She rested her buttocks against the boulder but was unprepared when he nudged her legs apart with his knee.
“You are so blessedly beautiful,” he breathed, staring at her from top to bottom.
Erin didn’t feel the cold of the air or the rock at her back. She only had eyes for Cheltam—Rafe—until he met her gaze, then she instinctively looked away. Submissive…
Fingers under her chin tilted her gaze back up. “I want you to look at me.”
“Yes, Rafe.” Yes, Sir.
He exhaled heavily. And when he inhaled, he frowned again. “You really aren’t overpowering me with that scent.”
“So what?” She arched closer to him, wanting his hands back on her. But it wasn’t her place to be aggressive. Rafe had to tell her what he wanted. No, Erin, no. Fight it. You’re in charge. You’re the Handler, not Rafe, Cheltam, whatever he wants to be called.
“So…your body is like a furnace, and every other time we’ve been together you’ve been throwing out pheromones left and right. Yet now, nothing? When I can clearly smell your cream?”
“My cream?” Puzzled, she stared at him, watching in bemusement as he fell to his knees in front of her.
“Your cream.” He put his hands on her sensitive thighs and spread her to his gaze, his stare centred on her swollen folds. “That sweet honey I’m going to eat until I’m full.” Alarmed now, she wanted to protest. The Mardu wanted to eat her? The self-preservation that should have kicked in didn’t. She waited for him to do whatever he wanted, her body thoroughly ensnared by his heady scent that thickened as he watched her.
An ache thrummed within her, and she moaned as his face neared her mound, helplessly caught in a war with her body she couldn’t win.
The speed with which his mouth found her sex startled her, as did the pleasure that shot through her.
“Rafe. What are you doing to me?”
He grunted his satisfaction and tightened his grip on her thighs as he sucked on her clit, pulling more and more cream towards his mouth. He licked with a tongue that stroked in all the right places, and like before, she burst into an incredible orgasmic bliss. Energy spiralled out from her core, his mouth electric as it wrung more and more pleasure from her.
But when he inserted a long finger into her, she tensed at the intrusion, her body making way for something larger than her own digit. And still it was not enough. The orgasm continued to wrack her as he pushed deeper, while he licked and sucked her clit.
“More,” he growled and pulled on her flesh with his teeth as he added another finger into her sheath. “So damned tight.” Working into her, he thrust repeatedly in and out of her channel with his fingers until the small pressure holding back further penetration broke. A huge burst of ecstasy ruptured the small spurt of pain until a plane of unimaginable rapture filled Erin’s world.
She distantly heard Rafe’s curse, felt his fingers slipping from her body as she blinked into a world layered atop her own. Colours became brighter, noises louder yet softer at the same time, soothing her into a state of utter peace. And then warmth covered her body, the rasp of Rafe’s shirt against her breasts pulling a moan from her. Unbidden, her body released a torrent of perfume, tying Rafe to her in an unimaginable hold.
Blinking up at him, Erin watched his eyes glow like twin suns as he pushed inside her with something more than his finger. He practically purred his pleasure as he pushed deeper and harder into her, until he fully seated himself inside her. Instead of the discomfort she would have thought to feel, however, excitement and a feeling of utter right lit her from the inside out.
“Erin, dear Flor, you’re in heat,” he moaned, pulling out only to slam back in. Rafe claimed what no male ever had, drawing from her sensations she’d never before felt. “Fuck. I have to have you. All of it, again.”
Still floating in that state of pleasure, she felt the eddying climax swell, pushing her sated body towards the crest of fulfilment yet again. As Rafe filled her with himself, a part of their energy overlapped. His pulling hers back to the forest, and hers pulling him onto a plain of conscious pleasure she never wanted to leave again.
“Yes, yes,” he moaned as his pace increased.
She felt his body overtaking hers, experienced the awareness of enveloping another, of feeling his body press hers in intimate places that sparked greater and greater pleasure. Rafe locked his mouth over hers, devouring her lips and breath as he took her harder and faster.
Erin shook, on the edge again as he pulled her with him out of that ecstatic place, only to teeter at the edge of it together. Rafe abruptly ended the kiss and caught the sides of her head in a firm grip.
Staring down into her gaze, he mastered her body and mind, controlling her every physical sensation. “I’m going to shoot so hard inside you,” he said thickly, and she moaned as he readjusted his angle of penetration. “Fuck, Erin, you’re so right.” Perfume covered them both, a mixture of his areesia and her spice, and he groaned as he pushed deeper inside her, the fullness so tight it almost hurt.
“But I’m not going to come until you do. So come for me, baby. Come now,” he urged as he bit hard at the tendon of her throat.
Erin couldn’t help but do as he commanded, and she screamed as she came, her climax obliterating all else. Once again that joyful plane awaited, but this time Rafe was there with her, jetting inside her while his energy entwined with hers.
Erin couldn’t have said when she lost consciousness, or when she eventually left that floaty perception of perfection. She shifted and suddenly felt Rafe holding her tight. He kissed the top of her head and hugged her closer. And for the first time in her life, the caution she lived with on a daily basis left her. With a soft sigh, she felt him withdraw, and she snuggled closer to bask in the warmth of the only male besides Ryen she’d started to trust.
After laying them both down on the ground over their scattered clothes, Rafe stared down at Erin, baffled at how a woman not Mardu could experience a Mardu female’s heat and wainu, both while still a virgin. By Flor’s dagger, but the woman made him crazed with just a taste. Rafe of Mardu—a Xema warrior—undone by sex. It was unheard of. His kind revered sensuality. Xema both basked in pleasure and controlled it, through years of steady practice. Through sex, Rafe could better manage his energy and eventually reach wainu— a spiritual centre that would increase his strength the more he reached it.
Yet with Erin, he’d lost any semblance of reason, a prisoner to desire. All he’d thought when eating her had been, Mine. And Gar hinted she might be a Creation? What Creation could mimic Mardu characteristics? Could take a Xema warrior to wainu?
Incredibly, the spitfire who’d not only kept pace with him but tried to take charge of everything they did had ceded him everything. Her virginity and her submission, and he still couldn’t believe it. Twice now he’d shared intimacies with Erin, and each time just got better.
Hell, he’d shot so hard and so deep into her he still felt connected to the woman.
Her innocence didn’t mesh at all with the incredible blow job she’d given him. And he couldn’t decide whether to be pleased that he’d claimed what no one ever had before, or annoyed that she’d misled him by agreeing to ‘perform’ for him whenever he wanted. A damned virgin claiming expertise. A virgin no longer, his conscious winced while the predator within him snarled its approval.