She supposed she should be ashamed for still wanting him. Her father would certainly be ashamed if he knew. But her mother would not.
Love was a rebellious emotion, Meli decided. It defied constraints of reason. She no longer cared about the twenty-two year old who, in his rush to freedom, trampled her. She discarded him long ago, except as fuel for revenge. His temple lay in ruin, his statue shattered, his hymnals burned. She would never again worship him or any other.
But the man he had become stirred a deep longing in her. He was darkness. His eyes were ice. He didn’t walk, he prowled, confident, powerful, dangerous. He had learned patience and achieved his dreams. And yet, hidden beneath the layers of menace and terrifying competence he remained deeply alone. Just like she did.
He was seductive and it was beyond her not to respond.
A small calculating part of her was glad of it. Celino would sense any insincerity. Luckily for her, when she finally kissed him, she would be perfectly honest in her want. There would be nothing false in her, not in the way she would shiver under the touch of his hands, not in the way she would part her legs for him, letting him drive himself inside her. She would revel in him, drink him in, and every moment of her pleasure would be genuine.
And when he belonged to her, she would finally repay a decade worth of pain in a single brutal dose of reality.
Meli smiled.
Celino lasted two days.
Shrouded in the comfortable gloom of the evening, her reader on the pillow before her, Meli sensed him at her doorstep before his hand touched the handle and shivered in anticipation. “Lamp,” she whispered and a small light ignited in the corner, diluting twilight with soft yellow glow.
A moment later he pushed her door open and loomed in the doorway, a shadow woven of night.
“Don’t you ever lock your door?”
“If I did, how would you get in?”
She had no idea how fast he could move. Before the door had a chance to swing shut, slapped by his powerful hand, he knelt before her in the pile of her floor pillows. She raised her hand and drew her fingertips down his cheek. The warmth of his skin sent a tingling pulse into her hand. It fanned the hungry fire in the depth of her. Her insides tightened. She imagined him claiming her, sliding into her, hard and hot, and she kissed him.
The taste of his mouth intoxicated her. He sealed her lips with his. His tongue slid into her mouth, stroking hers in the liquid rapid rhythm. The fire within her burst into inferno. Her head swam. He released her, and she slid her arms about his neck, molding herself against his iron chest. “Just like that,” she whispered into his ear. “Take me just like that.”
She licked the corner of his jaw and saw that the ice in his eyes had melted into radiant hungry heat. His hands grasped her tunic and effortlessly ripped the tear-proof fabric. Her soft breasts swung free. She rose to her knees and arched herself against him. His mouth trailed a path of heat from her neck, over her clavicle and down. His hand cupped her right breast, stroking it, squeezing, guiding her erect swollen nipple up. His mouth closed over it. He licked her, painting searing heat across her nipple. She dug her fingers into his back. “More. More.”
He licked her again and she purred for him. She was wet and hot and pliant, dying a little with each stroke of his tongue. His hands slid down her back inside her light pants and the thin shimmer of her underwear to cup her butt. He squeezed her and pushed her back gently onto the pillows. She fell for him.
Celino growled like a hungry animal and pulled her clothes off her. She lay before him, in the cushions, her chest rising, her thighs spread. He stared, as if unable to believe that all of her was his.
She lifted herself up enough to grasp his black shirt. “Off,” she breathed. “Every last thread.”
He pulled off his shirt. His chest was carved by a savage sculptor, each line hardened to perfection by years of martial practice. His skin was bare of hair and in the soft light his torso was golden like a block of amber, and just as amber, when she drew her hand across it, it sent a spark through her. She kissed the shield of ridged muscles on his stomach, reached for his trousers, unfastened them, and slid her hand inside, down the hard shaft of his erection. He growled, thrusting, and she dipped her head and drew her tongue across the top of him, sucking gently.
Celino jerked back from her, shedding his boots and pulling off his trousers in a violent frenzy. She laughed happily, thrilled that he wanted her, and then he grasped her, still laughing, knocked her back onto the pillows, pinning her down with his weight, and kissed her on the mouth, turning her laughter into a low throaty moan. She locked her hands on his muscular back, feeling every inch of his enormous body pressed against her, rigid with need. He kissed her again and again, on the mouth, on the neck, caressing her until everything faded except him. She wanted him, needed him, and yet he teased her with his mouth and his hands, until she could stand it no longer. Finally his iron thigh edged her legs open. He clasped her hands with his and thrust inside, into her moist heat.
A jolt of nearly unbearable pleasure ripped through her. She gasped, but he gave her no time to come to terms with it. He thrust into her again and again, deep, smooth, hard, each push propelling her higher and higher until at last she burst with pleasure. She laughed, unable to contain rapture, opened her eyes, and saw him come with her first squeeze, his eyes filled with ecstasy of her climax and his release.
He eased himself from her and she curled next to him, her head on his chest. His arm trailed down her back and pushed her closer to him. For a long time they lay intertwined and she listened to his heartbeat until she finally fell asleep.
She awoke in the night because he wanted her again. And then again. Some time in the early hours of the morning she called him a savage, but he laughed and seduced her once more with ridiculous ease.
In the morning he discovered he was late, but he stayed for breakfast. Meli served him shockingly sweet coffee in tiny cups, with a side of red arna berries still on the vine and spicy sweet bread.
He barely touched any of it. His grey eyes looked at her with warmth. He took her hand into his and kissed it.
His tenderness caught her unprepared. She was prepared for a brisk dismissal, but he didn’t seem to want to let her go. In making her strategy, she never counted on his affection or on the stirrings of absurd pleasure that affection made her feel.
“You’re making me feel self-conscious,” Meli said. “Did I finally cook something you hate?”
“Come with me.”
Meli shook her head. “I have my world. You have yours.”
A shadow of former hardness iced over his eyes. “Am I dismissed then?”
She kissed him on the lips, surprising herself with her tenderness. “I wouldn’t do well in your ivory financial tower. I will wait for you here instead. Come to me tonight.”
He pulled her in his lap. “I could persuade you to come with me.”
She smiled. “Ah, the power of sex. Perhaps, you could. But why would you, knowing I don’t want to go?”
“So I can have you to myself.”
“You can have me anyway. Tonight.”
He kissed her neck and she shivered.
“Promise me you will lock your door while I’m gone.”