Branded Sanctuary (9 page)

He had an unprecedented ability to stay on the innocent side of lust she craved, indulging that side without pressure. Everything she wanted and did to him, he responded just the right amount, so artfully she only felt a twinge of guilt here and there, knowing she was keeping him in a state of arousal and liking it far too much.

Even in his aroused state, though, he had a subtle skill for gauging the level of her own desires so he never pushed on them too hard, never allowing his own to overrule hers. She was fairly well versed in sexual matters, but she‟d never experienced anything like this. It was fucking sexy as hell and crazy unreal. Some part of her wondered how long he could manage such a miracle, but somewhere along the journey, she stopped worrying about it and just enjoyed.

He put his arms around her, and she easily adjusted her body into the curves of his, the joy of spooning. It was only a little after nine, but so many sleepless nights had taken their toll. As she drifted down from arousal into somnolence, she fell into blissfully dreamless sleep, wrapped in his scent and arms.

Still, she was amazed to wake up just before dawn, rather than the middle of the night. She had remained in the loose curl of his arms, but had to slide out from that welcome shelter to attend to nature‟s call. After leaving the bathroom, she shrugged into a Japanese style robe, a gift from Marguerite, and slipped into the kitchen. She warmed up some Earl Grey from the previous day, and cradled the hot mug in her hands, looking out the kitchen window.

In an hour or so, it would be daylight. A faint violet and azure combination in the sky told her the weather would be clear. Bless God and Goddess for sunny days, where shadows were banished and the twisted meeting of desire and destructive emotions parted company, leaving just playful lust and a cautious excitement about what the day could bring.

She wandered back to the bedroom. He‟d shifted in his sleep so he lay on his stomach, his arms stretched over his head and curled around the pillow, his jaw shadowed by a day‟s worth of stubble. She liked the loose, low riding fit of his jeans, but was startled at the hard pulse of response between her legs, so fierce she felt moisture dampen her thigh.

Maybe it was just the cumulative effect of what they‟d been doing before they went to sleep. Despite his perfect balance of desire and restraint, part of the delicious nature of it was her lack of such inhibitions, making it even harder for him.

Her lips twitched. An accurate if unwise choice of words, if she wanted to calm herself down. Every sexually experienced woman knew that a man woke up hard.

Brendan was likely lying on a very nice erection right now.

Her gaze landed on that mark low on his back. Goddess, a brand hurt, and this was fairly precise on the edges. As she drew closer, she realized there were three, the
fleur de
lis
and a decorative element on either side of it. If she dripped the hot tea on them, would it invade his memories in a pleasant or disturbing way? A lot of people who did the body modification were turned-on when they were touched there, heightening erotic response. Could she make that erection harder, thicker?

Setting the tea aside, she leaned over. Blew softly on it, and heard him murmur, but not stir. When she placed her mouth on it, her hand molding the curve of his buttock, a wave of proprietary feeling swept over. Despite whoever had asked him to do this, it was as if she was taking possession of the significance. A transfer of ownership. An odd thought, for certain.

She tasted it and him, her tongue following the design. Her other hand was bracing herself on the mattress, and his fingers slid over hers in the folds of the sheets, their hands curling and tangling like mating birds compelled to brush together in flight and then intertwine, moving in the same rhythm, guided by the same natural compulsion.

When she raised her head, he was looking at her, sleepy desire in his eyes. “I want you, Chloe,” he said, his voice rough with desire. “Right now.” It trembled through her. Raw honesty, which made it a demand that her own body was fully willing to embrace.

“Sshh. Don‟t think.” He turned on his side, still holding her hand, and drew her down next to him, so dawn light limned the pleasing shape of his broad shoulder. An inexorable pressure, the gentle touch of his palm pushing her to her back beneath that shelter, and then his hand slid down, down, down. He hovered, so close but not kissing her yet. He didn‟t press her down with his body, as if knowing if he did too much, too soon, she might release the breath she was holding and break the spell.

