The Soothing Scent Of Earth (Elemental Awakening, Book 2) (15 page)

"Theo," I complained.

"
Feel
it, Casey," he urged. "
Feel
your soul's desire."

Frustrated, I shook all over with unfulfilled longing. I had him, but then I didn't. Because in all reality, he had me.

He muttered a few words in Greek when it was obvious I wasn't able to see meaning in his words. Then with one dip of that glorious head of midnight dark hair, his tongue flicked over my nub, lips wrapping around it securely and he sucked hard. His fingers pumping, his teeth nibbling, I broke apart in a beautiful array of glorious colours. Fire surged within me, curled around my heart, flushed my entire body and then stretched out its arms and beckoned Theo.

Oh.

Now I got it. His
Stoicheio
blended with mine, his gasp and guttural groan let me know I'd caught him, and then in a move so quick I couldn't track it, he rose above my body, all flexing muscles and sleek shining bronzed Adonis. His arm wrapped around my shoulders, as a hand landed on my hip and lifted my rear off the bed's surface.

Then with golden eyes holding my heavily lidded ones, I felt him brace at my entrance. The hot, pulsing, hard tip of his erection straining for entry.

"Good?" he asked, panting for breath and fighting his control.

"Fantastic," I replied, meaning every word.

"Debt paid," he murmured and rocked his hips sinking himself deep inside.

I stretched to accommodate him fully, he worked himself a few times in and out to ensure he was as deep as he could go, and then his lips came down on mine in a bruising, possessive kiss.

He never stopped the rhythmic pump of his pelvis, piercing me completely with each hard thrust in, adding to the sensation of being consumed with the synchronised thrust of his tongue inside my mouth. I groaned and he swallowed it down. I writhed beneath him and he met each movement with a corresponding rock of his hips, thrust of his hard length inside, press of his chest against mine.

He pulled back to let us suck in much needed air, but never faulted his movements where we met. His lips trailed over my slick skin, licking, sucking, teeth grazing.

His mouth reached my ear and he whispered, "You stole all reason last night. I have never,
ever
taken and not given in return. Your
Stoicheio
owned me.
You
owned me." His pace increased as his words became moans, from either frustration or mounting desire. "The things we can do together,
Thisavros
. The things we will make each other feel."

A groan, a circular twirl of his hips and then a grind in exactly the right spot and I detonated.

Theo shouted out, then his
Stoicheio
wrapped around mine, fuelling me, fuelling him. Mine rose to meet it in a dance that burned brighter than the stars, hotter than the sun. It consumed us. It melded us into one. It made us become something else, together.

"Oh yes, Casey," Theo groaned in abandon, his hips pumping in an erratic, entirely out of control way. Hard, fast, possessive.

I felt him strain; his entire body from his sweat slicked back, to his strong, thick thighs, to the hard, enormous length of him buried inside. His eyes met mine, gold intertwined with the gold. And he bared his teeth in a predatory warning.

"I claim you,
Thisavros
," he growled and dipped his head down, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh at the side of my neck, right where it meets my collarbone.

Fire coursed through my body, through our bodies, out into the room. A blaze of flames flared up around us, the sheets of the bed catching alight, as the smoke alarms in the ceiling started to wail and we both teetered on the edge of the abyss, and then fell over.

Theo shouted his release to the heavens, the feel of where he had bitten sinking deep into my bones, my being, my soul. I screamed as my orgasm matched his, my fingers digging into his flesh leaving curved marks of my own on his skin.

"Mine," I growled, unsure where that insistent and urgent demand came from.

Theo's movements slowed, his eyes came down to meet mine again and a smile spread across his beautiful, sated looking face.

"Oh yes, sweet little Casey Eden. We are
Thisavros
to the other.
Nothing
can ever sever this bond. Mine," he said with a purposeful rock of his hips. And then he added, as if it was just an afterthought, "Call the Fire off, Casey. You're going to burn the hotel down."

Me? I did this? I stared around the bed, noting the scorched sheets, and burned pillows, and smoke darkened ceiling above our heads. Sucking in a deep breath I concentrated  on pulling my
Stoicheio
back towards me, which was easier than anticipated. I felt Theo shudder above me, still inside me, and then the various fires in the room snuffed out and the alarms went silent.
Pyrkagia
swirled around us briefly, then dissipated into the heated air.

Theo chuckled at the look of shock and wonder on my face.

"Lesson number two, my little spitfire," he whispered, bracing himself above my body, but not retreating from inside me just yet. "
Pyrkagia Thisavros
couplings can get a little out of hand. If you intend to give yourself over completely to the moment, choose your location well."

I stared at him for a long second and the only thought that unwillingly entered my head, was that we'd never experienced what we had just shared before; when I was just
Gi
and he was
Pyrkagia
. Yet he must have felt the same abandon with others of his kind... such as Isadora.

My face fell and I watched as he began frowning.

"Casey?" he queried softly.

"Will someone come to investigate the alarms?" I asked, instead of revealing the pain that settled in my heart.

"I shielded us from most," he replied, a smattering of tension setting up throughout his frame. I had the distinct impression it wasn't from my sudden change of mood, but more to do with what he'd just said. Or tried not to say.

"Most?" I asked, my body now made of stone, not flesh and blood and the after effects of heated passion.

Theo swore in Greek, ran a frustrated hand through his hair and then braced himself above me again, elbows on either side of my head, chest and body blanketing mine. He'd made a cage of himself around my much smaller frame, determined I wouldn't escape what he admitted next.

