JaguarintheSun (5 page)

Without thought, with only the flaring need to feel his body
against hers driving her, she pulled her hands from beneath his shirt to reach
up and grasp the front. With one strong, desperate yank, she tore the placket
open, sending buttons flying everywhere.

Maybe he felt the same way, for the edges of her dress
suddenly sagged apart, the tie undone with a swirl of magic. Putting her arms
around his waist, Cassie tried to reel him in, but Xbal was immovable, holding
himself away, kissing her with a mingling of finesse and wild abandon she found
unbearably erotic.

Tugging harder got her nowhere, and she dug her nails into
the taut muscles of his back, earning a rumbling moan from Xbal. He pulled his
head away just enough to break the kiss, staying so close his lips brushed hers
as he said, “Wait.”

“For what?” Cassie made sure her mouth caressed his in
return as she asked.

As though unable to resist, Xbal sipped at her lips—once,
twice, a third time—before replying.

“For me to get your beautiful body naked. For me to look my
fill, touch you, taste you.”

As he spoke he straightened and slid his hands beneath the
parted edges of her dress, above her breasts. The heat of his skin on hers made
Cassie gasp silently and arch into his palms, but instead of sliding his hands
down to cover her aching nipples Xbal moved them up, pushing her dress off her
shoulders. As much as she wanted to get naked with him, it was almost painful
to let him go to facilitate getting the sleeves down her arms. All she wanted
was to have him as close as possible.

He got the tight sleeves partway down and paused, his gaze
slipping down to devour her body just as effectively as his lips had consumed
her mouth. The tightening of his fingers on her upper arms, the flare of desire
in his eyes and his low moan of appreciation made her shiver with anticipation.
It would be easy to pull the sleeves the rest of the way off herself but she
stayed where she was, arms trapped slightly behind her body, basking in the
heat of Xbal’s perusal. Passivity wasn’t her usual style. She liked being an
active participant during sex and still wanted, oh so badly, to experience the
feel of his body against hers. Yet here, now, it felt right to let him take the
lead, to lie back against the door with her back slightly arched, breasts
thrust out, offering herself up for his delectation.

Xbal took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring slightly as he
did.

“Gorgeous,” he growled. His gaze still tracked along her
body, flicking over her legs and torso, bringing the sparks of arousal beneath
her skin to full burn. Cassie couldn’t remember ever feeling as beautiful—or as
wanted—as she did in that moment. Couldn’t recall ever craving a man as much as
she craved Xbal.

“Are you just going to look?”

Try as she might to make the words amused and inviting, they
came out rushed and breathy—far needier than she intended.

Releasing her arms, Xbal flicked open the clasp at the front
of her bra, holding on to the edges of the cups to slowly let them part. The
spidersilk got caught on her nipples, the soft brush and minute drag making her
gasp, and he left it clinging there. His eyelids lifted, and she found herself
once more held captive by the dark enticement of his gaze.

“No.” Stark need and blatant intent made the word scrape
across her consciousness, sending a shock of fire along her spine. “Now I make
you mine.”

Xbal’s words echoed between them, but he gave Cassie no
chance to respond. Between one heartbeat and the next she found his lips next
to her ear, felt the soft caress of his fingers at her neck.

“I’m going to learn your body now, Cassie. Touch and kiss
and lick every inch of your flesh, as I’ve wanted to for so long. No
atraspa
between us, just my lips and tongue and fingers on you, your scent and taste
and softness filling my senses, making me crazy.”

She shuddered at the words, the warm, moist heat of his
breath and brush of his lips, her body clenching with a shockwave of pre-orgasmic
strength. Her head started to swim and it was only then she realized she’d
forgotten to inhale. All she had time to do was drag in a tremulous draught of
air before his lips drifted to her neck and he spoke again.

