Of Eternal Life (15 page)

But it was the sensations at her core that were driving her insane. She began to rock with him, each thrust bringing her closer to the edge.

Abilene became aware that she was whimpering with every breath. “Don’t make me wait anymore,” she begged him, no longer able to withstand the torture of not knowing what it felt to have him inside her.

In seconds her panties were gone, and one of Eli’s thick fingers filled her. Abilene nearly came undone on the spot. Her head kicked back; her hips rocked into his touch.

Eli began to thrust his finger slowly in and out, and when she brought her eyes back to his face, she found him watching her avidly. His cheeks were flushed, and his bottom lip was caught between his teeth.

Her body responded to the sight in a flood of moisture. Eli felt it, groaned, and filled her more completely by easing another finger inside of her.

It was too much. Abilene felt the beginning tremors of release, and just as she began to cry out, Eli removed his fingers, stopping her orgasm in its tracks.

She whimpered and opened her eyes.

“Not yet, baby,” he whispered as he settled himself back between her thighs, his erection prodding her. “Wait for me.”

Abilene
loved
that plan. She wiggled beneath him, and he gave a lopsided smile in response.

Abilene felt Eli’s hand guiding his length to her entrance when his smile melted from his face. He started to swallow repeatedly; his eyes glazed. She kept waiting for him to move, but he couldn’t seem to.

“Eli?” she asked. She moved against him again, and he stilled her with a hand to her hip.

“I don’t think I can hurt you,” he whispered, minimal sound accompanying the words.

Abilene closed her eyes. It was stupid, but she’d completely forgotten that she was a virgin. “Oh, yeah,” she muttered.

The nervousness that had been miles away swamped Abilene, but it wasn’t enough to overshadow need. She trailed her hands up Eli’s arms, across his shoulders, and around his neck. She pulled him down until their lips touched, fighting his tense muscles the entire way.

When Abilene began kissing him, Eli didn’t relax one iota. It wasn’t until Abilene trailed her hands down his back to rest on his ass that she got a reaction. His body seemed to respond with a mind of its own to her grasp, and his hips kicked forward. The tip of his erection penetrated her slightly, and just as quickly it was gone.

Abilene’s wild moan rent the air. “
Eli
… .” Oh, God, he just had to do that again.

When she opened her eyes, it was to the sight of Eli’s head hanging down from his shoulders, his hair brushing her breasts, his weight resting on his arms.

His entire body was shaking.

“Oh … honey,” she trailed her fingers through his hair. “It’s okay.” He brought his head up to look at her with anguished eyes.

“It hurts more to be without you,” she murmured to him.

She was relieved when a determined look replaced Eli’s trepidation. She felt a gentle prodding, and then Eli thrust into her long and hard, pushing past the barrier of her virginity.

She couldn’t help it; she cried out. Her every muscle stiffened around the invasion of Eli’s body.
Ouch, ouch ouch!

Suddenly, Eli was there, brushing frantic kisses across her cheeks, her nose, her chin. “I’m sorry,” he kept whispering over and over. “God, I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

She wanted to assure him that she was okay; she wanted to make him feel better. But she couldn’t. It had been way more painful than she anticipated. She couldn’t even catch her breath to speak.

After several moments, when the sharpness of the pain had dulled, Abilene began to unclamp the death-hold her muscles had on her bones. She was relieved when it registered that the fullness that had felt like an assault moments ago was turning into a feeling of completion. Of belonging.

All at once, it didn’t feel so awful.

She moved beneath him hesitantly. Eli’s length glided into her further. She sighed.

Now that was downright lovely
.

Eli rested his forehead against hers.

• • •

Eli was devastated. It went against every instinct in his body to inflict pain upon Abilene.

And here he was, buried deeply inside her body — the place he most wanted to be — and he was staring at blue eyes brimming with unshed tears. If he didn’t fix this for her, and soon, he was going to start boohooing worse than she was.

Abilene wiggled beneath him again, and, though he tried to stifle it, pleasure rocketed through him. Then she made a noise of distress.

