Come to Me (25 page)

He cradled the side of her head in his hand, his thumb sweeping lightly over the high bone of her cheek. He met her eyes again, and this time Samira didn't know what she was seeing within them; the conscious man seemed to have disappeared, replaced by pure animal emotion.

She held tightly to his hand, almost frightened now, waiting with close to unbearable anticipation for what he would do next.

He tilted his head, his face coming near hers, his mouth a fraction of an inch away. She felt his breath upon her lips and his fingers strong alongside her head, holding her in place. After a long moment his mouth touched lightly upon hers, his lips warm and smooth and soft. She closed her eyes, accepting the kiss, her whole self living in the small surface where her lips met his.

He kissed her lightly, once, and then again. He brushed his lips across hers and then caught her lower lip between his teeth and painted a stroke upon it with his tongue. She relaxed toward him, her free hand resting on his thigh.

His hand slid around to the back of her head, holding her more firmly as he released her lip and then kissed her with more force. His lips told hers what to do, the pressure sending messages straight down to her loins. He swung his leg over the bench so that he straddled it and then made her do the same and pulled her toward him, so that her legs were around his hips.

She wrapped her arms around his neck as he put his around her back, lifting her up against him. She felt the ridge of his desire against her sex, bringing forth a tingling hunger in her own body. She tilted her hips against him, mimicking the pressure of his lips on hers. His hand reached up and pulled down her braids, his fingers tangling in her hair as he tugged it free of its confinement.

His tongue plunged into her mouth, and she felt her body wanting him to do the same to her below. She wanted him inside her; wanted him touching every inch of her; wanted to be thoroughly possessed by him, her body not her own. She wanted to feel him thrust his way inside her, pain or no pain, and wanted him to look deep into her eyes as he did so.

He forced her backward, down onto the bench. Her legs still around his hips, he lay on top of her, kissing her deeply, his fingers spreading out her hair over the edges of the bench and then tugging at the tie at the neck of her blouse. When it came loose he pulled the fabric down over her shoulder and almost to the tip of her breast. His fingertips stroked down the side of her neck and along her collarbone, and then his palm was over her breast. He massaged her in slow circles, then pulled the fabric free and took her nipple between his fingertips, pinching gently.

His mouth moved hungrily down the side of her neck, pausing in the crook to suck, the tip of his tongue pressing hard. Her thighs tightened around him, and a mewling moan started in the back of her throat. She rocked her loins against him, the hardness of his desire bringing her pleasure even through their clothes. She lost herself in seeking her own satisfaction, her hands deep in his hair.

He yanked the top of her blouse down, helping her to pull her arms free, until it was down around her waist, her chest bare. He growled low and hungry, and moved lower to capture a nipple in his mouth.

Samira dug her fingers into his hair, holding him against her, each flick of his tongue shooting bolts of pleasure down to her sex. He was no longer pressing against her there, and she rubbed the inside of her thigh against his side in frustration.

A moment later she was being lifted and turned, and obeying the demands of his hands, she shortly found herself kneeling on the bench, her hands on the table. He pulled up her skirts and she felt the thick, hard length of his manhood find its place between her thighs. He wasn't inside her, but the length of him ran across her sex, the head nudging against her most sensitive place.

His hands came around and held her breasts, massaging, coaxing her to straighten until she could lean her head back against his shoulder, giving him free play over her chest. He kissed the side of her neck, hands running over her breasts and belly, as he rocked slowly between the softness of her thighs. The wetness of her desire eased his passage, and she could feel her folds parting as he moved between them. At the end of each stroke he touched the apex of her lust, and she began to rock against him, seeking that pleasure.

One hand stroked down her belly and touched her from in front, lightly circling her most sensitive place. The thickness of his sex between her thighs became a taunt, her body wanting him inside it; wanting to be stretched and filled by every inch of him.

"Nicolae…" she whispered, and arched her back, reaching upward and back so that she could touch his head while at the same time she made her breasts even more available to his touch, putting them on display for him to do with as he pleased.

He seemed to understand her need and bent her forward until she had to catch herself with her hands on the table. He shoved the books away until there was a clear space, and with the gentle pressure of his body against her back he coaxed her to stretch out upon the surface, her hips at the edge, her skirt up around her waist, leaving her sex exposed and helpless to him. She turned her head until her cheek rested upon the cool, smooth wood of the table, her breasts flattened under her, her hair half covering her face and spilling over her arms and shoulders.

She felt him stroke the head of his manhood across her sex, and then position it at her opening, the thick, blunt end a firm pressure against her. She closed her eyes, a mixture of fear and anxious desire consuming her. He rose off her, her back feeling a sudden coolness as it was exposed to the air as he found a position from which he could thrust.

