Her Reaper's Arms (10 page)

full cock in and out of her with meaty slaps that might have been funny to hear if it

weren’t so sensual. At the moment she felt the first squeeze of her vaginal muscles

around his cock, she tightened her hold on his waist and arched closer to him, wanting

every inch, every hard pounding inch striving to touch her womb.

Bevyn came with a deafening roar that by rights should have cracked the fragile

glass chimney of the hurricane lamp sitting on the bedside table. He threw his head

back and howled his release, pumping into her as hard and as long as he could until the

very last spurt of his cum was free. Beneath him, the bed shook, the headboard

pounding the wall until a shower of plaster fell down upon his naked back from the

ceiling.

Lea was lost in her own release, trilling like a song bird as her orgasm ripped

through her lower body and up into her belly. Her thighs were like vises around his

hips and one heel was digging into the crack of his ass as she clung to him. With the last

little ripple echoing away, she collapsed like a broken toy, arms and legs splayed like

the wanton she felt.

“By the gods,” Bevyn whispered as every muscle in his body began quivering. He

was shaking as he rolled off her, the heat from their bodies, the sweat that heat had

generated cooling under contact with the cool air flowing through the room.

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Her Reaper’s Arms

Never, he thought, had he known such ecstasy could be found in the silken arms of

a woman. Never, he knew, would he ever seek that release again from any other. This

woman whose body lay alongside his, whose breath was rushing in and out of her

lungs as tautly as his own, whose heart was thundering in tandem with his, would be

the only pleasure he would ever know this side of paradise. With the last ounce of his

strength, he eased his hand to hers and entwined their fingers.

“Tá grá agam duit, a ghrá mo chroi,”
he said in his native language, but there was no

need to translate. He knew she had gleaned his meaning but he did it anyway. “I love

you, my darling.”

She turned to face him, her body slick with their combined sweat. “You’d better,

Reaper,” she said. “I am the only woman you’re ever gonna have.”

Bevyn smiled for he knew she did not understand that her words were as true as

any she would ever speak. Not only because he had lost his heart to her—and thought

perhaps he had that first night—but because the Triune Goddess had made it a
Geas
, an

unbreakable prohibition from ever lying with another woman and taking her body with

his once a Reaper had claimed his eternal mate.

Lea watched him close his eyes and knew he had worn himself out, first with the

crying and now with the loving. He might be a fierce warrior, a savage Reaper, but he—

after all—was a man and he was tired. He did what all men do after an intense bout of

sex—he fell asleep.

She smiled. How easy it was for him, she thought, to just close his beautiful eyes

and fall into a deep slumber. Snuggling up to him, she laid her arm protectively across

his belly and held him, shutting her eyes to that marvelous piece of flesh crooked at his

thigh that had satisfied them both so well.

She had no way of knowing that such easy slumber was as strange and unknown to

Bevyn Coure as the love she was so willingly bestowing upon him.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Chapter Four

“What will we do today?” he asked from the bed as he watched her looking around

for her clothing.

“Have you seen my dress?” she asked, bending down to look under the bed,

though how her clothing could have gotten there was a mystery.

“After a hearty breakfast of course,” he amended.

She was standing there at the foot of the bed as naked as the day she was born with

her hands on her hips, a frown marring the perfection of her lovely features. When he

didn’t respond to her question, she gave him an arched brow. “Where are my clothes?”

she asked.

He was lying there with his hands behind his head, his legs crossed at the ankle, as

completely unconcerned about his nakedness as if he’d been alone. He cocked one

shoulder. “How would I know, wench?” he asked. “Where did you last see them?”

Lea narrowed her eyes. “What did you do with my clothes, Reaper?” she growled.

“Think you I could wear them, Lea?” he asked innocently. “They’re not my color.”

Too innocently, she thought, and her suspicion increased, especially so when she

saw his lips twitch.

“Bevyn?” she asked in a warning tone.

“Lea?” he threw right back at her in the same tone.

She stomped her bare foot and that seemed to delight him no end. A wide smile

broke across his handsome face, telling her all she needed to know.

“Where are my clothes?” she snapped.

He took one arm from beneath his head and waved his hand, and in the blink of an

eye, the most beautiful and soft cotton green-and-white-gingham gown and silk

chemise appeared on her body.

“You mean those clothes?” he asked, sticking his arm under his head again.

Lea jumped, startled by such magic, and she stared with wide eyes at the dress. She

shrieked and hopped skyward when a pair of soft kid slippers suddenly showed up on

her bare feet.

Bevyn was howling with laughter, doubled over, pointing an accusing finger at her

as she stood there. “If you could see your face!” he managed to get out in between

chuckles.

Her eyes narrowing, her lips pursing, fingernails digging into her palms, she

advanced on the bed. “That’s not funny, Reaper!” she accused. When he continued to

laugh, she jerked the pillow out from under his head and began pummeling him with it,

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Her Reaper’s Arms

which seemed to only increase his mirth as he threw up an arm to avoid her

bludgeoning.

“You idjut,” she named him. “Don’t you be doing stuff like that without warning a

body first!”

He snaked out a hand as quick as lightning, yanked the pillow out of her hands and

grabbed her around the waist, pulling her down atop him, rolling with her until he had

her beneath him, her legs imprisoned within the confines of the long skirt of the dress,

her wrists pinned to the bed beside her head.

“Poor little wench,” he mumbled, and bent to rub his whiskers along her chin.

“Faith, Reaper!” she yelped. “That’s worse than sandpaper! You’re scraping off my

skin!”

“Would you rather I rubbed my chin on your…?” he began to say, but a soft

knocking on the door brought his head up and around, his amber eyes flashing.

“What?”
he snarled.

“I have your breakfast, m-milord,” Mable said from the other side of the door.

