The Ophelia Prophecy (30 page)

“Asha,
God
, you’re so soft … so beautiful … I’ve never stopped thinking about your body.”

She felt the accumulation of years between this moment and those long-ago encounters. How had she gone without this—without even
thinking
of this—for so long?

Because this is nothing like before
. Nothing like the sweet fumbling between her and Seth. She had read about encounters like these, but had gone her whole life believing the descriptions to be exaggerated. She hadn’t ached for this because she hadn’t understood.

She wrapped her arms around his head, gathering him against her breasts, and he licked and teased while she ground harder against him.

“Ah!” she cried, feeling him move deep inside her. “That feels … I’ve never…”

“I’m not hurting you?” he panted. “I
grow
inside…” He gave a choked laugh. “You didn’t give me a chance to warn you.”

“
Grow?
” She drew back to look at him, but her hips never slowed. She didn’t want to lose, even for a moment, the amazing sensation of his flesh working deep inside hers.

He grinned at the anxiety in her voice, and he crushed her against him. “Just a little, when I get close. And I’m close.”

“So am I,” she whispered, freeing herself from the embrace so she could grasp the headboard behind him.

It began with an inward collapsing, all the sensation in her body condensing down into one tiny dot of matter. Nothing but a single quivering nerve now, she could feel him change inside her, and the reaction began—a silent eruption at the base of her spine, arcing fire in every direction.

“Pax!” she cried, and heard her name echoed as he released, their bodies pulsing, foreheads pressed together to keep them upright in the swells of breath and sensation.

*   *   *

Gentle, watery sounds woke her, and she breathed deeply, the fragrance of flowers warmed by morning sunlight filling her nostrils. Her eyelids fluttered open.

The chamber was a den of luxury, a riot of color and texture. She’d only taken it in superficially when they’d arrived.

As clean, crisp air expanded her lungs, she became aware of other sensations: the nightgown—rolled and bunched—digging into her waist, her naked belly and breasts against the soft bedding, the warmth of a hand resting in the middle of her back, and the light breaths tickling the hairs at her neck.

She hadn’t dreamed Pax in her bed, he was
there
. She hadn’t dreamed anything in fact—she’d slept like a stone.

She stretched her arms and legs carefully, so as not to disturb the hand, but it fell away anyway. A moment later she discovered it had only relocated. His fingers slid over the roundness of her backside. Then they pushed between her legs and she gasped.

“Mmm,” he moaned. “Come here.”

The fingers withdrew, and she scooted closer to him, heart pounding in anticipation as she slipped her legs apart. But instead of him suddenly filling her, like the night before, she felt a velvety warmth between her legs.

“Oh!” she cried, raising her hips to get closer to the sensation.

In seconds the light, quick motion of his tongue had worked her into a frenzy—transformed her into a helpless, moaning creature that would have done anything he asked to keep him right where he was.

But he didn’t ask anything. He kept at it until she uttered a sharp cry, body going rigid from the sudden hard pulse of the contraction in her belly, and then he crawled up and slipped inside her from behind.

Her muscles clenched around him as he grew, thrusting so deep and so hard she had to press her hands against the headboard to keep her body beneath him. At his deepest thrust she felt him shudder and moan and sink against her, careful to keep his weight off her injured lower back.

*   *   *

When he’d caught his breath he slipped to one side and gathered her on top of his chest. “I’d intended to give you a rest from that,” he murmured.

“You’re far better-read than I am,” she said, sighing, “but I’m remembering there’s something bad about good intentions.”

He laughed. “Yes, the road to hell is paved with them.”

“I’ve never understood why that would be.” She drummed her fingers against his chest. He loved the feel of her there, relaxing against him, sated and at ease for the first time since he’d known her.

“I understand it to mean that most people have good intentions, but without follow-through they’re meaningless.”

“So you’ve just damned yourself.”

“Apparently so.”

“You don’t sound all that sorry to me.”

“Right again. Unless I hurt you.” He caressed her check, and she raised her head to look at him. “I
would
feel sorry about that.”

