Ellora's Cavemen: Tales from the Temple II (27 page)

Alek’s big toe skimmed her instep and she giggled. He smiled and nuzzled the side of her throat, nipping her just beneath her ear so that she gasped. When his lips moved down and drew on her tight, hard nipple, she cried out and bucked beneath him.

Her hands stroked down his back, feeling his muscles gather and roll beneath her fingers. The delineated muscles of his buttock fascinated her as they tightened and loosened with his thrusts. She couldn’t resist trailing a finger into the crease of his ass, rejoicing when he moaned his response.

The push and pull of his cock came faster now. Alek pulled her legs up around his waist, and moved harder into her wet body.

“Mine,” he gritted out. “All mine. Say it.”

Agate could only moan and thrash her head, lost in the pleasure of their joined bodies.

“Say it,” he barked through gritted teeth.

A drop of his sweat fell from his face onto her mouth. She tasted its saltiness with her tongue.

“Say you’re mine.” He ground down against her and she saw stars.

“Yes,” she moaned.

“Say it.”

“I
am
yours,” she gasped.

His thumb rubbed against her clit, his cock stretched her to bursting. “You’re mine.

Only
mine.”

166

Voyeurs: Overexposed

“Yes. Only yours. All yours.” Agate screamed as he slammed into her, hard and fast, rocking the bed beneath them. Unbelievably, another climax crashed through her, taking her by surprise so that she screamed again.

“You’re so fucking wet, so tight, so hot,” he moaned his sex words into her ear.

“Come on, squeeze me with your sweet little pussy. This is only the beginning. I’m not letting you leave tonight. I’m going to come in your mouth, and in your ass. Even between your gorgeous tits.” He palmed them, still thrusting, still impaling her. “I’m going to fill you up with my cum until you’re dripping with it.”

She already was dripping with it. He slid in and out of her creamy wetness, an easy glide, and her body sang with delirious pleasure.

He thrust one last time, throwing back his head with a shout, coming deep. The release that took him, shook him, flooded into her like sweet, hot lightning.

The weight of his body collapsed on hers. His breath was harsh and deep and unsteady, and the thunder of his heartbeat pounded against her chest. They both lay there, stunned, as their bodies cooled.

Long moments passed. Agate stroked his hair, his head pillowed on her breasts. His mouth still pressing tiny, soft kisses against her. She sighed, smiling. Content.

Alek stilled, his body hard and unforgiving, like stone. He shoved off her, stood by the bed and looked at her with a wild stare. Raking his hands through his already disheveled hair, he seemed to be gripped by a strong and volatile emotion.

Agate frowned and reached for him. He swore, stepped back, turned and went into the bathroom. The door shut hard behind him.

It was a harsh withdrawal. Agate’s eyes stung. He’d turned from her, denied her, in every way. She could see it—in his eyes and in his face—that he had pulled completely away from her. After what she had believed was an emotional bonding, a spiritual release shared between them, he had left her. For him to retreat this way must mean that he had not felt the same as she. It wrenched her heart, cutting like a blade.

She put her face in her hands and wept.

167

Sherri L. King

What the hell had just happened?
Alek splashed his face with cold water, gulping at it with parched lips.

He didn’t know this woman. Clearly, she was hiding something—a lot of somethings—from him. He had no reason to trust her. But never in his life, never in his wildest dreams, had he experienced anything like what had just happened between him and Agate.

He smelled her on his fingers, tasted her on his tongue, felt the imprint of her body wrapped around him still. She lingered in his mind and his heart as no woman ever had.

No. He couldn’t let this happen. Wouldn’t. It was crazy. He knew nothing about her but what she’d told him in email and what he’d observed for himself throughout the past few hours. What had just happened back there, in that bed, was sex.

Just sex.

Then why did he still think of her as his? In an elemental way, he wanted it to be true. Intellectually, he shied away from it with a panic.

There was no room in his life for a woman—any woman—especially not one who acted as if she’d never tasted coffee, never seen an elevator. He no longer believed she was simply some rich, eccentric young woman. There was so much more to it than that, so many more questions that couldn’t be answered by so simple an explanation.

