Tapestry of the Past (12 page)

She straddled his stomach, supremely aware of the contained strength between her thighs. Like riding a half-broke stallion, all power and arrogant male will. Inch by inch, she slid her nightgown up and over her head. The gown floated to the floor as she tossed it aside.

Gabriel inhaled sharply. God, she was beautiful. The light of the full moon bathed the ample curve of her breasts and outlined the darkness of her nipples. He reached out and cupped one breast, swallowing hard when it immediately responded to his touch. His erection jerked and nudged the base of her spine.

He slid his hands around to cup the sweet curve of her bottom. “If that is the case then, lady, you’d better find a spell to quench this blaze you’ve started, or we’ll both go up in flames,” he grated, flexing his fingers in the resilient flesh. He rocked her on his stomach, his nostrils flaring as he scented her feminine arousal.

“Perhaps I’m a new breed of witch, after all,” she whispered, twining her fingers between his before pressing their joined hands to the mattress, “because I find I have this insatiable urge to play with matches.” She lowered her head and drew his bottom lip into her mouth.

Gabriel couldn’t remember ever being so hard. Everywhere. His muscles pulled taut as her pebbled nipples dragged over his heated flesh, flirted with his own nipples. He shouldn’t let her get away with this, he thought as a wave of heat enveloped him.
Kalesia
was supposed to be writhing under him, not the other way around. He was supposed to be the one safely in command.

Except
Kalesia
wasn’t cooperating.

The tip of her tongue danced over his as she explored the depths of his mouth with a soft, feminine aggression. Gabriel groaned and tried to engage it in a duel but she eluded him. This time he groaned in pure frustration. Immediately, she brushed the sensitized roof of his mouth, once, twice, small, flitting caresses that slowly drove him to the edge of sanity. A part of his mind warned him that he was walking on dangerously unstable ground. Allowing
Kalesia
to take charge was risking losing a part of himself. Gabriel consigned the small, insistent voice to the outer edges of Purgatory.

He wasn’t going to fight her!
Kalesia
sensed it in the subtle shift of tension. Elated, she initiated a tiny duel.

Gabriel immediately accepted the challenge, his tongue twining with, sliding along hers. His breathing changed, became heavier.

His taste, dark, spicy, all male, exploded across her taste buds. God, she loved the way he tasted.

The ache in the pit of her stomach became a slow fire.

He untangled their hands and then
Kalesia
felt his hands in her braid, loosening and combing through the heavy mass. It fell free in a curtain that flowed past her hips. He seemed fascinated by the silken length.

“I didn’t think women still wore their hair this long,” he murmured hoarsely, letting it slip through his parted fingers.

“Don’t you like it?” Some of her wonderful confidence fled.

His hands clenched in her hair and he used the leverage to pull her head back so that he could look at her. “I love the way it feels on my body, like a waterfall of cool fire.”

She gave a brilliant smile filled with relief. “I’m glad. I couldn’t bear to cut it.” She sat up and placed her hands over his, caressing the elegant strength. “Not everyone likes it, you know,” she confided.

He smoothed his hands down her spine, the gentle touch an evocative contrast with the rough calluses on his palms. “I burn wherever it touches me. Can’t you feel what it does to me?”

She could. Tension corded his biceps as she literally felt his effort to remain passive. Heat poured off his body in wave after wave of need.
Kalesia
shifted, lifting until her pussy was just brushing the sculptured muscle of his abdomen, aware of his swollen length leaving a wet kiss against her inner thigh.

It was a heady experience. Bending her head, she kissed the hollow of his strong neck, following the line over to his shoulder. Beneath her lips,
Kalesia
felt an unusual ridge. Puzzled, she pulled back. Silvery moonlight highlighted a wickedly curved scar. Starting at the top of his shoulder, it curved around in a half moon to end midway down his ribs.

Kalesia
traced it with the lightest of touches. The pain he must have endured! She pressed a soft kiss, then ran her tongue along its length, eliciting a ragged groan. She smiled in the darkness and worked her way down his body until she reached the thin line of hair that bisected his torso. She tormented him with deliberate slowness as she followed its rough path.

