Dark Destiny (23 page)

Destiny felt an answering wildness rising in her. Clothes seemed a foreign intrusion, a heavy weight she could no longer bear against her sensitive skin. The thin lace of her bra chafed her skin, prevented his heated gaze from caressing her. Even as his hands caught her waist and he bent his dark head, dragging her body to him, she reached behind her to undo the tiny clasp.

His mouth closed over her breast, wildly hot and moist, suckling right through the thin lace, his teeth scraping gently, expertly so that she cried out and cradled his head to her. Destiny's knees nearly buckled, the sensation was so strong, so overwhelming. Her fists clenched in the thick silk of his hair, holding him to her while his tongue danced and stroked and his mouth pulled strongly, creating a burning, throbbing pool of need in her deepest core. The friction of the lace and the heat of his mouth drove her crazy. She arced into him, giving herself up to sheer pleasure.

When he lifted his head to attend to her other breast, the scrap of lace floated freely to the ground. His lips found bare flesh, ravishing her with his mouth alone. His tongue lavished attention on her, teeth teasing until she cried out, her fists tugging at his hair. She really was going to fall. There was no way to stand up; all strength had drained from her legs. Only his arms held her up.

He bent her back slightly, teasing, lapping, suckling, loving, lusting after her. Going up in flames. His hands shifted, tracing the contours of her body. She had full breasts, a narrow waist and flaring hips designed to be cradled by his body.

"How can it be like this?" she gasped. "I never knew it would be like this." A wildfire out of control. A fierce firestorm neither could ever put out. They had started it, and it burned bright and hot and perfect. She was melting, her body soft and pliant with need. She wanted his touch—more, needed it. There was never going to be enough time for them to be together. She was in another world, another time and place, far from the realities of what her life had become.

She heard her own gasp as his tongue lapped the underside of her breast. Her stomach clenched. There was only feeling, wonderful, pure feeling.

"My clothes," he said against her flat belly. "My clothes are killing me, Destiny. Take them off for me."

It was his voice again. That perfect sensuality. That urgent need. Destiny found it impossible to resist him. Her gaze dropped to the front of his pants. The material was stretched far too tight. Her heart leapt. In fear or anticipation? Destiny wasn't certain which emotion was predominant, but that thick bulge drew her attention immediately. She couldn't resist brushing her hand across the hard evidence of his need. When he jumped, she closed her hand over the bulge, pressing into him. He was hot, throbbing. He grew larger, swelling into her palm.

Keeping her hand in place, she removed his clothing in the manner she had grown accustomed to, using her mind, rather than her hands. Her palm found hot flesh, hard, iron in velvet. Nicolae sucked in his breath, murmured something against her soft skin. His teeth scraped erotically, tugged and teased, his tongue swirling to ease every ache.

"Your clothes." His voice had dropped an octave, was huskier, a little rougher than before. The touch of his mouth on her stomach left behind a trail of fire everywhere he touched. "Get rid of them." His hips were pushing forward, thrusting deeper, filling her palm. "I need them off of you." His hands were pushing at her clothing, trying to be gentle when he wanted to tear the offending material from her lush body.

Her fingers squeezed, danced, played lightly over the hard length of him, taking pleasure in what she was doing to him, feeling the bursting fire in his veins through their mind merge. Colors seemed to sparkle around them; there were tiny sparks behind her eyelids. She allowed herself to drift further into the world of sensuality, into Nicolae's world of heat and passion.

Destiny felt the heat of the flames, watched the shadows they cast on the wall. A man bending over a woman's body. Her breasts thrust upward in invitation, his head down as he explored her offering. It was an erotic image, a shocking one when she considered she was part of it. Watching the shadowy figures, she allowed her cotton jeans and scrap of lace underwear to slide away from her body, watched them simply disappear, leaving her skin to skin with Nicolae.

His hands moved possessively over her hips, her buttocks, smoothing, kneading, exploring. His fingers nestled in tight curls, causing her to gasp, her body tightening in anticipation. The need was building to a terrible urgency.

Destiny had no choice but to circle his neck with her arms. Her knees buckled as his finger dipped lower with a long, caressing stroke.
Nicolae
!

