The Darkness(64)

She inhaled sharply through her nose and then allowed her head to drop back until her hair was fully submerged. Her voice became a deep moan that traveled through his groin, and then suddenly she dipped her head under the water and came up shaking, her glorious white wings spread.

He materialized shea butter soap in his hand and leaned forward. She opened her palm and called a strangely blue-white-lit oval into it. Within seconds the scent registered in his sinuses.Oil of Hathor. He briefly closed his eyes and set down the soap he'd been holding.

"You said we'd share this," she murmured, lathering her palms."A little for you, a little for me." She smoothed her soapy palm along her arm and then shuddered so hard she dropped her soap. "What does King's Ransom do? Warn me a little at least."

Watching the silvery sheen on her skin and her trembling, nude body temporarily stole the function of speech. Agony shimmered in her eyes as she waited for his answer, but slowly she brought her soapy palms over her br**sts with a gasp.

"It ransoms your sanity for pleasure," he finally said in a hoarse murmur. Spellbound, he watched her palms slide across her caramel, sun-glazed skin, teasing her ni**les until it made his c**k bounce. "There's healing crystals in the water for the injuries . . . but to help you relax, they gave me this."

Small beads of perspiration were forming on her brow and upper lip, and he watched Damali stick out the tiny pink tip of her tongue to moisten her lush mouth. The heat in the chamber felt like it had suddenly risen to sauna levels, and condensation had begun to form over the pool's surface in a fine mist. As she stared at him with her large, pleasure-haunted brown eyes, it took all he had not to go to her-but that had not been their bargain. So he honored it.

This time when she submerged he felt it, shuddering so hard he had to clench his jaw to keep from biting his tongue. When she broke the surface, she had the Oil of Hathor in her hands again, the sensual fragrance nearly lifting him from the steps with a hard arch.

"I'd like to renegotiate terms," he said inDananu , not caring if anyone heard. The throb in his groin was a skin-splitting pulse now.

"No," she said, soaping her hair and covering her na**d br**sts with her wings. She leaned back, massaging the suds into her locks, breathing through her mouth, and then slowly rubbing some lather into a feathery appendage until the sensation buckled her.

He stood, had to before he slid down the steps. But she shook her head and then rinsed her hair and wings by going under again. This time when she came up for air, she cried out, waded toward the shallow end, and held on to the side heaving in breaths.

"Okay," she whispered, looking up at him, clutching the marble.

He was in the water before she could change her mind, robe and all. The gossamer gold fabric floated to the surface around him, disturbing the lotus blossoms. Within seconds, the mixture of Oil of Hathor in the water stunned him in a blinding shudder that made him drop fang.

Her hands seemed to touch every available surface of his skin as she waded to him and climbed up his body. The Oil of Hathor was wearing him out, the elixir soaking into hisskin, tightening his groin in pulses beneath the water's surface the moment Damali welded herself to him. She was trying to kiss him, but he couldn't even get himself under control enough to retract fang. He literally had to turn away from her soft, soft lips, not wanting to cut her, to find her neck to punish, making her cries more insistent as she tried to position herself to take him in.

Super slick from the Oil and her own emulsion, every near miss made him grip her tighter, made them crazier, while he began to walk them backward, blindly searching for a wall. The scent was all in her hair, all in her wings,all in the water, all in his sinuses, all over her skin,por Dios . Her tight fist around him made him begin to stutter,oh, baby, the Oil of Hathor was all in her palm.

She was burning up, he was burning up-he dragged his nose along the bend in her throat and stopped moving, hoping she would try to mount him again.Where was the damned wall? Panting against her throat he realized he'd been so messed up he was walking in circles.

"Mi tesoro, por favor,"he said harshly into her ear, unable to tell her more.

Wings spread, fanning the water in small, splashingwaves, she circled his neck with one arm and guided him into her slowly with a groan.

The pleasure shock buckled his body from the midsection as a low moan thundered from his insides. Short, shallow pants seized her and suddenly she pulled her head back and stared at him, irises slowly turning silver.

Just witnessingthat made his tattoos feel like molten brands. Her mouth suckled the one at his throat while her body hotsheathed the other, causing him to stumble back, his spine finally hitting the wall. His hands slid over her slippery, soft backside, her toned calves pulling against his ass, guiding their rhythm, her br**sts bouncing against his chest. Tears leaked from his eyes as he fought not to bite her-not up here, this was raw enough. Then she bit him hard on his sweet spot and made him see stars.

Pure animal instinct made him round on her, knock her head back with his jaw to find that place he knew would send her over the edge-but he only nipped her, making her cry out and fist his hair.

"Do it," she said between quick bursts, moving against him hard.

He shook his head, eyes shut tight. "Not here, we-"

She took his mouth hard and he tasted her blood, but couldn't resist the urge to put his tongue halfway down her throat. He needed to release so badly his sphincter twitched. She'd snuck him, had soaped herself under the surface. The Oil of Hathor sent jags of lightning through his scrotum every time he slammed against her mound. He could feel the tattoo at his base literally coming alive, pulsing with its own need to return to her sheath on every thrust. Unable to stand it any longer, he flipped her to press her hard against the marble,then at the last second remembered her wings. A quick transport to the bed remedied the problem.

Disoriented when her back hit the soft duvet, she wrapped her legs around his waist and held on for the ride. He hadn't missed a beat, had dug in,tightly gripped her around the waist for leverage, practically snorting silver. Golden-silvery sweat leaked from his pores. His voice had become a hard staccato refrain of guttural utterances with each hard return. She could feel him building, his body trembling so violently as he stroked that it sent blue-white pleasure currents to race over her skin, through her hair and feathers, until she screamed.

Her Sankofa tattoo felt like it had fled the small of her back, melting into her spinal fluids. Silver left his eyes, running the metallic spectrum, first darkening to bronze, then gold, and finally settling on solid platinum. The images he sent split her head in blue-white pleasure novas-quick-moving snapshots of everything he appreciated about her, but was too overwhelmed to say right now.

The beach, her laughing, their first time.La casa,her music.Their first time.Her mouth, her legs, her taking off her bra. Their wedding, herI do, their first time.Her pulling herIsis , her opening her wings . . . their first time. Vanishing point dovetailed into Creation Point, then their first time. Her nails scored his back.Jesus compassion! Water was evaporating from the pool; wet, heavy mist blanketed the entire room. Colors from the sheers cast hue on the mist. She could feel the pulse of the bedposts quicken to meet theirs. Weeping, hollering, their first time. She thrust a song into his mind-"Remember, Baby," then "Wounded Lover" . . . and he shot back, their first time on an audible groan. She opened the cosmos, knocking his head back with galaxy shudders. He brought her the mountainside in Tibet, a burning kiss against the compound wall . . . his fingers splayed against the glass from outside, hers mirroring that . . . returning them to their first time.

She was crying, writhing, reliving their past in acute cellular memory, his thrusts relentless, creating cascading orgasms so blinding that all she could do was arch and hold him. She wanted him to have everything within her;Justtake it, her mind shrieked as her voice fractured in soprano.

Then it became so eerily still as pleasure seemed to rapidly draw back, receding from her body so harshly she gasped like a woman cut.

For countless heartbeats, all she could hear was their breathing and erratic pulses. He stopped moving for a moment, causing her to stare up into his agonized gaze. He then stopped breathing. His eyes slowly slid shut as he turned away from her almost in slow motion. A quiet storm had gathered, blue-white charges releasing hard in the mist around them. Three seconds of torturous delay felt like thirty.

"Mi esposa, te quiero."