“I’ve watched you so often, wondering what your skin would
feel like against my lips. Stood next to you, inhaling your sweet scent,
wishing I could get closer, hold you, know you wanted me the way I wanted you.”
He brushed his mouth in a soft, searing motion from the sensitive hollow beneath
her ear down to the base of her throat. When he continued the words vibrated
into her bloodstream, like a drug she couldn’t resist. “You’re everything I
dreamed and more. So much more. You overwhelm me. Bring out the beast in me.”

Oh she wanted that beast, the one she heard snarling beneath
the words, the one she was sure would take her body to heights she didn’t know
it could reach. But she’d lost the ability to speak from the moment he’d begun
this slow, inexorable seduction and her lungs had forgotten how to take in air
or let it out in even, brain-sustaining breaths. All she was capable of were
these short, desperate gulps rushing in and just as quickly back out. All she
could do was stay still, letting him take whatever he would, surrendering to the
overwhelming demand of his mouth.

He circled her neck with kisses and hot, tender flicks of
his tongue, his hair brushing her cheeks and shoulders as he moved from place
to place, the harsh rush of his breathing filling her ears and adding to the
sensations.

Lingering over the sun sign low on the side of her throat,
he murmured, “How many tattoos do you have?”

It was a mark of how far gone she was already that she had
to force her brain to come up with the number. “Twenty-six.”

“I’m going to find and kiss each one.” He slicked his tongue
around the tiny symbol, then continued. “And if I lose count, I’ll just have to
start again.”

But it seemed he was in no hurry to start cataloging her
ink. A lifetime seemed to pass as he explored just that one part of her body,
and the escalation of desire was measured in almost torturous increments. A
small rise when his teeth scraped the now-straining tendon at the side of her
neck, a little more as his lips feathered along the line of her jaw. A swift
rush as he moved to where her shoulder began, finding a spot she never knew
could be an erogenous zone and sucking on it until she arched in silent
desperation.

“I can’t get enough of you.” Xbal rubbed his lips along her
collarbone as he spoke, then brushed his cheek against it too. Cassie clenched
her teeth, the rasp of his faint stubble so deliciously rough on her skin. “I
want everything you have to give, and I’ll do everything I can to get it.”

She heard him, part of her understanding the words and their
attendant danger. But instead of shaking her out of the spell he seemed to have
cast on her the implication just pulled her deeper in. Cassie wanted him to do
his worst, his best, wanted to revel in it, take as much from him as he seemed
set to take from her.

When his lips moved lower, toward her breast, she almost
cried with relief, strung so tight she was already on the edge of falling
apart. She needed his attention on her nipples, her pussy. Needed rescuing from
the lust he’d already churned into a frenzy.

“Not yet, Cassandra.” His words seemed to come from far
away, percolating into her fogged brain and making her shiver with the agonized
realization he wasn’t about to offer her surcease. “Give me a little more time,
sweetheart, and it will be better for the wait.”

I don’t want to wait!

Yet the words couldn’t pass her throat, and her back bowed
in supplication as his mouth slipped between her breasts, lingering there for a
moment before moving to her trembling stomach. As he licked and nipped at her,
teased her bellybutton with the tip of his tongue, Cassie tried to lift her leg
to put it over his shoulder, but found she didn’t have the strength. While her
insides burned and quaked with need, her limbs were weighed-down, useless,
trembling appendages. No longer did she think she had the strength to pull the
leather sleeves down her arms. Nor could her legs do anything more than hold
her up—and even that was becoming harder with each sweet swipe of his tongue
over her skin.

As though sensing her growing weakness, Xbal slid his hands
beneath the leather dress and cupped her bottom.

“By the Heavens, I love your ass.” His fingers kneading and
palms pressing her cheeks apart made Cassie’s toes curl in her boots. “So plump
and soft, just made to be adored. I can’t wait to give it the attention it
deserves.”

By Sol
, she was going to die, any minute now, if he
kept saying things like that to her. How easy it was to imagine that talented
tongue of his rimming her, getting her ready for his cock. Or being fucked from
behind, the roughness of his thrusts into her pussy punctuated by equally hard
slaps on her tender flesh.