He waved his hand toward the earth and flowers sprang up, thousands of soft petals to cushion her body as he floated them easily to the waiting bed. She could feel the petals on her skin, velvet soft, rubbing against her body. Nicolae's weight settled over her, his mouth once more fastening to hers.

At once they were melting together, fusing with heat and fire. Somewhere between love and lust. His hands were everywhere, claiming her body for his own. She felt helpless under the onslaught, nearly sobbing with the urgency of her body's need. It was an unfamiliar, alien feeling, as if someone else were in her skin, in her mind, and she was going along on this journey of erotic sensuality.

His mouth hardened, taking command, driving out all thoughts until she was back to feeling. His hands skimmed her body, rested between her legs so that she throbbed and pulsed and shifted restlessly, forever seeking more. She needed more.

Destiny was in a world of feeling and love. It surrounded her, embraced her, a perfect paradise. But the snake began an insidious attack, slithering into her perfect world and bringing images she couldn't stop: the feeling of being held down, locked beneath another, much heavier body; her soft cries of pleasure were drowned out by the agonized scream of a child. She forced her mind away from the nightmare images, determined to recapture the perfect sense of sharing with Nicolae.

Nicolae was in her mind, heightening her pleasure when her heart began to pound too hard and fear thrust its way back into her world. When the nightmare images strayed too close, he kissed her again and again, pushing the memories back. He kissed her, his hands gently exploring until she was hot and moist with wanting him, her body accepting of his. Still he was careful, taking his time when the beast inside roared for more, roared for possession. Very gently he pushed his finger into her, slowly, careful of her tightness, not wanting her to experience discomfort. Her small muscles clenched around him and her body shuddered with the intensity of pleasure. Her hips pushed against him instinctively.

Nicolae bent his head and kissed her stomach as he slowly, inch by inch, slid two fingers deep inside her. She gasped, caught at his silken hair as it slid over her sensitized skin. Her hips began a slow rhythm, following the lead of his hand.

Sizzling heat swept through her. She wanted to grind her body against him. And when he withdrew, she cried out, needing him to fill her. His hands pushed her thighs apart; his hips took their place between hers. At once her heart jumped. She felt vulnerable and open. His weight as he stretched out above her pinned her in place. Instinctively she shifted out from him, but his leg stopped her sudden movement. He was strong. Far stronger than she'd first thought. His leg pinned her thigh, holding her down.

The strange roaring in her mind became louder. The mouth on her was tender, loving, but it couldn't prevent the memories of teeth puncturing her flesh, biting unnaturally, the all-powerful man ramming something far too large into her tiny body over and over, slamming her to the ground, throwing her over a boulder, taking her from behind, uncaring of her screams, reveling in her pain and humiliation. She recalled the blood she'd slipped in, lain in, all around her, the dead body with the open eyes staring into hers as he took her over and over again.

She gasped, cried out, stiffening in shock. Her breath was coming far too fast.

"Wait—please, I'm sorry, just wait a minute." Destiny tunneled her fingers in his hair. "Wait, Nicolae. We're going too fast. Slow down." She didn't want to slow down. She was burning up. Even as she pleaded with him, her hips moved against him, a blatant invitation she couldn't prevent. She needed him buried deep inside her; that was the only solution for the terrible building pressure she felt. But the images in her mind were tenacious. She wanted Nicolae's hands and mouth to remove the images for her, not invoke them. She wanted the ecstasy of his body to take away every nightmare memory.

Nicolae felt the disturbing images of death and madness moving through her mind, moving through his. He felt her partial withdrawal, felt her tremendous physical need so at odds with her mental hesitation. At once he lifted his head, moved his leg to allow her freedom. "We can slow down. I could spend hours just touching you. Or holding you. Or kissing you." He found her mouth with his, blazing his brand of possession straight on her heart.

Destiny was stiff beneath him, but his mouth held familiar heat and his hands were gentle as they wandered over her body. He was patient starting over, kissing her until she was breathless and kissing him back. Until her body slowly began to relax. Until she was hungry for him again. Until the brush of his fingers on her skin sent tiny flames dancing and singing through her body.

