CONCEPTION (The Others) (37 page)

“I don’t see why I should suffer alone.”

“So you admit to your teasing?”

She squeezed him again, sliding her hips up and down his
length as she took the last bite of her sandwich. Her eyes flashed blue from
under her sun-tipped lashes as she smiled at him over her shoulder. “I haven’t
been trying to keep it a secret.”

“Good.” He pushed her forward on the bed, stroking her back
as she caught herself on her hands. Before she could push up, he came over her,
capturing her in the entirety of his embrace, her back arched into his chest,
her ass pressed to his hips, her thighs trapped between his. “I need you.”

I need you.

The calm whisper breathed against Eden’s ear, shivered down
her spine, the deeper timbre stroking her desire in an invitation as silky as
the cool swathe of Deuce’s hair falling over her shoulders. He was so big
around her, his body dwarfing her, his erection pressing firmly between her
buttocks in a dark demand that should have frightened her, but instead sent
every nerve ending leaping in excitement.

“Deuce?”

His lips were a brush of fire on her shoulder, her neck, her
cheek. “Yes?”

She felt something sharper graze her hip. There was a tug on
the waistband of her shorts. The mattress dipped as his weight shifted, then
there was the same tugging on the other side. The soft material fell away from
her groin and dangled between them, trapped by the pressure of his touch and
the sweat of their bodies.

He backed his hips from hers. The air felt cool against her
flesh. She shivered and gathered her courage. “I want it all this time.”

He stilled. The torn shorts slid to the bed. His big hand
touched her shoulder with incredible gentleness, before sliding down her side.
“I do not understand.”

“You’ve been holding back when we make love. Sheltering me.”
She arched her shoulder into his palm, needing his touch as much as she needed
her next breath. “This time I want to feel everything.”

Her desire for him waged war with her fear of being
vulnerable to him. His hand cupped her stomach, tracing the small remaining
bulge. So light a touch to convey such hope and feeling. “It is too soon.”

Damn it, how was she supposed to hold herself apart when he
did things like that? She turned her head until she could see his face. His
expression gave away nothing, but she knew, just knew he thought she couldn’t
handle it. “You can’t ask me to trust you when you hide things from me.”

“It is my duty to protect you.”

“Not to the extent that you interfere with my experience.”
She turned beneath him, catching his hair in her hands as she fell back on the
bed, taking him with her. “You need to let me make my own choices.”

He came down over her. Thigh to thigh, hip to hip, chest to
chest. His hair settling around her face as he blocked out the rest of the
light and there was only his scent, his touch, his lips on hers. “I cannot let
you hurt.”

“Are you planning on hurting me?”

He rested his forehead against hers. His breath hit her face
in a carefully controlled rhythm. “You are so small.”

She walked her fingers down his side over the hard pad of
muscles protecting his ribs, smiling as they expanded with his next breath. She
turned her hand and dragged the backs of her nails around his waist, gliding
into the hollow of his hipbone, aiming for more intimate territory. “And you’re
so big.” She curled her fingers around his cock. It leapt and pulsed in her
hand. His breathing stopped altogether. “I’ve always heard that’s a good thing
when it comes to making love.”

He grabbed her wrist. There was a moment when she thought he
was going to pull her hand away. She stopped him with a simple “Please?” His
fingers slid around hers. His grip tightened and then relaxed.

“I cannot deny you.”

He didn’t sound happy about it, but she was. “I’m glad.”

“We will try it your way, but—” His agreement melted to a
groan as she squeezed gently. He pulsed in her grip, his cock somehow soft and
hard at the same time.

“But what?”

“I will decide if it is too much.”

She shook her head. “No way.” She brought her knee up
between his thighs until she could press gently against his balls. “You’re
going to have to trust me.”

His denial was instant and silent but she felt it anyway.
She cupped his cheeks in her hands, squinting to see his expression in the low
light. “You promised to give me what I need.”

His fingers tightened on her hair, pulling the strands,
sending fine tingles through her scalp that reverberated down her spine. “I will.”

The tingles flared to shocks of anticipation. Her nipples
drew to hard points, and her pussy swelled and flared open in a blatant
invitation. She took a breath, inhaled his scent, and forgot to let it out.
Dear God, he was potent. His mouth opened over the top of her breast.

