Mists of Velvet (34 page)

Rhys put his knee on the window bench and lifted her leg so that her foot was on top of his thigh. Coolness caressed her flesh, and she felt his fingers stroke her throbbing sex.

“Wet and throbbing,” he drawled, trailing his tongue up the length of her spine. “I want to fuck you, just like this.”

She tried to turn around, to release his hold, but Rhys only squeezed her hands and pressed them harder against the wall.

“Leave them up,” he commanded. Then he turned her around, so that she was looking into his eyes, eyes that were burning with an intensity she had never seen before. Was it passion, or was it just anger glistening back at her?

Her hands were still raised above her head, and the position pushed her breasts forward, making her back arch so that she appeared to be flagrantly offering herself to him. His gaze skimmed her length, and she closed her eyes when she felt his fingers encase her throat, then slowly slide down her neck.

She was breathing hard, excited and aroused beyond belief. This dangerous part of him called to a buried yearning deep inside her.

“Rhys,” she moaned when he circled her erect nipple. His finger stilled, and his gaze flickered up to meet hers. “Rhys, please. I burn; I ache.”

“Then why did you offer yourself up to Keir?” he groaned, cupping her breasts and stroking her nipples. He tugged at them, and her womb contracted in response.

“Because I love you,” she cried.

“Then why spend your life with Keir and not me?” he asked, raising her leg so that the ball of her foot rested against the cushion of the window seat. “Why not have this, this passion, this desire that flows between us?”

She tried to talk, but her teeth were chattering, and she was starting to tremble with desire. Her body literally throbbed for him. She needed his touch.
Needed him.
She needed to be filled with his cock; to be taken by him.

Rhys went to his knees, his hands stroking the undersides of her breasts before trailing down her belly. His fingers raked through her curls, and she felt his hot breath against moist skin.

He licked her swollen folds, long and slow, and she felt her leg weaken, but he reached for her knee and steadied her, spreading her sex with his thumbs and exposing her to his gaze.

“No, Rhys,” she whimpered, wishing she could run her hands through his hair. “Let me be with you. Let me touch you. Oh yes, Rhys, yes,” she moaned, thrusting her hips out and rocking back and forth as his tongue greedily licked her. “Oh yes, I’ll do anything for this, Rhys.”

“Anything?” he asked, looking up at her as a slow grin parted his lips.

She reached for him, but he grasped her wrist and held her still. Freeing the buttons from his jeans, he slid them over his hips and kicked them aside. Then he reached for her and released her hands before bringing her to his chest, and she sucked in her breath, feeling the hot singe of his skin against hers.

He reached for his cock and stroked it slowly. Her gaze slid to his erection, watching the way he expertly stroked himself, but he tipped her chin up and forced her gaze to his face. “Make me come with your mouth.”

Rhys pressed her down to her knees, his touch not ungentle. She looked up at him and saw that he watched her with his haunting eyes. Still stroking his cock slowly and sensually, he traced her lips with his free hand, his eyes searching her face.

Bronwnn trailed her fingers down his taut belly.

“Show me your mouth on my cock,” he gritted between his teeth, and she looked down to see that he was eagerly pumping his erection. She sucked him and he groaned, but he did not loosen his hold; instead, he continued to pleasure himself and watch her as she sucked, then licked. “So good. Never have I felt something so damned good.” She sucked him harder, faster, matching his rhythm and watching as the muscles of his stomach tensed and bunched. “Swallow me.”

He came in her mouth, and she sucked him down as he held her to him, thrusting deep, his cry deep and primal, stirring the animal in her. When he was done, he was neither sated nor spent.

He slid from her mouth and picked her up, carrying her to the bed and laying her on her back. Tugging on her ankles, he brought her to the edge of the bed, kneeled down, and lowered his mouth to her, licking her with such intensity that she felt her orgasm upon her. His tongue was flicking madly along her sex, and she felt his finger dip into her wetness and slide along her bottom to the cleft of her cheeks where he circled her slowly, allowing her to accustom herself to the strange sensation. And then one finger entered her slit; another finger, the opening hidden between her cleft. She gasped, shocked at the intrusion, but then he groaned deeply and looked up at her, catching her gaze. “There is now no place where a part of me hasn’t been, Bronwnn. I’ve marked you, and you’re mine.”

She trembled at his words, and at her approaching climax. He must have known, because his fingers continued to thrust in and out of both openings while his tongue flicked and laved. She arched her back, the ecstasy rising at a frightening pace. Her fingers clutched the coverlet, and her whole body tensed. “That’s it,” he said darkly. “Let me taste your cream.”

He drank in her arousal, and when she had barely finished arching and squirming, he deprived her of his mouth and moved away from her.

“On your hands and knees,” he ordered, and he stood back and watched as she did as he ordered. She thrust her bottom out at him, and he pinched her, just enough to heighten her arousal. “Gorgeous,” he whispered, trailing his fingers along her bottom.

Slipping his fingers inside her, he pleasured her until she moaned and began to move her hips. Next, he slid his finger up her cleft and began to circle her; then he sank one finger within her. She moaned and pushed her bottom out against his hand. “Feel good?” he asked. She nodded her head and looked back at him over her shoulder. Her gaze dropped down to her bottom, and she watched as he again slowly sank his finger inside her.

