Noah (29 page)

“Noah,” she murmured, her tone sultry and soft, the antithesis to the raging hunger in her eyes and the eager trembling of her hands as she reached for him. She said his name twice more, under her breath, like a private mantra as palms and fingertips slid over the map of muscles on his chest, shoulders, and arms. Her eyes traveled over him just as relentlessly, at last settling on the jutting evidence of his voracious need for her.

You are so hot.
Her voice was a seductive whisper in his mind as her tongue reached to lick water off his throat at his pulse point.
I mean in terms of sexuality, not temperature.

Oh?

Yes. I thought you might need the clarification, as you are elementally challenged. Although, touching you, hot also applies here as well.

He laughed, amused by the compliments in her statements, even as he surged with pleasure at the knowledge that she found him attractive. At the same time he was inundated by his own very elemental heat as her hands and now her mouth traveled over him. She avoided his attempts to touch her, chuckling against his skin as he was forced to be satisfied with his hands in her soaked hair. She inched down his body, her hands paving bold swipes over his wet skin, her mouth flitting fairy lightly in their wake. Occasionally he would feel the nip of her teeth, making him jolt with the shock of liquid lightning pouring heavily into his already agonizingly expectant body.

You are killing me
.

He groaned aloud to punctuate the accusation, the tormented sound echoing off the dripping walls. Kestra smiled against the toned skin across his belly and swept both hands into the lee of his hips, finding him eager for the touch of her very interested hands. She slid her fingers over him, wrapped them around the ever-thickening shaft, relishing the surges in heat and amazing hardness that her touch coaxed from him. Then she lowered to a single knee, dragging her mouth down into the play. Noah’s response was vocal as her tongue slipped over the very tip of his erection, a teasing flicker that destroyed his control, then a soft sucking draw of her lips as she closed around him and brought him into the heat of her mouth. His grip on her hair was fierce; the sounds of pleasure escaping him were unhinged and primitive. Kestra drank it all in: his response, his flavor, and the helpless way he thrust into her eager mouth.

She knew she could give him pleasure like this, that she could take away his entire sense of control and of chivalry. She could make him forget all about the pleasures he felt she required, if only for a violently pulsating moment. It didn’t matter. Pleasing him was like ecstasy to her. Every sound he made, every twitch and shudder he couldn’t contain, the steel need that was now nestled in her mouth; this was all mind-numbingly exciting for her.

Kes!

It was a forceful mental command, coupled with the upward tug of her hair in his hands. She had no choice but to follow, releasing him as she came up to meet his eyes. She stepped closer then, allowing the rigid tips of her breasts to stroke provocatively against his chest, his now-neglected erection coming to nestle against the lowest part of her belly. He could feel the tickle of damp, tight curls against himself, the touch painfully erotic because she had left him raw with sensitivity.

Kestra ignored the accusing heat from Noah’s eyes as she reached for a bar of soap. His soap. She kept his gaze as she smelled the clean, masculine scent of it, a perfect complement to the scent of fragrant toasted wood that always seemed to cling to him. Kestra began to soap her hands, but then stopped as she arched that brow in humor and mischief, the white-blond arc maddeningly impish.

“Oh, wait, you already showered.” She tossed up the soap so he had to catch it and did a swift about-face. “Do me, baby,” she said, provocatively snuggling her bottom against the hard length of his shaft, fitting herself tightly into his hips.

Noah almost dropped the soap, his instinct being to grab the little vixen by her hips and end her game with a savage thrust. Instead, he gritted his teeth and allowed her the victory of the unstoppable groan she wrenched out of him, as well as the surge of heat pulsing against her bottom. He drew a fast lather from the soap, then reached out to whip her hair into his fist, jerking her by the wet mass so her back curved, her shoulders contacting his chest, and his mouth was planted firmly along the side of her neck.