She arched up, pushing the hardened nubbin between his lips.
The pressure of his teeth was just enough to send her breath skittering from
her lungs.

“I need to have a say in all this.” For a moment, she felt
the sharp points of his fangs. Before her whimper could dissolve in the air,
they were gone. “Please, Deuce.”

Her answer came in the shift of his hips that had his cock
pressing against the opening of her body. He was huge. She sucked in a breath.

“Come to me, Edie.”

She knew what he wanted. “I can’t.”

“Trust works both ways, mate.”

He was right. “What about
her
?”

She didn’t want this time ruined by the intrusion of the
strange woman.

“She will not touch you.”

“You can do that now?”

“I know her path.”

“You’re sure?”

“I have said so.”

So he had. Which meant she was free to let go. For the first
time ever. She flicked his flat brown nipple with her thumb as she milked his
cock slowly. “So I’m free to enjoy you?”

His big body shuddered against her and his cock swelled in her
hand. “Yes.”

“I might like this.”

The bed bounced as he dropped to his elbow, bringing his
nipple within range of her mouth. “I am glad.”

She bet he was. A simple bend of her neck and she had that
small protrusion between her lips. His hand cradled the back of her head,
supporting her as she nibbled on the sensitive nub. His groan was a deep
whisper of sound. “Do not stop.”

It took her a second to realize he meant the slow pumping of
her hand on his cock. His shaft jumped and pulled in her grip while his upper
body held absolutely still, with a desperate edge. A quick glance up as she
laved his nipple with short strokes of her tongue showed his face drawn into
harsh lines of pleasure. A shot of pure pride went through her as he shuddered
on her next stroke. And suddenly it wasn’t enough to have him in her hand.

She angled the fat head of his cock down to the shallow well
of her vagina. “Make love to me, Deuce.”

Was that throaty siren’s voice hers?

“You are not ready.”

She laughed outright and arched up. “I’m on fire for you.”

It was true. If fire came in a liquid form, it would be
pouring from her body right now, spilling over the head of his cock. “I need
you.”

“Be easy.”

She couldn’t “be easy”, not with his cock teasing her,
hovering just beyond her grasp. She lifted her hips, coaxing him closer.
“Please.”

He nodded slowly. “Come to me.”

She felt the brush of his mind. As gentle as the touch of
his hand on her cheek. “I don’t know how.” The confession shuddered out on a
hoarse sigh that didn’t begin to communicate her frustration.

“Reach for me, Edie.” The order came from within and
without. “Relax and reach for me.”

She locked her gaze on his shadowed one, and braced herself
for the flood of foreign emotions. Then, tentatively, she opened her mind. Or
at least thought she did. She didn’t have a clue as to what she was supposed to
be doing. Deuce pressed into her body. Her muscles strained under the pressure.
Her mind followed her body, flinching away from the reality. His palm cupped
her cheek. His mouth brushed hers.

“Do not try to control it. Just open for me.”

His “Come to me” breathed against her lips with a comforting
rush. She slid her arms over his shoulders and linked them around his neck.
Deuce shuddered against her. His pleasure shimmered around the perimeter of her
consciousness. Her body wept its eagerness as her mind fought to stay apart. It
had always been so much easier to keep to herself. To believe that if she
maintained her control, her separateness, she could control everything. But she
couldn’t, she knew she couldn’t. But she didn’t know if she was strong enough
for this. To surrender her mind, her identity, and give herself over to Deuce.
Strong enough to trust him.

His breath hissed between his teeth, blowing tendrils of
hair off her face. “You are not wrong to trust me, Edie.”

She opened her eyes as his chest settled against her
breasts, the soft mat of hair prickling lightly. “I was projecting again?”

“Yes.” He kept the slow rotation of his thumb on her
clitoris as he kissed her forehead. “I do not mind.”

She just bet he didn’t, considering the array of images her
aching pussy was transmitting to her brain. Wild, crazy things she wanted him
to do to her. Impossible things.

His smile let her know he was reading her mind. “You are a
wild woman.”

