Wicked Fantasy (35 page)

Absolute horror froze her vocal cords as the Tree of Eternal Pleasure slowly absorbed them. It was like falling in slow motion with nothing to support her, nothing to break her fall. But she didn't fall. The male wrapped his arms around her as they drifted in a sea of white nothing.

“The Tree has chosen us.” He sounded surprised.

Not as surprised as she was. “What do you mean? Where are we? How do we get back?”

“We're one with the Tree now. Later it'll give us a choice.” He sounded in awe of this kidnapping Tree.

“I'll make my choice now instead of later.” Frantically, she looked around but saw only the endless white. “Tree.” She felt stupid talking to a tree. “Send me home right now or . . .” No immediate threats came to mind.

“The Tree doesn't react to threats.” She thought she heard laughter in his voice. “It'll give us a choice when it's finished with us.”

Finished with us? She had a gruesome mental picture of the giant tree turning them into liquid plant food. Fear crawled up her spine. What good did it do her to be a powerful vampire now?

“Don't you feel it? The Tree is speaking to us.”

“What's it saying?” She hoped it was apologizing for detaining them unnecessarily.

Then
she
felt it, too. If this was the Tree's language, it was one of sensation and emotion. No words were needed.

Satona's fear drifted away as she became acutely aware of the male who still held her—the sensual texture of his skin wherever it touched her body, his scent of deep forests and dark nights, and a need to merge with every particle of his powerful life force.

Against her mind's express command, she turned her face into his chest and slid her tongue across his warm flesh. His taste unleashed a sexual hunger so strong it would've brought her to her knees if she'd had something to kneel on.

He groaned as he lowered his head to take her mouth. She caught his sexy lower lip between her teeth and tugged. When she released him, he traced her lips with his tongue before transferring his attention to the rest of her mouth. She matched his passion, silently demanding, begging. As her need grew, she welcomed the slide of her fangs. He acknowledged that need by touching the tip of each fang with his tongue.

They rolled in the white nothing that seemed suddenly filled with phantom fingers that slid along their skin, each touch increasing their hunger for each other.

He abandoned her mouth and floated lower until he could mold her breasts with his large hands.

And then he dipped his head to capture her nipple between his lips. He scraped his teeth lightly across the hard nub before drawing it into his mouth where he teased it with his magic tongue.

Somewhere during his magic tongue demonstration he slipped off her thong. She barely noted its disappearance into the whiteness.

Satona buried her fingers in his long dark hair to anchor herself. She was afraid if she didn't, she'd float away into the white nothing never to feel his mouth on her again. Throwing back her head, she moaned her pleasure.

Her moan echoed in the stillness and returned to her in faint whispers of erotic pleasure. It seemed they floated in a cocoon that fed their passion, their hunger for each other.

Once he'd teased both nipples to screaming points of sensitivity, she slid down his body, eager to prove that her tongue was no less magic than his. She flicked each male nipple until he made inarticulate sounds of pleasure. Then she used the tip of her tongue to draw lines of sizzling temptation over his chest and stomach, all intersecting at her point of final destination.

She nudged his thighs apart, and as he spread his legs she clenched around desire so powerful she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming.

The white nothing swirled around them, agitated ripples fanning out from their bodies. It seemed almost to pulse in time to the pounding of her heart. Heart? She had no heart. But it was as if the whiteness remembered what it had once been like, the excitement, the living joy of it.

Satona skimmed her fingers along his inner thighs, memorizing the sensory thrill of hard muscle beneath warm, smooth skin. Then she put her mouth on each of his sacs, stretched tight now by his arousal. The tactile connection between them dragged a gasp from him.

As she transferred her attention to his cock, she could almost hear the battering of her common sense against the closed door of her mind. Nothing mattered now except what they were doing. She'd let her common sense out later.

“Stay with me, Sister of the Night. Forever.” The male's fevered murmur was a siren call, one she didn't understand.

What she did understand were the things she wanted to do with his body. Satona trailed her fingers along the impressive length of his cock before measuring its thickness by pressing it between her breasts. It filled up the space nicely. The tales told about the sexual organs of the forest males were true. She sighed her satisfaction.

Then she circled the head with her tongue before covering it with her lips. And as she slid her mouth over his shaft, he moved his hips in the beginning of the instinctual thrust-and-retreat rhythm of sex.

Her own sexual excitement was starting to spiral out of control as she tightened her lips around him and glided up and down, up and down. The Sisters of the Night knew all there was to know about a male's pleasure, and Satona used those skills now with her teeth, tongue, and fingers.

With a muttered curse, the male clasped her shoulders, forcing her to release him. But before she could question him, he'd drifted to between her legs and brought her to his mouth.

Oooh, yes. She wanted this. And as his warm breath touched her, she opened herself to whatever he chose to do. What he chose to do was to use his tongue to flick and tease the most sensitive sexual spot on her body until she writhed with her need for release.

Satona grabbed his hair and yanked. “I don't care what other things you have on your list of ways to drive a female crazy, skip to the last one
right now
.”

His soft laughter shivered along every one of her nerve endings. “My exact thought, but we have a problem.”

Problem? No, there could absolutely
not
be a problem. If he didn't fill her within the next thirty seconds, she'd explode into a million shards of sexually frustrated female.

“We have nothing to brace ourselves against.”

She looked wildly around. Nothing, just the ever-present whiteness. Sure, the male could pull her to him and enter her, but where would the thrusting, plunging, and all the other movements that guaranteed a spectacular orgasm come from if she couldn't brace herself against something?

Well, the Tree of Eternal Pleasure had gotten them into this, so it could just provide the necessities. “Tree, we need a trunk here.”