With his free hand, Noah reached around to the front of her body and caught up her breast. Soap smeared over her, a lavish wash of sensation under the ardent sweep of his hand. Her chest foamed with suds as he kneaded her flesh, tortured her with the rub of his fingers as they slipped quickly over her hard nipples. He brought his other hand to the task, making her moan, her body pressing back against his sensually. He slid both breasts into his palms, soap fitting him to her with perfection, her nipples so hard he could not resist rolling them between his fingers even when her cries warned him of how sensitive she was becoming.

When he wanted more, he slid his hands down to her belly and hips. He grasped her hips, keeping her against himself with a taunting grind of his pelvis as he leaned her forward so he could wash her back. Soap slid down between them, the connection they were using to tease each other becoming slick and slippery.

Kestra moaned long and deep, unable to help wriggling into the alleviation of friction. He slid right between her legs, right through heat hotter than the steaming shower, slick lubrication far more efficient than soap.

She heard him curse violently, felt him seize her hips, and then heard the sound of soap hitting the tile. She wanted to tell him, but she was gasping at the feel of him, at how near he was. Until she remembered her new voice.

Take me, Noah. Like this. Now.

His response in voice and mind was a growl of primal demand. He found her, breached her, and thrust as hard and as deep as he could. They would have fallen over had she not braced against the walls as she had felt his gathering surge of possession.

But at last he was there.

“Noah,” she rasped as his hands dragged her hips even tighter against himself. She felt him inch deeper inside her, stretching her to accommodate his thickness, scorching her with a blinding and intense heat. Noah shook back his wet head after he had a moment to absorb the bliss of having her so tightly around him again. It was a fantastic strangulation, how she embraced him with honey and heat.

What to do now…?

He teased her with the contemplation, although Kes could hear the strain of pleasure that was on him. She responded by flexing inner muscles around him in blatant suggestion, laughing when he swore again.

That’s how I know I’m getting to you. You swear like a sailor on leave.

Impudent wench.

Noah withdrew and stroked deep in return, lifting her onto her toes with the collision of their hips. Her cry made her entire body shudder and he felt it in ripples of response within her body and her mind. He decided to leave teasing to another time. Her need was too great, as was his own. He could sense how she felt, raw and craving, hunger for satisfaction pressing on her. He felt the call of Samhain within her for the first time, the power of it blinding to one so inexperienced with its compulsions. It would be torture for him to withhold what she needed so badly. He grabbed her around the waist and turned her to face a single wall, both of her hands bracing against the tile. Even those simple movements seemed to drive her to distraction. He fitted her into his hands tightly and slowly found a deep stroke into her. She moved with him, using her leverage against the wall to push back until he was hitting her with a rhythmic, magic contact. He knew he had achieved it instantly, even without her sudden chain of encouraging gasps and pleas that accompanied each thrust into her body. She called to him with her mind, a cadence of his name that drove him crazy.

“Come for me, baby,” he said roughly. “Come,
Kikilia
, I can feel you.” And he did. He felt the tension, the tightening vise, her frantic pushes against him to increase his depth, and her louder and louder cries for him.

Her orgasm was phenomenal, a ripping explosion and loss of control unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He had to grab hold of her as she seized with her pleasure, her body ferociously demanding his, clutching him with velvet violence until he could no longer bear it. She snatched away all his intentions, all control, forcing his compliance. She did not stop until he was roaring with release, pumping hotly into her until she had drained him completely.

They collapsed against the wall gasping, her body crushed beneath his, her cheek pressed to the tile. She was trying not to cry, but it was too easy for gasps to turn to sobs. Noah knew why she cried, and he felt she was entitled to a joy that moved her to tears. He knew she still couldn’t grasp the existence of so much pleasure, or that her body, which she’d thought she’d known so well, was capable of producing it and surrendering to it.

He moved from her, only to turn her toward him. He swung her replete body under the water, holding her with a single arm as he washed her gently, without trying to stimulate her in any way, letting her recover quietly as he took care of her. She gasped when he washed her in tingling places, but the feel of his tender hands filled her with warmth. After he had made certain her body was clean, he washed her hair, lathering it richly and lingering over the long ribbons of wet silk. When he felt it was satisfactorily washed, he suddenly dipped her down along a single arm, bending her back under the fall of the water, rinsing her hair of soap as she laughed. When he was done, he kissed her behind her ear and shut off the taps. He engulfed her in towels, wrapped her hair, and they moved back into the bedroom.