And discovered a network of scars marring the warm satin of his skin. The crisscross pattern stopped at his groin. Even without the benefit of light, it was obvious that the wounds had been intentionally inflicted. A potent wave of rage and horror washed over her.

Her eyes burned. Who could have been vicious enough to do such a thing?

“Tears?” He brushed his thumb across her lashes, catching one drop.

“The pain… It must have been unbearable. How…”

“Don’t think about it. It happened a long time ago.” Placing his hands on both sides of her head, he pulled her up so that her mouth was separated only by a breath from his and rasped, “Kiss me.”

Kalesia
obeyed, her mouth desperate. She broke the kiss to tease a nipple in its nest of dark hair, scraping her teeth on the hard nub, causing Gabriel to arch beneath her. Moving lower, she ran the edge of her teeth over his stomach before salving it with her tongue.

He shook under the provocative assault. Against her thigh, she felt his cock jerk. His hand cupped the back of her head as he urged her lower.

Kalesia
smiled against his belly, refusing to hurry. His body fascinated her. It was so different from her own, hard and sleek where she was soft and supple, lightly furred where she was smooth. She knelt between his thighs.

Gabriel went still.

Up the length of his body, her eyes met his. She closed her hand about his shaft. Her fingers didn’t quite meet. “So smooth, so hot,” she murmured as she lowered her head, keeping her gaze locked with his. She stuck out the tip of her tongue and touched the flared head of his cock.

The gentle wonder in her voice was almost Gabriel’s undoing. Then her mouth found him and he arched off the bed. She wiggled her tongue into the slit. A pulse of pre-cum leaked past his control. She caught it on the pad of her index finger and held it to her lips. He couldn’t take his eyes from the pearly drop as she opened her mouth and, with one delicate swipe of her tongue, caught it. He groaned. The woman was killing him.

“Come here,” he growled. Tangling the hand that had been cupping her head in the silken strands, he tugged.

He pulled her astride him. His stroked her plump lower lip with his thumb, before pressing down, opening her mouth to his. He slid his tongue inside, tasting her. Tasting himself.

“Damn.” He nibbled on the left corner of her mouth before working his way to the right corner. He nipped sharply, taking her gasp for his own.

“Gabriel!”

“What, sweet witch? Tell me what you want.” He groaned the command as she rocked against him. Her heat scorched his flesh. His hand went to her pussy, forging a path through the coppery curls to trace the swollen lips of her labia.

“So hot,” he muttered, his breath ragged. He probed again, separating the slick folds, his fingers dancing an erotic pattern on the sensitive flesh. “And wet.” His body shuddered in response to the feminine message. Sliding one long finger inside, he slowly and carefully stretched her. So damn tight. She was going to wrap around his cock like a heated, velvet glove.

“Tell me what you want,” he ordered, teasing her engorged clit with the slow, gliding pressure of his thumb.

She arched against his hand. “Please.” Her thighs tightened and she threw her head back, her hair tangling around his cock.

Gabriel gritted his teeth. “Tell me what you want.”

“You. Inside.” A small sob hung on the air. “Me.”

Another pulse of pre-cum dribbled past his control. His balls pulled tight against his body.

Shit.

He shifted until he was leaning against the pillows. Moving his hands to her hip, he started to guide her down on his cock. At the last moment, Gabriel remembered he didn’t have any condoms.

Goddamn it, no! He slammed his head against the wall.

“What’s wrong?”

“No condoms,” he gritted out, feeling ten times a fool. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized, he’d used the lack of rubbers as a reason to stay out of her bed. Talk about your dumb-fucking-ideas.

Kalesia
leaned sideways and opened the nightstand drawer. She fumbled for a minute, muttering under her breath. When she sat back up, she held a small packet aloft like it was a prize. Moonlight glinted off foil.

Gabriel eyed the small foil packet and then her grin. “Uh, you brought rubbers with you?”

She gave a small, husky laugh. “No. I found them in the nightstand when I unpacked the first night. I, uh,
kinda
wondered why you kept condoms in the guest room.” There was more than casual inquiry in her voice.

Was that a note of jealousy? Damn, he sure hoped so. He’d hate to be the only one out here on this limb. “I didn’t put them there. Must have been Parker or Sam, a friend of mine who drops in once in a blue moon.”

