Pursued (38 page)

Elise looked shocked. “…
what?”
she whispered faintly, at last.

“That’s right.” Seeing the scared, shocked look on her face, Merrick felt a bolt of bitter satisfaction. He was right not to have asked her, right to assume she wouldn’t be able to give what he needed. “Your female life-essence isn’t your blood,” he told Elise roughly. “It’s your cunt honey. The sweet nectar your pussy makes when you’re hot, baby. Now do you get why I didn’t want to ask? If you can’t handle me fingering your sweet little cunt, how would you be able to stand me tasting it?”

“I don’t understand.” Elise shook her head, feeling hot and cold all over. “I don’t see how letting you do…
that
could heal you.”

Merrick sighed. “I don’t fully understand it either. I do know that the Ancient Ones have a symbiotic—almost telepathic—relationship with some of the sentient plants that grow in the deep blue. It could be that the plant’s venom reacted to the Ancient One’s wishes when he punished me.” He ran a hand over his hair—which was beginning to grow out a little—and winced. No doubt the movement had sent pain down his back. “They have a very black and white idea of right and wrong here,” he told Elise.

“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” she murmured.

He frowned. “I’ve never heard that, but yeah, that about sums it up.”

Elise took a deep breath. “So that…letting you taste me really
would
heal you?”

He shrugged and winced. “Got no reason to believe otherwise, since that’s what Mother-Healer said.” He sighed. “But it doesn’t matter because I’m not going to do it.”

Elise bit her lip. “Why?”

Merrick gave her a sharp look. “Because you wouldn’t be able to stand it.” His voice dropped to a soft, sexual growl. “Don’t get me wrong, baby. There’s nothing I’d like more than to be between your legs, lapping your sweet little cunt. But you jump every time I touch you. There’s no way you could stand to let me do it.”

Elise looked down at her hands, which were trembling in her lap. “What if…what if I could? What if we just
tried?”

“No,” Merrick said at once. “I told you, I don’t want to hurt or scare you. Don’t want to do anything that might bring back…bad memories.”

“That’s the thing,” Elise said slowly. “I don’t…
think
it will.”
Like when he kissed me, I was fine with it. Because that wasn’t part of…of what’s buried in the vault.
She closed her eyes and tried to think…tiptoed to the door of the vault and tried to feel inside without actually opening it. Had
he
ever done anything like that to her? Elise didn’t think so. It didn’t feel dangerously familiar as it had when Merrick had urged her to touch herself. She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I’m
pretty
sure it will be okay,” she said cautiously.

“Pretty sure?” He frowned. “I don’t know if that’s good enough for me.”

“Well, it’ll have to be good enough,” Elise snapped nervously. “Because that’s the best I can do without…without dredging everything up.”

“At least you admit there’s
something
to dredge up,” he remarked, looking at her speculatively.

Elise sighed. “I know I freaked out on you before. It’s just…I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t want to think about it. I just…I just want to pretend nothing ever happened.”

Merrick sighed. “All right baby, I understand.”

She looked at him hopefully. “You do?”

“Sure.” He nodded. “Didn’t I tell you that you’re not the only one with shit in their childhood? I have some memories I don’t want to dwell on either.”

She felt a swell of gratitude. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for not making me talk about it.”

“Of course not.” He cupped her cheek tenderly. “I would never force you to remember pain you want to forget. Only…” He sighed.

“Only what?” Elise asked anxiously, looking up at him.

“This is the Deep Blue,” Merrick said. “Things happen here…secrets have a way coming out.”

“Maybe they would if we stayed here long enough, but we won’t, will we?” she asked hopefully. “I mean, now that you’re up and around…”

“We still have to get the
skrillix,”
he reminded her. “But hopefully since we’ve already taken the punishment for its theft, they’ll let us keep the branch you broke off. We’ll see.”

“I don’t want to talk about that now, anyway.” Rising, Elise sat beside him on the wide bed with its leaf coverlet. “I want to talk about helping you,” she said softly. “Healing you.”

He frowned down at her. “You
really
think you can handle it?”

Elise nodded, trying to feel confident. “I do. I really do.” She lowered her eyes. “I’ll probably be more embarrassed than anything else.”

