Jude; The Fallen (The Fallen Series, Book 2) (11 page)

Every cry was his choir, every shudder was another rumble of the Voice, and every touch of breath on his skin was the kiss of God. This woman was his world, and he knew if she didn’t take everything he had to give, his world was going to come crashing down.

It was only then he paused.
He reached up behind her and grabbed a pillow. He wrapped an arm around her legs and lifted the lower half of her body. With a grunt, he shoved the pillow under her ass, arching her body up a little more. He missed the flash of concern in her eyes as he locked rough hands onto her thighs and rammed his cock back in full force at the new angle. Her cry was high and stuttered, and she stilled.

Jude moaned as he kept going. He was so lost to his need that for a moment he didn’t notice that Coriander wasn’t moving. When he looked down, Jude’s eyes met hers and his heart stopped. Fat tears slid from the corners of her bright jade eyes, her pain beating at him in silence. With a dawning horror, he realized that he’d crossed the line and gone way too far.
She deserved so much better than what he’d given her. Carefully, so not to hurt her worse, Jude slowly withdrew from her body and rolled back onto his knees, looking down at her.

“I-Oh, God, Cori-“

She reached for him with a shaky hand. “Easy there, tiger. You break it, you bought it.”

She was breathtaking, even as tears glittered in her eyes. Jude’s eyes drank in the sight of her spread before him and his chest felt hot and heavy with how badly he wanted to drown in the woman before him. From the moment they met, she had been a tidal wave coming down on him, and Jude no longer wanted to run for the safety of higher ground. He took a steadying breath, and leaned forward to cautiously plant a hand on either side of her lush body.

No words could express his sorrow that he’d hurt her, so he gently began kissing the tears from her face instead. Coriander closed her eyes.

“Easy.” The word slipped from her lips on a soft breath.

With each drop of salt that wet his lips Jude desperately prayed she would forgive him. It came as a surprise when he aimed to kiss the corner of her mouth and she turned into it with a small sound of contentment. He kissed the left corner, and before he could kiss the right, Coriander sighed and turned her face just enough that his mouth landed squarely on hers. He paused, his face only a breath over her. Jude’s brow wrinkled.

Carefully, she reached a hand up to cup his face, using her thumb to massage the furrow in-between his eyes.
“Just kiss me, Jude,” she whispered as she pulled his mouth down to hers again.

Each slide of her mouth against his pulled him in deeper. There was nothing outside Coriander’s mouth, the sensation of her silken body beneath his. As the hand he’d been using to steady himself slipped just enough to brush the side of her breast, she moaned into his mouth and leaned into his hand.

Jude broke their kiss and locked eyes with her.
“I need you. I need to taste you. It’s been so long.”

She smiled, a shy, little curve of lips, and moved just long enough to position her head on a pillow. She lay before him like a feast, blessed and bountiful. And he was starving. It had been too long. Jude groaned, bending down to capture her mouth one last time, before trailing down her neck to the hollow of her throat.
As careful as he could, he nipped the delicate flesh, darting his tongue out to savor the taste that was hers alone. It had been so long since he’d hungered for another that he fought the building urgency threatening to drain away all reason. Slowly, Jude forged a path of kisses and nips to her creamy breasts.

He was back in Heaven as he cupped one breast with his hand and let his tongue make a lazy circle around the nipple. He stared up the curving line of her body into her eyes.
She was starting to breathe a little quicker, each flick of his tongue drawing short sounds from her parted lips. She whimpered and bit her bottom lip when his lips settled on her nipple and sucked. In the moonlight, the light sheen of sweat forming on her skin glimmered like liquid diamonds, and Jude planned on lapping up every one. As he alternated between sucking and gentle nibbling, he idly stroked the other nipple with his thumb.

Her next breath was ragged, and she shuddered as she arched her breasts into his hands, an invitation to touch more. He didn’t have to be asked twice. His hand slid down her body, teasing over the mound of her sex, and the wild buck she made into his hand made him smile. He pressed down, feeling the slick wetness on his palm, and let his tongue travel down her abdomen to her belly button.

Coriander’s head fell back with a guttural moan as he slipped one finger inside, teasing her. She gasped as his head descended lower, and his hand pulled away to brush the underside of her thigh and push. She was open before him, glistening and pink, ripe for plunder. It took every bit of resolve he had left to keep from shoving his face against her and devouring her on the spot.

Instead, he let the moist heat of breath ghost over her flesh. She whimpered with a wanton roll of her hips, bringing herself closer to his face. His tongue flicked out to trace the delicate folds and she cried out with abandon, reaching down to thread her hands in his hair. She pulled him close and he snarled with satisfaction as he dove into her.

Jude let his lips and tongue lave over her, licking and sucking, always careful to avoid the tiny nub begging for his attention. She writhed beneath his mouth, those fingers digging into his scalp to hold him in place. He took his time, his tongue piercing every fold, his lips kissing every inch of swollen, succulent flesh. Coriander’s breath came in ragged, breathy gasps, her body struggling to remain still under his ministrations.

But he continued the seductive assault, taking both his hands and pressing back on her thighs. She almost came off the bed when the tip of his tongue poked at the turgid nub of her clit, screaming his name in a hoarse, throaty rasp. That one word lit the final fuse on his need, and he placed his mouth over the throbbing bud and sucked hard. Coriander screamed again, her body convulsing in soft tremors with her orgasm.