He couldn’t want this mysterious woman as badly as he did. It was insane. Totally unlike him. And he sure as hell hadn’t just made love to her. He’d never made love a woman—he’d only fucked them. Fucking was enough, sex was not meant to mingle with love or tenderness. Not for him.

It had been so sweet…he wanted her again. His cock was hard again. His balls were tight, as if he hadn’t just shot himself dry twice already. Oh sweet shit, he’d actually had her without using protection. After all the trouble of seeing that he had enough, he’d neglected to use the damn condoms.

He’d never taken a woman naked like that before. Their skin slipping wet and raw against each other, no barriers between to keep them apart. So many things he’d never done before tonight, and they had seemed so easy—so
right
—with Agate.

The water was cold on his face, but it did nothing to cool his fever. He wanted her again. He had to have her again—a thousand times more—before he could think clearly, before he could sort through this. Now, he needed her now.

His hand hovered over the doorknob. His heart teetered with uncertainty…

168

Voyeurs: Overexposed

* * * * *

Agate pulled her contacts out—before tonight she’d been fascinated with the very idea of wearing them—and threw them to the floor. It didn’t matter if Alek saw her Shikar eyes glowing now. She wanted him to see, wanted him to know their true color.

She wanted him to know everything.

With a sob, she wondered how she could face the rest of the night. Her duty to her people was to ensure that Alek remembered nothing of this. But her heart cried out that she let him remember, that she win his heart in return and keep him.

But she couldn’t. So many times she’d already said this to herself, that she just couldn’t keep him. They were so different from each other, indeed they were different species entirely. He still regarded her as a stranger, as an odd human woman at best. A life with him would be nearly impossible.

Thinking on the choices that faced her made her cry all the harder. Must she see her duty as a Voyeur done, or could she follow the dictates of her heart and soul?

The choice was taken from her. And no worse outcome could she have imagined.

“Where is he?” The Traveler—Grimm, a Shikar Traveler Caste of blackest eyes and most dangerous past—appeared at her side, his voice like midnight. “I’ll kill the bastard and be done with it.”

Unfortunately Alek chose that moment to return from his sojourn in the bathroom.

He froze, catching sight of the ebony-cloaked man who towered over her.

“What the fuck…?”

Seeing an imminent showdown between the two men, Agate rose from the bed and grabbed at Grimm’s arm. “Do not—”

His eyes swept down over her nude form, but she was not embarrassed nor was she intimidated. This was her lover’s life on the line—she could see the truth of that in Grimm’s eyes—and she would show no weakness.

“Do not what?” The words flowed like wine, smooth and rich. “Do not protect your honor? Do not see to it that this stupid human pays for making you weep?”

“He did not—” she protested, tugging at him when he would have flung her off.

“Do not lie to me, woman. I can see he has been with you, I can smell his touch all over you. He stole your purity, in every way, and must be punished.”

Alek scowled. “Now wait just a minute. She wanted it just as much as me, and she was no spring flower, I can assure you. Now who the hell are you and what are you doing in my room?”

Agate felt his words cut her like a knife and gasped.

Grimm disentangled himself from her and approached Alek like the predator he was. “She was pure. No man’s hand has touched her before yours. You take and you take, but you see nothing of the worth of what you have stolen.”

169

Sherri L. King

“Grimm! There was no theft! I gave myself to him,” Agate marched to his side, deliberately avoiding Alek’s gaze. “Willingly. And I would do it again. He is my first and last lover.”

Grimm’s anger blazed with waves of heat. “You dare to claim him? A human male?”

“I do,” she heard Alek’s teeth grit and wondered if he understood any of the byplay between her and her Shikar protector. She glanced at him and remembered her eyes, how strange they must seem to him, but there was only a miniscule twitch at his lips to prove that he had even noticed them. “Let it go, Grimm. Please.”

“Get away from him, Agate,” Alek’s command surprised her. “Come here.”

She moved to his side immediately. His hand came up to her chin, tilting her face, his eyes studying hers. “I am sorry,” she said.

