Kim Harrison - Hotter Than Hell

Just when Cat believed she could tolerate no more Andrés began to pump more urgently, rocking her forward with each thrust. She gasped as he reached beneath their joining and rubbed her in time to his driving rhythm. The climax was so overwhelming that she cried aloud, her body glorying in sensations she’d never known before.

Andrés remained inside her. She expected him to soften, but his cock was still firm and full. Somehow he’d brought her to orgasm without enjoying one himself.

“Andrés,” she said, her voice shaking with reaction. “You didn’t…you need to…”

He brushed damp hair from the back of her neck. “I will, mi gatita.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and turned her to face him, adjusting her legs so that she was sitting on his lap with his cock trapped between them.

Cat touched his face from the angle of his cheekbone to the straight line of his dark brows. “I never thought it could be like this.”

“It is not over, querida.”

She found his erection with her fingertips, caressing the velvety head. “Tell me what you want.”

A shudder ran through him. “Forgive me.”

“For what?” She leaned her cheek against his chest. “You’ve given me something…I didn’t even know could exist. Neal…” She bit down hard on her lip, cursing herself for even mentioning her ex-husband’s name.

But Andrés was untroubled. “You have never had a real man before. This I knew when we first met.”

She drew back and met his gaze. “But why me? Why did you seek me out? Who are you, Andrés?”

He put his finger to her lips, lifted her and eased her down onto his cock. She was so wet that there was no discomfort; she felt a tingle as if she might come all over again. But when she began to move, sliding up and down, he stopped her.

With casual strength he rose from the bed, holding her impaled, and carried her to the wall. He clasped his hands around her cheeks and supported her as if she weighed no more than cottonwood down. He held her tight as he entered her, and she recognized with disbelief that she was on the edge of another incredible orgasm. She clasped her legs around his waist, moving with him. He closed his eyes and worked until beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, plunging, grinding, pounding. The glorious pulsing started in the pit of Cat’s belly.

“Let it go,” she whispered. “Come to me.”

For a moment he gazed right into her eyes, and she saw pain and desperation and centuries of suffering.

“Forgive me,” he said hoarsely.

“Yes. Yes. I forgive—”

He stiffened, the muscles of his stomach standing out in harsh relief, his hips slamming against hers. He finished with a cry of triumph, gathering her against him as his shuddering came to an end.

Cat dropped her chin on to his shoulder, breathless and exultant. Andrés kissed her mouth and forehead and carried her back to the bed. He laid her down with her head on the pillow and smoothed the tangled sheets over her, tucking the edges under her chin as if she were a child. Then he backed away, his eyes still full of sorrow.

“Don’t go,” she said, reaching for his hand.

He glanced toward the window. “There is little time.”

“Time for what?” She tried to push the sheets away, but he pressed her back and sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh.

“Perhaps it is over,” he said. “Perhaps there will be no change.”

“What change?”

Instead of answering he stretched out beside her and tucked her head into the curve of his arm. “Rest now, mi gatita.”

Cat realized that she was exhausted, not only by the vigorous sex but also by emotions she couldn’t quite comprehend. A minute ago Andrés had been dominant, guiding and controlling their lovemaking with her full cooperation. But now he was something else entirely: tender, solicitous, and melancholy in a way that made her want to take him in her arms and tell him everything was going to be all right.

“You won’t go?” she asked sleepily.

He kissed her forehead and brushed his fingers over her eyelids. “Sleep.”

The caballos charged into the village, nostrils flared and teeth bared like the fangs of the jaguar ready to slaughter its prey. Their riders were gods of destruction and malice, helmets and weapons flashing as they trampled the villagers who came to meet them.

Itzel stood at the door of her house, mouth open to cry out. No sound would come. Men she had known all her life collapsed into the dust, great gaping wounds spilling blood bright as forest flowers. Women screamed and fled, some falling under the horses’ hooves, others dragged by their hair to be violated and cast aside. Children wept. And yet the conquerors slew on, laughing and merciless.

Filled with despair, she turned to the one who stood behind her. She begged Andrés to stop those with whom he had once ridden, to save the village from their murderous rampage.

But Andrés didn’t move. He stared, his skin the color of bleached bone, his eyes no longer the hue of clear water but swallowed up in obsidian black. He had become like some forgotten stone idol, unable or unwilling to interfere in the fates of men. Only when one of the conquistadores , his hair golden as the sun, drove his huge mount toward the house and reached for Itzel did Andrés act. He pushed her behind him and looked up at the man on the horse. He spoke words in the enemy tongue. Hair-of-the-Sun laughed again, spun his beast about and rode away, his followers behind him.

Itzel staggered from the doorway, her eyes glazed with horror. She knelt beside the lifeless body of her brother and stroked the matted hair from the terrible gash across his forehead. There were a few others left alive; they, like her, wandered from one body to the next, searching for those they had loved.

Much time passed before Itzel turned back to the house. Andrés still waited there, empty as one whose heart had been given in sacrifice to the gods.

She had loved him. She had made the others see that he was not like those he had abandoned. But she had been wrong. He was no different.

“Itzel,” he whispered, his voice a broken husk. But she felt no pity. She came to stand before him, fists clenched at her sides.

“You have betrayed us,” she said.

“No. I…”

“You did not stop them. For this…” She closed her eyes. “For this you must pay.”

For the first time in many suns she drew upon the powers her grandmother and mother had passed to her, powers bestowed by the earth and the sky. “You will suffer as you have watched the people suffer,” she said. “Your kind are bound to the great beasts you call caballos. Now you shall run as such a beast for all the days of your life, walking as a man only at night. But you shall not die. You shall have no relief until one of my blood forgives you for your cowardice this day.”

Andrés heard her, but he did not believe. She saw that in his eyes. But a few minutes of daylight remained; he grew taut, the curse beginning to work its way through his body.

Itzel turned her back on him and walked away, ignoring the wordless cries of agony and terror as Andrés lost his ability to speak with a human voice. The last she heard of him was the drumming of his hooves as he fled into the forest.

Cat shot up in the bed, her heart hammering and her breath locked in her throat. It took several moments before she recognized the room around her.

Andrés stood by the window, his shoulder propped against the wall as he gazed outside. Tension had turned the muscle of torso and buttock and thigh to sculpted stone. He still looked exactly the same as he had in that other, ancient world. Not even his name was different.