“Embarrassed?” Merrick raised an eyebrow at her. “Why the hell would you be embarrassed?”

“Because you have to…you know, taste me, in order to get well and—"

"No, not
have
to," Merrick interrupted her. "I
get
to. Didn’t I tell you how much I wanted to taste your sweet pussy?”

“Well…yes,” Elise admitted. “But, I mean, isn’t that just something guys
say?”

“Maybe human men,” Merrick growled. “But not Kindred—we’re different.”

Elise dared to look up at him. “Different how?”

“It’s like a need for us—the desire to taste our women.” His eyes were half-lidded with lust as he spoke. “A compulsion we couldn’t fight, even if we wanted to. Which I sure as hell don’t.”

“Really?” Elise asked.

“Really.” He nodded. “It’s like an
ache
inside me that’s been growing since I first found you in that damn stasis tube. I’ve been wanting to taste you, been wanting to spread your legs and get between your thighs, from the first minute I laid eyes on you.”

“Oh,” Elise whispered. The hungry way he looked at her made her feel like a thousand butterflies had just taken flight inside her stomach. “I…I didn’t know,” she said.

“Now you do.” To her surprise, Merrick moved to the center of the bed and then, slowly and carefully, lay back. “Come here.” He gestured with one hand.

“Doesn’t it hurt your back to lay on it?” Elise asked.

“Not if I don’t move around too much. It’s all scarred over,” he reminded her. “Just hurts because of the venom now—nothing to do with whether I touch it or put pressure on it or not.”

“Okay.” Carefully, she crawled over to him, her heart pounding. “Um…how do you want to do this?”

“I don’t. Not yet.” He reached out an arm for her. “First I want to hold you. Will you let me do that, baby?”

This was what Elise had been wishing for, imagining, dreaming of all the long, lonely nights he was passed out from the pain. The feeling of his large, muscular arms around her, his scent filling her senses, the comfort of his touch. A wave of longing so deep she couldn’t even express it flowed over her. “Yes…” she whispered. “God,
yes
.”

“Then come here, baby,” he growled softly, obviously catching her desperate emotions through their bond. “Come take what you need.”

“I will. But first…” Feeling for the small fastening at her throat, Elise let the long indigo robe she’d been wearing slip from her shoulders and fall in a puddle around her waist. She’d long since gotten rid of the offensive (to the Ancient Ones, anyway) red underwear and she was bare beneath the light material. She felt a twinge of embarrassment about her nudity as she let the robe drift to the floor, but she couldn’t help herself—the
hunger
was too strong to deny. She needed Merrick’s touch and only the feel of her bare skin against his would alleviate that need.

Merrick made a soft growl of approval deep in his throat. “Beautiful,” he murmured, drinking her in—her high, firm breasts, small waist, full hips…and most of all, the neatly trimmed thatch of dark curls between her thighs.

“Thank you,” Elise murmured, blushing. “I…uh….”

“I wanna feel you against me.” He motioned for her to come to him. “Don’t make me wait any longer.”

Elise couldn’t wait either. She slid naked under his arm and pressed her cheek to his bare chest with a little sigh of pure happiness. Then she held perfectly still for a long moment, trying to assess what was going on.

To her relief, the door of the vault didn’t so much as rattle. She wasn’t sure if the
hunger
inside her was so great it was overcoming any bad memories or if she was beginning to move past the fear that had been stirred inside her that night he came to the door of her darkened bedroom. She only knew it felt good—
right—
to be near him again. To feel the hard, warm wall of his chest against her cheek and breathe in his familiar smoke, fur, and leather musk. It was the scent of safety…the scent of home.

“Gods, baby,” Merrick murmured, stroking her back gently with one large hand. “Feels so damn good to have you in my arms again.”

“I like it too,” Elise admitted shyly. “It…it feels
right
, somehow.”

“More than right…
perfect,”
he corrected her. “I love the way you fit against me. It’s like you’re a part of me that’s been missing—a part I’ve been looking for without even knowing it. And now you’re back where you belong.”

