Seduced by the Beast (16 page)

            She sucked his
rough tongue, hungry for his ravaging kiss as if starved.  His fingers dug into
her backside, drawing her against him as if he could sink inside her depths
standing there before the fire.

            He broke away
from her as abruptly as he’d started, breathing raggedly, pained.  Swan shook
with desire and anger, her chest heaving for air.  She slapped him before she
realized what she was doing.  The crack of her hand on his flesh echoed loud in
the enclosed space.  He’d ruined her, ruined her last chance to pull away
without tearing her soul in two.  “I warned you not to kiss me.”

            His eyes flashed
gold, near glowing with animal lust.  He advanced on her, moving forward with
each step she took back, until bare stone trapped her from retreating.

            “Can you deny
your need?  Do you dare deny it?” he demanded, his voice hoarse with want and
desire.

            “Nothing has
changed,” she muttered.

            He snatched her
wrists before she could strike him again, pinned them to the smooth stone above
her head.  “Deny this,” he growled before he kissed her once more.

            Swan tensed,
expecting harsh punishment, but his lips were soft this time, not punishing. 
His change in tactic surprised her, and she whimpered in the back of her throat.

            He coaxed her
response, nibbling, tugging at her full bottom lip with his teeth.  She’d not
anticipated gentleness, knew that his tender urging would be her absolute undoing.

            Desire unfurled
in her belly, liquid heat trickling in her sex.  Instead of ravaging her mouth
with his hot, invading tongue, he trailed kisses along her jaw, up to her ear,
nipping the sensitive lobe.  He sucked her ear, tracing the whorls with his
tongue and igniting a fervor in her blood.

            She tried to pull
her hands free, to push him away, but she could no more do that than she could
deny her desire for his possession.  “Stop this,” she whispered, begging.

            “You don’t want
this to stop.”  He shifted, pressing his groin against her, the sensation
muffled by the mail skirt.

            Tracing the shell
of her ear, he thrust his tongue inside, and she moaned, unable to deny him any
longer.

            Raphael slowly
released her wrists, smoothing his hands down her arms.  He kissed her again,
sliding his tongue easily inside, his palm cupped behind her neck allowing no
escape.

            He tasted
incredible, like lightning, a calm before the storm—wild and untamed and
forbidden.  She wondered why she’d ever denied him her kiss, why she’d fought
against him when he felt and tasted so good that she could never get enough.

            She sucked him
greedily, hungrily, didn’t resist as he unbuckled her top, protested only when
he broke away long enough to pull it and the skirt over her head.  He untied
the scarf binding her chest, and when his palms cupped her aching breasts, she
forgot why she’d ever fought him at all.  At the pace they’d set, this would
likely be their last time together, making each heady caress bittersweet with
regret.

            He pinched her small,
dark nipples, rolling the buds between his fingers until they hardened
unbearably. 

            “The rich darkness
of your nipples begs for a taste,” he groaned, dipping his head to suckle at
her tit with his eager mouth.  She moaned, threading her hands through his
hair, enjoying the silk of his locks, the erotic, hungry pull of his hot mouth
on first one and then the other breast.

            Replacing his
mouth with his hands, he moved and kissed up the valley of her chest, nibbling
her collarbone.  Sucking her neck hard, he grazed her tender flesh with his
teeth, releasing her breasts to rip his kurt away before sliding his hands down
to cup her generous buttocks.  He grabbed each cheek with a palm, lifted her
against the cold rock wall and trapping her with the hard flesh of his body.

            Her legs spread
at the movement, opening for his hips, laying her wide and vulnerable for the
taking.  Cold air wafted across her fevered, wet cunt, making her shiver and
need his hot possession.

            She wanted him to
claim her, wanted nothing more than the feel of his shaft deep inside her.  He
teased her cleft with his nearness, so hot and hard.  The thick head of his
cock slipped down her wet slit, moving smoothly against her, driving her need
to be filled higher.

            Swan ran her
hands up his muscular, sinewy arms, touching every part she could reach, urgent
and greedy for all of him.  He groaned against the corner of her jaw, his tongue
lathing the line as he pressed the length of his shaft against her slickened
cleft.

            Swan gasped,
arching her neck, clutching his shoulders as he burned a trail down the column
of her throat.  He rotated his hips, sliding the heat of his erection along her
slit in long torturous strokes.  His cockhead nudged her swollen clit, breaking
a moan from her.

            She arched
close.  The bare lips of her cunt were teased by the jerk of his long, hot
thickness rubbing through her juices and soft flesh.  He drove her crazy,
alternating between slow wooing and rough caresses.  She never knew what to
expect with him.

            “Please,
Raphael.  Dawn....”

            He broke away
from her throat, meeting her eyes with a heady look as he pressed her to the
cavern wall and she felt the head push against the tender edges of her pussy. 
Her small hole stretched as he pushed against it, tight and hot and hard. 
Holding her gaze with his own, his eyes intense and lust-filled, he his
engorged length deep inside her with a suddenness that stunned her, left her
clenching against the onslaught of his invasion.

            Swan bit her lip
to keep from crying out as he sank fully to the hilt, bumping her cervix with
bruising force.  His hairy pubic bone ground against her swollen clit, rubbing
her roughly as grinding into her.

            Seeing his
grimace of pleasure when he settled inside struck her with an intense tension.

            “Don’t hold back
from me, Swan,” he murmured, burying his face against her neck as he pulled out
and plunged deeply once more.

