Dance of the Crystal (9 page)

But tonight when I felt your skin on mine, I just went ape-shit. Uh, I mean—”

She gave him one of those thousand-watt smiles that made his knees weak. He was glad he was sitting down. “I know. And I loved it that I could make you lose control like that.”

“Still, it was my responsibility to be in control. Whether it was your first time or your twenty-first. And I wasn’t.”

“But you pulled out so we wouldn’t make a baby.”

His gaze darkened, flicked down to her belly, where bits of translucent cum still clung to her smooth skin. “Yeah,” he said almost to himself. “Hardest thing I ever did in my life.”

Eyes sparkling like the ever-present crystal around her neck, she turned to face him, snuggling her feet astride his hips and leaning her elbows on her bent knees. Another little giggle. “It was the hardest thing I ever had in my life, too.”

On a groan, he leaned forward and took her face between his palms. “Let me make it up to you, Crystal. Let me show you how it can really be between a man and a woman. I can’t see how you got anything out of this little episode except pain.”

She crossed the minuscule gap between them and touched his lips with hers. “Okay. Show me.”

“Count on it.”

* * * * *

Crystal’s nerves hummed with expectation. After finally slipping off her panties, Soren had settled her back in the Jacuzzi with her butt on the porcelain, her back to him, his legs stretched out on either side of her like an embrace. She had twisted her hair into a topknot and held it in place with one of the spring clips she kept in a pink seashell on the tub’s ledge.

He reached over to turn off the jets. In the sudden, intimate silence she could hear the rasp of his breathing behind her, felt the slight breeze of his exhale soft across her shoulder, an errant strand of hair scraping along her sensitized skin.

In her peripheral vision she saw him take her green-apple-scented soap in one of his big hands. Her eyelids fluttered shut. She hoped he would…

He did. Slick with soap bubbles, his hands roved lightly over her shoulders, her upper arms, her back.

She felt him wiggle a bit closer. His head brushed against the tendrils of hair falling down her neck as he leaned forward.

His hands slid around to her front, caressing her skin through the thin, slick film of soap, slowly, oh-so-slowly gliding across her waist, her ribcage, up to her breasts. When he touched her nipples, firecrackers blasted through her, rocketed from the fullness of her breasts down to the spot between her legs that still throbbed. The pain when he’d entered her had been sharp, unexpected, but fleeting. She’d been glad to get it out of the way so they could concentrate on this, the thrill of Soren’s hands on her, his man-heat at her back, the anticipation of fully becoming a woman at the hands and body of the man her crystal had chosen.

“Oh!” His fingers touched a spot that made her whole body vibrate with pleasure. She’d never felt anything remotely like it before. Unconsciously she let her legs fall open to give him better access, leaned back until her head rested against his shoulder. She lifted her arms and draped them over his knees, telling him without words that she surrendered her body to his will.

A deep growl in response made her feel powerful. This rough-edged man with a tender core was
hers
.

She could hear the tempo of his breathing increase, as indeed her own did. He nuzzled her nape, taking tiny nips here and there with his teeth, sending delicious shivers down her spine. With his left hand he kneaded her breast, brushed his thumb over her nipple. His right hand massaged—dare she think the word?—her pussy, sliding his fingers between her lips now slick with soap, warm water, and her own juices.

She pressed herself into the solid wall of his chest, the back of her head nestling in the notch between his neck and shoulder, as he played with her, now teasing the nub that he’d rubbed into a hard acorn, now pinching her nipple until she began thrashing her legs helplessly. Her hips lifted into his hand, and he slipped one finger into her vagina.

“Soren!”

Immediately his hand withdrew. “Did I hurt you? Oh hell, I’m sorry I—”

Crystal grabbed at his hand, frantically guided it back between her legs. “No, no, it felt so good I couldn’t stand it.” She pressed his hand against her pubic bone. “Please. Don’t stop.”

“As if I could,” he murmured, slipping one finger, then two, inside her pussy.

“Oh, my.” She began to move her hips in counterpoint to his fingers, wanting more, wanting…something just out of reach. At her unschooled urging he increased his rhythmic thrusts, all the while squeezing and tugging at her nipple with his other hand, scraping his teeth on her shoulder, her neck, pressing the scalding hammer of his penis between her butt cheeks. Sensations washed over her like flames in a forest fire. Her heels dug futilely at the hard floor of the tub, trying to push herself closer to him, to his magic fingers, to that ladder she was climbing, climbing, soaring to some elusive goal high in the heavens.

