A Spartan's Kiss (33 page)

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. This is for you, baby. Now relax and let your man love you.” The words spilled out before he could stop them and then he didn’t want to. He would never lie to her. She was his. Instead of panicking, as he thought she would, she relaxed down, settling more on the bed. One sexy leg bent at the knee as she slowly drew it up.

She could have waved a flag at a bull and got the same results. Her panties, silky pink, were wet. Holy Hades save him. A rush of lust exploded along his body. “So damn beautiful.”

He couldn’t hold back. Sliding his hands along the softest skin he’d ever felt, he didn’t stop until her plump pink-covered breasts overflowed each hand. Her breath caught. He managed to remove one hand from their prize and unclasp her bra without too much stumbling.

Meeting her eyes, he unwrapped her like a present. “Baby, always wear these…like this. So damn pretty, god damn.”

“Aeros!”

“Gods, I’m sorry, sorry…” He trailed off when she moaned and lifted her chest off the bed. Her breasts bounced and quivered. Fuck. He dived in. There wasn’t any stopping now. His mouth found its place in this world right between the lush mounds. He took hold of one and sucked the soft, inside curve. He wanted a nipple, but hell, he didn’t trust himself.

She gasped and brought her hands up to clutch his shoulders. She even pulled his hair and arched again. This time he groaned when her silky thigh met his cock. A shudder of pleasure rocked his world. Hands full of her gorgeous curves, he tried to slow down, to pace himself, not overindulge in her. He concentrated on her plump flesh, sipping on the lush sides of each breast and sucking along the soft skin until he found her nipple. The hard, pink point was his. He licked and licked the stiff peak until she surged up under him. Then, and only then, did he devour her the way he’d dreamed.

Her moans grew louder and the grip on his hair tightened, holding him so tightly in place he wanted to yell in triumph. More, he needed more. Sliding one hand down, he gently eased over her flat stomach to the apex of her thighs. She stilled under him, holding her breath. He nipped her lightly, and she arched her back, moaning softly in response. When she did, he stroked her between her thighs.

Wetness met his fingers, and he released the tight little point of her nipple to watch her.

“Goddess, baby. Do you know how fucking beautiful you are? How damn gorgeous you are to me?” He caressed her carefully, rubbing a circle around her clit and bent to suck the underside of her heaving breast. She lifted her hips and moaned.

He knew that sound. She’d made it twice for him. She was close. Gods, help him, so was he.

“Tell me you want me inside you when you come. I need to hear it. Say it.”

Her hand tightened painfully on his hair. His lust-filled mind had a split second of worry that he’d pushed too far. Just when he would have lifted his head and chanced losing hair in the process, she let out a breath of frustration.

Had he pushed too far? Was he reading her signals wrong?

“I want you inside me when I come.”

Had she sounded pissed off? He would have checked, surely he would have, but his throbbing erection had other ideas. Already at her entrance, he surged forward at her soft, erotic words. Pleasure exploded up his spine. Colours filled his eyes, and the world seemed to rush by, leaving him motionless in pleasure like he’d never known. Sweet, tight, wet heat softened around his aching hard cock. The sensitive head felt like it had doubled in size. A rush of ecstasy pulsed up his spine, lingering on the way back down, and his balls drew up so tight he gritted his teeth at the pleasure-pain.

Slow. He needed to slow. The thought hadn’t even firmly formed when he realised Tabithia was struggling under him, her small hands pushing against his chest, not holding him close.

He froze. The world came rushing back into focus. One look at her face and he knew he’d fucked up.

She was teary-eyed. Her face was red and a grimace of pain filled her expression.

“Stop! Aeros, stop!”

He tried. He did. He shuddered, caught between pleasure like he’d never known before and her pain. Pulling back, he couldn’t stop the cum from swelling down the length of his hard flesh. She cried out again, and he groaned, falling down on her to hold her still. Every frantic movement only increased the pressure to come. With a curse, he gave up. Pulling back, he came, still only half buried inside her. The sensations rushing through him swamped everything else. Slowly, he fought it, forcing the world to resurface until he managed to unlock his muscles enough to lift his hips and pull completely free of her. Groaning at the loss, he couldn’t stop his body from bucking against her soft stomach, gushing load after load of cum onto her warm skin. His climax was so deep, so strong, he yelled her name repeatedly until he’d emptied every ounce of cum he’d ever created.

