Christine Feehan - Dark Celebration 17

Still, the ancient paced outside the door.

With a sigh of regret, when he was certain she had taken enough for a true exchange, Manolito closed the wound, tidied her and placed memories of using the bathroom. It easy enough to disappear, scattering his molecules throughout the room so that when MaryAnn opened the door and Nicolae peered in, there was nothing to see-no way to detect him.

«Are you all right?» Nicolae asked.

MaryAnn pressed her hand against her aching breast. Strangely, she felt flushed-more than that, in a heightened sexual state. She took a slow, deep breath and let it out. «I'm fine, Nicolae. Here are the towels.» Had she been daydreaming? For a moment, she couldn't remember going into the bathroom. She thought only of a man touching her skin, sliding his mouth down her throat to her breast. She wanted to open her blouse and look at her skin, touch her body, feel hands on her. But Nicolae was already striding down the hall, casting small suspicious glances over his shoulder, and remembering he could read her thoughts, she hastily followed him forcing inane chatter about Christmas trees.

Chapter 15

«Natalya, just what are you doing with that hairspray and lighter?» Vikirnoff Von Shrieder demanded. He peered out the kitchen window to the silent sparkling white world surrounding them. «There aren't any vampires around, are there?»

«Don't be silly. I've learned to call down the lightning when I'm fighting a vampire. I needed a flame thingie for the creme brulee. See, it says so right here on the recipe.» Natalya bent forward to reread the card she had on the low-tiled counter.

«Give it up. The silly recipe isn't worth the amount of time you have put into it.» Vikirnoff came up behind her and circled her waist with his arms, drawing her back up against him.

«I thought you always wanted June Cleaver cooking in the kitchen with her little apron on,» Natalya teased.

«It was you who mentioned June Cleaver, but I do like the apron,» he admitted, kissing his way down the side of her face. His hands burrowed under the thin material stretching to cover her breasts. «If you wore this all the time, I might consider trying out one of these strange concoctions you seem to be attempting to whip up.»

He nibbled on the back of her neck and let his hands slide down her flat stomach to the junction of her legs beneath the short apron. His palm caressed the short curls, and moved up to cover the birthmark in the shape of a dragon. The pads of his fingers traced the

familiar shape, and then moved on around her hips to her firm bare buttocks. «Ainaak enyem, you do not have a single stitch on beneath this apron.»

She leaned forward just a little more to peer at the recipe and frown at her concoction. The action brought her enticing derriere brushing the front of his body, sending a small electrical charge right through his groin. «I don't think anyone who cooks actually wears clothes. It's too messy. I changed three times and gave it up.»

His hands continued their journey, shaping her hips and running over her bottom to slide over her thighs. He felt her shiver of awareness-of answering excitement. «So humans stand in the kitchen stark naked and cook.» Once more his hands moved, widening her stance, caressing the inside of her thighs, going higher so his knuckles could brush back and forth across her sensitive core.

«I'm certain of it,» Natalya said. «I've discovered their secret.» She closed her eyes to absorb the feel of his hands on her bare skin.

His mouth nuzzled her neck, tongue stroking caresses over her pulse, teeth teasing and nipping. «I will ask Slavica's husband if that is why he spends so much time in the kitchen with her. I wondered what they did together in that big room with so many counters.»

His teeth sank deep, locking them together, his larger body bending hers forward, pinning her against the low counter and his body. His clothes were gone and his body already hard and aggressive, his fingers pushing slowly, seductively into her body so that she gasped and pushed back against him, already wet and welcoming for him. Already hot. He loved her ready response and the way her body began to ride his hand eagerly.

His hands went to her hips, holding her still, preventing all movement, so she waited for his attentions, unable to bring any pleasure to herself.

«You started this,» Natalya complained.

He didn't answer, savoring the spicy taste of her, the way her smaller body waited for his, open and ready, so vulnerable and so willing. It was a heady feeling to be able to take a woman warrior, to wrap his body around hers when she was every bit as lethal as she was beautiful. He held her down with one hand on her back, heightening her pleasure, forcing her to wait for him, breathless, her hips trying to entice him, her body wet and needy. He loved especially when she grew anxious and demanding, yet submitted to his domination– like now.

Vikirnoff swept his tongue across the pinpricks, waited again, waiting for the telltale beat of her heart to accelerate, and he thrust hard, driving deep into her, burying himself all the way. She cried out, a low keen of joy as they joined together. She was so tight, a fist clamping around his shaft, hot and velvet soft, slick with welcoming cream. He took her hard and fast, driving her over the edge without preamble so that her body clamped down and her orgasm rushed over her, rocking her legs, rippling through her belly and crashing

through her womb.

He kept the pounding rhythm, moving like a piston, dragging her back with every forward surge so they came together in heat and aggression. He could feel the streaks of lightning racing through her bloodstream, gathering-building, always building, the pressure relentless so that after the first rush to bring more sensitivity to the bundle of nerve endings, he kept her poised on the edge, pushing her higher and higher until she was nearly sobbing for relief.

Vikirnoff could stay there all day, his body buried deep in silk and fire, her tight muscles squeezing and grasping, her body subject to the rule of his. Her hair spilled around her, banded with color, her skin soft and inviting and every square inch of her, every hollow and shadow, his to do with as he pleased.

Right now he felt her tigress close, clawing toward the surface, wild and abandoned, adding fuel to the fire, wanting him rough, wanting him to match the cat rising with heat in her. He threw back his head, nearly coming up on his toes, surging deep over and over, so that the friction was nearly intolerable, a pleasure bordering on pain that went on and on because he dictated it so. Because her body was his body when they came together like this. She gave herself to him unconditionally, trusting him to bring her absolute ecstasy, and it was his privilege to accommodate her. Because they needed this sometimes more than anything else, this coming together almost in violence after they had both been alone for so very long.

He murmured softly to her in his own language. «Te avio palafertulam. Ainaak sivamet jutta.» You are my lifemate. Forever to my heart connected-forever mine.

She answered with one of the few words of the ancient language she knew, her heart in her voice. «Sivamet.» My love. And she meant it.

Vikirnoff plunged into her until her breath was coming in gasping sobs and his body burned with a kind of fury, until their hunger for each other was so sharp and terrible there was no holding back. Her body tightened around his, clamping down with hard spasms that sent fire racing down his spine straight to his balls. His entire body shuddered as he thrust one more time, hard steel penetrating hot silk, as he emptied himself into her deepest core, further uniting them.

He lay over her, holding her close, kissing her back, nuzzling her neck, all the while trying to struggle for air. Their hearts beat the same rhythm, but the gnawing hunger, so insatiable, was still there. He could feel it in her, stirring and clawing like the greedy cat inside her, and also deep in him, where his demon roared for its mate.