Edge of Passion (23 page)

“You’re stronger than you think.”

“But Aiden ... he’s so angry with me now. Because I called my parents.” How could he forgive her when she’d reacted like one of the weak humans he despised?

“He’ll cool down. He just needs a little time.”

“I wish I could be as optimistic as you are.” She sighed and paused for a moment. “Uh ... may I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You said he despises humans for their weakness.” She searched his eyes for confirmation and found it. “He told me he doesn’t touch his charges ... that he never ...” She broke off. Maybe she shouldn’t go down that road. “Forget it.”

“Leila, I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Hamish helped.

Heat shot up her cheeks as she made another attempt to get her question out. “Does he ever get involved with humans?”

“A few days ago I would have said ‘no’, but today, seeing him with you, I have to revise my answer.”

“But ... what does he want from me?”

“Why don’t you ask him that yourself?”

The sound of footsteps coming from the entrance door made her look up. Aiden stood at the door to the living room, his eyes trained on her. Their gazes locked, and the world around her faded into the background. All she saw was the man and his heart, vulnerable, bare, and without protection. She understood now what he needed.

TWENTY-SIX

They’d been talking about him, but Aiden had only heard the last couple of sentences. But at present he didn’t even care what Hamish had been saying behind his back, because all he could do was stare at Leila and lose himself in the depth of her ocean blue eyes. Eyes she didn’t avert, but with which she looked at him with equal intensity.

“Why don’t I go to the village for some food?” Hamish’s words barely registered, nor did the fact that his friend brushed past him and left the house.

All of a sudden Aiden stood in front of her, pulled her from the couch, cupping her shoulders.

“Your parents are safe.”

He saw the relief that went through her, then continued. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” she echoed, her lips parting in the most inviting way he’d ever seen. A sheen of moisture covered them, making him want to swipe his tongue over it and lick it off her.

“That both your parents suffer from Alzheimer’s.”

Her eyes widened as if she’d been caught. As if she hadn’t wanted him to know, when she could have used that information to elicit his sympathy.

“I ... I didn’t want ...”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I understand now what all this means to you, what the loss of your research means.” He lifted his hand from her shoulder and stroked his knuckles over her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

She sucked in a breath, releasing a quiet sigh, but if she had wanted to respond, he didn’t give her a chance. Instead, he slanted his lips over her mouth and kissed her. Gently first, softly, without any pressure, giving her occasion to withdraw should she choose to. But she didn’t pull back from him. Under his lips, her mouth opened, offering surrender. He didn’t hesitate to claim what she presented to him so openly.

His tongue swept inside the sweet caverns of her mouth, exploring and conquering. Without haste, he stroked against her receptive counterpart, tasting her essence, pressing more firmly against her, at the same time as he dragged her against his body. A body that had been hot and wanting from the instant he’d entered the house and smelled her scent.

When her arms came around him, one sliding to his lower back, the other hand running through his hair, he intensified his kiss, turning it more demanding, more urgent by the second. Cupping the back of her head, he held her to him so she couldn’t escape, not that he thought that it was necessary, but he loved to cradle her like this, to hold her captive in his embrace.

Leila was soft and yielding in his arms, molding herself to him as if she were made for him. As if it didn’t matter that only hours earlier they had quarreled. That thought sobered him.

He ripped his lips from her. “You asked me how I would have voted if I were on the council. I know the answer now: to protect you. And I would have tried to convince all the others to vote the same way. I didn’t mean all those things I said to you. I would never hurt you.” Then his mouth was back, ravishing her once more like a savage, unable to hold back any longer.

Her fresh scent wrapped around him, the clean smell of soap and body lotion. It made him aware that he hadn’t showered since he’d started shadowing her.

“I should shower,” he whispered against her, pulling her upper lip between his and nibbling on it.

“No, don’t stop, please,” she insisted and slid her hand down to his ass, suddenly pressing him closer. She moaned into his mouth. “Oh, God, you’re hard. I want you. Now. No waiting.”

