Unbound (37 page)

Light faded, flattened. The sparkles on the water around them disappeared into gray mists.

Heat bloomed under
her slick fingers—first warm, then hot, hotter, and increasingly hotter. Asrial’s heart skipped a beat. Something was happening! It hadn’t been like this in Salima.

She landed with a splash and flailed for balance. Her body clenched, aching at the sudden emptiness inside her. Romir was gone—his chest no longer supported her, his legs no longer cradled her. But that wasn’t all. His prison filled with mist and starlight, the glow growing brighter with every beat of her heart. The flask shimmered, turning transparent, the indigo tracery thinning beneath her fingers.

Asrial gasped, tenuous hope and desperate fear twisting into an involuted knot, wrapping around her heart until it wouldn’t beat. Waiting . . .

The flask vanished in a soundless explosion, brilliant sparkles of color whirling madly into nothingness.

Leaving—

A naked man sprawled between her thighs, warm and heavy, pressing her into the surf. Shadowed cheeks scraped her breasts. His head jerked up, revealing—

Brilliant silver eyes.

Romir!

Incredulous, Asrial framed his head between her hands, rejoicing in the rasp of his stubble against her palms. “It worked?”

“I think . . . yes!” Groaning her name, he pulled her into his arms for a searching kiss. His tongue danced over hers with a playfulness he’d never shown before, teasing her until she had to catch him and suck. The hot taste was really him; she wasn’t imagining it.

Tears of joy spilled down her cheeks, and he kissed them away tenderly, brushing firm lips over her eyes, her forehead, her neck. Then he licked the base of her throat, and desire reawakened. Her earlier hunger sprang back to life, her body throbbing with need.

“I need you. Come to me.”

Romir mounted her, his hardness cloaked in gentleness, a blunt pressure, hot and steady, stretching her delicate flesh. They gasped at the intimate contact, sharing one breath, one thought, as he worked himself deeper. Ever deeper.

She clung to his shoulders, his wet hair tangling with her fingers. Incredulous at his renewed possession, she arched into his thrust. “Yes, oh, yes! You feel so good.” She could feel his length throbbing inside her.

Throbbing
. . .

He stared into her eyes, a dark flush staining his cheeks as he gripped her shoulders, anchoring her for his taking. “I do not know if I can control myself.”

Asrial laughed, relief and happiness bubbling over in a frothy brew. “Don’t hold back. Hard and fast, remember? You promised.”

Before she’d finished speaking, Romir was moving, lunging, pounding into her with short, powerful thrusts that drove cries of delight from her. He’d never let go quite like this before, almost furious in his lovemaking.

With the hard-packed sand beneath her and the waves adding their splashes, it was all she could do to hold on. He swept her back up the dizzying heights of pleasure, need flaring bright and plasma hot. He moved over her, into her, relentless in his desire until the promise of rapture hovered temptingly near.

Romir shuddered in her arms, his gasps hoarse above her, his eyes wild. “Asrial—I—”

Need shook her. Her earlier release had sensitized her so that it didn’t take as much to get her to the peak. But she had to hold on. She’d had an orgasm already. This time was his. She wanted to give him this much and more.

“Don’t wait.” Clamping her thighs around him, she squeezed him with her aching inner muscles.

“I—
ah!
”

Heat bathed her inner flesh, straining her control. She felt him jerk inside her as he surrendered to the moment, his release a strong pulse that resonated throughout her body. For the first time, he’d finished!

The shock on Romir’s face at his release was worth the wait and all her restraint. The rapture transformed his features, such incredulous joy that she could never have imagined from him. The edge of pain and desperation that had become a familiar sight during their lovemaking vanished beneath a flush of distilled ecstasy.

Elation overwhelmed her. He was free! No longer djinn. No longer bound to that unnatural existence. Free to choose. Free to stand by her side.

Finally, Asrial gave in to carnal hunger, need splintering, erupting in a thousand blistering shards of singing pleasure. It blew through her in an endless moment of ecstasy. Rapture sent her soaring through the heavens, gravity be damned.

On and on. It stretched out, spinning through air and light and heat . . .

When Asrial came back to herself, she lay sprawled across Romir, still joined with him in intimate union. The water was higher, its waves wafting his hair across her back in fleeting, teasing caresses. His heart thundered under her ear, fast and insistent, a sound she’d never felt before, his chest like a drum resonating to his rapture.

Everything felt like a dream.

Was Romir truly free? Truly hers?

Romir gasped,
salt stinging the back of his throat. Despite the weight on his chest, he felt as though he might float away on the next wave. He could not remember ever feeling this way before—so light, such a sense of liberation. And all because of one woman.

Propping herself up on an elbow, Asrial leaned over him, studying him with hungry eyes. She was beautiful in the manner of a hunting
shera
with an intensity of purpose that made her outshine those perfect constructs she called avatars. The thought of her displaying that fierceness in the defense of the children she wanted—their children—made his heart melt all over again. The intensity of his reaction had him dropping his eyes while he sought to untangle the skein of his thoughts. “What is it?”

“I can’t get enough of you.” Her hands stroking his sides gave credence to her unblushing statement, lingering over the sensitive skin around his hipbones to devastating effect. Lightning streaked down his length and up his spine.

He could not get enough of her, either. But more would have to wait. Her shoulders were turning pink, her spacer paleness so vulnerable to the harsh sunlight. “Shall we move to the shade?”

“What?”

“You should not expose yourself to the sun for so long.” It would be a pity to mar the silken expanse of her back. He would prefer to press kisses there rather than medication.