She smiled and planted a kiss on one of the scars on his midsection. “You’ll have to work a lot harder than that to hurt me.”

He shook his head, baffled. “You look like I could snap you between my hands.”

“Maybe. I wouldn’t advise you to try it.”

“I can think of much more interesting things to do with my hands.”

Before he could demonstrate, she’d slid her hand up the inside of his thigh to his groin.

“God,
Asha
.” He shivered. Her hand worked back and forth, and she sat up and straddled him.

“No,” he grunted, pushing her off and sitting up. He sprang off the bed and started pulling on his pants. “We have work to do today. Be a good girl or I’ll tie you to the bed.”

She pursed her lips together and crawled toward him, holding out her wrists when she reached the edge of the bed. Her upper arms framed her bare breasts, and below her elbows he eyed the graceful curve that had caused men to compare women’s bodies to hourglasses long past the time anyone had actually used them.

Her nightgown still clung to her hipbones, concealing the rest of her, but he’d explored that territory. He grew hard again at the memory.

“You
like
this,” he observed with satisfaction.

Her eyes flitted from his mouth to his groin, and he grew even harder.

“Yes,” she whispered, color filling her cheeks.

He grinned. “My father always said human women tolerated it more than they liked it.”

“He has a lot of experience with human women?”

Pax banished thoughts of his mother. She didn’t belong in this conversation.

“Mmm, good point. Also, the man never read a book that wasn’t related to military strategy.”

“Then I think maybe you should judge for yourself.”

He took a step toward the bed, laughing inwardly at how he was quivering for this woman. He felt like a boy again, sneaking with his sister into the kitchens after dark, discovering for the first time the cabinet where they kept the stash of confections for their father’s notorious sweet tooth.

A smile spread over her face as she saw she had the power to reverse him in his tracks. She crossed her wrists and held them up again.

He grabbed them in one hand, and a millisecond before throwing her onto the bed he remembered her back, and pulled her up instead.

Many Manti had large sets of wings, making reclining sexual acts impractical. Most Manti also had a complete lack of inhibition when it came to mating. He glanced around the room until his eyes lighted on what he was looking for, barely protruding from behind the bed—a tall, cushioned bench with a scoop out of it, and a set of wrist restraints hanging from a post at its head.

He dragged her around the bed and pushed her onto it, leaning over her to fasten the restraints. “Is this what you want?” he murmured in her ear, nuzzling her cheek with his rough, unshaven chin.

“Uh…”

He chuckled, tugging the nightgown free and letting it drop around her ankles. He pressed his erection against her backside. “I think you’re in very deep water now.”

Her eyes shot a challenge over her shoulder. “You don’t scare me.”

*   *   *

Asha couldn’t have explained to him or anyone else what had come over her. But she sensed it was a sort of awakening, just as she’d awoken from her delusions about Sanctuary, and from the sleep that had brought her and Pax together in the first place.

In the simplest terms, she was on fire for him. She’d felt attracted to men from time to time back in Sanctuary, and she had felt their attraction to
her
, but she saw now that she’d been like a seed blighted by the desert sun.

While her eyes pored through text and images in the Archive—life, death, love, war, sex, birth, disease, famine, art, science, culture, the whole rich tapestry of human history—she had felt nothing. No connection to those people whose lives had been so carefully preserved in ones and zeroes.

Those people didn’t exist anymore. They never would again. She hadn’t given up hope that humanity would one day rise from the ashes—that they could find some way to coexist with their enemies—but any civilization that tried to re-create the past was doomed to a flat, blighted existence.

This
civilization was vibrant and alive, and for the first time
she
felt vibrant and alive. This man who could not help but push inside her despite his intention to walk away—he was compelled by something in
her
. Whether her face, her body, her mind, or some combination, it was
her
. He’d told her that they shared a special bond, a bond he hadn’t believed in until two days ago. Wasn’t it a kind of sign? A sign that there was room for both of their species in this aftertime?

