Golden's Rule (11 page)

He shuddered above her. She felt his frantic thrusts still, and desperately he pulled her bottom up and shoved in hard with a grunt and low groan. “So good. Never, thought to feel this, so beautiful.” His voice had turned hot with need and his eyes blazed. With each word, he began to thrust harder, faster, more out of control with each lunge. “Fuck, yes, yes.”

His handsome face contracted in pleasure. As soon as he sucked in a harsh breath, his hips drew back and he slammed into her with such force he shoved her up the bed and the headboard crashed into the wall. His erection swelled, feeling like a bar of thick hot steel-covered flesh spearing through her oversensitive body. She gasped for air as sensations built up again and with a silent cry, she felt him hit a spot that knocked her into another spiral of pleasure. Repeatedly he drove in, each time sending her rushing towards climax. When she couldn’t take it, couldn’t survive the pleasure any longer, she cried out his name. The strangled sound was so full of pleasure sparks flew down her body from her own rising orgasm.

“I need more, Beauty.”

Gods, he was so hot. “Yes! Harder. Oh please, harder, yes, just like that!”

She felt it. His leash broke and before she could gather the strength to take back the words, surely she wanted to, he began fucking her in earnest. The wet slaps drove her crazy. The firm, heavy glides hit new nerve endings each time, opening her up to sensations that could not be happening, but were. She began falling, trembling deep inside where he continued to impale her. She clawed him, screamed his name, and began to implode.

“Yeah, yeah, take it, sweetheart.”

“Don’t stop.”

Her words seemed to throw gas on his fire. With a deep growl he tossed on her hands and knees, face pressed in the bed with his mouth close to her ear, as he crouched behind her, driving his erection deeper than ever.

“Oh, yes, yes!”

“Beauty,” he whispered then pulled away, using his hips and gripping her waist to slam their bodies together. Within two lunges she climaxed. He bent down, locked her in his arms and kept up the hard, forceful lunges. The pleasure doubled. Unbelievably she felt herself spinning higher, locked in his embrace, unable to escape his control.

Suddenly, behind her, Torque sucked in a tortured breath. He gave a low tortured groan and she felt hot spurts of his seed fill her sensitive core, creating a microburst of tingling shivers down her spine.

“Beauty.” His big body fell on hers, his head on the pillow, face pressed to hers, a deep sound of pleasure ragged and breathless whispered against her ear. His hips began bucking uncontrollably between her opened thighs, pounding already tender flesh into another climax along with him. He jerked up as if she’d shocked him and through her own pleasure, she watched his mouth open on a low moan of ecstasy. “Goddess, that’s it, so fuckin’ perfect.”

He was perfect. So hot and huge inside and all around her. She could die this way and never regret a second of her life. He was hers. All of him. Panic hit a bit too near the surface. Tossed into such pleasure her emotions rioted, she wrapped her arms around his and held him tightly as she could. Her heart hurt from how full it felt. For some reason, now more than ever, she felt frightened.

Pressed down by his weight, she soaked up his endearments, his voice broken and anguished in his ecstasy. His beautiful body tensed and relaxed in waves that made her climax linger in small spasms of pleasure from his constant release until she was clutching him too tightly. It couldn’t be helped. He swamped her senses. Overwhelmed her with pleasure.

When he at last sank down, more next to her, than on top of her, he murmured soft words against her skin while he caressed gentle hands over her back, slowly drifted into sleep. This man, this sexy, larger-than-life man had finally made love to her. Why did she suddenly feel more frightened than ever? He’d made love to her so tenderly, so gently at first, and then with such abandon, it had to mean something.

Why did she still feel something was off?

She blinked past the tears and held on tighter, curling up into his bigger, stronger body for comfort. Only time would tell.

Chapter Six

Beauty gazed out of the windows of the library and struggled not to cry. The facts were quite clear.

Torque had left.

She’d not seen him since the night he’d got up after making love to her and with some murmured excuse that he had a meeting, he’d gone. He’d taken her to heights of passion that left her floating for hours afterward in a sort of blissful pillow of deliciously sore wonder, then left like the hounds of hell were on his tail.