Her eyes went unfocused as her world narrowed to him, to Soren, to the feeling that she would die if he stopped touching her. Nothing in this world mattered except to reach that peak, and she sobbed and tried to catch her breath as he rubbed her clitoris with his thumb, and then her mind went blank and she felt herself shattering into hundreds of fireworks lighting the sky, shimmering and dazzling and shifting to an ever-changing kaleidoscope of color until each individual piece burned out and floated down to the earth.

* * * * *

Finally, finally, she held him in her arms.

After her first wondrous orgasm, Soren had lifted her out of the tub, dried her off with such tenderness that her heart melted. Then kneeling before her, he had kissed and licked and nipped at her skin until she came again, her knees buckling as she pressed his head to her pussy to contain the uncontainable, the irresistible spiral up to the top of the mountain until she jumped from the pinnacle to soar over mere mortals, with his mouth and tongue sucking and lapping up the juices he’d coaxed from her. And he held her tight until she was able to groan a few indecipherable words of repletion, and he lifted her into his arms again and carried her to bed.

Her bed. Her man.

Soren lay atop her, resting the bulk of his weight on his elbows, his legs nestled between her thighs, his penis huge and hot and hard against her belly. He bent his head and dropped small kisses over her face until he reached her lips. His kisses became hotter, more demanding, and she opened her mouth to him.

He thrust his tongue inside, mimicking the act of love. Her arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer and closer still. She ran her palms up and down his muscled back, over the indentations of his spine, the hollow at his waist, then lower to his firm buttocks.

Heat spiraled inside her. She wanted him. Wanted to feel him inside her, now that she knew what to expect, now that he’d prepared her so thoroughly. She lifted her hips in silent supplication while pressing her hands down on his butt.

His answer was a growl deep in his throat and a noticeable increase in muscle tension.

On the right track, she thought giddily. She arched her back, pressing her body into his. Ran her hands between their bodies, trying to reach the part she wanted him to move.

He groaned against her mouth. “Woman, you’re killing me.”

“I am?” Her hands stilled.

“But don’t stop. God, I love how your hands feel on me.”

“Soren, can we…?” She turned her head, embarrassed to be asking.

He levered himself up onto his elbows. She looked into eyes of such a deep blue in the dimly lit bedroom, she felt herself drowning in them. His gaze was intense. A muscle worked in his jaw. “It’s too soon. I’ll hurt you again.”

It took Crystal a moment to understand. “Oh, that. It had to happen sooner or later. I’m glad it’s over with. It doesn’t hurt the second time, does it?”

Soren made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “I wasn’t a Boy Scout, babe. I never expected to need protection tonight. If I stuck my cock inside you now, knowing how hot you are, how good it feels to be there, I wouldn’t stop until I shot my wad. I’m not big on Russian roulette.”

“Oh. I, um, I think I can help.” She made an effort to sit up, no mean feat when one hundred ninety pounds of pure male muscle and bone pinned her to the mattress, but succeeded only in rubbing her lower body against the part of him that, as he put it, would shoot his wad into her. The very thought of it made her shiver in anticipation.

He made another sound deep in his throat, a low rumble embodying both hunger and frustration, rolled off her and onto his back, and flung an arm across his eyes. On his face was etched a look of pain.

Her gaze snapped to his cock. It rose straight up from a nest of dark blond hair. The shaft was long and thick, with purple veins standing out in sharp relief against the smooth skin. There was a pearl of creamy white fluid at the very tip. She had the sudden urge to lick it, to take the whole thing in her mouth and suck him the way he sucked on her, to see if she could make him come that way.

But she wanted something else even more. She scooted to the side of the bed and reached into the nightstand drawer.

“Here,” she said triumphantly.

Cautiously he moved his arm to uncover one eye. And felt more blood rush to his groin as he processed what she held up. A condom packet. He jerked up like he’d been released from a slingshot. She’d been a virgin and she stashed condoms at her bedside? Hell’s bells, had she
ambushed
him?

His brain and his cock battled for supremacy.

Then she touched the bead of pre-cum that glistened on the tip, swirled his lubrication around the head with her fingers.

