Winter's Kiss (15 page)

Winter pushed her backwards and held his hand up in a stop gesture. She frowned and then her brows rose when he grasped her hand and pumped his length with it. He growled as his hips jerked forwards and he throbbed in her hand, shooting strings of semen onto the ground. Her eyes widened and she blinked slowly. She had never seen a man climax before. His softening length twitched in her hand. Winter’s hand trembled against her shoulder. It seemed to turn men into quivering wrecks.

He collapsed to his knees with a sigh.

She had never realised just how weak men were when it came to this sort of thing. Winter had proven himself strong, a commander to his very core, yet her touch made him tremble like a newborn and his climax stole his strength. It was incredible. It made her feel powerful.

His eyes slowly opened and he swallowed, his gaze meeting hers for a brief moment before they fell to his legs. He didn’t blush, which led her to wonder if he could because he looked awkward and embarrassed.

“I should—” He went to stand and pull his trousers up but she caught his hand and stopped him.

Nerves made her voice shake. “I like you that way.”

Winter’s boyish look made Nika smile. He seemed stunned to hear her say such a thing. The way he looked right now made him look like the inexperienced one. He had told her that he was over one thousand years old. He looked no older than his appearance right now, bordering on thirty, in the prime of his youth.

She looked down at her clothes and took a deep breath. If he could get naked in front of her, then she could do the same for him. She wanted to feel him inside her and, in his current state, he wasn’t going to be doing that. His soft cock twitched when she undid the top button of her shirt. She wasn’t sure how long it would take him to become aroused again, but she was so hungry for his touch that she felt as though she was going to burst. Another button gave, followed by another. Perhaps touching her would arouse him. It would certainly ease her need and keep the fire burning inside her.

When she reached the last button, she stopped. Back at Winter’s room, she had discarded her underwear. Between the two sides of the black shirt, she could see the curve of her breasts. Her heart pounded at the thought of exposing herself to him, of being naked in front of a man. Her hands trembled so badly that even when she found the strength to undo the last button, she couldn’t manage it.

She swallowed when Winter’s hands brushed hers aside and he slipped the last button free. He moved his hands up, easing them inside her shirt and slowly raising them. They skimmed her stomach, making it jump and her skin tingle, and then brushed against her breasts. Her eyelids dropped, her lips parting in a silent sigh of satisfaction

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when his hands moulded around her breasts, covering them and sending a shiver through her.

His touch was gentle, exploring. Cool fingers traced the underside of her breasts as the pads of his thumbs circled her nipples, arousing them into hard peaks that ached for more. She arched her back, pushing her breasts into his hands, eager for his touch. He chuckled quietly and thumbed her nipples with soft strokes that made tingles race outwards from their centres.

A frown creased her brow when his thumbs moved away. Just as she was going to open her eyes and see what he was doing, her breath left her in a gasping moan. His lips claimed her right nipple, sucking it into his mouth. A bolt of desire shot straight to her groin and she squirmed on the spot, finding she was slick with arousal. His hand covered her other breast, fingers torturing the nipple as his tongue teased her other. She flexed her fingers to resist the need to hold him and then gave up the fight and grabbed his shoulders. His other arm snaked around her waist and raised her so she was kneeling rather than sitting back on her heels. He groaned against her breast, eliciting a moan from her.

Her fingers swept towards his neck and she dipped her hands inside his shirt. The collar was too tight for her hands to reach his shoulders. With a noise of sheer frustration, she surrendered her clumsy attempts to squeeze her hands inside his shirt and dropped them to the front of it. She made fast work of the buttons, driven by the need to feel his body beneath her fingers and drink in the sight of what she knew would be perfection.

Their hands knocked against each other when she had made it halfway down his shirt and she realised that he was undoing her trousers. A flutter of nerves made her

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stomach turn but the fear passed quickly, no match for the desire burning through her. She continued and when the
last button gave
way, she opened his
shirt
and pushed it off his shoulders.

Her hands skimmed over them, fingers exploring the taut shapes of his muscles. He had strong shoulders. A sweep of cold made her shiver when Winter pushed her trousers down to her knees, exposing her. She was on the verge of pushing him off her so she could see his body when his hand cupped her mound and she tensed, frozen by fear and the thought that a man was touching her.

“Relax,” he whispered against her breast and kissed over her chest to the other one.

Her wet nipple hardened painfully from the cool air against it. His fingers moved against her mound, replacing the chill with fire when she focussed there. They slipped between her folds and she gasped, lifting slightly off the floor and grabbing his shoulders. He murmured another ‘relax’ against her breast and then sucked the nipple into his mouth. How was she supposed to relax? She kept telling herself to, but it wasn’t having any effect. His hand slid lower. She tensed further. His fingers felt so good against her—slow, gentle, a tender exploration of her body. His other hand skimmed down her back and began to stroke it. The motion soothed her and her head fell backwards when she focussed on the gentle caresses and the feelings they elicited. Intense heat coiled in her stomach, aching to explode into an
inferno
that promised to be mind-blowing when it came.

Winter’s hand slid a little lower.

Nika licked her lips and then bit her lower one when she spread her knees as much as she could with her trousers

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on, encouraging him. She had touched herself there before. It had felt good. Something said it would feel different when he did it.

He eased his hand between her thighs and she groaned when he teased her slick opening with one fingertip. She hoped her moan would make him continue. She longed to have him inside her. His finger slid in deeper and then drew out again. She shivered and moaned, biting her lower lip harder to stop herself from tensing around him. The next time his finger eased into her, it went deeper and she felt his knuckles against her folds. She tensed this time and he groaned against her breast, suckling it harder. His thumb found her clit and teased the pert nub, his finger stationary inside her. Lowering herself, she forced his hand downwards with her. She smiled when she raised herself up again and his finger slid out of her. She lowered herself again, riding his finger, her heart pounding against her chest and her body crying out for release. It felt so good. Too good.

