Bound by Light (36 page)

"Thank you." Jake’s low, quiet voice rushed through her like wind.

At the same moment, Merilee felt his hands cover hers and press her fingers into his chest. The shock and thrill of his touch registered everywhere at once, as if he had found some way to stroke her entire body at the same time.

When she opened her eyes and gazed at him, she couldn’t read his expression, but his gray-blue eyes seemed to swallow her whole. The battles, the city, the worries, the anger at him for storming off and scaring her—every bit of it faded.

Merilee curled her nails into his T-shirt. "If you worry me like that again, I’ll blow you into a thousand pieces. Nobody will ever find all of you, Jake Lowell. Do you understand me?"

Jake answered her by sliding his hands up her arms, pulling her down, and kissing her.

Merilee surrendered immediately, no thought of resisting. She needed this. It felt like protection, like healing, like air magic fused directly into her soul. She moaned into Jake’s mouth and stretched herself along his length, her legs on his, her arms around his neck. His fingers traveled through her hair as their lips moved together, their tongues touching and twining.

She loved his spicy taste. So unusual. So Jake.

He broke their kiss and found her ear with his teeth, nipping her once and giving her sweet chills before he murmured, "It all comes back to you."

"What comes back to me?" She rose up enough to look directly into his gorgeous eyes.

"Everything." He kissed her again, still toying with her hair, but also sliding down the zipper of her jumpsuit.

For the first time in her life, Merilee wished she were a fire Sibyl so she could burn off the leathers and his clothes and feel him naked right now, no waiting.

Jake gripped her ass and sat up, turning her over and sliding her beneath him so smoothly, so gently she barely noticed. Now she was looking up at him. Once more giving him complete control of her body and mind.

Her heart?

My heart . . .

He slipped his hand inside her jumpsuit and caressed her breasts, kissing her again and again, touching her like it was the first time all over again and he wanted to explore every curve and angle. Each time he pinched her hard nipples, she gasped as hot shocks traveled directly to her wet, throbbing center.

When Jake began to push her jumpsuit off her shoulders, Merilee almost ripped the damned thing in half shrugging out of it, getting rid of all the barriers to touching him, feeling him, being with him.

His lips captured hers again, and she groaned as his jeans chafed bare legs and sex. His shoulders felt strong beneath her palms as she pressed and kneaded, then held on as he rocked her body against his, trying to drive her insane.

"Are you safe?" she whispered as she reached down to unfasten his jeans. "Will this make you change?"

"We’ll have to find out." Jake’s voice was low and tight, and his blue-gray eyes flared as he gazed into hers. Gracefully, he rolled off her, pulling away from her fingers and sitting up before she could work the snap and zipper.

She started to protest, but he lowered his head, took her sensitive, tight nipple in his mouth, and worked it with his probing tongue.

All the air hissed out of Merilee’s lungs. She arched backward into the bed, pressing her breast against the stubble of his cheeks, then against his hand as it slid up her belly to squeeze and fondle her other nipple. Her hips moved of their own accord, rising up and down. Her whole body wanted him, ached for him. Wind slid across her belly, pulling Jake toward her, holding him, binding him like he bound her.

His rumble of pleasure made her nipple vibrate.

This time, her head slammed into the pillows.

She managed to look at him, even though she couldn’t focus. "You make me hurt, I want you so much."

Jake shifted positions ever so slightly, and his hand slid from her breast down across her belly, then into her lower curls. She felt the motion like a burning trail along her damp skin.

He moved his lips from her nipple to her mouth, covering her breast with his free hand and pressing the tingling flesh against his palm as he kissed her. Deeper and sweeter with each passing second.

His tongue slipped into her mouth at the same moment his fingers parted her moist folds and found her swollen center. Merilee cried out from the heated pleasure, unable to think of anything past the way he circled and pressed, direct, then indirect, back and forth, oh perfect, beyond perfect, she was going to lose her mind now.

"Jake" was all she could choke out, but he was moving again, sliding down her body, his cotton T-shirt tickling and teasing everywhere it touched. When he snuggled between her thighs, Merilee moaned out of control, then cried out as his powerful hands took hold of her ass and his mouth replaced his circling fingers.

He groaned as he tasted her, the sound thrumming through her body, driving her even more wild. She thrashed beneath his tender kisses and the strokes of his tongue.

Gently, slowly, Jake teased her with absolutely no mercy at all. He sucked and kissed, tugged and released, sometimes stopping long enough to run his tongue the length of her sex, sampling her flowing juices.

Merilee’s breath jerked in her throat. She grabbed his hair and tugged at it, wanting to pull him closer and shove him away at the same time. So good. Hecate’s torch, how could she stand another second? But she wanted minutes. Hours. She tried to hold back, tried to make it last forever and forever again, but Jake pushed his whole face against her, kissing, sucking harder—then with a deft tilt, he thrust his tongue inside her.

Merilee’s whole body seemed to burst at the center, shaking from her orgasm as she let out an endless moan and clamped her legs against the sides of his head.

His tongue alternated between invading her pulsing channel and sliding higher, higher, each movement creating new tremors of pleasure until Merilee was certain, absolutely positive she would come apart and release all her wind straight back to the universe.

Her orgasm wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop it, even though she knew so much emotion and feeling would take her sanity. Any moment now. Her brain would melt. Her body would turn to liquid and trickle away across the library floor.

Jake pulled his face away from her and she sucked air like a dying woman. Her vision blurred, making his handsome face swim in her gaze. She tried to find words, say anything to tell him how he made her feel, but he was moving again.