She felt his hand upon her back. Then, more lightly, his fingertips tracing a line that went down to the small of her back and over her buttocks. His hand rested there for a long moment, his manhood still poised at her entrance, and then he squeezed her buttock once, hard, and with a groan of angry frustration pulled himself away.

She lay for a stunned moment before realizing he wasn't going to continue. She pushed up off the table and turned, her eyes wide, her body still primed for a union that had not happened. "Nicolae, what is it?"

His hair was a wild blackness about his head, his clothes disarranged as he stood with his legs braced apart as if against the force of his own desires. "You—you are
not human
. You are a temptress. I cannot do this!"

It felt as if he'd thrown a spear through her heart. Still she was unbearable to him, even after all they had shared. She caught her breath, forcing back a stunned sob.

"I swore I would not, I swore after…" he raved.

Her ears caught at the words. "What did you swear?" she cried. "To whom? Nicolae, I am no temptress, no evil demon!"

"The wings upon your back; they are all that stopped me. Thank God for them! They are all that warned me."

He held his head between his hands, slowly shaking it in denial of what had almost happened.

"Warned you? Of what? Nicolae, I am not here to harm you, I swear it!"

He met her eyes, and some of the manic desperation seemed to leave his. "I don't mean warn me about you; it was myself I meant. I know you don't mean to hurt me. Samira, I know that, and it's not your… past existence that most troubles me."

"Then
what
?"

He shook his head.

"Does it have to do with a stone room, with torchlight, and men running by outside the window?" she asked, dredging from memory the scene that his unconscious mind had forced upon the first dream she tried to give him, of the girl in the forest. It had been running, shouting men and torchlight that had fractured the dream.

He stared at her.

"I saw a little of your mind, when I first visited you," she admitted.

"How much?" he asked hoarsely.

She shook her head. "That was all."

The energy seemed to go out of him. He went to his bed and sat on the edge of it, far from where she perched on the table.

The passion was draining quickly from her now, and some of the hurt as well. He looked miserable enough for the both of them, and she found herself forgetting her own complaints.

He rubbed his face with his hands and then dropped them and looked up at her. "I think you need to know everything that happened with Dragosh. I owe you that, especially after what we almost just did," he said, gesturing to the table.

"You don't owe me anything," Samira said softly, thinking of her own shameful secrets that she hoped never to share. She didn't want to owe him such honesty in return. "You don't have to tell me."

"No, I don't have to. But you deserve to know." He ran his hand through his hair. "Ah, gods. I'm going to need some wine if I'm to tell this."

Samira drew her blouse back up over her shoulders and fetched the flagon and a goblet, feeling that she needed her share of it, as well. She felt a flush of panicked shame at all that she should have told him. She had always thought that sex was just sex, but maybe he deserved to know of the indirect part she'd played in his past before he made love to her.

He smiled wryly in thanks as he took the flagon and goblet from her. "Perhaps you should have some, too. It's not a pretty tale."

But at least he had the courage to tell it. Unlike her.

She took a goblet and filled it.

Nicolae took a big gulp of wine, emptying half the goblet in one draught, and refilled it. He glanced at Samira, who had pulled her pallet out from under his bed and was now sitting on it expectantly, looking up at him for all the world like a child waiting to hear a tale.

But no child ever sat with the open neck of a blouse sliding low over one shoulder, the edge in front hanging by a breath to the nippled peak of a breast.

It was a good thing that Samira had been sleeping on the floor these past many days, else he doubted he'd have been able to keep from touching her for so long. That he'd finally given in and done so didn't scare him half so much as the reason why: not because of her beauty, to which any man would be vulnerable, but because of
her
.

Because for a short time he'd forgotten that she was a demon; forgotten that he'd sworn off women; forgotten that his life was a shambles. For a short time all he had been aware of was that, with her words and the way she gazed upon him, he felt like a man again, with confidence in his own abilities. It had been so long since he had felt that way, he'd grown drunk on the pleasure of it.

That scared him half to death. He felt the intoxicating lure of Samira's approval and confidence in him; felt her belief in him calling to him as strong as a siren's song. He was but half a step from
needing
her encouragement. From needing
her
.

He couldn't let that happen. He couldn't make himself so vulnerable to the whims of another. Only the shock of seeing again the dramatic wings drawn upon her back—wings whose existence he had forgotten—had jolted him out of his determination to possess her, and given him a moment of rationality in which to stop himself from completing the deed.

If he'd gone through with possessing her, he didn't know if he would have ever been able to stop. He would be hers body and soul, with no defenses left. Each time he had touched her—the day she arrived, and today—he had been like a man dying of thirst, presented with a river of cool water. Thought had fled, and he had lost all control in the urge to slake his need.