His hands slid down to cover my breasts, his fingers plucking my nipples, and the banked fire roared to life again. I pressed my butt against him, rubbing, and his sudden growl was pure animal need. Something that vibrated within me as well. I turned in his arms, and he kissed me, his mouth still tasting of the salt water, and I wanted to drink him in. Wanted to suck at him, as he had sucked at me, and I knew what I was going to do.
“Oh, God,” he muttered weakly, and I remembered he could read my thoughts. My body heated with a rush of embarrassment, but he only laughed, low in his throat, and shoved the covers off me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
AZAZEL LAY ON THE BED IN A perfect agony of anticipation, yet Rachel had suddenly become nervous. He’d forgotten that, despite her randy thoughts, in terms of pleasure she was practically a novice. She might know what she wanted, but she had no idea how to go about it. He could read her confusion, her shame, and he wanted to hold her in his arms, protecting her from everything, including her own uncertainties. But he could read her longing as well, and he had already proven he was a far cry from a saint.
He took the hand that clung to his shoulder and drew it down his chest, slowly. It was bunched into a nervous fist, and he used his fingers to open it, placing it flat against his stomach. He quivered in anticipation—even her touch would be enough to send him over the edge.
Lie back and think of England, he reminded himself with a streak of amusement. And brought her open hand to his straining erection.
She tried to jerk her hand away, but he wouldn’t let her, holding her against his hard flesh, and after a moment she calmed, letting her fingers touch him, learning him, encircling him. He wrapped his own hand around hers, showing her the motion, though it was a dangerous thing in his state of rapid arousal. She tugged and pulled at him with perfect precision, and just when he was about to stop her, she released him. He breathed a sigh of relief, only to feel her fingers drifting over him again, touching the sensitive head, drifting along the ridges and veins, and he could barely stifle his low moan.
She pulled her hand back swiftly. “Did I hurt you?”
His soft laugh was strained. “No,” he said. “It felt too good.”
“Oh.” She seemed to think about that for a moment, and even without seeing her face he knew she smiled in the darkness. He was growing attuned to her every mood, whim, and reaction. “In that case,” she murmured, and pulled away from him, rising on her knees over him.
He felt the feather-light touch of her mouth against his throat, and he remembered her bite in the pouring rain, her unconscious mimicry of the sacred bonding ritual. She moved her kisses down his chest, until he felt her small wet tongue against his nipple, and he reached up his hands to hold her there, to guide her, then dropped them again, fighting his own need to control.
She moved down and then halted, and unconsciously his hands fisted the sheet beneath him. Then her hand found him again, and her closed mouth brushed against the sensitive head of him. He moaned, but this time she realized it was from pleasure, and she moved her lips over him, feather-light touches that were an agony of delight. Her mouth left him, and he let out his strangled breath, only to feel it open around him, taking him into her mouth, sucking him in deep, her tongue moving against him, and it was all he could do not to climax immediately. He could do this, he reminded himself. There were far worse things than being tortured by pleasure.
Or maybe there weren’t. She was kneeling over him, and it was easy enough to pull her against him. He wanted his mouth on her, tasting her as she sucked at him; but she resisted, clearly not wanting the distraction, so he had to content himself with sliding his fingers between her legs, finding the tangled damp, pushing in as she tightened around him.
She slid her mouth down, trying to take all of him, and he found her clitoris, using his thumb as he thrust his fingers into her. She responded, her mouth moving up and down on him with such hungry urgency that he knew in a moment he’d be lost.
With a strangled roar he reached down and pulled her up, over him, ready to let her straddle him. He placed his cock against her, and she sank down eagerly, a perfect precision of their two needs, and she laughed low in her throat as she took him. And then, to his astonishment, she rolled over onto her back, tugging him with her so that their connection didn’t break, and he was covering her, her knees up high around him.
He looked down at her, cupping her face, and kissed her with all the force and power he’d been holding back; and she met him fully, a kiss of rampant desire and demand. He moved then, pulling out and then pushing in again, the eternal rhythm that somehow always felt new, and he could feel the shimmering convulsions tightening around him. He wouldn’t last long, couldn’t last long, and he sank his head next to hers, concentrating only on their joining, when her soft voice suddenly penetrated his haze of lust, and he froze in an agony of need.
“I want …” she whispered in that lost, broken voice that filled him with shame and sorrow, “… I want to change positions.”
He managed a crooked smile. “Of course,” he said, starting to turn and pull her on top; but she resisted, pushing at him.
“No,” she said. “There’s another way.”
He held very still. “There are many other ways,” he said finally, his own voice sounding as damaged as hers.
“I … I …” Embarrassment colored her voice, and he knew she couldn’t find the words.
“You want me to guess?” he said with strangled amusement. “We could just try it different ways until we hit the one you had in mind.” And then he caught the image from her mind. “Ah, that one. One of my absolute favorites. If you’re sure.”
“Yes,” she said, her voice muffled.
He pulled out, moving back, and she turned over, lying flat on her stomach. He slid his arm under her waist, pulling her up. “No, love,” he said. “It won’t work that way.” He reached between her legs, finding her, and began to push in slowly, the unaccustomed angle slightly tighter.
He didn’t mistake her moan for displeasure, and her first shimmer of climax almost pushed him back out again, but he held still; when the convulsion lessened he pushed in farther, a slow, easy invasion that was going to kill him, he was certain of it.
When he finally came up against her he held still, letting her get accustomed to the feel of him, deeper than ever, and she lowered her head onto the sheet. He was too close and he knew it, but he wanted her with him. He thrust, hard, his hips flexing, and she braced herself, welcoming him, and he gave in to it, pumping into her, no longer able to control himself. He felt her begin to climax and put his hand between her legs to touch her, driving her as he spilled into her; and his wings unfurled, wrapping around them both, encasing them in a cocoon of safety and desire.
It felt endless, delicious, closer to heaven than anything he’d known since the beginning of time. He felt her shudder and weaken beneath him, and he held her, cradling her, as the last stray tremors faded away, and his wings folded back in, releasing them.
He rolled over onto his back, taking her with him, letting her collapse on top of him, an exhausted, pleasured little heap of a girl. He didn’t need to ask why she’d wanted it that way. Accepting his weight on top of her yesterday had been an act of faith, of letting go of the stubborn need to control that had brought about disaster, just as his own questioning had done for him. By deliberately choosing a highly erotic but symbolically subservient position today, she’d banished the last of her fears. She could take him any way she wanted, as long as it gave her pleasure.