Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,8
the female’s visage, unblinkingly taking in every minute detail, harnessing all of his senses, muted and weakened though they were.
She was touching him. Her hand rested on the side of his face. Her skin felt hot against his coldness. Smooth, but with slightly calloused palm and fingertips, indicating that she worked with her hands. As if she was used to holding weapons.
Was she a fighter then? His memory banks did not have much information on the subject, though he knew that she’d touched him before. He’d trained her as well, but those fragments of memories seemed deeply buried in his psyche, as if he had to dig miles-deep trenches to uncover them. Merely shards of broken glass.
His body craved more.
Just looking into her eyes, her palm on his cheek, his physical reaction to her was so tremendous, it defied his programming, made the synapses in his brain misfire, made his breathing shallow, his heartrate accelerate.
Why? Why did he feel this way?
But the warrior wasn’t calibrated to seek answers to such questions. If his body needed her, there must be a physical reason.
He was weak. All but helpless. Her nearness seemed to strengthen him. Her touch warmed him. He simply knew that he needed more of it.
“Do you… Do you know who I am, Dalair?” she asked in that same hushed voice, as if she feared startling him.
Her query made his eyelids flicker, but otherwise, he showed no external reaction.
Internally, he struggled.
First, because of her voice and the way it affected him. It caressed his skin in a visceral way, warm, slightly raspy, full of…something. Some emotion he couldn’t identify. It made a sweet ache pool low in his belly, pushing the agony of his wounds to the background. Made his cock clench reflexively, squeezing out a pearl of dew through its swollen slit.
Second, because of her words and the meaning therein. Something was clawing at the edges of his program, like ghostly hands reaching from a forgotten dark grave, clinging to the edges of his consciousness by their fingernails, barely hanging on.
He scanned his memory banks again.
Sophia. Queen of the Pure Ones. Little Mite.
Those were titles he’d called her. And other names too, when she had been someone else. A different face and form. But those memories were inaccessible, flicking in the darkness of his consciousness like tendrils of smoke. He only recognized her in this present form. He’d lived with her. Fought for her. Protected her.
Then, he’d been ordered to abduct her. He’d gotten her to fuck him as his Mistress commanded.
And…he’d let her go.
Acute agony racked his entire body at the last thought, making his eyes roll into the back of his head as every muscle tensed into steel, automatically bracing against the onslaught.
“Dalair! What’s wrong? What can I do…”
He took a shuddering breath, and then another, and refocused back on the female who now straddled his torso, both hands holding his face as she peered down at him, her brown eyes wild with an emotion he didn’t know how to read.
That was the part of his program that remained to be perfected: emotions.
He comprehended the simpler ones—fear, hunger, anger, arousal. He could perceive whether someone meant him harm or not. He could easily calculate a reaction to every action. But the nuances and layers of emotions escaped him.
This female seemed…concerned for his wellbeing.
Other sensations overwhelmed him all at once before he could delve deeper on that particular emotion.
Sophia was sitting astride him, most of her weight balanced on her knees and thighs beside his hips, careful to avoid his wounds. Her hands still held his face between them, her own face farther away now given her position.
He could see her shoulder-length brown hair frame that symmetrical oval of peaches and cream like a silky halo. He could see her naked chest. Breasts that were the perfect size for her body, round, pert, punctuated by large, pink nipples. A clear, shallow line bisected her middle, displaying a strong, lean torso. Not particularly muscular. Soft and smooth.
Further below, where his eyes could not track, she sat directly over his groin. A cloth of some sort separated their flesh, but he could still feel her wet heat permeate through it, into the sensitive skin of his tumid sex.
Involuntarily, a low growl rumbled through his throat.
He wanted to rip that covering away. He needed to feel her moist silk directly against his crotch. Her softness enfolding his hardness.
Because he was untenably hard. So fucking hard he hurt.