He shifted once more until he rested above her, his jeans unzipped now, his cock free and hard and pushing at her swollen, oversensitive sex.

She moaned. Her body twitched and jumped outside her control.

When he braced both arms beside her head, Merilee screamed and thought she’d die.

Her heart skipped from the overload of sensations.

"Stop," she panted. "I can’t take it. You’ve got to stop!"

Jake’s eyes flashed gold, and Merilee thought she saw fangs instead of teeth when he grinned.

All he said was, "No."

Then he drove his cock inside her, deep and sweet and hard and so perfect, and Merilee screamed as her soul-dissolving orgasm started all over again.

(28)

Jake clenched his jaw so hard he thought bone might snap.

Can’t shift. Can’t change. Have to stay human.

Goddamn, it was hard. Impossible.

He fought back claws and wings and fangs, focusing on Merilee.

So beautiful.

Her eyelids fluttered and her red lips parted as she moaned and moved beneath him, lifting her hips to meet every stroke.

This woman was hotter than any fire, sweeter than any treat he could imagine. Her wet walls gripped his cock as he plunged into her again and again and again. Each motion forced a sharp gasp from Merilee, then more moans. Her intoxicating scent drifted around him. White tea. Honey. He could taste it. He could taste her musk on his lips, in his mouth. Each breath, each gulp of her stole away his control.

Jake pushed as deep as he could.

Gods, but she fit him so completely. Her wet channel expanded and released, expanded and released, and he hoped she was coming over and over again. So many orgasms she’d forget her own name.

Damn.

Yes.

Only his name.

That’s what he wanted to hear from her.

"Jake," Merilee moaned, like she was reading his mind. She gripped his neck and pushed back, raising her ass to let him move deeper. Her muscles quivered along with his.

In and out, in and out went his cock, harder, faster, opening her even more, taking her for his own. Her swollen nipples rubbed against his chest as perspiration rolled between her breasts.

"So sexy," he murmured, pushing with as much strength as he dared. She squeezed against his thrusts, and when she groaned again, he felt the sound in his arms, his shoulders, his chest, his heart.

Jake loved the feel of her wet silk all around his cock. So right. So warm.

He was close.

Gods, he couldn’t hold back. He felt the explosion building deep in his gut. Knew he’d blow like a wild volcano. She made him crazy.

Jake forced himself to slow down, speed up, slow down again, then go faster, trying to draw it out for her, double her pleasure. Her entire body was flushing a soft, edible pink, and now she was saying his name like a chant each time he drove into those delicious depths.

Heated wind rose off her skin and rushed around Jake, blasted around him, warming him to a level he could barely stand.

"With me." He slammed deeper into her, pushing her as wide as he thought she could go, gaze fixed on her beautiful face. "With me."

Merilee screamed like her wind, need and pleasure and desperation swirling together. He picked up speed once more, pumping, pumping, pushing himself toward the finish, but holding back as much as he could.

Merilee’s arms went limp and dropped to the bed, but her hips still moved, thrusting to meet him, grip him, take whatever he gave her.

"Now," he said through his teeth as he came, gale force, blowing himself into her like a howling wind. "Right now!"

Her cry rose from somewhere in her center, flowing over him in a rush of air and energy like nothing he had ever experienced.

It took all his strength to weather that storm, hold himself in place and keep pleasing her, keep pleasing himself, bring them both over the top together.

Her channel gripped him as spasms shook them both, and still he kept going, made himself keep going, fight for every inch, every second inside her, every bit of moaning, screaming pleasure he could offer her.

Until he was spent.

Until she was spent.

Until her wind energy shoved him down so forcefully he couldn’t keep himself braced above her another second.

Jake collapsed and rolled to his side, pulling her with him, leaving his now-limp cock in her pulsing channel.

Then he held her, unable to speak, and she didn’t say a word either. Merilee lay in his embrace with her arms wrapped around his neck, absolutely still and quiet. So open and vulnerable. So completely soft and exhausted.

Jake didn’t think he could ever let her go again. Wouldn’t think about it.

"I’ll make you happy every minute of every day," he said, pressing his lips against her ear. "I’ll find a way."

Her arms tightened. "Jake," she whispered, and for a time, nothing else.

That was fine.

That was all he wanted to hear.

She was his now, all his. He relished the sensation of her breath brushing his face, her chest rising and falling against his own. He’d never be able to stay away from her. Couldn’t completely remember why he tried.

"If I do shift and can’t get back to human form, I’ll probably hang right beside you, invisible, always there like some pathetic demon stalker."

Merilee laughed. She leaned back, and her sea-blue eyes sparkled as she stroked the stubble on his cheek with her palm. "You belong to me, Jake Lowell. I belong to you. You capture me completely."

He kissed her forehead. "As much as any man can catch the wind."

She laughed again, and the sound made his heart smile.

"I’m falling in love with you, Merilee." He kissed her forehead another time and another, but kept his eyes closed, almost afraid to see her face.

Her breath caught, then started back, and Jake felt her lips move across his cheek, his nose, until she kissed his mouth. Gentle. Like the softest breeze.

"I . . . don’t do serious," she said. "I mean, I’ve never done serious, but now—now I’m falling in love with you, too."

Words went away and he held her and he kissed her until she fell asleep, her soft breathing like elixir, flowing in and out of his mind, giving him strength and hope.

Jake promised himself to take care of her ten thousand different ways, in a million different situations.

It all came back to her. Everything. And yeah, it always had.