In Rapture (Destined) (11 page)

Grant
opened the door while he carefully juggled her body in his arms. He used his
foot to leverage the door open, but almost ended up kicking the door in with
his exuberance. He grunted as the door moved back toward his foot after
bouncing off the wall. He set her down on the bed and turned back to close the door.
The lock clicked softly in place before he turned back to face her.

When
his eyes met hers the air seemed to leave the room. Malinda licked her dry lips
and took a slow dry breath. “Grant?”

“Yes,
Malinda?”

“What
did you want to talk about?” Her voice shook, even though she
desperately struggled to control the trembling that started to run through
her body.

“We’ll
get to that.” He sat down on the chair near the fireplace and started to remove
his boots.

Malinda
could not take her eyes off his movements, for the loose tunic seemed to pull
taught against his back when he leaned over and she could see the well-shaped
body hidden beneath its layers. Grant undid the belt around his waist and
started to peel off his breeches. They were like orange peels that were
painstakingly removed to reveal the fruit trapped within. Malinda’s gasp was
audible. He was all male, there was no denying that, as his manhood sprang
forward from its confinement. She could not help but stare at it as it stood
almost proudly before her. She quickly diverted her eyes to his face as fear
started to slice through her. Her dreams had only hinted at pleasure, and while
she was sure that he knew how to pleasure her she was not entirely sure he was
going to fit in her without ripping her to pieces.

Grant
saw the panic in her eyes and choked back a laugh. Earlier he had doubted her
innocence, but only a virgin would look up at him with eyes alight with fear.
He would have to be careful not to scare her away if he wanted to have her
tonight. “Relax, Malinda. Remember, we’re going to talk.”

“Talk?”
Malinda watched him prowl toward her. She agonized over the intimacy of the
moment as she glanced down to the shaft prodding out from beneath the tunic,
which was just barely long enough to reach midway past his thighs. She looked
back at his face and the softness she found there was not comforting.

He
sat next to her on the bed and shifted toward her. Malinda’s heart pounded in a
crazed rhythm in her ears. She was afraid that even if they did talk that her
ears would not work well enough to hear him over the humming energy that
consumed her. When his hand rose to cup her chin she looked into his eyes, a soul-searching
gaze transmitting more than words between them. Malinda closed her eyes and saw
images of her body contorting under her fantasy lover’s. The one thing that she
had always sought finally came to her in a flash. It was no fantasy, not just a
dream that had been sent to her to tease the imagination of a virgin. It was
destiny, a destiny that she craved and one that terrified her at the same time.
She reminded herself that passion did not always equate love so she did not
have to run from her feelings. When his mouth kissed her forehead gently and
rained gentle kisses down her face all her thoughts flew out the window. He was
a man. She was a woman. They were married. Nothing else mattered, nothing
except for the voice of desire that had so far lay dormant within her.

“So,
my dear wife.” He paused between kisses to address her.

“Hmm?”

“Tonight
you will be mine, and not just in name. I will not settle for anything less. Do
you understand?” The desire in his eyes echoed around the room as his question
lay before them.

“Yes.”
She raised a hand to touch his face and trembled when the short hairs scraped
against her palm before his lips melted into it. His teeth gently grazed where
her hand met her wrist, and she whimpered unexpectedly. The feeling of the
coarse hair on smooth skin made her hands quite erogenous, and she wondered
which other places would alight just as dangerously under his touch. When his
hands went to her bodice, her breath was caught in her throat in expectation,
but he never touched Malinda. Instead, another large tear shocked the silence
around them as he ripped the rest of the dress from her body. She almost riled
up against him for ruining her best dress, but her protest was swallowed
between them when his mouth covered hers. He yanked the dress away from her and
it was soon forgotten as his lips created quite a distraction.

When
Grant extracted himself to look at his wife his eyes were darkened with desire.
He ran his hands down the length of her body, taking in the beauty, the
innocence, and the desire that started to color her with a charming flush, and
its glow drew him in. “So beautiful.”

His
words made her quiver. Never before had she felt as beautiful and desirable as
she did at that moment. Not even her dreams had made her feel like a woman,
only like an outsider staring at an intimate portrait she might never experience.
Grant’s mouth descended again and her mouth awaited its touch, but he moved it
away from hers. She felt like protesting, until she felt his hot mouth make a
scalding path down her neck. When his teeth nibbled at the base of her neck she
felt like she would come undone. Her body writhed under him, and when his shaft
teased against her leg she arched against him.

***

Grant
groaned into her, his passion creating an uncontrollable frenzy inside. He let
a hand move down her body, meeting the curls at her base. He heard the whimpers
in her throat, small mewlings compared to what he was about to bring forward
from her. He traveled further down and let his fingers slip inside her. He felt
her hot nectar flow around him and his breath caught in his throat before his
raw voice splintered the silence between them. “So ripe.”

***

Malinda
felt his fingers move inside her and her body responded by melting into his
hand. She had no idea she could experience such heat so easily, but she had.
When his fingers tweaked the nub between her legs she almost convulsed
underneath him. She felt a throbbing pain fill her as he continued to work his
magic on her. She ached to move against him, to run from the heat he strummed
within her. Small yearnings rose from within and a desire to hide from the fear
that rushed in her veins. She wanted to feel him over her, doing what she had
only imagined up until this moment.

“Let
go, Malinda. Come on. That’s right.” She heard the words calling to her and
they were like a drug to her soul, as he conducted her through her first wave
of desire. She felt a tingling sensation run through her body. It gripped her
from her stomach all the way down to her toes, and her thoughts floated away as
the fire of his touch seared her soul.