Those long, clever fingers opened her robe and stroked over the scar tissue left by her navel piercing, then drifted lower. Like flowing water, nothing fast or sudden.

If he asked permission now, she‟d have panicked, because her mind was in an odd paralysis, but he wasn‟t talking, either. He was surrounding her with his intent and desire, weaving her into it in the very air, so that even as her body stirred, she felt like her heart beat was slowing. She was so in tune with him, so much a part of this moment with him, permission wasn‟t relevant.

That was why, when he shifted his hand down, her reaction startled her. She grabbed his wrist, as if her fear was something separate, a monster she couldn‟t predict.

He merely kept going, her grip sliding uncertainly to his forearm as he made his way down.

“I‟m not going to hurt you,” he crooned in that sexy, soft voice. “But I‟m not going to stop, Chloe.”

Thank Goddess.
It was a reassurance and she took it as such.

He slid his fingers over her clit and then down to her labia, covering her. Her grip moved to his biceps as he began to stroke her, the way he might a kitten. An apt comparison, she thought with wry desperation. He moved his fingers in small, massaging circles, learning her, not just following a prescription for response, making her feel…well, like the center of his universe.

“You‟re beautiful,” he murmured. “So pretty and soft.” He moved so slowly, but it wasn‟t an easy touch. There was an intensity to it that had every part of her quivering.

His gaze moved to her breasts, their faint tremble with her elevated breath, and lingered on her nipples.

“Fragile pink there too,” he observed. “You‟re a flower, Chloe. A perfect, pale pink rose.” He let his knuckles drift up her breastbone, fingertips grazing the rise of her right breast until he reached her collarbone, turned his hand over and caressed the base of her aching throat. His fingers spread out and curved there, covering that sensitive column as he bent and touched his lips to her breast. He didn‟t start with the nipple, but worked his way around it, nuzzling, teasing, then giving her bites, some harder than others, the suggestion of pain.

Her legs grew looser, opened further to his touch, wanting to pull him in. But he was the ocean, following his own natural pattern and pace, so she rode the direction he set, breathing his name in the semi-darkness until he lifted his head, his lips moist from the intricate track his tongue had left on her flesh.

“Do you want me inside you, Chloe?”

She wanted that and more. She‟d gladly throw out entire roomfuls of things she didn‟t want to feel or see inside herself to make room for everything he was, everything she wanted to know about him. But she didn‟t even want it to be that conscious. She simply wanted to absorb him in the quiet dawn, become as peaceful and passionately alive as the day itself, and as instinctive.

“Yes,” she said.

His hazel eyes were so close, the mouth a sweet curve. Women were so pleasing aesthetically, but there was something so uniquely beautiful about a well-formed male, a strength-coated vulnerability, such a yin and yang. Ironic, since women were often the mirror, vulnerability over steel.

Reaching down to the waistband of the jeans, she pressed her knuckles into firm flesh as she unhooked the button and parted the teeth of the zipper, loosening the waist further.

“Off,” she breathed.

He complied and then did something else remarkable. He took a cross-legged position on the bed and slid his arms beneath her, helping her rise to straddle him.

Guiding her legs around his waist, he brought her moist lips in contact with the heat and stiffness of his desire.

“I don‟t want you to use a condom,” she said, a whisper. “I‟m protected from pregnancy. I trust you if you say it‟s okay.”

“You can trust me, Chloe,” he confirmed it, his eyes darkening with pleasure.

“Nothing would please me more than to be inside you, nothing between us.” Feeling his release inside her. She nodded.

“Hold onto my neck,” he murmured, as if knowing her emotions were rising to overwhelm her again.

She crossed her arms over his shoulders, buried her face in his hair, pressing her temple to his skull, fingers tangling in dark strands. He used the adjustment of her body to lodge the broad head of his cock in her opening, so that her breath caught in her throat. When he moved, she did, in natural accord, and then she was sinking down on him, wresting a male purr of approval from his throat, a breathless moan from hers.