Then the images fled like pixie dust in the wind as Xbal
traced a hot, wet arc from her stomach, across her hipbone to her upper thigh,
stopping just on the crease where hip and leg met. Just one small kiss away
from her mound. But instead of going closer, giving her what she craved, Xbal
leaned back.

“I want to look at you.” His fingers were at the elastic top
of her panties and already pulling them down as he spoke. “Let me see your
sweet pussy, baby. I’ve imagined doing that for so long. Don’t deny me the
chance.”

He was pleading, as though she could or would deny him
anything now. As though the thought of his voracious gaze trained on her cunt
didn’t take her straight to the quivering edge of orgasm.

Through the fog of her desire she felt her underwear catch
on the tops of her boots, heard him say something she didn’t need to understand
to know was a profanity. Getting the minute triangle of spidersilk down to her
ankles, he lifted her left foot and tugged the thong free. Then he raised that
foot higher, until the sole was resting on his shoulder, and pushed her knee
out, holding it there as his other hand returned to cup her ass. There was a
rush of cool air against the heated flesh between her thighs and Cassie
realized she was spread open to his gaze, just as he’d wanted.

“Ah, fuck…” Xbal’s voice trailed away into a sound redolent
with such hunger it caused her cunt to spasm with pleasure. “By the Heavens, you’re
so beautiful, all wet and flushed, your clit so hard it wouldn’t take more than
a touch to make you come.”

Yes. That was all it would take, all she needed. She tilted
her hips closer to him, widening her legs as much as she could, hoping he’d
give it to her—give her that one kiss, the one flick of his tongue she craved.

“Oh, sweetheart. I wish you could see yourself like this,
wish you could feel how much harder I get when I look at you, when your scent
fills my head, makes my mouth water.”

The hand on her knee slid up along the inside of her thigh
and the leg she was standing on turned to water. It was only Xbal’s strength
holding her aloft now, only the hand on her ass stopping her from melting to
the floor. With his palm on her thigh, he delicately thumbed her outer labia
farther open and groaned at the expanded view.

“Look at that,” he crooned, the words a low, growled
whisper. “Just look at that.”

He wasn’t talking to her, but suddenly she wanted to see if
his face reflected the appreciation and longing echoing in his voice. She
needed to know if he truly wanted her that way—with the all-encompassing
passion she heard in his words. Forcing her eyelids open, Cassie looked down to
where Xbal knelt at her feet.

She hardly recognized him.

Gone was the cool, suave man she’d come to know. In his
place was a disheveled, flushed, beautiful god—hair in disarray, shirt torn
open, a light slick of perspiration glistening on his skin. Taut flesh
highlighted every plane and hollow of his face, desire revealing the untamed
side of his character he usually kept so carefully hidden. Just the sight of
him adoring her body, touching her so gently, made her soul blossom and her
arousal take on a sharper, yet also tenderer edge.

Xbal lifted his gaze to her face and Cassie lost herself in
his eyes—so dark now the tiny ring of light-brown around the edge glowed. It
was like looking into the heart of a solar eclipse, seeing eternity and
wanting, so badly, to become a part of it.

“Will you trust me, Cassandra?” The hint of an accent in his
voice was more noticeable now, but there was no mistaking the mixture of appeal
and command. “Trust me to take you where you’ve never been before?”

He already had, but she wasn’t prepared to admit that—could
hardly bear to admit it to herself, much less to him—and wished she had the
control to say something, to hide just how badly affected she was by what
they’d shared so far. It was, she knew, a forlorn hope. Sagging against the
door, scarcely able to stand, her body shivering uncontrollably with need,
there was no doubt he knew exactly how close he’d taken her to release without
even a touch on the more intimate parts of her body. What did he plan to do
next, that he demanded her agreement? Just wondering made her even weaker with
lust, had her thinking she shouldn’t say yes, shouldn’t take the chance of
finding out exactly how much further he could push her.