She wrapped her legs around his lean hips. “Are you going to
try to convince me that you don’t like it?”

His laugh was pure pleasure to hear. He so rarely laughed.
“No.”

She cupped his cheeks in her hands, savoring the remnants of
his laughter with her palms. “I liked it before. It was more than I expected,
overwhelming, but it was wild, passionate and the most incredible thing.” She
traced the crease between his dark brows with her index finger. “I want it
again.” His whole body jerked. The air thickened with his scent, his need.
“Give it to me, Deuce.”

“It might hurt.” He angled his cock into the well of her
vagina, the deliberate gesture at odds with the concern in his voice.

“I won’t care if you make it feel good, too.” She lifted her
hips into the descent of his cock, taking his hand and bringing it to the ring
he’d given her, knowing how it turned him on to see it, feel it. “Make it feel
good.”

“I will.”

Chapter Twenty

Make it feel good.

Deuce threaded his finger through the hoop, tugging firmly,
urging Edie’s hips up, letting her impale herself farther on his cock, pushing
himself deeper into the heat he craved, her pleasure floating to him on a
shimmer of pain, both emotions so intertwined that he couldn’t sort one from
the other. He tugged the hoop harder, feeling her startled wince, followed
immediately by a surge of delight so intense she lost her breath. He looked
away from her face, down over her flushed breasts and damp belly to where she
hung suspended from the hoop—his mark—her desire strung as tightly as her body,
her need carved as deeply as the ancient words that bound them together.

“You look good like this, Edie mine. Open and needy, your
body begging for my cock.”

Her fingers scraped across the sheets as she arched her
back, pressing her pussy higher. “Then why don’t you give it to me?”

“Because it pleases me to see you like this.” He twisted the
ring again, harder. Too hard to put her over, hard enough to make her pause. He
pulled her higher, twisting the ring gently this time. She cried out. Cream
poured from her body. Her chest flushed and her pussy pulsed. “You are almost
there, aren’t you?”

Her
teeth bit into her lower lip as she nodded. “Where are the colors?” she gasped,
pressing up.

“What
colors?” He moved with her, keeping the pressure on the ring steady as he
extended his fingers between her plump labia until he touched the tautly
stretched skin surrounding their joining.

“Before,
everything was red, blue and swirling black.”

She
was talking about the interpretation her mind had superimposed over the alien
violence of the stranger’s battle to keep him out. “Only you and I are here
now. They will not come back.”

More
hot cream flowed with a slight twist of the ring “Good.” Her scent flooded the
room, her pleasure mixed with his, thickening the air around them, driving him
wild with the demand that he claim her hard and fast, take her as her body
demanded, with no further consideration.

He’d planned to love her with consideration this time, to
keep his primitive side carefully hidden. Prove to her he could be as tender as
any human male. He’d intended to control his passion for once, but she made it
impossible. With every beat of her heart, every flex of her pussy around his
cock head, she called to his primitive side, demanding her satisfaction. With a
stroke of his thumb, he gave it to her. “Come for me, Edie.”

She did, in a screaming, quivering rush, taking him with her
as her pussy milked his cock in hard, rhythmic pulses, his shout echoing off
the walls. When the violent wave subsided, he cupped her breast in his hand,
gentling his touch when he felt how hot, full and hard it was. He squeezed the
base, plumping it up to his mouth until her breath caught and she clenched around
him again. He held her there with a steady pressure that had her body grasping
at him, weeping in soft, hot pulses of entreaty. She was so soft, so delicate,
but her soul was so strong. He wanted her to come again.

He laved the hard point of her nipple with the flat of his
tongue, knowing from the bite of her nails in his shoulders that it wasn’t
enough. He caught the sensitive nubbin between his lips, grinding gently as he
rolled her clit between his fingers. Her shriek reverberated in his ears. Her
juices flooded his cock. He curved his fingers in, scraping her clitoris with
the sharp edges as he pressed her engorged nipple between the points of his
fangs. Deuce gave her a little of what she wanted, biting down gently, piercing
her flesh that first tiny bit, the sweet taste of her blood bleeding into his
mouth as she arched, one breathless moment, one tiny lave short of completion.