She didn’t find him there. The cave was dark and gloomy, and her voice echoed in her ears as she called his name. The little hairs behind her neck pricked when she heard rustles from inside, then a crow flew out in a flurry of wings, its ungodly screech tearing the breath right out of her.
She walked shakily back to the beach and waited for him, watching the waves roll and crash against the shore. The sound lulled her, and when she closed her eyes and reopened them, an image of his face hovered before her. She began to feel warm, so warm. She slid one hand across the sensitive tips of her breasts and felt the thick rivers of arousal stream down to her panties.
“I told you not to come here again.”
She jumped to her feet, and when she whirled around to face him, felt already short of breath.
“You’ve been following me,” was the first thing she said, “and I want to know why.”
He was staring past her shoulder, at the waves, the horizon; Lord knows what could engross him so.
When there was only silence, she insisted, “I asked you a question.”
He treated her to a hard, uncompromising stare, and then began to head toward the cave. Stella had never seen someone so determined to get away from her.
Feeling desperate herself, Stella ran after him, putting her hand over his arm to stop him. “You say you have nothing to give, no heart, no soul, but please…”
He turned around, the expression on his face vicious, the slits of his eyes glimmering menacingly, and yet it didn’t deter her.
“I have one request of you, and then I promise I won’t ask for anything else.”
He stared at her. She could feel his powerful gaze wandering inside her, and she had the strange feeling he could reach inside her mind, into her thoughts.
Lord knows what ideas he found there.
She wanted no misunderstandings, so she drew in a deep breath and said, “Give me your body.”
There was a nearly imperceptible widening of his eyes.
“That’s all I ask of you,” she said simply.
His face didn’t betray a single emotion, making her wonder if he was even capable of feeling anything, or if he’d buried it all along with Faith Harrison as well.
I told you not to come here.
She heard the words clearly, and yet—call her imaginative—his mouth hadn’t moved.
Nervously licking her lips, she lifted a tender hand to his jaw, but he quickly took a step back. She dropped her hand, her words filled with conviction. “If you give me your body, I will give you mine.”
He was so still she thought he might not even be breathing. “No.”
That sharp retort hurt more than a measly little word like that should have. “Am I the only one of us that feels this…this…burning?” Everything, including her voice, shook with want. Her muscles felt languid; need spread throughout her body like a firestorm. If he thought her horny or easy, she was beyond caring. “It’s only me, then, who feels this horrible, wrenching…need of you.”
One side of his eye quivered, fingers curling into fists at his sides before he whirled around and started for the cave. “Go, woman.”
“My name is Stella!” She followed him, flexing her own fingers at her sides out of sheer desperation. “And I will not leave!”
Then I will make you leave. Leave and never return.
She pushed that thought—his thought—away and followed him through the wide opening in the cave, stepping around the coiled ropes until she reached the far end. Flickering torchlight blazed against the walls, the flames casting shadows upon the rocky, jagged edges. She was surprised to find blankets strewn around one corner, as well as clothes, books.
A big book, as black as his eyes and far older than his years, jutted out from the top of a stack, and she could make out the unmistakable pentagram on its cover.
The Book of Shadows.
It wasn’t his voice she heard, but a woman’s, Faith’s voice, now so familiar Stella was not even alarmed to hear it. Faith Harrison seemed now as much a part of Stella as her stomach, her hands, her lungs.
Gabriel was toiling around one corner, but his shoulders were tense, giving her the unmistakable impression that he was as keenly aware of her as she was of him.
“I know you want this too,” she said softly, eagerly.
He stiffened, his hand pausing over a pile of neatly folded clothes; his rough-hewn voice reached her. “Take off your clothes.”
Just to hear those words aroused her. Her legs felt loose and heavy as she undressed, her eyes not once straying from his back as he removed his dirty linen shirt only to slip on a clean one. She swallowed at the sight of rippling muscles, and then wondered why he would want her naked if he was not undressing himself. Oh, but she wanted to be naked. It felt so good to stand here, with the air around her, and be seen. For once, she was not invisible, not covered for the sake of others.
When he slowly turned and set his eyes on her, she was not even ashamed. Modesty had no place here.
His face was partly shadowed so that she could barely make out his features, but even without the benefit of light, she could discern the unearthly glow of his eyes. He was very still for a moment, and she inwardly feared he might not be pleased with what he saw. Then he slowly advanced toward her. Her breasts rose and fell, every step of his somehow making her more and more breathless.
He paused only a few feet away from her. His eyes felt like brandings on her flesh.
“I have dreamed so many times,” she told him.
“Hush.” His hand shot out, curling around the back of her neck. His big body was so near, the blood in her veins seemed to sing for it.
His thumb stroked the delicate hairs on her nape, and her lashes dropped as she savored the touch, her sex pulsing at each gentle stroke.
“What is it that you want?” he asked, palming one breast with his other hand. His touch felt like fire on her flesh, his grip as it closed around her harsh and possessive. She forgot to breathe, to think, to speak, to do anything but stand there and let him see her, touch her.
A moan thrust up to her throat the same instant he growled, yanked her forward, and clamped his lips on hers. Oh she’d wanted this, his mouth on hers, kissing her—Stella McKenna—not a woman long dead. His tongue was almost violent, plundering into her mouth until she felt like he was fucking her with his tongue.
She rubbed her body against his, wanting to feel him, feel his sex stir awake for her. Both his hands fisted around her hair and pulled her head back as his mouth angled over hers.
