Nightwind (30 page)

as he dipped down and put his arm under her legs and swung her against him.

He carried her to the bed and laid her gently upon it. With fingers that shook, he unhooked the garter

and rolled down her stockings, keeping his hot gaze away from the dark triangle beneath the silk panties.

Even when he tugged at the panties, drawing them from her hips, he avoided looking at that dewy patch,

knowing that if he did, he might well throw himself on her and ravage her as the beast within him desired

to do.

She watched him tear at his clothing, wanting nothing between him and her. She winced, as the silk was

rent and the buttons popped. She smiled shyly as he tugged furiously at the zipper of his trousers then

cursed as it snagged. She was amazed when he ripped the zipper apart and thrust the trousers away in a

frenzy to join her on the bed. She was only a little shocked when she saw he wore no underwear beneath

the Armani trousers.

When at last he was naked, feeling her timid gaze sweeping over him, he stood beside the bed and

allowed her to look her fill, to banish any fear of him she had. He was unaware that the thrust of his

manhood had already driven a deep wedge of uncertainty and tremulous anxiety through Lauren’s rapidly

beating heart.

She held her arms up to him. “Syntian?”

There was nothing between heaven and hell and the Abyss that could have kept him from covering her

body with his own.

“Tell me you want me, Lauren,” he whispered as he sank upon her. “Ask me to take you.”

It had beenunlike anything she could have imagined. The pleasure was sweeping, exhilarating, all

encompassing; but it had not hurt as she had thought it would. At the moment he had started to impale

her, he had forced her gaze to his.

“Look at me, Sweeting,” he had ordered and she had become lost in the maze of desire in his eyes.

She remembered nothing of her deflowering, but the passion and the heat and the urgency of his desire

as he claimed her. To her dying day, she would relive that moment of ecstasy over and over again,

marveling at how wonderful the experience had been.

“I want you to know the joy of my love, Lauren,” Syntian had told her, “not the pain of it.”

He had been so gentle with her, so tender, so caring. His touch had been like a feather against her skin,

then a soft weight that had brought about the most wonderful of feelings between her thighs. His teeth had

nipped at her nipples, nearly driving her mad with need, and his tongue flicked about her flesh, making

her squirm beneath his hands.

“Let me show you what it is to be loved, Lauren,” he had asked of her and set about doing just that.

He had not once made her ashamed of what he was doing or what he showed her to do. Not once did

he arouse in her anything but sheer desire and overwhelming longing to know all of him. Not once did he

ask of her anything she was not willing to do.

“Some women like this; some don’t,” he had said as he showed her the many ways a woman can love

her mate. “If you don’t, we won’t do it again.”

But there had been nothing that she had not enjoyed; no part of her she did not want him to touch and

love. Likewise, there had been nothing he showed her of his own body and his own pleasure that she had

been reluctant to know and embrace wholeheartedly.

“You don’t have to do this,” he had told her at one point.

“I want to,” she had whispered and her lips had found the core of him, drawing on him, and he had

tangled his hand in her hair. She had not minded all that much for she knew she had given him great

pleasure, but he had stopped her, quickly stopped her, when the pulse in his manhood had grown heavy

and hard.

“Let me” he had said brokenly, drawing her up his body and then rolling with her so that he was atop

her, their sweat-drenched bodies slick against one another.

He had nudged her legs apart, settled himself between her thighs, bracing himself on his elbows as he

gazed down with a heated expression that scorched Lauren’s soul.

“Are you ready?” His voice had broken with strain and she could feel his arms trembling as he sought to

hold himself up.

She had pushed her nakedness against him, all the encouragement and permission he needed, to reach

down and position himself at the threshold of her being

“Are you sure?” he had asked, breathing hard.

“Take me, Syntian,” she had answered. “Make me yours.”

He had been so gentle, so careful. The tip of him pressed intimately against her and she had tensed,

expecting the pain. It had been then that he stilled, his gaze going into her like molten lava.

“Look at me, Lauren.”

There had been no pain, but there had been a dribble of blood when he had pulled free of her after the

most intense experience of sheer pleasure she had ever known in

She had screamed beneath the covering of his mouth over hers when she had climaxed around his rigid

staff like an Earthquake. Her fingernails had gouged into his back, her hands feverishly pressing him

closer and closer to her sweaty body. Her legs had come up and wrapped about his hips then moved up

to clamp him around the waist as she lifted herself against him in an effort to get as close to the source of

her need as she could get.

It had been a slight pressure at first, a pleasurable building that spread throughout her lower body. It

became an itch, a need to be satisfied, a tickle that made her squirm with abandon against the hardness of

him, striving to calm the intense feeling that shot through her, around her, pushing her up into the

stratosphere only to drag her spiraling down through a sudden darkness that settled to numbing lassitude.

His hands were clasped to her buttocks, urging her against him as, with a shudder and an inhuman growl

of elation, he spent himself deep within her. She felt him leaping inside her, pulsing, his seed driving

upward, spurting heavily into her, and she cried out, another small orgasm making her dig her nails into

his flesh.

“Syntian!” she had shouted, pressing upward as though trying to blend them into one being.

He grabbed her, turning her over in the wide bed until she was above him, her legs beside his own. He

clutched her hips and drove her down on him; lifted her, then slammed her down again.

“Syntian!” she screamed mindlessly, her body on fire with passion.

He felt the inner muscles of her vagina gripping him again, sending tiny little quivers along his shrinking

shaft and he lifted her one last time, feeling himself lose his tumescence but knowing the movement had

only intensified her reaction.

She collapsed on him, gasping for breath, tangling her fingers in the damp hair on his chest, as she

shuddered one final time against him.