Arm in arm, they stumbled to the tree, the playful waves making a steady pace difficult. His legs had never felt so weak, as if all his strength had pooled in his groin. Sensations pressed on him: sand between his toes, the warm wind drying the seawater on his skin, his wet hair clinging to his back, Asrial’s soft body against his side.

His knees gave out once they achieved the tree’s protection. Thankfully, there were no stones in the dry sand that cushioned his landing. Pulled off balance, Asrial dropped into his lap, her joyous laughter making his heart skip a beat.

“This is embarrassing. I am so weak.”

An amused snort contradicted him. “Doesn’t look that way from where I’m sitting.” Bold fingers traced his length and measured his girth, trailing sparks of delight in their wake and fanning the embers of carnal desire. His nerves sang their anticipation, fluttering and aching and all but cheering.

Gathering his long, wet hair over his shoulder and out from under him, Romir groaned.
“Biba.”

“What does that mean?”

“Beloved.” His heart took wing, awash with the freedom to share his feelings without fear they would be used against him. To stand by her side—by his choice—was a future he had never dared to imagine.

She stared at him, her mouth hanging open, at a loss for words.

Romir had to laugh at her bewildered expression. After everything they had said and shared and gone through, she still doubted his feelings for her?

“I love you. I love you with every breath I take. I will love you until the day I die.” Perhaps only time would convince her. But at least now they would have that time.

Asrial blushed, a delightful shyness he had not expected in so confident a woman. “We just freed you. Don’t talk about dying so casually.”

“Then make love with me.” Bending down, he kissed her, treasuring the softness of her lips, the salt of the sea mingling with the taste that was uniquely Asrial. Her tender reception as she wrapped her arms around his neck confirmed them as lovers, joined heart to heart. There was a rightness to their unhurried exchange. The lazy kisses celebrated the absence of an emergency: no longer did the threat of recapture by his prison fuel their lovemaking.

All too soon carnal hunger awakened, roused by her proximity, by the hard tips of her breasts insistently poking him in the chest, by her hip pressed against his stirring shaft, by the musk of their mutual desire. Straddling his hips, she guided him to the entrance of her body, her small hands squeezing his shaft with delicate strength.

His heart skipped when his head grazed her wet folds. There were no waves now to disguise that first intimate contact, and his heightened awareness made his skin feel too tight to contain him. The heated clasp of her body as she slid around him sent his heart scrambling for his throat. He struggled not to spill his seed so soon.

Asrial gave a surprised laugh. “I can see your pulse.” She planted a kiss on the betraying flutter, followed by a quick lick that sent a sudden shiver winging down his spine and straining his control.

Romir smiled, sharing her delight, hoping he could hold back. There would be more discoveries as he adjusted back to life as a man. He looked forward to sharing them with her.

He leaned against the tree’s roots for support and thrust up, chasing Asrial as she rose off him. He caught her hips to him, reveling in the freedom to make his own demands. “I cannot get enough of you.”

She took his mouth in a deep kiss that did little to soothe his rising hunger. “I’m not going anywhere. I want you. I love you. More than anything in this universe.”

Her fervent words snapped the leash of his control. How could he hold back when she said something like that? He moved then, no longer able to contain himself. The need to cherish Asrial filled him with a bone-deep—no, a soul-deep—hunger. He channeled everything he felt into his motions and his inevitable release.

 

 

Romir was so
hard and hot inside her, all male strength, and yet so vulnerable as he surrendered to pleasure. She couldn’t get enough. The need to have him—all of him—was a craving in her blood, a yearning programmed into her cells. It frightened her that she could want him this much. But not having him would be even worse. She could face anything but that.

Asrial buried her face in the damp hair veiling Romir’s chest. This second time was even better, allowing her to savor the heat of his release inside her, the jerks of pulsing pleasure stretching her delicate flesh.

An eternity passed in racing heartbeats and breathless sighs before she managed to raise her head.

In the dappled light, his left shoulder was an even golden brown, devoid of the indigo ink that had marked him as djinn. She pressed a kiss on the unblemished skin, feeling only smoothness under her lips, salty slick with sweat and smelling all male.

She looked forward to learning more of Romir the man.

Hard arms tightened around her, squeezing the air from her lungs. Romir stared up at her, an incredulous smile on his lips, the lines of strain drawn on his face gone. “I love you.”

The fierce avowal sent a thrill winging through Asrial, her heart stumbling with joy. “I know you do.” She gave him a tremulous smile, fighting back tears. “I love you, too.”

A growl sounded between them, low, loud, and long. Romir’s eyes flared wide in startlement. He stared at his belly when the sound repeated, his brow furrowing.

“What is it?”

“I am . . . hungry?”

Asrial burst into relieved laughter at the perplexity in his voice. That mundane growl confirmed their success better than even the disappearance of his tat could. When she recovered her composure, she kissed him, savoring the firm pressure of his response. “There’s food on the
Castel
.”

The prospect of watching him eat filled her with inordinate happiness. Spirit of space grant that it would be the first of better things to come.

Asrial found Romir
in the hold, making passes with his hands over the gleaming new hatch, doing what he called his weavings. She still didn’t quite grasp how he did it, but faint sparkles hinted at arcane modifications she couldn’t see.

Her husband looked so different with his hair cut close to his head. She still missed those long tresses flowing over her body, but she understood the reason for the change. The long hair had been a reminder of his enslavement, one he’d been eager to discard.