Grant
watched as her legs trembled, her bottom writhing devilishly beneath his hand.
He lowered his mouth to her breast and sucked in the sweetness of her swollen
nipple. His cock was so hard it hurt, but he would not take her until he was
sure he could fill her deep without shattering her innocence. He continued to
rub her softness and watched as the tremors ran feverishly through her body.

Malinda
raised languid eyes to his and sucked in her breath when he looked up from her
breast, his mouth still firmly attached to her nipple. His fingers delved deep
within her and she felt her body swallow them whole. She could not help but
move her body closer to his as she arched against another wave of release. She
brought her hands up to the nape of his neck and yanked the tie that fastened
his hair. When the golden locks swung free she wrapped her fingers in them,
pulling him so close to her chest she thought he would melt into her body.

“Grant?”
Her flushed whisper raced across the space between them.

“Mmm?”
Grant refused to relinquish the tight rosy bud as he answered.

“Please.”
Malinda knew not what she was asking for, but she knew there was more to this
dance, much more if she remembered what her dreams had alluded to.

Grant
released her nipple and strummed his fingers across the other nipple that had
so far been free from his ministrations. “Please what?”

Confusion
crossed her face as his eyes probed hers. She did not know what to ask for, but
she knew that this was not all there was to it all, that there was something
more that could fulfill every inch of her. “I want more.”

Grant
sucked in his breath at her words and glanced at her one last time to make sure
he had understood her correctly. When he met the glaze of desire in her eyes he
knew that she was indeed ready for him, and right now he desired nothing more
than to bury himself deep into her. “As you wish.”

His
whisper tickled her skin as his whiskers grazed her flesh gently. He rose above
her and removed his tunic before moving his hands down to part her legs. She
watched him with eyes drugged with desire and bit her lip when she saw the
tufts of golden hair that ran from one nipple to another, and a small thin
trail of hair that crept down his abdomen, down to the darker hair covering the
shaft of skin swelling dangerously between his legs. She did not fear his
shaft, not this time. When he came closer to her she ran her fingers over his
nipples and smiled as he bucked against her leg.

He
maneuvered his body so that his swollen member was right at her entrance and
inched the tip just barely inside her heat. Malinda sucked in her breath at the
contact and her body longed to swallow him whole, but he moved no further. His
hot mouth glided over hers and his tongue darted into her mouth like a thief in
the night as he stole the very air she breathed. The tension in her body
relaxed for a moment and he moved further into her. Their tongues mated
together, mimicking the movements she desperately coveted. She arched her
bottom into him and felt him move further away. When she whimpered she felt him
tense above her.

“There
is plenty of time, Malinda. All the time in the world.” He propelled into her a
little further, then pulled back out, small movements that drove her mad
beneath him. He was having trouble controlling his impulses, for he wanted
nothing more than to take her with every ounce of the firestorm building within
him.

“Grant.
Please!” She could not control the urgency in her voice, for she was swimming
in a pool lined with a liquid fire of desire, a desire that only he seemed to
be able to quench. She could not deny that having only part of him inside her
was driving her wild with anticipation. She felt the battle within him and
decided to take things into her own hands. She wrapped her legs behind him and
plucked him into her, as sinfully close to her as she could manage. When she
felt him breach her maiden’s head she winced for a moment and let herself relax
in his embrace.

“Malinda?”
Grant feared what she would say. Would she ask him to stop? Was the pain
unbearable for her? He dreaded her next words before they fell.

“Grant.”
Her breath caught in her throat, as she struggled against the emotions swirling
within her. “Please, don’t stop.”

It
was all he needed to hear as he caught her bottom lip beneath his teeth and nibbled
softly on its velvety softness. “As you wish.”

They
moved together, the magic of the moment lost to neither one of them as the
desire built to a storming tornado of emotions. It wrapped around them and
twisted them inside out, and they lost every inch of themselves to the rapture
that circulated from one body to the other. Malinda clung to him when the first
wave hit her, and her whole world splintered apart when he joined her in his
own heated release. When they lay spent next to each other, their breaths came
in short puffs and a cold breeze clung to the room as she shivered in his arms.
She knew the specter had been witness to their passion, but she chose to ignore
the hairs that rose on the back of her neck as their breath became visible in
the air. Malinda would not let the departed create any kind of wall between her
and her husband. She sent a challenging glare into the air and snuggled closer
to Grant.

Grant
shivered in the cold air and Malinda snuggled closer. “Shall I put more wood on
the fire?”

“I
think there are other ways to stay warm.” Grant needed no further
encouragement.

Chapter 16

Malinda
slept fitfully as she tossed around the bed. She awoke to piercing screams that
shattered the silence. Grant seemed unaffected by the cries echoing around the
empty hallways. She knew at once that the screams belonged to Sophia. Malinda
peeled the coverlet away from her, then remembered that she was nude beneath
the covers. She quickly pulled on the nightgown that was laid carefully over
the settee near the fireplace. She had intended to put it on this evening, but
for some reason she had never gotten around to it. She smirked at her sleeping
husband, tempted to run her fingers through his blond hair once more, but she
knew it was sometimes better not to wake a sleeping bear. While another round
of lovemaking would have been pleasurable Sophia’s cries still echoed in the
silence around her.

Malinda
lit the small lantern on the table and carried it with her as she left the
room. When she opened the door she found Mule standing at attention in the
hallway. He sniffed around him and bit at the air with his mouth. Malinda also
felt the chill in the air and saw the frost that had gathered on the windows in
the hallway, which seemed extreme considering they were currently in the first
part of spring. Small snowflake patterns worked their way in the mirrors that
hung between the few paintings that covered the walls and her breath blew out
of her mouth like smoke from a pipe. She felt a shiver work its way up her
back, and her arms trembled slightly.