“Oh.”

“I haven’t needed them in a while.” A long while, he amended silently.

“Oh,” she said again. He saw the flash of neat, white teeth. “Me either.” He heard foil tear. “I hope I haven’t lost the knack.”

He wasn’t meant to hear the muttered aside but Gabriel couldn’t resist responding. “Trust me, sugar. It’s like riding a bike. Some things you don’t forget.”

“Idiot,” she laughed. Then she proved him right. Small, hot hands smoothed the latex over his erection. His hips jerked and he gritted his teeth. Damn. He was hotter than a firecracker and ready to go off with a bang.

He gripped her waist, fitting her over him the moment she was done. She sucked in a tiny breath, making him excruciatingly aware of the differences in their sizes. Then, she engulfed him in one smooth motion. Gabriel’s concerns disappeared on a wave of lust.

She began a deliberate rocking motion, lifting until he was barely inside before sinking back down. He shuddered again, his hips thrusting in a demand she ignored. From beneath lowered lashes, Gabriel gazed at the woman riding him with an exquisitely measured tempo, timed to drive him crazy. Her eyes were closed and she wore a faint look of concentration. The fact that she wanted him so much was a seduction all in itself.

He kissed away the trickle of sweat between her breasts, then nuzzled over to brush his lips across her nipple. She gasped and braced her palms on his shoulders. She was so damn responsive. He opened his mouth just enough to slide her nipple inside. With exquisite care, he closed his teeth on the sensitive tip. She lost her rhythm.

He smiled around her flesh and surged upward, his thrusts fast and hard. His cock slid in and out of her heated depths. His thumbs rested above her pubic mound, right beneath the small, womanly curve of her stomach, while his fingers gripped her rounded ass. Damn, he loved her softness. It made him want to bury himself inside her, stay there until all the darkness in his soul withered away under her touch.

“No,” she moaned.

He didn’t know if she was protesting the pace or the fact he’d take control from her. It didn’t matter. She was burning him to cinders with her response. Increasing the pressure on her nipple, he dragged the edge of his teeth down the swollen nub of flesh.

She gave a small scream. The walls of her pussy clamped down him.

He groaned.

Damn. He wasn’t going to last much longer.

“Now, Gabriel,” she demanded, her nails digging into the heavy muscles of his shoulders.

A ragged hiss of air escaped as he closed his eyes and fought the need to fill her with his seed. His heart pounded in his chest and his balls ached with the need for release. Still, he refused to cede control back to
Kalesia
.

Without control he’d be lost, would slip into the night and finally become a shadow himself.

“No,” he grated out.

For a second longer, her nails dug into his flesh. Then, she trailed her fingers down his chest, her nails catching and pulling at the hair on his chest. He opened his eyes. She was waiting to snag his gaze with hers. In the hide-and-seek shadows of moonlight, her eyes burned with an emerald fire.

“Yes.”

Before he realized her intention, she reached behind and cupped his balls, her index finger seeking and finding the vulnerable place behind his scrotum. She pressed.

He bucked and came in a rush, his seed boiling up from his balls and jetting into the condom. For a split second, Gabriel wished he was bareback so he could fill her until her tight channel couldn’t hold any more. So his seed could mingle with her juices, coating her, coating him. And then her pussy
spasmed
around his shaft. He couldn’t think, all he could do was feel.

She collapsed against his chest, her breasts heaving as she sought to catch her breath.

Hell, he could barely breathe himself. His heart thundered in his ears and his lungs burned. Under the silken fall of hair, his hands found the small of her back. He rubbed slow, soothing circles. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, a butterfly touch that he doubted she felt. He sucked in a deep breath. The scent of magnolia, sex and woman filled his lungs, held at bay having to acknowledge that, there at the end, he’d lost control after all.

He let his hands wander up her back, his fingers tracing the delicate ladder of her spine. Son of a bitch, she felt good in his arms. And maybe it made him a bastard but he was going to keep her there until she ran. Gabriel didn’t kid himself. She would run.

Just as soon as she discovered what he was.

Until then, he’d pretend that she was his.