Elise couldn’t have put it any better herself. “Yes.” She nodded, her cheek brushing his chest. “Yes, exactly.” She could feel the
hunger
curling inside her, stretching like a cat being stroked. This skin to skin contact was giving her exactly what she so desperately needed. But it was also changing the
hunger,
turning it into something else…
lust.

She bit her lip and shifted against Merrick uneasily as her nipples suddenly stiffened into tight, achy peaks and her pussy began to feel hot and wet. The feeling of heat and need grew stronger and stronger until she had the sudden urge to tear herself away from Merrick’s side and somehow fix the problem.

She started to move away from the shelter of his muscular arm but Merrick murmured, “Stay.”

“Um, what?” Elise looked up at him uncertainly to see that he was looking down at her, an unreadable look on his face.

“Stay,” he repeated. “It’s all right to feel this way, Elise. It’s all right to need what you need and want what you want. Just stay with me and let it flow. Let yourself feel. Give in to it.”

She bit her bottom lip nervously. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You did once before,” he said softly. “Remember how you let me touch you—how you let me stroke you and pet your soft little pussy? Remember how wet and hot you got for me?”

“I…yes,” Elise admitted breathlessly. “I remember.”

“That’s good, baby,” he rumbled. “Because I wanna do it again…only this time with my tongue.”

Elise shivered at the thought of being so open for him, so helpless and vulnerable. She wanted it, but at the same time, she was frightened. Scared that the act would somehow bring a monster from her past she didn’t even know about roaring out of the vault to devour her.

Merrick seemed to catch her anxiety because he softened the urgency in his voice and stroked her arm again. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to do the same things that freaked you out last time. This time it’s going to be different.”

“Different? How?” Elise asked uncertainly.

“For one thing, I can hardly move right now so you’re going to be completely in control. You’re literally going to be on top.”

“What? But how?” she protested.

“Straddle me and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Elise rose to her knees, feeling self conscious, and did as he said—or tried to, anyway. But his chest was so broad she found she was more sitting on him than straddling him. She started to get up but he shook his head and touched her thighs lightly.

“No, stay. And don’t worry—you’re not ‘squashing’ me.” He gave her a lopsided smile she couldn’t help but return. Still, she felt nervous.

“I’m just, uh, I feel kind of…of open here.” She nodded down to her spread thighs. Her pussy was opened wide by the position—so wide the tender, slippery pink inside was fully visible. The
lust
inside her was growing by the moment, making her hotter and wetter than she’d ever been before. So wet that… “Oh God, I’m, uh, leaking on you.” Elise couldn’t control her mortification. Already her outer pussy lips and inner thighs were slick with her juices but it seemed like her body just didn’t know when to stop. Without meaning to, she had made a small but very obvious wet spot in the center of Merrick’s chest. “I’m so sorry! I’ll get something to clean you up.”

She started to get up but once again his light touch on her thighs stopped her.

“Don’t.” His deep voice was hoarse with emotion. “Don’t worry about it, baby. It’s just your body telling you how much you need this—how much we need each other. Besides, I love it.”

“You…you do?” Elise looked at him uncertainly.

In answer, Merrick reached between her thighs and swiped two thick fingers gently up the length of her pussy. His light touch sent a bolt of pure pleasure through her body and she gasped and jumped. But Merrick wasn’t done yet. Slowly and deliberately, his eyes never leaving hers, he brought his fingers, slick with her juices, to his mouth, and sucked them clean with obvious enjoyment.

“Delicious,” he growled softly. “Come here and let me show you.”

“Show me? How?”

“I want to kiss you. Kiss you right.” Merrick motioned for her and Elise leaned forward to meet his lips. He was so tall she found herself lying on him in much the same way she had during their last sexual encounter. It felt good though…familiar and right. She loved the feel of her breasts pressing against the hard planes of his chest, her nipples made stiff and sensitive by the stimulation.

When she reached him, Merrick threaded one hand through her long hair and pulled her close. “Taste yourself,” he murmured. “See how delicious you are.” Then he took her lips in a long, hot, open-mouthed kiss that left Elise breathless. She moaned softly as he thrust his tongue between her lips, sharing the honey he’d sucked from his fingers earlier. God, she
did
taste good on his mouth. More than good—incredibly hot and delicious.