It had been over a year. She hadn‟t used anything in her frustrated self-pleasuring other than her fingers or something to vibrate against the outside. His cock stretched tissues anew that hadn‟t been used in a while, and it felt good, because he took his time with it, as if he knew. It was like that first stretch of the morning, the muscles going beyond learned response to reach even further, send a spiral of pleasure through the whole body.

His arm tightened on her waist, bringing her home, all the way to the hilt, then snugging her up close, long fingers splaying over her backside.

“God, Chloe,” he muttered. “You feel fucking incredible.”

“That‟s you,” she whispered into his hair.

“Has it been awhile?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. For me too.” He pressed a hard kiss to her temple, holding there. And not just his mouth. His body remained still, heat energy vibrating from it, as he gave them both time to absorb the way it felt. Her thighs were quivering, and she couldn‟t keep herself from tightening on him, moving incrementally, testing. Oh Goddess.

A pleasurable starburst of almost forgotten sensation went from the point of friction where her inner muscles gripped his head, worked against the ridge, all the way to the womb.

He speared the fingers of his other hand through her hair, gripping, and then, blissfully, he began to move. One strong, rolling movement that took him out, slow, and then back in at the same pace, lifting and bringing her back down in a nerve reaction so delicious her face tightened because of it, her fingers clutching, eyes closing and head dropping back. She did little more than hang on as he did it again, then again, so slow each time that she whimpered at the pleasure cautiously uncoiling from her belly. He kept her wrapped so securely in his arms, both of them bathed by tranquil dawn light, his heated breath brushing her ear like a tropical breeze teasing the lobe. Her breasts pressed into his chest, her arms holding him as close as she could manage.

She loved him.

People thought the word was misused, often confused with lust. But she knew she could in fact love him, no matter how little she knew about him. In this incredible, astounding moment, she thought she loved him more and differently than she‟d ever loved anyone in her life or ever would.

“Brendan.” Her voice was a broken whisper.

“I‟m here, baby,” he whispered back, never faltering. His pace was increasing because hers was, and she realized he was following her pacing, anticipating it, to ensure the maximum pleasure for her. It couldn‟t have been easy, because her movements were becoming more fractious and insistent, the slick slide and retreat starting to smolder to flame, bodies urging toward even faster movement, piston velocity, straining into one another. The grip of his hands on her buttocks became bruising, kneading, awakening sensitive nerve endings. When she came down harder this time, smacking on his pubic bone with a reaction that rocketed through her clit, his cock lodged deeper, pushed her closer.

“I want to feel you come,” he managed, his eyes fastened on her face. “See you lose control. Hear you sing. Feel your pussy ripple on me, because of what my cock is doing for it.”

She spasmed against him and his voice got rougher. “That‟s it. Will you come for me, Chloe?”

“Go…with…me.” She demanded it, clutching his hair and tugging, bringing a spark to his eyes, a feral curve to his sensual mouth. Her breasts wobbled before his greedy eyes at each jarring contact. She was goaded closer to that precipice by the way his eyes devoured their movement, the distended tips of her nipples.

“Suckle me,” she demanded. “Hard.”

His mouth fastened on her nipple, back curving, one hand continuing to hold her, another coming around to grip the breast, squeeze it into his mouth, so that the touch of his tongue ignited erogenous zones all over her body.

“Goddess, yes. That‟s it. Brendan…”

It came up on her so fast and unexpected, because it had been so long since it had happened so easily. This was like a dam breaking over jagged rock, so she felt the rush and the broken pieces at once.

Now,” she demanded, part plea, part command, as she toppled over that edge. The climax arched her into his body, his mouth. Her hips pushed down, working hard and fast against him, muscles squeezing him relentlessly inside, feeling every inch of that hard organ. Her nails dug into his shoulders, hanging on for dear life as those wonderful, rolling, punishing waves took her over and rational thought was lost.