Breathless, he cursed himself for a fool.

Tabithia was crying under him, pressing against him to get him off.

He’d hurt her? Why hadn’t she said so? Why hadn’t she stopped him?

“Tabithia, sweet gods, I never meant to hurt you. Why didn’t you stop me? I would have…stopped.” She didn’t respond and panic tightened his chest. He’d hurt her.

“Tell me why you didn’t say anything, baby.”

Surprising the hell out of him, she hit him hard, right in the head, her fist connecting with his jaw and flinging him backwards. Holy Hades. He deserved that, but still.

“Because you keep ordering me! Damn it to hell. I told you. I asked you. I trusted you. And what do you do? You can’t help it, can you? Orders! Orders! Orders! God damn it!” She covered her mouth with both hands and her eyes grew round in shock. “Damn it! See what you’ve done? Never, never curse a god! And what did I do? I cursed a god.”

“Tabithia, just—”

“Noooooo!” Screaming like a banshee she was a sight—naked, beautiful, and angry as hell. “Don’t speak! Don’t even open your mouth!” She flung a boot at him, hitting him in the chest because he was too shocked to move. “Just shut up!”

“Damn, well, that’s a bit harsh, Tabithia.”

She covered her ears and jumped off the bed. She let go of her ears to pick up her clothes and he panicked. He’d be damned if he was letting her go. Not now. Not ever. He’d messed up, yes, but he wasn’t giving up.

He opened his mouth and she threw another boot at him, nearly taking his head off.

“Don’t. I’m warning you! Don’t speak!” Trying to jam her foot in her jeans, she nearly fell over. She made a frustrated screech and glared at him. “I’m leaving. Don’t you—”

He’d had enough.

“Oh, no, you don’t. Get that pretty ass back in that bed right now. I’m going to give you pleasure if—”

With another screech that threatened to break his eardrums, she climbed back on his bed, swathed herself in his blankets, drew her knees up to her chest, and covered her ears. Eyes squeezed shut, she was the most adorably miserable person he’d ever seen.

Gods.

He’d yelled at her. He’d hurt her. Then yelled at her.

She’d got back in his bed.

What the hell?

Feeling like a complete ass, he walked to the bed and knelt down next to her. She jerked to the side and didn’t open her eyes. She was humming, some nonsense sound so loud she couldn’t hear him.

What the hell?

“Tabithia, stop this and listen to me. We need to talk.”

She didn’t move. Her humming increased in volume as soon as he said her name. She rocked back and forth, looking so distressed he almost left her alone.

“Tabithia!” Jerking her hand away from her ears and held her palm against his heart and waited. For what he wasn’t certain.

The rocking stopped. She huffed out a breath like he’d ruined her day. Hell, he had, hadn’t he?

“I want to go home, Aeros.”

His heart took a direct hit. “You can, you can. Just we need to talk about this, baby.”

She gazed up at him silently. He could swear she looked disappointed in him, almost as if he’d let her down. He had. He’d hurt her.

“I would never have hurt you. If you had said something, if you’d told me…”

“I know.”

“You do?” Puzzled, he watched her but she seemed resigned, sincere and, more than anything, tired. She rested her head on her upraised knees and turned to the side, avoiding him.

He still needed answers. “I can’t please you if you won’t tell me to stop, or…”

Her head swung around, and she pierced him with a glare. “I did tell you to stop.”

Gods. She had?

“But you didn’t. You…finished.”

Heat hit his face but he refused to be embarrassed. “It was difficult, Tabithia. I was experiencing such pleasure. I…know you were not, but for me, it was the most incredible experience of my life. It was like you’d dipped me in pleasure. I never wanted to hurt you. I tried not to, but…” Swallowing, he looked away then back up at her. “Tell me how to please you and I will. I’ll go slow, very slow.”

“No. I want to go home.”

“No. I’m not letting you go like this. Not hurting.”

She stared at him for so long without speaking that he felt like she’d looked inside his soul and was still undecided on what she saw.

“I want to go home, Aeros. You don’t understand me, and I can’t explain, but I want to go home. I don’t want to talk. I want to go.”