Pax’s hands slid under her hips, fingers hooking around her pelvic bones, lifting and entering her in one motion as the breath hissed between his teeth. She yanked at the restraints, squirming and fighting him not because she wanted to be released, but because it sent a jolt of white heat through her every time he yanked her hips back into place.

“You want me to let you go,” he panted, pinning her still with the heel of his hand.

“Let me go,” she begged, knowing he would understand.

“I won’t,” he growled in her ear.

Turning her head, she locked gazes with him. “Then make me
feel
you.”

Her body jolted forward as he shoved into her, and she gave a sharp cry as her orgasm caught her by surprise. It rippled out and entwined with his, building until he stiffened and shouted and they shuddered and curled into each other, straining for breath.

“I’m never letting you out of this room,” he rasped in her ear.

“There’s nowhere else I want to be.”

THE FLY

Pax was still inside her, both of them dripping with sweat, when they heard a voice in the hall.

“Asha?”

“It’s Micah,” she whispered.

Pax bent and kissed her cheek, releasing her restraints. Then he straightened and called out in an astonishingly steady voice, “Can we see you in ten minutes? We’ve just woken up.”

“Of course,” came the reply. “I’ll find you something fresh for breakfast and come back.” They heard him moving away.

“You’re a
witch
,” he growled, helping her off the bench. Her stiff, sore muscles protested, and she knew more of them would be sore tomorrow.

“And you’re a beast,” she replied as she started for the bathroom. She squealed as the palm of his hand struck her backside.

“Next time I’ll leave you strapped down.”

He followed her to the bathroom and they shared a brief, non-erotic shower so they could dress by the time Micah returned. She watched him slipping into his clothes, marveling at the beauty of his body.

He noticed her eyes on him and smiled, bringing flames to her cheeks. He reached for her, pulling her naked body against his fully clothed one.

“You’re gorgeous,” he said, his hands gliding down to her backside, “and too sexy for your own good.”

He gave her a long, deep kiss, and released her. “Let me shave and the bathroom’s all yours.”

“Take your time,” she replied, pulling on a fresh tunic—sky blue with green embroidered leaves—and a clean pair of the close-fitting pants. “I’ll go out and wait for Micah.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, but picked up a razor and one of the jars off the sink.

She felt a strong urge to slip her hands around his middle and watch him shave, but instead she walked back out to the bedroom. She’d just picked up the various discarded items of clothing from the floor when Micah called again from the doorway.

“Come in,” she answered.

He pushed through the curtain carrying a tray heavy with steaming bowls and fresh fruit—oranges, grapefruits, bananas, and waxy pink round ones she didn’t recognize. She motioned him to the sofa, and he set down the tray.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Starving. Thank you for bringing all this.” She picked up one of the bowls—mushy hot cereal with honey drizzled over the top—and took a bite of something she recognized. “Grits,” she said, letting the bite melt in her mouth.

He wrinkled his brow, smiling. “It’s sort of a cornmeal mush—we just call it polenta.”

She nodded, returning his smile. “Grits.”

“How are you?” His eyes shifted to the bathroom, and she knew he was wondering about Pax. How things stood between them. His eyes came back to her face and he said, “You look very well. You must have slept.”

She swallowed, willing her complexion to remain neutral. “Yes, and showered. I feel much better.”

“How is your injury?”

“A little sore, but your medicines work wonders.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Pax came out of the bathroom and joined them. “Good morning.”

Sitting across the table in one of the chairs, he picked up an orange and began peeling it. His countenance was composed and guarded, no different from the day before. Except the light behind his eyes was bright now. It gave energy and purpose to his expression.

“How was the night?” asked Micah.

“Fine,” replied Pax with a nod. He pulled the sections of orange apart and offered half of them to her. The slight contact of their fingers was enough to start her heart racing.

When she glanced again at Micah his eyes were on the orange wedges in her hand, and it struck her there was intimacy in the gesture of sharing food with someone. If he’d passed her a whole orange it probably would have gone unnoticed.