She felt it against her back and buttocks, the solid roughness of tree bark. Satona arched her back, reveling in the joyous freedom of her body naked to the male's gaze. “Now . . .” She stared into his gray eyes and frowned. There was something she should remember. Then she smiled. “
Now
, Conall.”

Heat flared in his gaze as he reached around her to clasp her cheeks in his large hands. Easily, he lifted her and eased her onto his erection. And as he braced his hands against the trunk, she wrapped her arms and legs around him.

He froze as she slowly let her body sink onto his cock, taking his hard length into her, focusing every bit of her concentration on the feel of him stretching and filling her.

She could feel his arms trembling from the strain of trying to remain still. Leaning into his chest, she whispered the magic words. “Let's stuff all this empty space with so much passion it'll ooze from the tree's leaves.” Then she spoke his name. A name she shouldn't know, but did. A name that somehow was very important to her. “Conall.”

Without answering her, he began to move. Pressing her back against the bark, he slid almost out of her and then thrust back in. And as he moved into the rhythm of sex, she used his shoulders to brace herself.

She felt the familiar pressure building, the delicious heaviness along with a damp readiness that signaled her orgasm was close. But something was different.

“Do you feel it?” His voice was harsh and raw, his breathing labored. “Nothing has ever been like this before. It's as if whatever is coming will blow me apart.” He closed his eyes. “The Tree is talking to me.”

In another time and place, Satona would've thrown Conall back because of obvious mental deficiencies. But she was feeling it, too. Something beyond them was whispering in words that had no language, that was made up of the senses and emotions.

The white nothingness was suddenly alive with emotion, with sound, taste, and scent. It seeped into them, became part of them. Satona felt such love for Conall that tears streamed down her face. The sound of his heartbeat was a drumbeat of anticipation, his scent driving her into an aroused frenzy, and as she nuzzled his neck, she knew she'd never survive if she couldn't taste him.

“For eight hundred years I've waited. I wait no longer.”

His sensual rumble vibrated in her soul. And, yes, in this place and with this male, she refused to believe she didn't have a soul. No one could feel as she was feeling who didn't have one.

“Drink from me, Satona.”

He buried himself deep inside her one last time, and at the same moment she sank her fangs into his neck. He shuddered as the erotic rush of his life force flooded her, and then he stiffened as his orgasm slammed into him.

Her control snapped. Closing her eyes, she let go, and the most powerful spasm of pleasure she'd ever felt shook her. The force of her release froze her in place, unable to scream, unable to do anything except
feel
. Wave after wave of unspeakable sexual ecstasy washed over her.

And after the waves had died to ripples, she felt weak and shaky. Gradually, she realized they weren't surrounded by the white nothingness anymore. They stood at the fork of a forest road, and only Conall's arms kept her upright.

“There has never been anything like we just shared.” He didn't look at her as he spoke, but instead stared down the road that branched off to the left.

Satona was still too shaken to talk about what they'd experienced. But at least her brain was finally functioning. “Where are we?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. But the Tree is giving us a choice.”

“I don't understand.” How long had the Tree held them? She had to be out of the Sensual Forest by dawn.

Conall still didn't look at her. “The right path will take you out of the Sensual Forest. The left path will take you to a new place, one where nothing will be as you remember. But the Tree promises it will be a world of happiness. The Tree of Eternal Pleasure only offers the left path to a very few during each lifetime.”

Now she knew what had happened to those of the sisterhood who'd never returned from the forest. “So the Tree expects us to trot on down the left path with no guarantees except what it offers. My common sense is alive and well and says this sounds like a gigantic scam.” She spun in a circle. “Tree, could you elaborate a little on what's at the end of the road? It's tough to see around that bend.”

The forest remained eerily silent.

Frustrated, she stared at Conall. “The Tree evidently talked to you at length. What's down the left road?”

He smiled. “Definitely not at length. I don't know any more than what I told you, but the Tree wants us to go.”

“I don't trust trees with unknown agendas.” “The Road Not Taken.” A poem she remembered from her past. Something about taking the road less traveled and it making all the difference. Satona shook her head. Where had that thought come from?

Releasing her, Conall turned toward the left road. “Come with me.”

“Are you crazy?” Horrified, she watched him start to walk away. Her common sense was free and making up for lost time. “We don't know where it goes. We don't have any clothes.” He kept walking. “I can make you come with me.”

His laughter echoed back to her. “Only in your world, Satona. This is the Tree's world.” He was disappearing around that blasted bend in the road.

She teetered on the edge of all her tomorrows. Reason couldn't explain what was happening.

Suddenly she was running. As she rounded the curve in the road, she found him waiting for her.

She stopped, breathing hard. “You knew.”

He shook his head. “No, but I hoped.”

“I love you.” She took his hand, and they walked into the future.

What had they seen as they traveled that road? Where had they sought shelter to escape the dawn? These things should be clear in her mind. She pondered why they weren't as she lay with eyes still closed.

“Gerry. It's over.”

Conall's voice. But who was Gerry, and what was over?

“Open your eyes.”

Something in his voice made her nervous. But nothing bad had happened in the forest. She'd remember, wouldn't she?

“We're back.”

Back from where? And was that regret she heard in his voice?

“Satona is gone, Gerry.” His voice was gentler than she'd ever heard it before.

Gerry.
Working on the theory that what she didn't see couldn't affect her, she squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. It didn't work, though, because she remembered who Gerry was.

Opening her eyes, Gerry turned her head to look at Conall. “We never saw what was at the end of the road.” And damn it, she had tears in her eyes. She blinked as fast as she could to hold back the flood.