“Tabithia.” Sighing, he rubbed a hand behind his neck and tried to figure out where things had gone wrong. “You liked what we did, didn’t you? Before I hurt you?”

She remained stubbornly silent. He knew she was angry—he could see it in her eyes. They flared a bright green, almost a jade, against her pale skin. Even tear-streaked she was beautiful.

“I want you—”

Reaching up, she covered his mouth with her hand. She’d done that before. More than once.

”Just stop talking. Can you promise not to give me orders? Can you stop telling me what to do? Stop telling me what to do!” she cried.

The suspicion grew until he had trouble breathing past the rage boiling up from his gut. He sensed the instant she felt his anger. She tried to pull her hand away. He held on and placed a kiss in the centre of her palm. She smelt of him. She’d been running her hands over his skin, driving him further and further into such pleasure that his cock strained between them.

He had to hear the truth. “Tabithia. I’m going to ask you a question. I want the truth from you.”

It wasn’t a question, but she nodded. Tears shone in her eyes making them a brilliant emerald drowning in either fear or sorrow. Both options fed his anger.

“Do you have to do what I say? Do as I bid you even if you choose not to?”

Her eyes closed an instant before the sorrow won. A single tear slipped down her cheek as she nodded.

Pain. Rage. Fury. All three emotions blasted through him, and he barely let go of her hand before his fisted.

“All this? This was because I told you to? None of this was you? It never was? You’ve only done this because I said?” He rapid-fired questions like a machine gun, unable to stop the flow of anger from raising his voice until he was yelling at her. “How could you do this, Tabithia? I knew you were a witch but this is beyond playing with nature, playing with people’s lives. This—”

She broke away from him, jumping down from his bed again, and screamed. The mirror behind him burst from the wall and slammed on the floor. The light by the bed exploded. The pipes sounded like cats caught in a door. Curtains whipped around as if caught in a gale, and, at the centre of it all, Tabithia blazed brighter than he’d ever seen her.

In the jungle, she’d raged. In the cavern, she’d saved him and had looked like a god bestowing vengeance on the damned.

Now? Now she blazed a green aura so bright he winced. She was enraged—at him.

“I never, never played with you. Never. It was me. It was always me. I wanted you. I wanted to experience this. So I took it in the only way I could. With you. With your pendant aiding me. Now you think to yell at me for trying when all my life I’ve simply hidden, too afraid to even think of trying? How dare you?”

Damn. He’d never heard her so angry

“Shit. I’m sorry. Baby, I don’t know whether to kiss you or spank that beautiful ass. Shut the light and dim the wind, would you?”

She blinked once, then crossed her arms. All indignant woman. “Give me the pendant.”

Touching the charm at his neck, he frowned. A child had given this to him. She’d told him something then that he’d forgotten until now.
‘Keep this on. One day it will save another, while it saves you too. Until you face your dream and see it before you. Then, when you have it before you, let this go and trust to fate to find your happiness.’
He’d saved the child from rapists. She’d barely been eight or nine winters.

Slowly, he reached back and tried to unlatch the clasp. A thought came to him and he grinned. “Are you certain, baby? I think we might have some fun with this…”

His cock chose that moment to jerk—possibly at the image of her on her knees for him.

Her green light faltered, and she bit her lip. He grinned and opened his mouth.

“No!” Her light blinked out. She scanned the room and sucked in a breath at the destruction. Hell, he’d let her destroy the entire house if it got her to stay.

“Damn, remind me not to ever come before you do, okay?” He was on her before she could escape, not that she was trying to leave now. She buried her head against his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Why didn’t you simply tell me, Tabithia?”

She didn’t answer for a long while. Instead she curled up into his arms and let him hold her close.

“I couldn’t. How could I? What would I say? Oh, well, guess what, big guy? You know that pendant you have—can I have it, because it makes me do whatever you say?” Her mocking his voice was hilarious but he tried not to laugh. “Stop laughing at me. You scared me, Aeros. And yelled at me. And you hurt me. I don’t think I want to do that…again.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. That was a fluke. Trust me.” Damn, he didn’t want her scared to have sex with him. He wanted to have sex with her a great deal. All the time. Any time. Daily. “I promise it won’t be like that. Look, I’ll put my jeans on, okay?”