“We’ll stop,” he offered desperately. “I’ll stop right now.” He made a move to do just that when Abilene’s nails dug into his shoulders.

“To hell with that,” she retorted, then followed up her statement with another movement of her hips.

Eli realized that what he had taken as a sound of distress was really a sound of frustration. Abilene had been trying to get him to move for the past few minutes, and he had been too much of an idiot to pick up on her signals.

Relief rained down on him.
She’s okay. Oh, thank God, she’s okay
.

He squeezed her to himself, and she squeaked, but then tried to pat him reassuringly where her hands rested. He just held her for a bit, but then Abilene cleared her throat.

“Um, shouldn’t you be moving?” she asked. “Or something?”

His chuckle rumbled around in his chest as he pulled back from the death grip he had on his woman. “Yes, ma’am,” he drawled, and he drew his hips back. He withdrew until he had nearly left her body, watching as her eyelids fluttered down. Then he filled her again, moving so achingly slow that the restraint was almost a physical pain.

When he was seated to the hilt again, Abilene’s warm flesh clenched around him, wrenching a disbelieving moan from his now-dry mouth.

“Oh … God,” he grunted unintelligibly through gritted teeth as he fought the urge to spill inside of her.

Abilene was proving a quick study in what pleased him, because the sensation repeated, and Eli had to bury his face in her neck and tune out all sensation to keep from ending their first lovemaking session then and there.

“You feel so good,” she breathed into his ear, and Eli fought the urge to snort in disbelief.
He
felt good?

When he had himself under control again, he began a slow, thrusting rhythm. He turned his face to plant an open-mouthed kiss to the throbbing pulse in Abilene’s neck, licking the spot languidly.

In response, Abilene wrapped her legs around him and dug her heels into the backs of his thighs.

“
Abi
…killing me,” he groaned, his measured speed picking up slightly.

“
Yes
,” she cried, turning her head and
biting
his ear.

Eli broke.

Both of his hands snatched her up beneath her ass, tilting her hips to accommodate his now-frenzied thrusts.

Abilene cried out again, raking her nails down his back and burying them into his backside. She matched his rhythm, rocking her hips in time with his, and ending each searing thrust with a life-altering grind against his pelvic bone.

Eli had to clamp his lips closed around the brutal yells that left his body with each movement, and they were only growing in volume the closer he brought them to release.

He’d never been a loud lover, but Abilene was turning him into an animal. He couldn’t keep quiet in the onslaught of sensation and emotion she brought him.

God, he was
loving
his
woman.
He never wanted to stop, but he felt his orgasm curling at the base of his spine. He reached between them to squeeze her clit gently.

“
Soon
… Abi,” he panted against her neck. And as soon as the words left his mouth, he felt the tremors of her release as her core convulsed around him.

He looked down at her as her arms clutched him. She cried out his name and looked straight into his eyes as she came apart in his arms.

He was right on her heels.

He threw his head back at the force of his ejaculation and bellowed to the sky. He came in waves and waves, his breath coming in short bursts, his chest billowing in and out.

It had
never
felt like this — this strong, this perfect, this special — in his life. The connection he felt to Abilene in this moment was almost spiritual in its power.

When he was able to entertain complex thought again, he turned onto his side, bringing Abilene with him. He stayed inside her as he kissed her lips tenderly.

Her breathing mingled with his as both of their heart rates slowed. When Eli tasted salt, he pulled away in alarm. There were tear tracks on Abilene’s face.

Before Eli had the chance to panic, she kissed him again. “I didn’t know it would be like that,” she whispered against his lips.

Eli relaxed and drew her in closer. “I love you,” he murmured between kisses. The emotion swelled so profoundly in his chest that he felt the prick of tears in his own eyes.

He began to harden again, and Abilene pulled back to look at him in surprise. She smiled. “As your doctor,” she began, “I feel it necessary to tell you that’s not normal.”

