Enslaved (29 page)

He’d been floored before, but now…shock and disbelief and wonder rippled through him. She didn’t know him. Didn’t know what he had planned. But she trusted him. And that meant more to him than anything she’d said or done to this point. The space in his chest filled in until that emptiness he’d lived with since his soul had been condemned to the Underworld—since before that, really, when he’d been an Argonaut wondering what kind of difference he was really making in the world—was gone.

When was the last time someone had trusted him…
really
trusted him? When was the last time someone had been willing to put their life on the line for him? His Argonaut brothers didn’t count, because for them, protection wasn’t even a thought. It was a duty. But this…this was different. She could find anyone to teach her how to protect herself. She didn’t need him the way he needed her. And yet, she was offering. Looking up at him with those big eyes. Making him
feel
after all this time.

“Why would you want to do that?” he whispered.

“Do what?”

“Stay with me.”

“Do you really have to ask?”

He swallowed hard, almost afraid to hear her answer. Somehow found the strength to nod.

“Because you didn’t ask for what happened to you any more than I asked to be born between worlds. Because if somehow in the middle of this craziness we can each help the other get what we need, then it’ll make all of this—what we’ve been through—worth it. And because…”

“Because what?” he asked when she bit her lip and her gaze dropped to his mouth.

She drew in a deep breath. “Because I care about you, Gryphon.”

He couldn’t breathe. She cared about him. Really cared. Not because she had to, not because some warped sense of duty or honor said she should. She cared simply because she could.

His heart beat so hard, he was sure she had to hear it. And when her gaze slowly lifted to his, he saw all the things he’d dreamed of seeing on her face for months. Desire. Hunger. The same damn yearning he felt in the depths of his soul.

“Gryphon?” she whispered.

“Yeah?” he managed, still unable to believe what was happening was real.

“What do you think? Do we have a deal?”

Chapter Sixteen

“Well?” Maelea asked.

As she held her hand out to him, the doubt he’d struggled with before melted away. Ignoring the offering, Gryphon slid his fingers into her luxurious hair instead. Then reveled at the spark of lust that flared in her eyes as he drew her mouth toward his. “I can think of a much better way to seal this deal,
sotiria
.”

A tiny gasp slipped from her lips when his mouth closed over hers. But it turned to a groan that supercharged his blood as his tongue dipped into her mouth and he kissed her the way he’d wanted to kiss her ever since he’d awoken with the mother of all hard-ons.

Her arms closed around his neck, and she pressed those tantalizing breasts against his bare chest as she kissed him back. Her nipples hardened through the thin cotton dress, and he knew from the sensations rushing through his skin that she couldn’t possibly be wearing a bra. His jeans grew even tighter as he wrapped his arms around her, as he tugged her hips toward his. As the heat of her pelvis seeped into his own.

He changed the angle of the kiss, nipped at her bottom lip. Shivered at the sweet, erotic taste of her on his tongue.

“Gryphon?” she said against his lips.

“Mm, yeah?” He fisted the cotton dress at her lower back, wanted so bad to lift her up on the counter, push inside her body, take her hard and fast. But he wasn’t going to do that. Because this time he needed to make sure she enjoyed the experience. Wanted to remember each and every time she came apart. Which would be way more than once. Guaranteed.

Her hands slid to each side of his face. She kissed him. Eased back and licked her lips as she stared at his mouth. Kissed him again until he thought he’d go mad. Finally stopped long enough to say, “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” But not for food. Just for her.

“Me too. Take me upstairs.”

Relief whipped through him like a tornado.

He lifted her around the waist. Her mouth closed over his and she wrapped her legs around him without his asking, stroked her tongue against his as his hands slid down to cup her ass.

He carried her out of the kitchen toward the stairs. His brain was nothing but mush. He had no idea how this had happened. How she’d gone from hating and fearing him to wanting him with the same desperation he wanted her, but he wasn’t about to question the whys of it all. He only wanted more. More of her sweetness. More of her body. More of this fullness in the center of his chest that felt way too damn good.

He made it halfway up the rickety stairs before his bare feet slipped on the carpet runner. He was still wobbly, not totally healed from whatever had happened to him, but he didn’t want to let go of her. Grunting against her mouth, he turned so he wouldn’t drop her. Her spine hit the wall. She pulled back from his mouth for only a second, then kissed him harder, pushing her sex against his erection and tangling her tongue with his until he saw stars.

He groaned, hitched her over onto his thigh so he could balance her weight, and pulled her dress up the backs of her thighs. The hem was damp from the ocean. She smelled like jasmine and salt. She rocked against him, tore her mouth from his, nipped his ear, then offered her throat. He answered by kissing her jaw, the soft skin behind her ear, drawing her lobe into his mouth and suckling as his hands finally found skin.

“Oh, yes, Gryphon.” She rocked against him again, the heat of her mound so close to his cock, he hurt.

He gripped the backs of her thighs, kneaded the tight muscles, slid his hands higher, and shuddered when he realized she wasn’t wearing panties. “Maelea…”

She found his mouth again, dropped her hand from his shoulder, slid it down his bare chest. Her fingers brushed his lower abs, sending jolts of electricity through his pelvis. Then she pressed her hand right between her legs and gripped his cock through the denim of his jeans.

His legs buckled. He gasped. Tried to push her against the wall so she didn’t go down with him. He hit the stairs on his back. Pain echoed up his spine, but it was fleeting. Because as soon as Maelea’s feet touched the ground, she lowered herself and kissed him again. Hard, hot, needy kisses he felt everywhere. Then her mouth slid to his ear and she straddled him, rubbing her breasts against his chest, her sex against his erection, her hands anywhere she could reach.