He licked her through the aftershocks, savoring the taste of her on his tongue, delighting at how beautifully she came apart. Jude kissed his way back up her body, grinning as her arms and legs wound around him in bliss, her mouth pressing to his flesh as he neared.

Jude’s body vibrated with tension, wound tight with restraint. There was no pain. He marveled at that, but something still twisted beneath his flesh. He needed the release, needed to shake off the final vestiges of despair that burned in the shadowy corners of his soul. It was easy before to quiet the beast. It wanted pain and blood, it wanted the deep cuts and shallow breaths. And he had delivered. Now it had been banished with the gift of her touch, but what it left behind lingered on him like a film, clinging to his skin.

The urge to be inside her was overwhelming, and with every hitch in her breath and touch of her fingers, it was getting harder and harder to remember to go slow. He snorted out a rough breath as the pads of her fingers brushed across his length, cupping him gently. Coriander’s lips found the underside of his jaw, and she nipped his skin with teasing bites as her thighs fell open in invitation.

“Please,” she whispered, voice husky with desire.

He lowered his head. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured against her shoulder.

“Please.”

“Cori—I can’t…I mean—“

Her finger pressed to his lips, shushing him. Eyes bright with passion sparkled back at him as she smiled, and the center of his chest swelled until he thought it would burst. She was so beautiful, so open. If he hurt her again, it would kill him. She wriggled her lower half, creating sparks of friction between their bodies. He groaned, eliciting another blinding smile.

“Trust me,” she said, running her hands up his arms. “I’ll let you know if it’s too much.”

His answer was to swoop down and capture her mouth in a fierce kiss. Remembering where it had been moments earlier, he tried to pull back, but she refused to let him, clutching him and moaning into his mouth. The low sound danced down his spine and pooled in his groin, making him harder. She made the most wonderful noises.

It was easy to shift his body to align with hers, centering himself at her entrance. He could feel the heat and wetness on the tip of his cock, and his hands slid down to tighten on her hips as he inched his way inside. His fingers curled into her flesh and she gasped. Jude stilled, panic crawling over him.

“It’s okay. That was a happy noise.”

He searched her face, looking for signs of distress, but found none. Her hands moved to wrap around his wrists as her hips arched upward.

“Keep going,” she whined. “Happy noise.”

The snorted half-laugh came unbidden at her pluck, and he shifted his hips a fraction, sliding further. She panted beneath him, urging him to move with little rolls of her body, squeezing her thighs to pull him in closer. When he could go no further, his head fell back on a strained groan.

Coriander was blistering heat and raging fires. Her body was primed for him, waiting for his touch. He thrust into her, the sensation washing over him in waves, and each snap of his hips had him driving harder and harder into her tightness. Jude growled as a haze filtered over his vision, blurring everything but the pounding need coiling at the base of his spine. His teeth ached under the force of it, each stroke pulling him inexorably closer to the edge.

She cried out, high and breathy, and he grabbed at her thigh to pull her leg around him. Coriander followed his lead with the other leg, wrapping herself around him. He could feel the dig of her heels in his back and her hands tightened around his wrists. He gripped harder, anchoring himself on her slight frame, knowing she would bear bruises tomorrow. The need was there, spiraling in the center of his chest, snaking out across his body in feverish tendrils of desire. There was no stopping it, nothing that could keep him from holding back.

Jude’s head bent low to whisper in her ear, garbled words and half-phrases, choking back the well of sentiment he could neither discern nor express. The tattoo on his back blazed, his golden wings burning down to the bone, as if they would suddenly break free. He thrust, over and over again, until finally Coriander arched on a broken cry, shuddering out her release as she clung to him.

The sound of her voice pushed him over, and he rocked against her again before the coil of tension within him burst, his orgasm ripping through his body. Golden light shimmered behind his eyelids and his head fell back on a strangled groan. No pain. No hurt. Just light. Just Coriander.

She was so peaceful when she slept. It was hard for Jude to reconcile the wanton little thing she’d become last night with the slack-limbed beauty by his side. His hand itched to reach out and brush a stray lock of hair from her forehead, but he was afraid to wake her.

A terrible awkwardness settled into his bones as he eased onto his back, careful not to disturb her. What was this? Lucius would say it had been coming for months now, and he would be pleased that this dance between them had finally come full circle. But to what end? Was there an end? Somehow he knew when he left the bed and the sheets cooled, everything on the other side of the door would still remain. There would still be pain. There would still be an emptiness.

Even though what went on last night filled a void in his soul he never thought could be filled, there was still something missing. How in the world do you tell the woman you love that everything she is isn’t enough to fix what’s broken inside you?

Simple. You don’t.

Jude eased out of the bed and dressed in silence, slipping out of the room. He cast one last, longing glance at Coriander and shut the door. Two steps down the hallway, the tattoo on his back burned with remembered fire. He gritted his teeth as his footsteps took him out of the house and into the gardens. It wasn’t until moonlight blanketed him that he realized the burning was gone, and something else had taken its place. The pain in his soul was back.

The knowledge hit him in a rush, sending him staggering off the path into the yard as the pain became tangible. He gasped, his lungs pulling oxygen from the air with a white-knuckled yank. Everything burned, inside and out. There was no part of him untouched. It snaked down his arms in coils of white-hot heat, as if it would wrap around the corded muscle and cut straight to the bone. Jude stumbled as fire shot up from his toes, searing like a lightning strike, rendering his legs useless. He pitched to one side, grasping at the trunk of a giant oak tree for support. He registered the slickness of blood on his fingertips where they dug into the rough bark by scent alone.