The Moon, the Madness, and the Magic

Enchanted Mountain 2

ELIZA MARCH

Copyright © 2010

Chapter 1

Two Weeks Ago-Chicago

The red haze shifted, dropping like a veil in front of Rourke Grayland’s eyes. He tried to find his way through it, to fight it back, but the woman beneath him no longer had an identity, no name he could recall. Other than the physical pleasure he anticipated as he rode her hard and fast, only the fragrance of her flesh and blood interested him.

“I’m outta here,” a male voice said. “The action’s getting a little too tense for my taste.”

Yes, it was probably better for him to leave this time. Rourke wasn’t sure what he was capable of doing anymore, and under the circumstances, given the mood he was in, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t take full advantage of anyone present to relieve the needs building within him.

A rustle of clothes and the sound of a zipper punctuated Dane’s words. The door slammed, and the ensuing silence was like the dark burying the light.

“Dane doesn’t know what he’s missing.” The female beneath him chuckled a deep throaty promise and dug her nails into his hips.

God, that felt good.

Rourke thought about Dane and said, “Yes, he does. He wants both you and me, but he’s not ready to let me fuck him yet. That’s all.” And Rourke wasn’t ready, either. He and Dane may have shared a fair number of women, but they’d never been interested in each other that way…before.

With no more than a sniff, he dismissed his concern. Her rich feminine scent beckoned him. Hot, slick folds welcomed his throbbing cock as he pushed into her tight, wet pussy. Finally, buried to the hilt with his groin pressed tightly up against her mound, he began to move with the desperate, ancient rhythm. Mindless animal need bolted through him as her pelvic muscles gripped his throbbing length like a tight fist. He pistoned in and out until only the sound of his heavy breathing and her sighs of pleasure filled the silence. The sounds he made turned from grunts of effort into low, demanding growls as his body sought more. The beast wanted more. It wanted to give and receive pain. More friction, more burn, more flame.

The only thing Rourke wanted more than all those things was to hear his name on her lips with her cry of pleasure when she came.

Seated all the way inside her, with his cock head so deep it bumped her womb, his balls slapped against her ass with an ever-increasing momentum. He couldn’t seem to drive hard enough or fast enough to find his own satisfaction, let alone the beast’s. Lately, he’d needed something besides conventional sex, even something other than rough sex, to get off. Orgasm hovered just out of reach behind a sharp, keening desire, one he couldn’t quite identify. The new requirements for him to reach his climax made him shudder with concern. Danger, violence, pain.

“More, harder, faster.” She echoed his very thoughts.

Not a problem.

He squeezed his eyes shut and focused on fucking. Her demands pressed him on. His own needs rose like a pot on tap to a fast boil.

Blood rushed through his body, providing the fuel for the fire raging inside him. The muscles in his thighs bunched, his ass tightened, and his biceps swelled. The painful ache in his cock urged the flames higher.

He risked opening his eyes and watched the nameless woman beneath him moan with pleasure. Moonlight seeped through the window, bathing them both in silver shadows.

Dane was right to leave. Rourke should leave, too. Run.

With the moon came the madness—the madness that had been threatening his mind and his soul for the last six months, the madness increasing day by day, night by night.

When he pulled his thick, hot length out of her tight channel and paused, she arched back, exposing the thin, tender skin of her throat.

He was lost.

His heartbeat kicked up a notch as he studied the woman’s long, slender neck and the pulse beneath the surface of her pale skin. He could see it, hear it call to him. Worse than being aware of the blood coursing through her veins, the blood he could smell beneath the surface of her tender flesh, was the need to taste it, to taste her.

Alive, so alive.
Blood. Warm, hot liquid. Tastier, more satisfying than the drugging liqueur he’d lapped from the folds between her thighs moments earlier. So tempting.

The voice in his mind whispered,
I thirst for her blood, I hunger for a quick, tiny taste of her flesh.

He shook his head to clear it.

Her breasts rose and fell with each breath she took. Nipples like sweet, ripe berries beckoned to him. The dark tips puckered when he touched them with his fingers. He suckled one into his mouth and played with the other. So plump and pink, so ready to…

What? Devour?

He slid his cock slowly back inside her slick heat and enjoyed the way her pussy clenched him. His fingers dug into her hips as he angled them up so he could drive deeper than before. Holding her firmly in place, he thrust and arched, filling her completely, and then began pounding into her, flesh slapping against flesh. He thought of nothing, saw nothing but the red haze.

The sound of their desperate, driving needs echoed in the empty bedroom. The sweat poured off him as he struggled with his demon. He focused on the slide of slippery skin, hot and steamy, body against body.

Beneath the subtle scent of vanilla and flowers filling the room rose the overwhelming fragrance of aroused woman and then the irresistible bouquet of flesh and blood.

“That’s the way, Rourke. Give it all to me, baby. Fuck me harder.” She smiled up at him with an admiring glance through heavily lidded eyes, enjoying her pleasure, encouraging him to work harder.

Humanity seeped through his beast’s thoughts, and Rourke realized that if only the woman understood what she was asking for, she’d run screaming.

“Let go. Give it all to your little Amelia, hard and rough, just the way I like it. Yeahhh.”

Amelia.
Her name slammed into Rourke’s head, returning his mind to a moment of sanity. How could he have forgotten his favorite attorney’s name?

Usually Dane’s plaything, she came to him for sex play on the wild side. She especially loved it when both brothers were willing. In the office, in the elevator, in the car. Tied up or chained down, blindfolded or spanked. In fact, he and Dane often wondered how far she’d let
rough
go. Until last month, he’d never had a problem accommodating her kinky needs, but lately, Dane had bowed out when he’d been having trouble holding back. Rourke couldn’t stop, and still, she’d never called out the safe word. He didn’t want her to now. Not now. It was too late.