He threaded his fingers in her long hair, drew her mouth back to his, lifted his hips to meet hers as he kissed her. As he tasted the wetness of her mouth, as he felt the fire from her body, everywhere. He didn’t even care that the stairs were digging into his spine. She broke the kiss, trailed her mouth down his throat. Shivers rushed over his skin, and he groaned. Then nearly came when her tongue circled his nipple and she nipped at the very tip.

Pleasure arced from his nipples to his cock. His vision blurred. He needed to get her upstairs. Wanted her in that big white bed. Couldn’t think of anything else. He tried to find the words to tell her to stop, but her mouth moved from his nipple down the center of his stomach. Her tongue circled his belly button. Then every muscle in his body tensed when she gripped the waistband of his jeans and popped the button, finally freeing him.

His cock sprang up, hard, hot, pulsing. She wrapped her small hand around his shaft, looked up at him with lust-filled eyes as she caressed him. Long, teasing strokes that made him burn with the fire of a thousand suns.

“I love the way you feel,” she whispered. “I love the way you taste. I want to feel you come against my tongue.”

Oh, holy gods. If she kept up that kind of talk, he was going to lose control. And he didn’t want this to be about him. He wanted it to be about her. He wanted to feel
her
pleasure. Taste
her
release. Make
her
as crazy as she’d made him.

Before she could take him into her mouth, he gripped her arms, dragged her up his body, and kissed her again. She moaned into his mouth, stroked his length one more time before letting go and bracing her knees on each side of his body. He gripped the hem of her dress, pulled it up her thighs and around her waist. Her naked sex brushed his cock, and she shivered. It would be so easy to pull her hips down to his, slide inside her right here, take what he desperately craved. But not yet. First he wanted her dizzy with need.

He tugged the dress higher up her rib cage, over her breasts, and finally broke the kiss to pull it over her head.

She was completely naked. And so damn gorgeous. He dropped the dress on the stairs, took in every curve and angle and the way the morning light highlighted soft skin, the lines of her ribs, the gentle indent of her belly button. Her nipples hardened as he stared at her, and he watched her stomach muscles cave in and quiver, watched her eyes grow wide as he palmed her breast, as he brought her nipple to his lips and ran his tongue over the tight, stiff peak.

She braced her hands on the stairs on each side of his head, leaned forward to give him better access, moaned long and low as he suckled her. With his free hand, he pressed against her lower spine, pushing her higher up his chest as he trailed his lips down her stomach. She took the cue easily, lifted one knee, then the other, and moved her hands up the steps until she was finally straddling his face.

He could smell her. That sweet, tangy scent of her arousal. Remembered the unique aroma from their night on that boat. When he breathed hot against her sex, she moaned and pushed up so her torso was perpendicular to the stairs, then gripped the spindles of the banister on one side and braced her hand against the wall on the other. “Gryphon…”

He looked up, reveled in the way her eyes darkened with arousal as she watched him. “My turn to taste you.”

He lifted his head and made one long, lingering sweep up her cleft with the flat of his tongue. She groaned. Dropped her head back and shivered. He did it again, loving the way her whole body shook. Loving the way she tasted.

He licked her again and again, trailed his tongue up to her clit and circled. Gripping her ass with one hand, he brushed the finger of his other hand against her opening and was rewarded with a guttural sound from her throat as he pressed inside and stroked.

“Gryphon…I love that. Oh, gods, you’re going to make me come.”

Exactly what he wanted. All he wanted. He slid his finger out, pressed inside again with two, and closed his lips around her clit to suckle. She lifted her hips, lowered, rocked against his face while he drove her closer to the edge. He stroked deeper with his fingers, circled and swirled with his tongue. And when she tightened around him, when she cried out and he tasted her release on his tongue, his entire body spasmed, as if he were coming too.

He continued to lick her, to gently caress her, as the aftershocks rocked her body. As they echoed through his. He knew he hadn’t ejaculated, but he felt her orgasm as strongly as if it were his own. In his skin. In his veins. In the very bottom of his soul.

She shuddered one last time, dropped forward to brace her hands against the stairs over his head. While she tried to catch her breath, he looked up her body. Noticed—in the morning sunlight spilling over them—faint white lines on the skin of her inner arms.

He’d seen those scars in that shower they’d taken together at the motel. But then he’d been too distracted to wonder about them.

Like he wasn’t distracted now?
Skata
, he’d worry about them later. Right now he needed her.

He eased out from under her. His balls were so tight, he knew it wasn’t going to take much. But he wasn’t about to let go until he felt her come again. This time when he was deep inside her.

He slid his arms around her waist, lifted her off the steps. She was so light, he turned her easily. She gasped when his mouth found hers again, but then she was kissing him with urgency, wrapping her arms tight around his neck and her legs even tighter around his waist.

Gods, this was what he wanted. All he wanted. All he’d dreamed about since the first moment he saw her at the colony. Couldn’t believe she was here with him now. He palmed her ass, rubbed the length of his shaft up and down her wetness as he carried her the rest of the way up the stairs. Even though it brought him within degrees of boiling, he luxuriated in the vibrations that echoed through his chest when she groaned.

He dropped her on her back on the bed. Eased away just long enough to push down his jeans and kick them off. She reached for him when he came back. Kissed his forehead, his cheek, his jaw, then finally found his lips again. Shivers rushed over his spine as he settled in the vee of her body. As his cock brushed her wetness and the tip barely pressed inside.

“Gryphon…” She dropped her head back against the mattress, tightened around him.

“
Sotiria
, look at me.” He wanted to see her eyes when he filled her. Wanted to know what she was feeling.

She blinked several times, then finally opened those dark orbs to focus on him. And as he pressed into her, he watched those eyes widen, watched them haze over with pure lust. Watched her give herself to him.