            Her legs wrapped
around his hips, she could feel the tension in his hands as he supported her,
the flex of his buttocks as he moved and pumped inside her, bumping and
grinding and driving that ache deep within her slick channel.  Her stomach
contracted on a hard spasm, the pain of lust driving her to tighten her legs
around him.  She undulated her body, rolling herself against him, urging him to
faster and harder movement until his body pounded against hers and she could
hear his sac slap against her anus.

            Possessed with
the urge to please and be pleased, he moved faster and faster, each rippled
vein bumping along her channel spurning quivers to run through her body.  Swan
hooked her heels under his buttocks, tilting against him, rocking as he thrust
again and again.  She dug her nails into his back, the tremors climbing with
each pounding second.

            She could feel it
building within her, recognized the sensation intimately.  Her body tightened
involuntarily.  Every muscle and nerve reached for the pleasure as if with
grasping fingers.  He was killing her, driving her to the cliff’s edge.

            Her heart
struggled to keep her alive with the demands she placed upon it.  She couldn’t
seem to remember to breathe ... only sporadically gasping for breath when her
chest ached for air.

            He bit her neck,
piercing the skin with his sharp teeth.  In that instant, as the blood gushed
into his mouth, ecstasy rolled over her in a heart stopping wave.  Swan cried
out at the sudden , unexpected bliss.  She heard herself scream as pleasure
burst inside her like a tidal wave.  She bucked, clinging to him with
desperation, shaking and shuddering with the ripples carrying through her
liquid center and erupting from the erotic draw of his mouth.

            He pushed into
her harder as his own release neared, her orgasm building upon itself,
liquefying muscle and bone to only heat and need.  He groaned as he climaxed,
breathing raggedly against her neck as the warm seed spewed into her belly and
hot pulsing relief spasmed through her cunt.  She gripped him with her body,
milking every drop from him greedily.

            Tears streaked
her face.  She hadn’t realized that she was crying.  He lifted his head,
meeting her gaze with an unfathomable expression on his face, licking his lips.

            He lifted her
away from the wall then, remaining inside her as he settled them near the
fire.  Rolling to his back, he held her cradled atop him.  He smoothed his
hands down her back, through the hair that had fallen from her braid.

            Swan reveled in
the feel of his heart racing against her cheek, the gentle comfort of his
arms.  It couldn’t last.  Swan lifted up, regarding him with the sorrow she
felt in her spirit.  “It is the last time.  You feel it as I do.”

            “Yes,” he
whispered, cupping a hand behind her head as he brought her down to meet his
hungry, sorrowful kiss.  Emotion hovered under the surface, elusive to her, out
of reach.

            Swan pulled away,
moved from atop him.  She draped a leg over his, cuddled against his chest. 
She feared the change as never before, knowing when next she awoke, their fates
would finally be decided.

CHAPTER TEN

            Raphael lay with
Swan until she fell into a deep sleep as she always did before the change.  At
the sound of her even breathing, he slipped from under the drape of her arms
and legs.  He tied his kurt around his hips, standing over her, caressing her
sleeping form with his gaze, drawn to her soft curves, warm brown skin, and the
cloud of her honey brown hair spread beneath her.

            Her thick black
lashes curled against her cheeks, making her seem at peace.

            Looking on her,
he could forget their differences, what had drawn them together, yet pushed
them apart.  He hated Morvere for what he’d done, but had he not, Raphael would
never have known her.  A fierce ache blossomed with the knowledge, undeniable.

            He knelt and
touched her cheek, brushing a strand of hair from her lips.  They parted on a
sigh, drawing him unerringly forward to taste her again.  He leaned to kiss her
once more.  Their breath mingled as one.  He pulled away, pained, and left her,
unable to be near when she shifted into the graceful bird.

            He walked quietly
through the cavern to the outside, leaned against the lip’s edge as he watched
fingers of dawn creep across the darkened sky.  He rubbed his eyes, lack of
sleep and their insane pace wearying him.  An hour of rest would set him to
rights, for then he could heal torn muscle ravaged by near constant running.

            “She changes?”
Syrian asked, drawing his attention.  He was crouched on a crop of rock,
looking out toward Shadowmere as the light slowly pulled back the blanket of
dark.

            “Yes,” he said,
his voice soft.  Raphael stepped from the edge, moved until bare rock stood at
his back.

            Syrian stretched
and faced him.  He’d been silent most of the journey, withdrawing into his mind
to prepare facing Morvere and disabling the Lysian pool.  “She accepted
punishment?”

            Raphael laughed,
a harsh bark of sound.  There’d been no punishment except his own.  Touching
her was pure torture ... when he knew he could never be with her, not forever
as he longed.  He leaned against the sheer rock, gratified to feel its rough
hardness dig into his back.  Pain kept him alert, alive.  He’d do well to
remember that fact.

            “She needs you,
Raphael.  You more than anyone know the ways of women.”

            Truth, he
couldn’t deny.  But Swan blinded him.  He couldn’t think straight when she was
near, and her persistent denial infuriated him like nothing else.  “I take her
to Avonleigh when this is through.  A wolf cannot love a swan.”

            “She will not
always be so.”

            “She will always
be human.  Her heart is against the beast.  No mark can change her will--and I
cannot force her to see what she will not.”

            Syrian looked
thoughtful a moment.  “Love coaxes.  Force can only destroy.”

            Raphael grunted. 
“You do not know Swan.  I can see with my own eyes.”

            “You are as
blinded by pride as she is.”  Syrian rose, stretching muscles tired from
holding his position so long.  “I’ll see to Swan.  The bird likes not the scent
of a predator.”

            He nodded,
watched Syrian go inside.  That was wholly the problem--he was a threat to
Swan, a threat to her way of life.  He turned back to the sky, disturbed to
have his faults laid out before him, faults that couldn’t be changed.