He paused to watch her writhe beneath him and thought about biting her. So much for his moment of sanity.

Fear.

Adrenaline shot through his veins.

Afraid for her, for how far she’d take the game, part of him wanted to walk out, leave her like Dane had left her, leave his beast.

Dammit, tonight, he couldn’t. The beast was too strong, the beast wanted more, and a part of him wanted to taste her, too.

Her flesh, her blood called to him, and the part of him that wanted that scared him shitless.

Damn, he’d turned into a real sick bastard this year.

She scored her nails down his back and laughed. “I said harder!”

The scent of blood, his blood, filled the room. The pain did more than make him roar. It made the beast rise, powerful, treacherous, just beneath the surface, threatening to burst free. The pain felt too good, so good, in fact, it shattered his control, freeing it all up for the animal within him.

The beast wanted blood, needed it, and craved her flesh.

When Rourke rose up and arched his back into the pain, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror over her bed. The image made his pulse race. He shouldn’t have risked looking.

The reflection staring back at him was that of a stranger’s. His eyes had changed shape and color. Not human. Almond-shaped pupils buried within quicksilver swirls of motion.

I’m losing my mind.

Rourke lowered his lids, staring down and not really seeing the woman enveloping his cock in the grasp of her tight, hot pussy, but he heard her gasp when his eyes met hers. The sound seemed astonished, surprise tinged with fear. He could smell it on her, and the scent of her fear increased his arousal. It was as if her terror inspired his cock to grow thicker, harder, longer. And the beast within him roared with satisfaction.

Her eyes slowly closed as his cock hardened and lengthened inside her. “Oh!” The sound of satisfaction in her voice meant pleasure overcame trepidation. “What’s happening?” She practically squealed with delight. “Yes, fuck me, fill me.”

He thrust into her with several quick thrusts, and this time, she moaned, the sound clearly one of erotic pleasure. “You feel so hard, so thick, so good.” She’d already forgotten her fear for the moment.

Damn. He missed the scent of fear on her.

Her nails dug into his back again as she lifted her legs higher around his back.

Exquisite pain.
The sensation barely impacted his senses. If anything, it felt almost too pleasurable. What would that mixed with her fear bring out of him? He had control over the pain, but the fear?

Without a word and without a thought for her comfort, he gripped her wrists and lifted them over her head, plunging deeper inside her, pumping wildly, seeking his climax. Sweat dripped from his forehead in steady drops and sluiced over their bodies as he pounded into her like a jackhammer. He couldn’t hold back the beast clawing inside him, trying to escape. The ache tore his insides apart as the demon within him demanded release.

“Make me come!” she screamed. “Now.”

With his free hand, he slapped her ass the way she liked it, maybe a little harder than usual—the way he liked it. “Not until I’m ready.”

She shrieked and bucked beneath him, driving his cock up inside her, deeper. He felt the spasms gripping his cock, but nothing was working, not the anxiety or the modest pain or the feigned violence. He wanted to get himself past this horrendous desire. The sensation sent flames up his spine, but only more violence and real fear would bring him true satisfaction.

He felt her orgasm threaten as the walls of her pussy pulsed tightly around his burning cock. His orgasm was a weak promise. Nothing less than actual violence and real pain took him past the edge of dry ejaculation to physical orgasm, and nothing took him to that exquisite point of climax where he experienced genuine relief or satisfaction anymore.

Yes, there was something inside him fighting to get out, something bigger and scarier than he could imagine, and he was afraid to let it loose merely for a satisfying orgasm.

Hold the beast back
, his rational mind warned him. The image in the mirror stared back at him, full of his own conviction, the certainty he’d overpower Rourke in the end. The beast’s image merged with his, and besides his eyes, he noted a more frightening change. His beard had darkened, the shape of his jaw had extended. His incisors elongated past his lips.

Shit!

Amelia thrashed beneath him and laughed again as he growled out loud. When he glanced down at her, the smile faded from her lips. The laughter died into silence as his eyes met hers and his beast smiled.

Recognition. Fear. The inevitable consequences flashed behind her eyes when they met his this time.

Ah, the fear.
He almost sighed as the scent filled the room.

Finally.

Desperation fueled his passion. He released her wrists, lifted her hips, driving back into her with one long thrust, and dropped his head to her breast, biting down hard.

This time, there was no doubt her fear was authentic. She screamed and climaxed around him as he drove deeper with his hips and nuzzled her neck and bit down a second time.

Then all he could think about was the taste of the warm, rich blood in his mouth, the sweet, coppery flavor left on his tongue. All he could feel was his cock ready to burst, and all he could hear was her scream. And she screamed and screamed and screamed as he slammed into her body over and over again. The spasms from her orgasm gripped his cock like a tight fist. Her nails kept gouging his back, his arms, and his ass, inciting his beast. The scents of his blood and hers mingled, urging him on as nothing before ever had.

She screamed once more as liquid heat pooled around him. Then she shouted out his name, and he felt the smile on his lips.

Nothing gave him greater satisfaction.

Her sweet, hot honey washed over his cock, so thick and warm and creamy. The scent of her cum mixed with the scent of their blood and drove him wilder still.

Tempting, so very tempting.
The beast driving his need wanted more.

Straining, he pumped faster. The weight of his large balls usually hung loose against his groin, even when he was erect and ready to come. He was so aroused they had tightened and flattened against his scrotum, practically sucked back into his body. His cock had grown so hard he thought the building force would burst the damn thing like a pressure cooker without a relief valve.