“You have a lot to tell me,” he murmured. “But not yet. Later.”

“You’ll be lucky if there is a later, pup,” Grimm intoned. “Tryton can deal with you.” He came forward, laid his hands on their shoulders, and the world disappeared.

170

Voyeurs: Overexposed

Four days passed. Long, lonely days in which Agate was confined to her home, ordered by Tryton—The Elder himself—to stay put and obey until further notice. She didn’t see or hear from Alek, but she knew he was still here. Still in her world, so far beneath the surface of his own that no human could have ever found their way to it. She could feel him, close by. And her heart ached from the separation.

She wondered what he felt, if he was too consumed with the uncertainty of his surroundings and situation to think of her. Or if he thought of her with every waking moment, as she did him.

It was no surprise to her that Grimm had known of her innocence that night in the hotel. He seemed to know everything about everyone; it was just like him to know something so personal and secret.

It had, at first, surprised her that he’d made an issue of it. And she had tried to divert him with the bold claim that she meant to keep Alek, to mate with him. It had been a foolish claim and it had done nothing to save her lover. It may have, in fact, sealed his fate.

Unmated Shikar women took lovers if they wished, it was not taboo. But she had never done so, she’d always had her toys to keep her occupied. Sensuality and self-love were delicious pleasures to be enjoyed and explored by all. Every Shikar knew that, man or woman. She was no virgin, but neither had she taken a lover before Alek. She hadn’t wanted to. Agate had always seen Shikar men as brooding, arrogant beasts, so she’d never felt lonely without one to call her own. Alek, a human, had been the most perfect man she’d ever encountered and she’d wanted him as she’d never wanted another.

But she feared now that she might have gone too far beyond the boundaries of what could be accepted when she had taken a human to be her first lover. She feared for Alek and what Tryton might do to him.

The hours stretched on and she waited…longing for her love.

* * * * *

“I am continually surprised by humans,” Tryton told him, clapping him so soundly on the back that it nearly sent him tumbling.

171

Sherri L. King

Alek looked about his new home with a satisfied eye. All of his things had been fetched from his room in Paris and his apartment in New York City. His pictures, his camera equipment, his books, everything was here in its right place.

But Agate wasn’t. She was still in her rooms, where Tryton had confined her while drilling him and testing him to see if he deserved her. A Shikar woman.

His mind still reeled from the whirlwind of events that had so drastically reshaped his life over the past few days. He could hardly believe all that had happened. And so quickly.

“You hardly know her. Yet you’re willing to give up your life above just to be with her. Are you sure this is what you want?” Tryton gave him one last choice. “You could stay here, live here and fight with us, even if you didn’t want her.”

Alek had made his decision. And he knew it was the only decision that had been worth making. Four days without her had been hell, despite the hospitality Tryton and the other Shikars had shown him. He missed her. Knowing her one night had been enough to know that this was the right choice to make. “I need her.” And it was as simple as that. “Staying here, becoming a photographer for the Shikar Voyeurs, that’s just a perk. But it doesn’t mean a damn thing without her.”

He was incomplete without Agate. The time he’d spent with her, seeing her joy of life, holding her in his arms…had been the time of his life.

Tryton nodded, as if he’d expected that response. “You are a good man, Alek.

Shaped by war and by human suffering; hardened. But still good. You will take proper care of her.”

“I will.”

“Grimm still wants to kill you. Or at least bloody you a little.”

Alek fingered his jaw, wincing at the memory of The Traveler’s fist hitting it like a battering ram. He had enough sense to know that the man had held back to keep from breaking the bone… He didn’t want to find himself in another skirmish with the shadowy man in black. But for Agate, he’d risk any danger. “He can try.”

Tryton chuckled. “You will do just fine here. Now to fetch the recalcitrant Watcher,” he sighed. “I mean
Voyeur
. Damn Steffy and her cute little puns anyway,” the seven-foot, blond Adonis left the room while still muttering to himself.

Alek smiled and waited for his Shikar mate, hoping that she would be as happy to see him as he would be her.