He deepened their kiss and rolled them over again until he was on his back, and Abilene was straddling his hips. Her eyes darkened with desire at the new angle of his penetration, and she rose up on her knees before easing back down.

Eli gasped. “It’s normal for me when I’m around you.”

Abilene grinned, and then proceeded to ensure he didn’t speak coherently again for some time.

Abilene brushed her fingers back and forth across her swollen lips. To say that her life had changed in the last few hours would be the understatement of the century.

She was in love.

It was a pretty incredible feeling. Here, snuggled up beneath Eli’s arm in the middle of the truck, she felt the safest she’d ever been.

Eli was driving with one arm over the top of the steering wheel. The other was wrapped around Abilene’s shoulder. He held her in the curve of his body and was rubbing his hand up and down her arm.

It was the careless contact of a couple comfortable in a relationship, and it was something Abilene had never experienced.

It was kind of freaking her out.

Eli was behaving so
normally
when the last few hours had been anything but normal. He’d
died
. Then he’d come back to life. They’d confessed their love for each other, and then had earth-bending, mind-altering sex.

Quite frankly, she wished
he
were freaking out so she wouldn’t feel so bad about doing so herself.

Oh, she didn’t regret a second of it. In fact, she was already eyeing Eli askance, hoping they could make love again soon.

That shit was addictive.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a lot of changes in a short amount of time.

When things changed, Abilene screwed up. It was just a fact of life. Like the sun rising in the East or winter following autumn, this was a fact of nature. If something were new or different, Abilene would find a way to ruin it.

And embarrass those she cared about in the process.

Images of her parents appeared before her eyes.
You have to be perfect. We expect you to be perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect
.

The thought of looking into Eli’s face and seeing the disappointment she saw in her parents’ eyes over and over again was nearly debilitating.

Eli’s voice pulled her from her revelry.

“What has you frowning, darlin’?” he drawled.

She raised her eyes and put forth her best effort in trying to smile for him, but could tell it was unimpressive when Eli continued to look concerned.

Rather than try to answer she leaned over to nuzzle his neck. It worked better than she could have ever guessed.

Eli’s body jolted against her, and seconds later, the sound of the tires on gravel announced that Eli had steered the truck to the shoulder.

In the next breath, Eli had Abilene pressed against the bench seat and was settling himself between her thighs.

With a happy sigh, Abilene wrapped her arms around Eli’s neck and met him halfway for a deep kiss.

When they were like this, Abilene had no reason to doubt. They were so good together.

She reached between them to unbutton Eli’s pants, and was surprised when Eli’s hand stopped her own. His mouth moved to her ear, his shortened breaths puffing against her skin.

“You’ve gotta be sore, baby,” he protested when Abilene tried to go for his jeans’ button again.

She shook her head in denial, but he continued to hold her hand still while placing tantalizing kisses along the column of her neck.

Oh, hell, no was he going to stoke the fire and deny her the pay-off.

She arched her back, thrusting her breasts into his chest. She felt his breath hitch and turned her head to take his earlobe between her teeth.

He growled. “Abi,” he warned.

She felt the thrill of control. It was one of the first times in her life she had felt powerful. No way was she going to back off.

“I want you,” she whispered into his hair. “Are you really going to deny me?” Her voice a purr, and she could feel it vibrate through Eli’s body as he shivered.

He groaned in defeat and released her hand.

In no time at all, Abilene had his pants open and her hand wrapped around the velvety hardness of Eli’s erection. His breathing had resumed its shortened, panting pattern, and he seemed unable to keep from thrusting into her grip.

“Do you feel what you do to me?” he mumbled through the grittiness of desire. He gathered her into his arms.

She adored how he surrounded her when they made love, pulling her to him as closely as possible, his arms between her and the seat.

She opened her own pants, and he helped her maneuver her jeans and panties down her thighs, over her knees, and off her legs altogether.

It was cramped quarters in the cab of the truck, but she didn’t notice the discomfort as Eli positioned himself at her opening and gently entered her in one measured stroke.