Kestra suddenly gasped when she looked up at the windows.

“Daylight is coming.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“Don’t you have to sleep now?”

“While that is the generally accepted practice for Demons,” he drawled as he led her to the bed, “I had considered making love with you for a couple of hours first. Although not for too long.” He herded his body against hers until she fell to the bed and he followed. “I have a feeling you are going to be exhausting come Samhain.”

“Hmm.” She contemplated that as he slid between her thighs and pushed aside her towel so he could start licking water off her skin. “It is plausible,” she agreed graciously. “I’m in peak physical condition. I’m wholly sexually deprived, as you know. And I find that I’m really quite horny. So I’d say conditions are favorable.”

“Horny?” He laughed until she pinched him on the shoulder.

“Yeah. I’m hot for your body, you big jerk. But if you want to laugh at my expense, I could find a subzero freezer to sit in instead. After all, Samhain is only twenty-four very long, long, interminably lengthy hours.” She sighed for dramatic effect.

“I think your days of deep freeze are very much over,” he told her as he licked a long line from curls to navel to cleavage.

“Mmm. That would be nice.” She lifted a shoulder, nudging her nipple against his sexy mouth, practically purring when he obliged her skillfully until she was wet with want all over again. “And the daylight?” she gasped.

“In twenty to thirty minutes, the sun will hit the eastern windows,” he said, pausing over her body to point them out. “The stained glass will catch the light and it will bathe your body in a kaleidoscope of colors. Since I love colored light, I can do no less than to worship it in entirety with the reverent kiss of my mouth.”

She swallowed convulsively at the thought, her pulse pounding tellingly in her throat.

“Twenty to thirty minutes?” she asked. “What will we do until then?”

“Practice, of course.”

He slid down Kestra’s body, his mouth dragging hotly over her skin in a direct descent to his training grounds.

Noah woke, feeling that strange disorientation and lethargy that the daylight brought, even before he opened his eyes and saw the spray of colors still gilding the room. Not understanding why he had wakened, he rolled to feel for Kestra, who had fallen asleep snuggled up to his back while toying lazily with his hair, her fingers combing through the waves and curls so rhythmically that he had barely felt her fingers stilling before he himself had given in to rest.

She wasn’t beside him and his heartbeat jumped. He sat up, sharp eyes sweeping the room. He exhaled hard with relief when he saw her standing before one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, tracing the patterns of color with a slow, thoughtful interest. His heart literally ached for her as he saw her color-splashed body, wrapped in a sage-colored sheet, her lower lip firmly between her teeth. He realized it was still before noon, the slant of the light in the eastern windows still too strong to be anywhere beyond.

He silently moved to his feet, crossing to her and resting his hands on her shoulders. She settled back against him with a small sigh that sounded too sad and too troubled for his peace of mind. His fingers slid over her collarbone and up along her throat, a soothing gesture as he struggled to keep his questions to himself. He couldn’t rush her, could never expect her to settle for him and all he had revealed without a qualm and without a great deal of thought.

“You’re so wise,” she remarked softly, suddenly breaking the silence and letting him know she was aware of his thoughts, as well as his struggles. “I think more than anything your wisdom and confidence of conviction have had an effect on me.” She reached up to draw a finger down the back of the hand resting against her throat. “I was wondering how I was going to explain to you that this isn’t settled between us, and suddenly you wake and it’s in your thoughts that you already understand that.”

Kestra finally turned around, looking up into his eyes, her expression soft yet serious. He instantly cupped her throat between his hands, his thumbs stroking back along the line of her jaw.

“I am not so noble that I do not fear every ounce of your independence when it comes to this topic, Kes, but I am enough of an honorable man to know that I could never hold you without it. I hope you understand that I do not expect everything at once? That I only need you to stay close while I try to…” He hesitated, checking his immediate phraseology.