His lids hooded his eyes, and she saw his sexy grin through the shadows. “Put your hand to your pussy,” he commanded.

Her hand slid down her body, and with her fingers she circled the sensitive nub of flesh at the crest of her curls. She watched his gaze drop from her bottom to the shadow between her legs. She thrust her hips back and quickened her strokes, her lips parting on harsh pants.

“Do you want it? My cock in you?”

She nodded, and he moved his hand so that his index finger was plunging between her cheeks, and another finger parted her folds before sinking into her sheath.

Rhys parted Bronwnn’s swollen folds and entered her in one thrust. She gasped, but she continued to finger herself. The sight was damned hot, and he stroked her hard, bringing her hips back to him as he stood before the bed. Her breasts swayed back and forth, and he reached around and fondled them, more roughly than he ever had before. He captured her breasts between his hands and pressed them together, thinking how he would like to put his cock between them. He swelled even more inside her, then released her breasts, only to watch and feel them sway against his hand. Their gazes met, and he could not resist purposely pinching her nipples and flicking them with his fingers till she was biting her lower lip in pleasure.

“Take me, Rhys.” Her lips parted on a moan as he very slowly circled her nipple, then flicked it. “I want you, all of you, deep inside me.”

He was taking her hard, but she just kept begging for more, making him more reckless, more hungry to possess her.

He was close, and the way he felt her clamping around his cock, he knew she was close as well. He felt his balls tighten, and he pressed against her. “I would do anything for you,” he groaned, coming in long, hot spurts. “I would be anything for you, even immortal if I could. But I can’t. So you’ll just have to accept me as I am.”

Rhys fell on top of her, still deeply inside her. Their fingers linked, and she kissed his knuckles.

“You’re not leaving me,” he whispered. “I don’t give a damn about sacrifices or what you think you need to do to protect me. I look after what’s mine, Bronwnn. I might be mortal, but I’ll give every last drop of my blood for you.”

The scent of flesh permeated the tomb. Not human flesh; it was animal. He sniffed the air again, then grew still as the scent swirled around him. The faint flutter of wings whispered near him.

“Who is there?”

Only the echo of his voice answered him.

The clanging of metal, the loosening of his bonds made him not care who was there. His only thought was that he was free.

The wings fluttered again, and despite his blindness, he reached out into the blackness to clutch at the sound.
There!
He trapped it in his hands. The bird’s hoot of protest made him smile.

It was a gift from the goddess.

The owl fluttered frantically in his hand, and he brought the bird to his face, inhaling the soft, downy feathers. Beyond the avian scent were those of the goddess and the heady, intoxicating aromas of moonlight and seduction. It was like the dew on the grass, the humidity in the air on a sultry summer eve. It was Cailleach.

Unraveling his fingers, he let the owl free, then stood, unsteadily—free at last. He could hardly understand it. He could not fathom why, after a millennium, the Supreme Goddess would come to his aid.

It didn’t matter now. He needed to escape. In the distance, he heard the owl’s flapping wings, and he took a step, and then another. Seeking to follow the bird to Annwyn.

Feeling along the wall with one hand, he made his way to the door. When he found it, he tore the thick oak door off its hinges, tossing it aside as if it were cardboard. Despite his blindness, he had found his way out of the pit in which Uriel had kept him and into the cavern where Uriel performed his butchering.

Circling around, Camael sniffed the air, which was heavy with the remnants of the candle smoke and the sweet scent of burned wax and ceremonial incense.

With a roar of outrage, he moved his arm to the side, trying to connect with something that might give him an idea of where he was. Metal clinked against metal. He’d cleared the altar of its magical items with one fell swoop of his thick arm.

“Uriel!” he roared, but there was no answer. There was only the sound of his voice echoing off the stone walls. “Where have you hidden them?” he cried.

Damn it. He wanted out of here—out of this pit; out of this black abyss. A hissing sound at his feet stopped his mental tirade.

It was Uriel’s little viper. “Come to kill me, have you?”

The snake hissed again, only this time, Camael was certain he heard a voice whispering, “Follow me.”

That would be the damned day, he thought with disgust. He’d followed Uriel down here from heaven, and look what it had gotten him. There was no way he was going to follow a snake, of all creatures.

“Trust . . .”

There it was again, that voice. It was a female voice, soft and beckoning. Camael stilled his mind and listened again. It had been so long since he had heard that voice.

“Follow me . . .”

And he did. Taking a step forward, he paused and listened, only to be rewarded with the sound of a hiss. Slowly, he followed the hiss, the sound of scales sliding against stone. He had no option but to trust that this snake would lead him to freedom. But there was every possibility that it would lead him straight to Uriel and his death.

“You would not be alive if he did not need you.”

True. In his misery, he had always believed Uriel enjoyed torturing him, but even torture got old after a thousand years. No, Uriel needed something from him, and he was keeping him alive till he got it.

Giving himself up to the freedom he could taste, Camael followed the snake until he felt a shimmering shroud cover his face.

Annwyn.

He knew the feel of that magical veil; the scent of the woods. He could almost hear the trickling water of the reflection pool.