"I can hide us from humans and other
Ekmetalleftis
branches, but a
Pyrkagia
would have felt our
Stoicheio
." He hurried on when he saw the mortified look on my face. "They may not have determined that we entwined, but they will be aware one of their own lost control of their Element."

I arched my brow at him, refusing to acknowledge the softening of the blow he'd just attempted, and said, "Just as well there's only one other
Pyrkagia
in the vicinity then, isn't it? Shame though, that she's your
ex-lover
." I spat that last.

"Cassandra," he said firmly, only to be interrupted by a loud knock on the door. He growled, pulled out of me suddenly and proceeded to don his robe. I lifted up the sheet, with all its various scorch marks, to cover my body, but still felt entirely too naked right then.

Theo cast one last annoyed glance my way and then crossed to the door. He opened it only slightly, so whoever was on the other side couldn't see the destruction which had taken place in our room.

"Is everything all right, Theodoros?" Isadora asked, innocently. Too freaking innocently.

I scrambled off the bed and grabbed my own robe, wrapping it around me in short angry movements. Theo flicked a look over his shoulder at me and his frown deepened.

Well, fuck you too, I thought, and stormed into the bathroom, determined not to hear his explanation to his ex.

Why the friggin' hell was she here? Did he really have to bring that wretched woman? For crying out loud, she sold him out to the
Pyrkagia
Council. To the
Rigas,
Theo's uptight, tyrant of a father. How could he even look her in the face and not want to punch her? I sure as hell felt the desire to give her a slap or two, mar that perfect beauty, bring her cocky smug smirk down a peg or two.

And whoa? Where had this anger come from? I mean, I understood why I was angry, but I'm not normally the sort of person to burst into an uncontrollable rage. I'm more the seethe-silently type, or most of the time, when of sound mind, the go-with-the-flow type.

Right now I was the volcano-about-to-erupt type.

I angrily turned the taps on in the shower and waited with arms crossed over chest for the water to heat up. My foot tapped agitatedly on the tile floor, the room heated up with every beat of my sole to ceramic. I realised, with a small smile of bemusement, that it wasn't just the heat of the shower that was causing the temperature to rise. It was me. The
Pyrkagia
me.

I let a long breath of air out and worked on loosening the tension in my shoulders. There was a potted plant in the corner of the luxurious room, so I crossed to it and wrapped fingers around the smooth, silky leaf of the palm. Earth soothed me, whispered soft words to settle the inferno that still threatened to blaze inside.

God I was a freak. A soft, gentle
Gi
mixed with a hot-headed
Pyrkagia
. I started to laugh. At this rate I was going to have a personality crisis.

"Casey?" Theo asked through the closed bathroom door, surprising me that he hadn't just barged on in. "Are you OK,
Oraia?
"

I walked to the door and opened it, my eyes connecting with his as if drawn by magnetic pull. A force neither of us could deny. Isadora stood in the far corner of the room, glancing around entranced at the damage we'd caused. Any sense of quiet I had achieved communing with the pot plant was blasted with a surge of pure fury.

"You let her in the room?!" I demanded, hands fisted on hips.

Theo jerked back slightly, his eyes scanning my face, searching for something that clearly was no longer there.

"Do you have no sense of self preservation?" I asked, and a small twitch appeared in the corner of his lips. Which only infuriated me further.

"Dora brought breakfast," he actually said. Obviously quite incapable of reading the atmosphere right then.

"Dora brought breakfast,"
I repeated, pronouncing each word carefully, as though the effort required was almost too much.

"It's quite late," he pointed out. "You slept for twelve hours. We need to get a move on," he added, as though all of this was relevant.

It wasn't.

What was though... "And this is on the advice of
Dora?
"

"Casey," he said, trying unsuccessfully to smother a laugh. "We are still in
Gi
territory." The laugh increased in rumble when I growled out loud.

"Shall I come back later," Isadora asked pleasantly over Theo's shoulder, her stunning hazel eyes catching mine. She smirked.

Oh, hell no! "Not at all," I said, attempting to sound reasonable and unaffected, just as Theo muttered, "Perhaps it would be best."

His eyes flicked to mine, he seemed confused.

"The sooner we get this over with, the sooner she crawls back into her little hole and dies," I hissed, taking a step back and slamming the door in his face.

My body shook, my hands trembled as they covered my face and the groan of mortification that escaped my lips sounded wounded. What the hell was wrong with me?

I heard some indistinct voices from out in the hotel room, and then a door shutting firmly. I hadn't moved an inch, other than to cover my face with my hands. The door to the bathroom opened and Theo stepped in.

"She's gone," he announced, taking a long look at me behind my spread fingers.

I sucked in breath after breath feeling like I didn't know myself anymore.

"What's wrong with me?" I asked in a plaintive whisper.

"Oh,
Oraia
," Theo murmured, crossing the space between us and wrapping me up in his arms. He placed a soft kiss in amongst my hair. "
Athanatos
are predators. Even the steady
Gi
. I am yours," he whispered. "You felt your possession threatened." His lips curved up against the skin on my head. "It was really quite sweet."

"Sweet," I grumbled against his chest, sounding defeated.

"Sexy," he replied.

"Make up your mind, Theo. I'm either an incompetent sweet thing, or a confident sexy thing. I can't be both."

He laughed outright at that, his whole body shaking as he tightened his hold on my frame.

"Casey," he said between chuckles. "You have always been the sweetest, sexiest woman I have ever met. Well before I knew what you were."