“Oh dear lord!” Lea whispered. “I hope she didn’t cook it!”

Bevyn’s stomach rumbled loudly at hearing the word “breakfast”. He flung himself

off Lea and stomped to the door, slapped the lock back and jerked the panel portal

open, completely unconcerned that he was nude.

Mable’s eyes shifted down the tall man’s muscular frame—caught for a moment

between his legs—then flicked up to his face. “B-Breakfast?” she asked in a meek voice

that was barely a squeak.

The smells coming from the overloaded tray in the older woman’s hands made the

Reaper’s mouth water. He stepped aside with his jaw clenched to allow her to enter the

room.

Mable cast a quick glance at Lea, seemed relieved to see her fully dressed, and

walked over to put the tray on the small table beside the closet.

“Who cooked that, Mable?” Lea asked suspiciously. She was sitting on the edge of

the bed with her new skirt tucked decorously around her legs.

“The widow James,” Mable said. “She volunteered last evening.”

Bevyn’s mouth was watering and he was licking his lips. “Can she cook?”

“She’s the best cook in five boroughs,” Lea replied.

“Better than you?” he asked, his chin raised.

“I guess you’ll find out,” Lea said as she watched him rubbing his stomach with his

palm. “As soon as you get some clothes on, that is.”

Lea and Mable both made hissing sounds as he waved a hand and his black Reaper

uniform appeared out of nowhere to fit his body like a glove. They looked at one

another then Mable shrugged as though she saw such things every day.

“Come, wench,” Bevyn said, pulling out the chair for her.

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Scooting off the bed, Lea came over to him, glancing up at his handsome face. No

man had ever held a chair out for her, and not a single one of the men she’d ever come

into contact with had ever looked at her the way Bevyn was at that moment. That look

told her he’d just as soon have her for breakfast as the delicious-smelling fare sitting

before him.

“Widow James said to tell you that you can have her spare room ’til you get your

house built, milord, and that she’ll be providing all your meals for you,” Mable said.

“What’s wrong with my cooking?” Lea asked, a bit hurt.

“Your serving days are done, milady,” Mable said before Bevyn could.

“‘Milady’?” Lea questioned with a blink of her gray eyes.

“Milady,” Bevyn confirmed as he took a seat across from her.

Mable winked at her then left, closing the door firmly behind her.

“She’s going to see the blood on the sheets,” Bevyn commented as he reached for a

piece of hot buttered toast and spooned a copious amount of jam across it.

Lea’s eyes widened and she put a hand to her mouth. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

She turned to look at the bed.

“Want me to take care of it?” he asked, crunching the toast between his strong

white teeth. He chewed a few times, flicked his tongue across his lips and then told her

he could make the sheets disappear.

Staring at the bed for a moment, Lea finally shook her head. “No. It’s best everyone

know I came to your bed pure.” She met his eyes and her brows drew together when

she saw him grinning. “Why does that amuse you, milord?”

“Because I was thinking the same thing,” he said. He finished off the piece of toast

and piled jam on another, demolishing it in two big bites.

She took one of the two linen napkins on the tray and laid it in her lap. “When you

left yesterday, I was a bit concerned how folks would treat me,” she confessed.

He stopped with a heaping forkful of eggs halfway to his lips and frowned. “Why?”

Lea shrugged as she took a piece of toast and smeared it with jam. “I knew they

would know I’d spent the night with you.”

Thunderclouds shifted over the Reaper’s face. “And?” he prodded.

She bit her lip. “I was afraid they might view me as they do the other girls here.”

His fork clunked to his plate though he still kept hold of it. “They’d gods-bedamned better not view you as they do those whores!” he growled.

“They don’t!” she was quick to tell him. She held his irate stare and repeated that

the townspeople did not see her in that light.

“All right then,” he finally said, and shoveled the eggs into his mouth. He downed

three strips of bacon and the rest of the eggs before she’d barely started on her food.

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Her Reaper’s Arms

By the time she’d finished eating, he had consumed everything on the tray she

hadn’t wanted and had taken a spoon to the jam, polishing it off as though it were

dessert.

“You like sweets,” she observed.

Bevyn shifted uncomfortably in the chair. He needed his tenerse and he needed

Sustenance, but his cock was in dire need of something else and he felt like kicking

himself as he looked at the empty jam dish.

“Milord?” Lea queried.

“Wench, there are two things I need when I rise each day,” he said.

“Oh!” she said, and scraped her chair back. “I forgot about your medicine.”

He watched her go to the saddlebags and take out the vac-syringe. His heart did a

funny little squeeze as he saw her load the hypodermic then come over to him to

administer it. He held very still as she injected the fiery payload, trying his best not to

flinch but looking forward to having her massage away his pain with her cool little

fingers.

“What else do you need, milord?” she asked.

She was so close to him—her scent invading his nostrils, stirring his cock—and the

overload of sugar he’d consumed was making his shaft as hard as flint.

“Sustenance,” he managed to say, shifting again in the chair to try to relieve the

pressure of his erection.

“B-Blood?” she asked, swallowing hard.

“I usually carry some with me but I ran out and I’ve had to take…” He stopped,

looking up at her suddenly pale face. “Wench, no! I’ll not be sinking my teeth into you.

Don’t…”

“Why not?” she asked although she was trembling. “I am your mate, am I not?”

He frowned. “Aye, but…”

“Is that not my right?” she asked. “My duty to you?”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “I can ride over to Clewiston. Each territory has a

refrigeration unit that houses the plastibags. The Citadel sends out Sustenance by train

on a regular basis for the Reapers. I…”

“Here,” she said, sweeping her long hair away from her neck. “It is my right and

my duty. Take from me.”

He shook his head. “No, wench. I…”

“Clewiston is an hour’s ride away,” she said. “Your hand is shaking and that will be