“I love you,” he whispered against her sweat-glistened temple. “I love you with all my being, Lauren.”

She sighed, listening as his heartbeat began to slow. She lifted her head and looked at him through the

fading light filtering through the half-closed blinds.

“I love you, too.”

“Remember to whom
you belong,”
came an insinuating voice threading its way evilly through his

consciousness.

“What is it?” Lauren asked, seeing his expression change from love to shock.

He shivered, his smile a wavering apology. “Nothing,” he answered. “Nothing at all.”

He pulled Lauren to him, his face once more bleak and hopeless as Angeline’s laughter chilled him.

Lauren Cree hadnever been happier. Her eyes glistened with happiness; her face shone with it; her

entire being gave off an aura of serenity and peace that had long been denied her. Her walk was buoyant;

her laughter was hearty and unrestrained; her confidence grew with every morning’s sunrise. The

customers at the bookshop smiled back at her with genuine pleasure and people greeted her on the street

and in stores and at the supermarket. Men looked at her as she passed and sighed wistfully, wondering

why they had never noticed how pretty Lauren Fowler was. Women watched her with approving smiles

and often thought they would like to be more like Lauren. Even the arrogant teenagers had time to wave

at her as they shot past in their daddy’s cars.

There seemed to be nothing ugly in Lauren’s world any more. Not even her mother’s refusal to come to

the wedding had dampened the gaiety of that afternoon or the pleasure of the two-week honeymoon

Mrs. Hellstrom had insisted she take.

“Go,” Angeline had laughed. “Have fun while you can!”

Four months into her marriage had done nothing but make Lauren that much more thankful for the day

Syntian Cree had walked into her life. As they walked hand in hand in Carpenter’s Park, throwing bread

crumbs to the ducks in the pond, there seemed to be nothing that could cloud the horizon.

Syntian tossed a quarter of a slice of bread to an especially persistent drake and laughed as the big

fellow paddled like crazy to reach the tidbit before the rest of the flock.

“Greedy little bugger,” Syntian called out to him. “Think we ought to give him any more, Sweeting?”

When his wife didn’t answer, he glanced her way.

Lauren wasn’t paying attention to the ducks. She was looking behind them at the playground where

several children were sliding and swinging. Her wistful expression made Syntian turn to see what was so

interesting.

“I used to come here a lot,” Lauren said, grinning at a little boy whose fat legs were pumping furiously in

an attempt to keep up with his bigger sister. She looked up at her husband. “I like to watch them play.”

Syntian smiled at her and dusted his hands. He reached down and took her hand in his and they began

to walk toward one of the small covered seating areas.

“I always wondered what it would be like to be a mother,” she said on a long sigh as they sat down and

watched the children playing.

At first he wasn’t going to answer her, but the look in her eyes, the wanting, tore at his heart strings and

he brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. “How many children did you want?”

Lauren shrugged. “I never really gave it that much thought.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Two,

I think.” She chuckled softly. “Two boys. Thomas and Christopher.”

“No girls?” he inquired, slipping his arm around her.

“No girls,” she said with an emphatic shake of her head. “Girls aren’t any fun.”

Syntian snorted. “Maybe not to you.”

She looked up at him. “Would you like to have a baby?”

He flinched, staring down at her as though she had asked her question in a foreign language. “Baby?” he

repeated.

Lauren tucked her lower lip between her teeth. “Yes. Have you ever thought about it?”

“No,” he was quick to respond, wishing his answer hadn’t been so firm for he saw the wistful expression

disappear from her face to be replaced with a look of hurt. “I mean,” he just as quickly added, “it hasn’t

been something high on my list of priorities.”

She studied his face. “And now?”

He felt trapped. He looked away from the expectant look on her face. “We haven’t been married all that

long, Lauren. Why would you want to start a family so soon?”

She pushed away from his shoulder and turned so she could face him. “Is there some reason you don’t

want to have children?”

He shook his head. “No.” He couldn’t give her a child of his own and didn’t want another man’s seed in

her belly.

“Do you dislike children?” she asked in a voice that said she hoped that wasn’t the case.

He shook his head again. “No, that’s not it.”

“Then what is?” she probed.

Syntian shrugged. “I don’t know. We haven’t been married long enough to think about having kids.” He

stood up and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “We’ve got time.”

“I don’t,” she said.

He looked back at her. “What?”

“The old biological clock,” she laughed nervously, standing up beside him. “Time’s running out for me to

start a family.” She slipped her arm around his waist and leaned against him. “Will you at least think about

it?”

The trap had sprung and he was caught. If he told her he couldn’t father a child by her, she would want

to know why. She might even insist they go to a doctor, which he damned sure couldn’t allow. If he told

her they needed to wait, she would wonder if he just didn’t want to share her with a child. If he tried to

talk her out of having a baby, she would no doubt think he didn’t want one of the burdensome little brats,

which he didn’t. Any way he went, he was destined to run up against the stone wall of her hurt.

“Syntian?”

He exhaled a long breath. “Is that what you want, Lauren? A baby?” He felt her arms tighten around

him.

“More every time I see little boys like that.” she pointed to a toddler throwing sand into the air, chuckling

hilariously as it cascaded down on his head.

“Preston!” the little boy’s mother cried out. “Stop that!”

Lauren laughed. “Boys will be boys,” she said wistfully.

He enfolded her in his arms and peered across the park at the laughing, playing child. He felt a

constriction in his chest and knew there was only one way to give her the child she wanted and it was a

way he found utterly loathsome.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sensing his reluctance. When she would have pulled away, she found herself even

more tightly in his embrace.

“If you want a baby,” he said, his voice and face set and grim, “then we’ll have a baby.”