No contest. His cock won.

Groaning, he grabbed the foil as Crystal wrapped her fingers around his cock, made a few hesitant up-and-down strokes. It jumped and swelled in her hand. Her brown eyes widened.

“Okay, babe, that’s it.” He ripped open the foil and, fumbling like a teenager, rolled the condom onto hot flesh that felt as hard as a fencepost.

In an eye blink he flipped her on her back and covered her with his super-heated body, muscled thighs between hers, cock nudging the entrance to that sweet pussy he wanted to fuck until the sun came up a couple of months from now. He captured her expectant gaze. “You want it, you got it.”

And thrust home. Deep into a warm, tight cavern that wrapped around him, tugged him, squeezed him.

“Jesus.” He touched his forehead to hers. He had to take a deep breath, to lie absolutely still, so he wouldn’t come right then and there. “You feel like heaven.”

She made a low moan. He raised himself on his elbows. “Am I too heavy?”

In response, she slid her palms down to his ass cheeks and pressed him even closer to her, raised her hips tentatively, inviting him to move his.

He needed no further invitation. This time, he promised himself, he’d give her what a woman as responsive as her should have—a long, leisurely fuck, holding back her climax…and his—until they both were slick with sweat and anticipation and need. Levering himself onto his elbows, he withdrew his cock slowly until only the head remained, then just as slowly slid it back in as deep into her softness as it would go.

Hearing his name whispered on a shuddering sigh almost made him pump into her, hard and fast.

Almost.

Deliberately he took a deep breath and repeated the sequence even more slowly, causing a hitch in Crystal’s breathing. Their gazes locked. She looked so vulnerable and trusting as she trembled beneath him, Soren found himself wanting to protect her, to treat her like a priceless treasure.

Then she grabbed his ass with a vengeance while lifting her hips, trying to alter his rhythm.

A deep chuckle escaped him. “Oh no, you don’t.” He pinned her to the mattress by simply allowing his full weight to rest on her. Swinging her arms over her head, he immobilized them by holding both wrists in one massive hand. “It’s my way or the highway.”

In slow motion he advanced and retreated, advanced and retreated, until sweat beaded his forehead and she was squirming and bucking under him, her head tossing from side to side.

He dipped his head and captured a rosy, engorged nipple with his teeth.

“Soren!” Her hips shot up a foot off the bed and she convulsed around his cock, primitive sounds emanating from deep in her throat. Hell. He’d wanted to bring her to the brink and then slow down until she begged him to fuck her hard and quick, but she’d been way ahead of him. Perversely he thought,
okay, sweetheart, you got the easy one. This time, I’ll make you beg
.

Her hot, tight pussy still rippling around him encouraged Soren to pump his hips faster. Made him suddenly wonder why the hell it had seemed so important for him to try to withhold her climax when it felt so good to see her eyes go blind with passion, to hear the little whimpers she was still making as he increased his tempo. God, she felt so good, so tight, it would only take a few more strokes to—

A sound like glass shattering stopped him mid-stroke. “Jesus! What was that?”

Underneath him, Crystal tensed, her eyes wide. “Is someone trying to break in?”

Suddenly clearheaded, Soren levered himself off her, automatically resurrecting the downstairs floor plan in his mind. Five floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the backyard, three from the living room, and one each from the kitchen and dining area. It could have been any one of them. “Stay here.” He rolled off the bed and onto the floor. His bare feet curled into the deep pile of her carpet, reminding him of his nude state.

“Shit. My clothes. They’re all over the kitchen.”

Crystal scrambled off the bed and darted to a dresser. Pulling out a bottom drawer, she dug into it and said, “Here. Use this. It was my Dad’s. I keep it to remember him by.”

She held out a green-and-black plaid woolen bathrobe that showed light wear around the collar.

Wordlessly he donned it—it fit snugly but covered everything—wrapped the sash tightly, happy to not feel exposed and vulnerable against an unknown menace. As he crept down the steps, he remembered the condom that hadn’t received any of his cum. Since the adrenaline rush from the breaking glass had wilted his cock, he easily shucked it off and stuffed it into a side pocket, cursing his macho need to draw out his lovemaking until she begged for release. Instead, she’d gotten a good pop and it was his balls that were aching.