What a Goddess Wants (29 page)

She sighed. “I think that may be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

The bare hint of a smile that he saw on her lips eased his idiotic embarrassment, and he smoothed his palms over those plump curves before cupping them in his hands and squeezing. The faintest impression of his hands remained.

It looked right. His.

“Gods damn, Tessa. I want your ass. Will you let me have it?”

She sighed and her muscles went liquid beneath his hands. “You can have anything you want, Cal. Don’t you know that yet?”

She turned her head just enough that she could look up at him over her shoulder, and he knew right then that she meant every word. He could barely breathe through the tightness in his chest, and he couldn’t wait any longer to have her. “On your knees, Tessa. Face down.”

She obeyed without pause, lifting her ass in the air, her face turned to the side, one cheek pressed to the mattress.

His restraint cracking at the seams, Cal spread her legs with rough hands and then cupped her mound. His fingers slid through her slick sex, drawing her moisture forward to her clit and back to her rear entrance.

“Cal. Please.”

“Yes.” He would please her. He had to. There wasn’t any other option.

Moving on his knees between her legs, he widened her stance by another few inches. With her open before him, his gaze followed his hand as he spread her lower lips and then speared two fingers into her sex. He slid in easily because she was so wet. And tight.

Gods damn, she was tight. His cock ached to feel her stretched around him. Instead, he forced himself to stroke her, to work her arousal higher. Wet heat. He felt it on his fingers and could smell her desire for him in the air around them.

No more waiting.

Sliding his fingers out, he grabbed his cock in one hand and her hip with the other. Then he aimed and thrust deep into her sex.

He didn’t stop until he felt his thighs hit hers. She closed around him, tight as a fist, and her gasp of pleasure as he forced the last few centimeters inside made his hips buck.

Sucking in a deep breath and holding it, he froze, soaking in the sensation, feeling her inner muscles contract around him, tugging at him, milking him. He could’ve come just from that alone so he froze, forcing back the orgasm. Not ready. Not nearly ready.

Her broken sigh pushed him even closer. “You feel so good, Cal. Please. Move.”

“Your wish is my command, Lady.”

He pulled back and thrust. Hard. He didn’t worry about hurting her. He knew he wouldn’t. She could take whatever he dished out. And she liked it.

The pace was just this side of brutal—a rough, hard ride that neither of them wanted to stop. She backed into him every time he pushed into her, seemingly taking more of him each time. The drag of flesh against flesh stoked his desire until his blood felt like it was boiling in his veins and heat covered him in a fine sheen of moisture.

Sweat. He’d never felt heated sweat coat his body before. Never felt it drip down his back and off his balls. He’d never felt the actual heat of a woman’s pussy as it surrounded him, not before Tessa.

His cock shuttled into her body in a wicked rush, his fingers gripping her hips like talons. Tessa’s soft sighs of pleasure increased to husky groans, and his gaze once again slipped to her ass. He had to have her there. Had to have her completely beneath him.

Pulling out, startling a cry from her, he grabbed a pillow and stuffed it beneath her hips, pulling her legs out flat. He leaned down so his mouth was right at her ear. “I want your ass, Tessa. Can I have you there?”

Her breathy moan was answer enough but her head bobbed in agreement. It lit a match to his already flaming desire.

Coating his cock in the moisture flowing between her legs, he made sure he was slick before he pressed the tip to the small puckered entrance. Coming down on his hands, he covered her with his body as he began to invade that tight space.

Her muscles tried to reject him even as she pushed back against him. Turning his head, he sank his teeth into her shoulder. The taste of her sweat made his hips plow forward.

Gods damn. His cock pushed through that first tight ring of muscle and he continued forward, wanting more. Wanting everything.

With his body over hers, she could barely move. He controlled her, yet she still owned him. Every inch he gained, she claimed more of him. Until there was nothing more for him to give her.

Then he pulled out, not enough to slip free but far enough to make his forward thrust worth every second of the torture of her tight passage. And it was wonderful torture. She milked him with each motion, every breath. He wasn’t going to last long but she hadn’t come yet.

And that was priority one.

With his chest plastered to her back, he slid one hand beneath her hips, arrowing straight to her clit. Her gasp let him know he’d hit the right spot. He stroked her, teased her, and flicked that little nerve bundle between his fingers until she writhed.

She couldn’t go anywhere, not with his bulk surrounding her, but she bucked against him, making him sink deeper.

“Cal, make me come.”

“Absolutely, baby. You’ll get to come. But when I say so.”

Then he moved his fingers, pulling back until he could thrust them into her pussy. He fucked her with two fingers, her sheath so damn tight because his cock in her ass stretched her to the limits.

She moaned when he began to work her in both passages.

“I’m gonna get a dildo made just for you, Tess,” he rasped in her ear. “A big one. And I’m gonna take you like this again.”

Shuddering beneath him, she could only gasp out his name. And that was all it took.

Her pussy clenched around his fingers as she came, a tight grip that was matched by the contraction of her back passage around his cock. Heat blasted him like a furnace, though he wasn’t sure if it was hers or his. He only knew he felt lit up from the inside.

He came, pouring his seed into her in devastatingly slow pulses that he swore went on for hours. He barely felt the wave of power that coursed through her, he was so blown away by his own orgasm.

Still, he had enough sense to realize what was going on. And enough pride to smile.

After several minutes—or it could have been an hour, he wasn’t really sure—he rolled to his side, drawing her with him so he could wrap his arms around her and hold her tight against him.