She nodded.

Xbal smiled and Cassie’s heart turned over, began to pound
even harder at that expression of mingled triumph and delight.

Still holding her gaze, he crouched lower, dipped his head
and she caught a glimpse of his tongue as he dampened his lips. She shuddered,
tilting her hips to open even wider for him, ravenous for the pleasure his eyes
so freely promised.

Slick heat circling the entrance to her pussy had her head
dropping back, her spine arching as she attempted to get closer to his wicked
mouth. Holding her almost immobilized, Xbal flicked and slipped his tongue
along her outer lips, through her folds, everywhere but on her clitoris, which
pulsed in time to her racing heart. Just one lick there, she knew, and she’d be
gone—blasted into the stratosphere—so she writhed and squirmed, trying to get
him to do it, hoping he’d slip, take pity, have mercy on her overwrought body. But
Xbal was a master tormentor. He wasn’t allowing her to mess with whatever
diabolical plan he had in store. Over and over again he circled around the
straining bundle of nerves, never touching, never giving her more than a hint
of what he could do if he concentrated his focus there.

Just ask for it.

Somehow she knew if she did, he’d give her what she craved,
take her over the top, but the part of her psyche she kept just for herself,
that she never allowed anyone to access, wouldn’t allow it. Giving in, begging,
would be crossing a line she’d drawn for herself, and couldn’t afford to cross.
So she stayed silent, even as her body tried to speak for her and inside she
was screaming,
please, please, please
.

Was this what he’d meant when he said he’d make her beg? Did
he think she was so weak she’d give in just because he’d refused to give her
the satisfaction she wanted?

She wished she could convince herself she wouldn’t beg soon
if he didn’t take her to orgasm. Realistically, she was on the verge of doing
just that and the realization should have made her angry, should cause her
desperate need to abate, but it didn’t.

By Sol, I’m lost.

He pulled away slightly, leaving her shivering and bereft,
her hips pulsing in his grip.

“Are you ready, darling?” His breath rushed over her, warm
even against the heat and dampness between her quivering thighs. “Trust me. I
promise, it’ll be worth it.”

Cassie couldn’t reply, so it was just as well he didn’t wait
for an answer. His thumb moved to the top of her cleft and pulled up, the
shifting of the flesh over her clitoris so sublime it took her up onto her
toes. He’d pulled back the hood, she knew, exposing the sensitive, engorged
flesh beneath.

She held her breath.

But she wasn’t prepared for the first touch of his tongue,
for it wasn’t soft and slick but slightly rough, and Cassie realized he was
tapping into his jaguar nature, the texture of his tongue changed by a partial
shift. The shock of it made the desperate need to come retreat, even as her
body accepted and derived a strange type of pleasure from the unexpected pain.

And as he continued, his tongue rasping gently over her
clitoris, the pressure inside began to build again, stronger and more insistent
although very different from before. It was as though her body refused to find
release, even though it couldn’t help being stimulated by the sensation,
working itself up to a state of hypersensitivity but shutting down the
mechanism by which it could orgasm. Cassie tried to close her thighs, to lower
her leg, but Xbal held her in an unbreakable grip and it was a halfhearted
effort at best. She wanted it to stop, but never wanted it to stop. She wanted
the excruciating pleasure, but also yearned desperately for the culmination it
couldn’t provide.

The contradictions were almost too much for her to take,
pushing her into a place where the entire world shrank to just Xbal between her
legs and the slow, hot, painfully decadent slide of his tongue. Her body went
rigid, the only movements a jerk of her hips to meet each determined swipe of
his tongue. Behind eyelids screwed tightly shut with passion flashed remembered
images of Xbal—talking, laughing, looking at her with amusement, interest,
annoyance—each one a precious taste of the man controlling her every desire
now. And she could imagine the picture they made together, with her spread open
for him, bound in her dress, helpless to resist the beautiful man between her
thighs. Unable but, most importantly,
unwilling
to resist.