Had she let him take more than she should have allowed? Had he been after the lay and now that the rush of sex was over, he was on to newer, better things?

The chase was always better.

How did she know silly shit like that but not her name?

Was Torque one of those guys? Had he completely fooled her?

She glanced at her phone again, hating doing it, but checking it all the same. He’d not called, only texted her a few times to say something about running flat-out busy, but for her not to leave the hunting lodge.

Leaving the lodge was looking better and better.

Three days. Three nights.

He’d made love to her so thoroughly she still found small marks of his possession on her skin. A blush of colour from his hot mouth, a small bruise from his powerful hands holding her under him. All of it magical.

Except him being gone.

Obviously, she’d pushed too far and now he regretted it…but he’d not seemed to during all that hot, intense sex. He’d seemed out of his mind with lust, but still so tender and careful with her. His size was intimidating, lovely and mouth-watering, but still…

The size of his cock was a mystery. The way he shied away from talking about it seemed to suggest the long, thick length wasn’t his by choice.

But if his body wasn’t that way naturally than how? A spell? Possibly. But he was a warlock with more an enormous amount of power at his fingertips. So why not fix it?

She turned from the window and closed the book she’d been reading on the customs of the Fay. She needed to do something. She felt caged in. Anxious.

Leave. Never.

Yeah, leaving seemed the best thing. Humiliation tightened her stomach. She just felt so powerless. And rejected, and oh, let’s not forget disgustingly wretched.

Her gut rolled, the feeling making her sick. She needed fresh air. A run might be good.

A run would solve all my problems.

Have I always been this pathetic?

Seizing on the idea of a run, she got ready and hit the freezing cold air outside, feeling better instantly. The snowfall from their night, and yeah, that was sappy, but true, that night would always be their night, hadn’t remained. The ground was concrete hard under her feet, though. She worked up to a good pace, her breathing steady. Had she run before? Her body seemed to flow, the urge to pace herself forgotten as the fresh air, sunshine and wonderful feeling of her own power surrounded her.

Maybe she wasn’t pathetic.

Maybe he was. She had power. She could feel it at her fingertips, getting closer and closer the more she worked at trying to use her gifts rather than remember her life. More, she felt capable of protecting herself. Odd, but it was there, almost a drive to do more than simply worry over her lost memory. Her memory might never come back, but her knowledge of what the Death Stalkers could do, what they were doing to harm mortals and immortals, remained. Even thinking about them made her heart race and her body prepare for battle. Torque was involved in the Immortal Council. She knew that they organised the resistance, sent out fighters to destroy the Death Stalkers when they could find them, but she didn’t feel as if she were part of that battle. Ah, Gods, it was confusing.

She simply felt like a fighter. Maybe her muscles and body recalled what her mind couldn’t.

She smoothly jumped over a three-foot-high fallen tree and landed perfectly on the opposite side. Power flowed through her muscles.

Maybe she sucked at picking out men. Maybe that was her problem. Torque was amazing, but he seemed unable to grasp that she needed more than to sit and wait for her memory to return. If a blow to the head caused her memory loss, then maybe another one would bring it back.

Laughing lightly, she stopped and admired the starry sky. The sweet scent of snow lingered on the air, tingling her nose. The winter animals were silent. The wind blew against her heated face and she felt her body ease of the tension she’d felt since—she tilted her head and gazed up above the dark outline of the trees—since she’d woken here a week before.

Out here, she felt free. With Torque, she saw, she’d been trying to be what he wanted—what she thought he wanted, at least. A woman in need of rescue. Only she didn’t feel she needed to be pampered and protected. And if she were honest, she couldn’t act that way for him. Not even for a chance at having him in her life.

The thought hurt, but the rightness of it settled over her. It didn’t matter so much that he’d not called or come back, did it? What did matter was that she hadn’t been completely honest with him, with what she sensed he needed.

He needed someone she wasn’t. She wasn’t helpless. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t going to sit at home and wait for her memory to return. Eventually it would. And who knew? Maybe she’d find out she did have family, friends, people who could tell her why she’d gone to the Midway that day.