He felt each of her shuddering breaths mirroring his own as he tried to calm his racing heart. Her hands had wrapped around his arms when he’d shifted, as if she was afraid he was going to move away. And even when it became clear he wasn’t moving, she let them rest there. Returning some of that amazing energy.

It only took a few minutes for him to feel completely renewed. Refreshed. And for the anxiety to kick in again.

Double-edged sword.

Her power had saved her. And would also condemn her.

She turned in his arms, staring into his eyes. He knew she was thinking exactly the same thing. “Now what?”

He shook his head. “Hell if I know, babe. But I’ll think of something.”

Chapter 11

Tessa sat by Flavia’s bed, holding the baby girl yet to be named.

Like all
gianes
, this little sweetie had river-blue eyes that would not change color and pale brown hair that would eventually darken into a beautiful golden brown with green highlights.

That distinctive trait was one of the reasons
gianes
rarely ventured into the more populated areas of the world. Besides, the major waterways of the so-called civilized world were largely polluted, and Etruscan wood elfs needed clean, fresh water coming straight out of the earth to live.

Luckily for Flavia, a group of
Fata
had built an enclave not far from there in a thickly wooded area of the Oley Valley. The land was private, a clean stream ran through it, and the protective wards ringing the property had been erected by Selvans, the God of the Woods himself.

Flavia and the babies would be safe there, and they’d have the support of the other
Fata
who lived there.

From the next room, she heard the low rumble of Cal and X talking, though she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

In the bed, Flavia sighed in her sleep, her arms cradling her son, who also slept. The little girl, however, was blinking up at Tessa, though her eyes were shut more than they were open.

“As much as I love holding you, baby girl, I think it’s time for you to get some more rest.” Tessa stood, laying the baby in the bassinet attached to the side of the bed. Flavia would be able to see the baby immediately when she woke up.

Instead of leaving, Tessa sat back in a chair. This new little family brought a smile to her face.

Tessa had never had children, though not for lack of trying. Many centuries ago, she’d been almost frantic in her pursuit of a child. She’d had sex with gods, demigods, humans,
Fata
, men of all races. She’d begged, pleaded, and bespelled. Nothing had worked.

Her sister, Lusna, Goddess of the Moon, had conceived her son, Tivr, many centuries ago and under circumstances she’d never spoken off. Not even when Tessa had begged her to tell her the secret.

Tessa had heard something in Lucy’s voice as she refused that made it clear she’d never speak of it. That the experience had been traumatic, though she never treated Ty with anything other than a mother’s complete and occasionally overbearing love.

Tessa had wanted to share that connection with another being. But she’d had to give up that dream. She’d made certain never to want anything that badly, to never ache with desire until she couldn’t see straight, to never weep with the knowledge that she’d always be alone.

Until Cal.

Just the sound of his voice soothed her and made her want him at the same time.

Leaning her head against the chair back, she let her gaze wander to the wall that separated her from Cal. The paint color was a soothing blue-green, reminding her of the waters of the Mediterranean. Of home.

She hadn’t returned to Etruria in years. America was her home now, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t long for the hills, the forests, the ancient and deep-seated power in the land. Not that America didn’t have power. The ley line running beneath this part of the country had been pure and largely untapped when the Etruscans had decided to settle here more than two centuries earlier.

The green forests, the Schuylkill River, the fertile fields… all these things had drawn them. Still, maybe when this was all over, she would return.

She longed to let her hands run along the bark of centuries-old oaks and her feet sink into the soil that nurtured the greatest vineyards on the planet. If she closed her eyes, she saw the villa she owned outside of San Gimignano. If she breathed in, she could smell the rich scent of the earth and the tang of ripe grapes on her tongue.

The vineyards would be gearing up for harvest in September. It was a joyous time.

“You miss it, don’t you?”

She knew that voice, knew it should terrify her. And somewhere inside, deep in her gut, she was terrified.

But not for the reasons she had been before.

She knew she shouldn’t engage him, shouldn’t answer, but something in the tone of his voice made her pause.

“Of course I do. It’s home.”

“True. And yet you’ve wandered. You’ve traveled the world. You’ve seen so much more than I have ever dreamed while I rot here.”

She was dreaming and she knew it, caught in that place between awake and full sleep. And trapped with the god who hunted her.

She needed to snap out of this, to wake. But she was so tired. And so damn curious.

“You rule an entire plane of existence, Charun. Here… now… we are obsolete.”

“We wouldn’t have to be.”

Yearning hit her square in the gut at his softly spoken words.

“We could rule again,” he continued. “The humans are clueless. They understand so little of how the world works. They don’t believe in magic, even though it’s all around them. They’re petty and greedy and small-minded. It would take so little to have them under our thumbs again. Worshipping us. We only need to work together.”

She shook her head. “It would be chaos.”

“It would be wonderful. We would rule not just a small part of the world but the entire world. When I open the gate and leave Aitás—”

“After you consume my powers and leave me to rot there.”

Charun paused. Though she couldn’t see him, could only hear him in her mind, she knew he was considering his response carefully.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually seen Charun face to face. It’d been well before the Involuti had sealed Charun in Aitás then hidden Invol away as well.

She wasn’t even sure what had prompted the Involuti to lock Charun in his realm. She only knew she couldn’t blame him for being pissed off about it. She just didn’t want to be his sacrificial lamb. And this conversation was leading him right to her.