She whined her disapproval when his finger left her. It trailed up to her clit, circled it once, and then disappeared. She looked at him, wanting to see what he was up to now. He released her nipple
and
sat back, his stiff length jutting from his body.

She wanted that inside her. She wanted to feel him moving against her, in her, where she needed him most.

“Stand,” he said.

She didn’t think she could. He stood and removed his boots, trousers and underwear. She stared at his body, mouth agape, watching his muscles shifting beneath his pale skin. His stomach tensed to reveal his strong abdominals and his chest flexed. His figure reminded her of the statues she had seen in the
state
museums—

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perfectly sculpted athletic males, muscles tensed beneath their alabaster skin.

He offered his hand to her and she shakily placed hers into it. He hauled her onto her feet without the slightest trace of effort. Strength. She had never considered that a vampire could be as strong as he was. Several times now, he had pulled her up onto the horse as though she weighed nothing at all. The thought of him using all that strength on her made her tremble and made new desire pool between her thighs.

He raised a brow and then knelt down before her, removing her boots and then her trousers. She got the impression that he had expected her to remove them herself. She lifted her left foot to step out of them and gasped when Winter grabbed her ankle and placed her leg over his shoulder. He buried his face in her mound, his tongue plundering her, lapping at her arousal and then swirling around her clit. She shuddered and gasped again, desperate for air and tiptoeing as pleasure rocked her in waves so strong that she felt her orgasm was imminent. She stumbled backwards and he moved with her. Her back hit the divider between the two stalls and her eyes widened when
Winter
pulled her other leg over his shoulder. His hands grasped her backside, fingers pressing in. She reached out with her hands, scrambling against the wood and moaning with each sweep of his tongue over her pert nub. Her hands clutched desperately at the divider behind her, as though it could anchor her and stop the turbulent waves of pleasure from carrying her away.

Her body tensed, convulsed forwards, and her mouth opened in a silent scream as she climaxed. Eyes rolling back in her head, she leaned into the divider, drifting away on the pulsing waves of fire washing through her.

She rocked against Winter’s tongue until the remaining threads of arousal had all turned to flames and consumed her body in comforting warmth. His tongue flicked her clit and she giggled at the way it tickled now and pulled herself up, away from him.

“Enough,” she groaned and he removed her quivering legs from over his shoulders and gathered her into his arms.

Nika fell to the floor with him, her head against his chest, and struggled to catch her breath. She had often wondered what it would feel like to have a man’s mouth on her. It had been bliss, paradise, far exceeding her fantasies. Her eyes closed and she melted into a limp mess against Winter. He wasn’t breathing again. She placed her hand on his stomach and kept still, trying to see if he was or not. Not. He was perfectly still. It was as though he was dead.

Looking up at him, she studied his profile. He had his eyes closed and his lips parted. She frowned at his mouth. His canines were normal—blunt and as human looking as her own. The feel of his chest so still beneath her fingers and no sound coming from him, not even with her ear pressed against his body, made her a little uneasy.

“Winter?” she whispered and waited for a reaction. “Hmm?”

Relief filled her. He opened one eye and looked at her when she didn’t say anything.

“I was just checking.” She felt stupid for saying that, especially when he frowned and pushed himself up onto his elbows, forcing her to move. She sat up. He wasn’t pushing her away, but it felt that way. Her words had confused him and although she wanted to explain herself, the darkness in his eyes made her wary. His gaze fell to her hand where it still rested on his chest. A knowing smile arched his lips.

“I am dead, after all.” His arm curled around her back and pulled her close. Her thigh brushed his hard length and she gulped. She had forgotten that she had aroused him again and that they were both half-naked, only shirts covering them. His words echoed in her head and she pressed her free hand against her own chest. His hand covered it. “Yours still beats. Mine does not. That is all the difference. We both still live.”

For some reason, the thought that Winter was dead unsettled her. Couldn’t he have said that he was alive but not in the way that she or a human was? Why did he have to use such a final sounding word? Dead.

“I didn’t die to change,” she said, more to herself than to him. His hand moved against hers, thumb stroking it in a way that soothed her. Her eyes followed the motion of it and she found a little more courage when she realised that he was trying to comfort her. He wanted her to talk. She had so many questions and, although this didn’t seem an appropriate moment, she had to ask some of them. Her eyes met his. “Did I?”

He shook his head
and
a long thick
strand
of black hair fell down over his right eye. He went to remove his hand from hers to brush it away but she beat him to it, wanting his hand to remain on hers. She stroked his cheek as she pushed the strand behind his ear. Her eyes stayed fixed on his. They were so intense and full of feelings that she couldn’t look away even if she had wanted to.

“But you died?” Her voice trembled and she cursed her nerves for showing.

The appearance of them in her voice didn’t seem to concern Winter. His expression didn’t change. Could he sense when she was frightened? She chalked it up as her next question.

“I died and was reborn. It is the way of our species. A werewolf transformation does not require death. In fact, death would halt the change. During the initial moments the healing ability of the human body is increased exponentially so the victim of the werewolf bite would not die.”

Her eyebrows rose. That was why he had been so sure that she wouldn’t die then. He had actually known that she wouldn’t. Or had he? He had been surprised and upset when she had told him that she had been bitten. Perhaps he had only been reassuring her. She might have died. It struck her that she was glad that she hadn’t. Even though her life had become a terrible nightmare, she was glad to be alive, to have had this moment with Winter.