Nicolae shifted once more, his knee sliding between hers, nudging her legs apart so that he was pressed tightly against her. She could feel him there, at her entrance, where she was ready with a moist invitation, beckoning and tempting him to her. A small sound escaped. She couldn't find enough air to breathe.

"What is it, little one?" His voice came out of the darkness, velvet soft, his hands skimming her body with exquisite tenderness. "Where are you going?" She was tensing up beneath his hands and he couldn't bear it, couldn't bear to let her go. He fed her his heightened awareness, his own desire, slowing his own heartbeat to aid her in accepting him. He moved his body away from hers to give her time to accept what was between them.

Fighting his instinctual need to exchange blood, he feathered a trail of kisses from her throat to her abdomen. His mouth was on her flat stomach, his tongue swirled around her belly button, that intriguing sexy dimple he had so greatly admired. Her hands stroked his back, her body softening slightly, once more preparing to surrender to him.

Destiny was determined to give herself wholly to him, to take him for herself. She had been alone too long, needed him too much. He was everything she had ever dreamed about. She would do this!

Laughter hissed in her ear, evil and taunting. The monstrous creature was dragging her by her hair as she fought him, pounding into her, heedless of his size and strength. Uncaring of her broken bones. Uncaring of tearing her body in half. The pain was beyond anything she had ever experienced, and it was endless, trapping her there. She felt the taste of blood in her mouth as he forced her to drink from that dark, corrupt well. It was an acid burning her throat, her stomach, a blowtorch burning her from the inside out.
You will be like me
. The stench was overwhelming, part of the madness of her existence. Evil permeated her pores, seeped into her from him.

Abruptly she pulled her mind away, tears leaking out of her closed eyes. She wanted this. She ached for Nicolae with every fiber of her being. He was as necessary to her as breathing. She wanted him, but darkness was descending and her lungs refused to work. A heavy stone was crushing her chest; hands seemed to be gripping her throat, strangling her. She could have stopped Nicolae long ago, but she had insisted. She was unclean. She would always be unclean. Nicolae's love couldn't make her whole again. Pure again.

She would only disappoint him, hurt him, risk his becoming as she was.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she whispered, turning her face away, jamming her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming. She was humiliated beyond imagining. To tease Nicolae, bring him to this point and not be woman enough to give him what he needed, was intolerable. She tried to pretend, to recapture the intensity of her desire, but the walls of the chamber were shrinking, threatening to suffocate her. She knew she could not be what Nicolae so desperately needed.

"I can't do this." Destiny shoved hard at the wall of his chest, panic-stricken, fighting just to breathe. "I tried to tell you I wouldn't be able to be intimate, but you wouldn't listen." She shoved again, desperate for space, desperate to breathe.

Nicolae shuddered with the effort to control his body, to contain his passion. Her blue-green gaze shimmered with tears, darkening with turbulence, a foreshadowing of her rising instincts to fight her way out of a situation she couldn't handle. He felt her resistance in his mind, in his body. She was rigid, straining away from him, trembling. And there was fear, waves of fear swamping her, clouding the air between them. The childhood memories of atrocities were sharp and terrible, poised like a knife over her heart. Over his. He forced air through his lungs, through hers. Nothing else mattered to him but that she be comforted and reassured. Her eyes, enormous and shadowed with memories, held so much sorrow it nearly broke his heart.

"Destiny, slow down, take a breath. I am not going to do anything you do not want. We are intimate each time we look at one another. Each time we draw breath. That will never change between us. You think yourself tainted, but there is no greater light for me than you. If we can only have what we have right now, it is enough." Sensing that the feel of his body pinning hers down was a large part of the problem, he rolled off her onto his side. She felt helpless against his enormous strength, and he knew that emotion was triggering her fight responses.

Nicolae's arm circled her waist firmly, possessively, his body curving protectively around hers. He made no move to hide his erection, thick and hard, hot and rigid, pressed against her buttocks. "I do not expect the memories of things done to you in violence to disappear. But that was not making love. It was an abomination of what is meant to be. Here, between us, we are only expressing with our bodies what we feel in our hearts. Lovemaking may be rough or tender, may be fast or slow, it may be many things, but it should always be an expression of love."