Christine Feehan - Dark Demon 16

Vikirnoff lifted her with casual ease and carried her to the far side of the cavern where he had prepared a large bed on the ground. Candles were everywhere, the flames flickering and dancing, throwing shadows on the walls to illuminate crystals and give color to the walls. The spread appeared to be a midnight blue, velvet soft with a host of cushions. He laid her facedown in the middle of them, his hands gentle on her body, positioning her head on a soft pillow and bringing her arms out.

«We're wet.»

«We're not.» And they weren't.

Natalya allowed her lashes to drift down as his hands began a massage at the nape of her neck. He murmured to her in his own language, urging her to sleep while he attended to her sore body. He kneaded the muscles in her neck and shoulders, her arms and back, lower still to her buttocks and thighs and calves before turning her over to attend the front of her.

Natalya drifted in a haze of mind-numbing pleasure. She felt his tongue swirling over her pulse. Teasing the valley between her breasts. Her nipples ached from the sweet torment he had inflicted for hours, but this time it was as soothing as it was stimulating as his tongue flicked and laved and lingered. He suckled gently, before attending the undersides of her breasts and spending a great deal of time tugging on the small golden hoop in her belly.

«You like that, don't you?» She didn't open her eyes. She liked the feel of drifting while

he explored her in such a slow, languid fashion. There was something to be said for the slow sensual buildup as opposed to the violence of their earlier hunger.

«Very much.» He nuzzled the ring and kissed his way down to the tawny triangle. «I love your body, Natalya, all soft and firm and curved so beautifully.» Deliberately he pressed a finger into her wet heat. «Mostly I love how you respond for me. I have had many years to imagine what it would be like. I've studied how to please a woman to be prepared. I wanted to know every way I could bring her pleasure and how she could do the same for me. But the imagination, when one has no feeling, cannot prepare for this.»

Natalya lifted her lashes just enough to watch as he dipped his head between her thighs. She had felt every emotion, yet she was unprepared as his tongue stroked and caressed, finding every sore spot and healing her. She was unprepared for the fire racing through her, and the edgy need that spread and built until she was gripping the blanket beneath her and lifting her hips to meet his marauding mouth.

«I thought you were getting me to sleep.» She reached for his hair, anything to stay anchored when her body was so ready to fly away with her.

«I changed my mind. Do not move, Natalya. Just lie there and do not move.»

«It's impossible.»

Immediately her arms were anchored above her head. She couldn't see how he did it, but she lay stretched out on the blanket. He lifted her hips and placed pillows beneath her to make her more comfortable before returning to his ravishment. His mouth and teeth and tongue were everywhere, his hands possessive, demanding as they moved over her until she was sobbing for release. He took her to the edge over and over, but never quite tipped her over.

Natalya could feel the heat of his erection nearly burning against her thigh. He thought he had her helpless, tormenting her to the brink of insanity, but she had other ideas. Deliberately she merged her mind with his, sharing the terrible craving for him, the dark edgy need for relief. She built a picture in her mind of him kneeling above her, her mouth engulfing him, suckling and stroking and driving him to the same fever pitch. All the while she moved her thigh subtly, like a great cat, rubbing back and forth to create a friction against his most sensitive skin.

She heard his soft groan, felt the response as he grew harder and thicker and jumped in anticipation and need. He might think he could dominate and she would be submissive, but she was as fierce and as passionate as any tigress and she was every bit as capable of driving him out of his mind with pleasure as he was doing to her.

Vikirnoff kissed his way back up her body, rubbing his face against her soft skin, unable to get enough of her. He loved the feel of her, satin and silk, fire and flame. The candlelight played lovingly over her body, a temptation in itself. He followed the erotic picture in her

mind, rising above her, knee on either side of her breasts, tight, so he could feel her against him.

Natalya teased him, blowing a breath over him, flicking her tongue, swiping with small curling licks as if he were an ice cream cone. Flames engulfed him, took him to a new hunger. She looked helpless, lying stretched out on the blanket beneath him, her arms still above her head, her eyes like jewels, but there was nothing helpless about Natalya.

Vikirnoff reached down to cradle her head in his palms, holding her to him. Her lips slid over him, the moist heat of her mouth taking his breath, setting his heart pounding hard. Her mouth was a miracle, tight and slick and so hot it seemed an inferno. He lost himself in the mixture of rising lust and power and sheer carnal desire. He knew she was feeding the intensity, deliberately stealing the control. He watched the way he slid in and out of her mouth, the taunting laughter in her eyes, felt the way she wanted him to feel the same pleasure he had given her.

Destiny had tied them together, but she was so much more than that. This woman, impossible to tame, had wrapped herself around his heart. He could not imagine any other suiting him, making him laugh, making him crazy with desire, just as he was right at that moment. Groaning, he pulled away from her, to blanket her, waiting a heartbeat as he pushed slowly against her entrance. He felt the initial resistance of her body, as if she might not open for him, and then he was inside of her, surrounded by her, buried deep the way he hungered.

He whispered to her in his language, unable to find another way to express the deep connection and commitment to her. He made love to her, slow at first, watching the way her pleasure built, feeling her body tighten around him until he could only thrust harder and deeper, surging forward to keep that connection forever. She had tears in her eyes when the powerful quakes rocked through their bodies and left them gasping for air, struggling to slow their hearts; they were limp with exhaustion.

Vikirnoff rolled his weight off of her, kissing her neck as he drew her against him. «It is nearly dawn. We must sleep.»

Natalya struggled to find a way to talk without proper air. Her lungs were burning and her body still rippled with pleasure. «Aren't you going to sleep underground? Shouldn't you? I'll sleep right here, over the top of you and protect you from all the gremlins,» she insisted. «The only thing you have to worry about is the Troll King.»

«I have provided intricate safeguards. Even your infamous Troll King would have to pause to unravel them and I would awaken. We will be safe here.»

Natalya pillowed her head on his shoulder. «I really don't mind if you need to go to ground, Vikirnoff. I can handle it.»

Vikirnoff wrapped his arms around her. «I prefer to sleep right here beside you,» he said.

«I like holding you. If you should wake and I appear dead…»

«I know, I know,» she interrupted. «You're really asleep. Stop flattering yourself, I'm perfectly fine without you.»

«You get into trouble without me.»

«Every morning, when I finally am tired enough to go to bed after watching television all night alone, I call up a dream of my childhood with my brother, Razvan. I've been doing it for years. It was the only way I could feel like I wasn't so alone, as if I still belonged and had family. This is the first time in many years I will not feel as if I have to call him to me.»