“No waiting,” he repeated, unable to stop a grin from forming on his lips. But he felt filthy, and he didn’t want to subject her to this. Their first time would be perfect, he’d make sure of it.

Without another word, he lifted her up and carried her toward the bathroom, pushing the door open with his foot. When she realized where he was taking her, she separated her lips from his.

“But I don’t want to wait.”

The way she pouted made him even harder. The zipper of his pants pressed painfully into his aroused flesh.

“You won’t have to, baby. Shower with me, and I promise you, you won’t consider it a wait.”

As he set her back on her feet and shut the door behind them, she already reached for his shirt, pulling it over his head.

He smiled at her. “Now you.”

A faint blush rose to her cheeks as he pulled the T-shirt from her jeans. When he lifted it and exposed the creamy flesh underneath, he was reminded instantly that she wasn’t wearing a bra. When they’d escaped the fire in her apartment there hadn’t been time for her to put one on.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured in encouragement as he freed her from the T-shirt and feasted his eyes on her gorgeous breasts. His hands instantly moved in to feel her flesh, encountering a perfect combination of softness and firmness. Round, the size of grapefruits, they fit perfectly in his hands, her pert nipples brushing against the inside of his palms as he cupped them.

“When I saw you that night in your bed, I wanted to touch you so badly,” he confessed.

Her lids lowered halfway, trying to hide the desire in her eyes, but he saw it nevertheless. “Did you watch the entire time?”

Aiden lowered his head and captured one nipple between his lips, licking it slowly, then releasing it. “Yes, I watched every second of it. And I wished all the while that those were my hands touching you.” When he kissed her other nipple, she moaned, tossing her head back and arching into his mouth.

Leila’s fingers slid over his torso, leaving trails of fire as hot as lava in their wake. He was burning up and would combust into a raging fireball if he didn’t make love to her soon.

“Undress me,” he ordered as he unsnapped the button of her jeans and pulled her zipper down.

She followed his order and did the same to him, but when she lowered the zipper, her hand brushed his hard flesh, and the contact sent a flame of lust through his entire body.

He closed his eyes and hissed out a breath of air. “Fuck, baby!”

“Like that?” she purred.

He gazed at her. When had she suddenly turned into a temptress? “Exactly like that.”

He helped her shimmy out of her pants and drop them to the floor. She wore no panties—there had been no time to search for any in her burning apartment. As he tossed off his shoes, Leila pushed his pants past his hips, her hands catching in his boxer briefs, pulling them down as well. Cool air hit his cock as it jutted out, hard and heavy, curving upwards in its rigidity.

When he was naked in front of her, he drew her back into his embrace, his shaft pressing against her stomach.

Not wanting to waste another minute, he lifted her into the shower with him and turned on the water. At first it ran cold, but he was glad for it, his body so overheated, he welcomed the cooling effect the water had on him.

He reached for the liquid soap and lathered his hand when she stopped him.

“Let me do that.”

He could have never imagined how exciting it would be to be touched by a woman’s soapy hands as they stroked over his torso, lathering his skin in thick foam, her hands gliding smoothly over him. When her fingers caught on his nipples, he let out a low moan. He hadn’t realized that they would be as sensitive as he imagined hers to be. But before he could concentrate on that sensation, her hands moved south.

“Oh, God, Leila!” he ground out.

***

His moaned words gave her courage to proceed as she dipped her hands into the dark nest of curls that surrounded his erection. She’d never seen a man so well endowed. And the thought of feeling this, him, inside her soon, made her toss all her inhibitions in the wind.

His body was perfect: his torso sculpted with hard muscles, a scar here and there, but otherwise as beautiful as a marble statue. And lower, where her soap-covered hands now roamed, male perfection greeted her. His shaft stood upright in the midst of his dark hair, and below, his balls had pulled tight. She ran one hand along the veined flesh, feeling its soft skin, covering the iron-hard rod beneath.