She started up running again, feeling lighter now that a decision had been made. Maybe Torque didn’t want her to be weak so he could be the strong hero protector. Maybe he’d simply been waiting on her to say what she wanted. She’d been honest about her empathy, about her confusion, and memory loss, so maybe she should simply be honest over this as well. Maybe he’d understand.

Then why did he disappear right after making love to you?

The trail she followed turned and she could sense a slight rush of something around her, something that grew as she neared it.

The next instant she hit what felt like a brick wall and flew through the air long enough to realise just how pitiful she really was. The impact with the ground burst the air from her lungs and blackness swirled around her vision, dimming the brightness of the night sky.

* * * *

“Hey, buddy, you on the same planet as the rest of us, or what?”

Torque jerked his gaze up and took in the fact that the Immortal Council chamber was empty, all but Jaxon and Sorcha. The witch watched him with a look he couldn’t decipher. Guilt probably clouded his damn vision.

He could admit that his focus was on the council’s newest topic was shot to shit.

His concentration was on one thing.

Beauty.

Not the council meeting, not the trouble with the newest wave of Death Stalkers, not the results of the attack on their stronghold, not the people arguing around him, not anything that he needed to concentrate on. Not a thing. Just her.

She probably hated him by now. He’d made love to her like some wild animal and left before she woke up.

“Yeah, just have a lot on my mind.”

Jaxon stayed quiet about Beauty, but his blue eyes glowed with humour. Shit. The fucker had better not say a word.

“Ah, I see. So, what is our next move? Will we go investigate this latest threat?” Sorcha tipped her head and reminded him of Beauty. Sorcha was an auburn, almost dark wine red-haired witch with green eyes similar to Beauty’s. Hell, the woman could be her kin. And wasn’t that realisation a kick in the balls?

“Yeah, I think if we do a quick night out, we might find something.” Jaxon shrugged and put his toothpick back in his mouth. He was slouched down low in his chair, looking like he was enjoying himself excessively in Torque’s opinion. “Or we could just party hard and find nothing,” Jaxon added around the stick of wood.

Torque drummed his fingers on the table’s glossy surface. Beauty would love this place. The Immortal Council library had more books than Fort Knox had gold.

“Or we might find something. If we don’t look, how will we know?” Sorcha murmured.

Torque nodded. He needed his head off Beauty and on task. “If there are Death Stalkers walking around with tattoos on their faces, then we need to investigate. Let me think on it for a day or so, I have to go deal with some shit,” he finally ground out. Yeah, he’d screwed up with Beauty, now he’d have to go fix it. At this rate, he might end up taking his frustration with his behaviour out on her. She screwed with his brain cells. What was left after they headed below the belt at the mere thought of her.

Sorcha arched a perfect eyebrow and watched him too closely long enough for his heart to ratchet up to about a hundred and eighty beats per second. The head of the Jade coven always dressed like she was off to a business meeting, not an Immortal Council full of stuffy old crones and musty-smelling ancients and smart-mouthed younglings ready to change the world. Black pin-striped suit jacket, matching ultra-feminine skirt and a pearly white silk blouse unbuttoned enough to show she also shared the same curves as Beauty. Sorcha chaired the council meetings with confidence and power. He’d known her for centuries and in that time he’d seen her grow in strength, and in her inability to say no to those in need. But cross her or hers and he knew, he would pay.

His balls would be on display if Beauty were her kin, or hell, even part of her coven and he hurt her in any way.

“Fine. Keep us up to date. I have things to see to as well, too much, it seems at times.”

She filed out without another word, leaving him alone with a grinning Jaxon. He hated the too-handsome vampire in that moment.

“So, shit to clean up, huh? Noticed you didn’t drop the word on the little witch.”

“I’m not sure it’s safe to drop the word.” He practically spat the last, but his body had decided to pulse to a fast beat at just the thought of seeing Beauty again. She’d enjoyed their night. She’d worn him out and that shit just didn’t happen. She’d also taken everything he’d dished out—everything—and loved it. That shit didn’t happen either.