off his cock with a pop and he lifted her over it instead, driving it between her legs and unerringly inside her with a groan of agonized pleasure.

He squeezed his eyes shut so hard that for an instant she wondered if he really was in actual pain. The she realized, with awe, that he was holding back his climax so that he could move inside her and make the moment last.

She’d expected a rough, almost brutal repeat of the fast, hard lovemaking in the bathroom, but even now, so clearly desperate for release, he kept his word, and thrust with long, slow strokes that stoked her fires afresh.

Joel’s whole body trembled with the effort. Enchanted, she squeezed with the muscles that gave her so much pleasure. There was a little residual pain in there, but not enough to daunt her. She rose and fell on his shaft, catching his rhythm and forcing the pace just a little faster as she hugged and caressed his cock within her. She coaxed him until he finally let go his massive control and thrust furiously into her, holding her buttocks steady for his onslaught.

Once again, she heard his shout of triumph, felt the hot pleasure of the liquid spurting up inside her. And suddenly she wanted to know the pleasure
with
him. She was so close already, all it took was a few more wriggles and bounces on his spasming cock and then she was in heaven with him, their lips and limbs all tangled together in one convulsing mass of joy.

For a while, cuddled close on his chest after his breathing had calmed and evened, she thought he’d fallen asleep. She didn’t mind. She’d never felt so warm and safe and happy in her life, and there would be other moments to tell him so.

But then he surprised her by laughing softly, his chest vibrating under her cheek. “You
are
a little witch, you know. What magic have you practiced on me?”

“Sex,” she said brazenly.

He laughed again with such delight that she lifted her head and rested her chin on his chest to look at him. “When I first met you,” she remembered. “I didn’t think you could laugh like that.”

“Like what?”

“Sort of…carefree.”

“You have that effect on me,” he admitted.

“I shouldn’t have,” she said ruefully. “I’ve brought you lots of cares and confused your life.”

His arms tightened around her. He smoothed her hair with one tender hand. “That’s the weirdest thing of all. I find I like being confused by you. It’s impossible to be bored or dissatisfied anywhere near you.”

Aurora almost purred, like a cat with cream. “Really?”

“Really.”

Ignoring the slightly embarrassed note that had crept into his voice, she observed, “I think you’re bored and dissatisfied quite a lot.”

“Maybe.” His lips twisted. “But I’ve never noticed it until now. I kept myself too busy, worked too hard and worried too much about how to make a few more dollars to add to the mountain I already have. There was never time to have much in the way of fun. Or put down roots—never wanted them. Never wanted the house, family, even a dog because I didn’t have time to look after them. Work always came first.” He gave a quick, not quite humorous laugh. “Actually, I think I was more bor
ing
than bored!”