Aiden leaned backwards against the tile wall. “Leila, you don’t have to ...”

His voice died when she wrapped her hand around him and slipped down all the way to the base. The thought that this powerful warrior, this immortal, turned to putty in her hands, excited her. It made her feel strong and powerful herself, as if she were feeding off his power.

With slow strokes she continued to wash him, her other hand reaching for the sac below. As she cradled it in her palm, she felt a shudder go through him.

His voice hoarse, he commanded, “You have to stop, Leila.”

“I don’t want to.” Touching him gave her more pleasure than touching any other man ever had.

A firm grip around her wrist arrested her movement and prevented her from sliding down his length once more.

“I believe I promised you’d enjoy the shower, but you’re not giving me a chance,” he said as he bent his head to her neck and planted kisses alongside it. “I want to pleasure you.”

He turned them to the side, allowing the water to run between them, sluicing the soap from his body and rinsing him clean. Suddenly she found herself pressed against the tile wall with his mouth on her breasts, his hands encircling her wrists, holding them to her sides.

His firm grip tantalized her senses. She knew she couldn’t escape him now if she wanted to. Did he realize that? “What are you doing?”

He looked up from under dark lashes, rivulets of water running from his hair over his face and down his body. “Making sure you let me pleasure you. I’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?”

She recognized his playful tone and responded likewise. “And I, haven’t I waited long enough?”

He grinned and shook his head. “I saw you first. I was hard for you long before tonight. Now I get to take what I need.”

At his possessive words, a moan dislodged from her chest.

His gaze grew even more intense as he ground his hips into her. “Yes, baby, I get to enjoy your pleasure now.”

Then he dropped to his knees, bringing his head level with her sex, confirming the meaning of his words. As he raised her leg and draped it over his shoulder, so he could move into her center, he looked back up at her.

“I’m sorry to be so selfish,” he said, “but I need this from you now.”

Selfish? He called himself selfish? But she couldn’t continue her train of thought, because a second later, his mouth was on her, his tongue taking a long lick over her sensitive flesh. Reality disappeared, blurred. As if she were in a dream, the lover at her feet swept her away with the sensual onslaught of his tongue, the soft press of his mouth, and the urging touch of his fingers as they parted her flesh and explored her.

Her pulse raced, trying to catch up with her breathing, which had gone the way of galloping horses without her even noticing. Had she not already been wet from the shower, she would have broken out in sweat, because the flames of white hot heat Aiden sent through her were bringing her to the point of incineration.

She panted, giving her body the oxygen it needed. Yet it wasn’t enough. His touch was more than she could handle. The texture of his tongue licking over her engorged clit had an explosive effect on her. Every time he connected with that little bundle of flesh, shudders went through her body, her womb clenched, reveling in the sweet torture he delivered so masterfully.

Pressing herself closer to the wall at her back, she tried to maintain her balance, a task becoming more impossible by the second. She steadied herself with one hand on his shoulder, the other combing through his hair, but still her body trembled.

“Aiden,” she panted.

As if wanting to respond to her, one finger teased at the entrance to her core, and a moment later, he dove inside. Her muscles convulsed around him, eager to keep him there. When he moved, she felt like howling, but then he was back, driving deeper into her. His tongue continued to lick her clit, harder and faster now, and in the same rhythm his finger thrust in and out of her.

His muffled groans bounced against her aroused flesh, only intensifying the sensations he unleashed on her, until it was all too much. With a violent shudder, her body exploded into a symphony of crashing waves rushing over the edge of a giant waterfall. Warmth spread through her entire body as Aiden stilled and pressed gentle kisses onto her trembling flesh.

Feeling like she was floating on a cloud of cotton wool, she barely noticed how he lifted her out of the shower and wrapped her in a large bath towel, drying her inch by inch. She dropped her face into the crook of his neck and wrapped her arms around him.

“Aiden,” was all she could murmur before he lifted her into his strong arms and carried her out of the bathroom.

TWENTY-SEVEN