The kiss intensified, and so did the burning heat inside her. Her head was spinning and she hadn’t even realized she was gripping his arms so tight until her hands began to shake. She moaned into his mouth, and in that same instant he tore away from her, his eyes blazing red as he bared his teeth. “Do you want to be fucked? Is that it?”
Her lips stung with his kiss and her weakened body protested for more. She trembled, her gaze searching the dark pools of his eyes as she whispered, “Yes.”
Didn’t he?
Every muscle in him seemed to contract at her admission. “I will not be fucking you,” he said.
She felt herself sway and she placed a hand over her drumming heart as if to steady herself. “Please…I need this so much.”
He snarled and with a quick, jolting movement of his hands sent two ropes flying upward. They snatched her wrists, jerking them up over her head toward the ceiling. Her toes still touched the ground, but barely, her and arms suddenly stretched.
There was an eerie spark in his eyes, and anger, so much of it. She could feel the rage inside him as if it was churning in her own stomach, and yet a part of her seemed to understand, know the origin of such anger, such desperation.
He advanced on her, kicking her legs apart. “Oh, you’ll get fucked all right,” he said in a deceptively soft murmur. “But it won’t be by me.”
It won’t be by me.
The words came back to him, and Gabriel r
ealized he must’ve done something very evil to deserve this.
In another life, another time, another circumstance, Gabriel would’ve loved nothing more than to run his tongue down that supple, curvy body and plunge his hardness into her cunt.
His senses, sharpened by his solitude, could pick up the tantalizing heat of her lust, the sweet tang of her want. Her pussy gleamed wetly, the pink lips puffed with need, the sight beckoning his lips. But Gabriel wouldn’t give Faith away. Not for madness, not for lust.
Faith would come back to him, and he would wait. Keep on waiting. Magic was all he had left, and if he stopped believing in that…
Summoned by his will, the thick, smooth scepter appeared in his hand, and he closed his grip around it, ascertaining himself of its presence. His gaze never wavered from Stella’s.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” he said thickly.
Her quiet reply, as clear as it was silent, was one he wasn’t expecting to hear.
You called me.
A wave of anger swept across him. “I did not call you.”
You called me, and I came.
Damn foolish woman! Yet he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked now. Her skin was smooth and creamy, the tips of her breasts elongated and ready for a tug of his lips. Her belly rose with each of her breaths, and the V of silky hairs between her legs was trim enough to display the bright pink, swollen lips nestled between them.
He was sure the sight of her would haunt him forever.
“I want you so much,” she whispered, the gentle admission so poignant he felt it snake around his gut.
He didn’t want to want her, didn’t want to feel so goddamned contemptible for denying her, but he could not fuck her. Could not. Didn’t she understand this? What in the hell would it take to make her leave him alone, damn her?
“What you want is to fuck,” he said, his jaw clenched. One hand shot out and rudely parted the folds of her pussy, spreading the dewy petals apart. “You’re so desperate to screw I’d bet you’d fuck anything, wouldn’t you?” He opened her wider, insinuating a finger inside her. “Wouldn’t you?”
She moved, her body fluctuating, her hips nudging his hand. “Yes, touch me more.” Her cheeks were flushed with heat and her gold-specked eyes hazed by desire.
Seized by hunger he hadn’t felt in years, he growled, crushing her creamy cunt in his hand. “I cannot fuck you, do you hear me?” The urgency in his voice demanded she grasp their meaning. “Do you understand? I made a vow!”
His finger plundered inside her. He twisted it hard, a brutal move meant to show her the meaning of his words.
But she whimpered, crying out to him in a breathless, hot whisper. “I beg you…” Her cunt rippled around his finger, the swollen muscles clamping firmly to it. She pushed down against it, lodging it in deeper. “Please, more.”
“All you’re getting is this,” he hissed, withdrawing his finger, his arms shaking with restraint as he spread her entrance with one hand and slowly immersed the lower half of his scepter inside her. She yelped, then bit her lip, her eyes widening as her body arched to receive the thick, smooth shaft. The pink, turgid lips of her sex enveloped its circumference, sliding down its width as the polished surface penetrated.
Gabriel went very still as she cried out, her head falling back limply. The swift pounding of his heart echoed in his ears.
Raging need tormented his insides, and he could barely tolerate the pain of the thick, rigid outline of his cock pressing hard against his pants. Watching the rod slip inside her, he wanted to scream, jerk it out, and plunge his dick right there, in that warm, scented heaven that now opened and creamed for its impalement.
Panting for breath, she began to move, a faint circle of her hips around the scepter, needy, aroused little moans tearing from her lips. He hadn’t thought this would please her. He’d thought—he’d wanted—to hurt her. Frighten her. Make her leave and never return, never come back to tempt him or torment him. But her submission—the easy way she yielded, the erotic way she took the shaft inside her and fucked it—was driving him insane.
Gabriel wanted to hit something. Had he not been occupied with a wanton female who had no idea for what she asked, he’d have been causing hell somewhere, slamming things, pounding his fists into anything nearby until his knuckles broke.
His whole body shook with the want to feel her, to bury himself inside the succulent walls of her pussy and forget whatever stood between them. His cock was on fire, jutting out against his pants. He felt the moisture of his cum gathering at the tip, dampening the fabric, and his aching balls felt laden with need.
Damn her! He pulled the scepter out, then shoved it back in again. “There you go,” he said in a savage whisper, twisting the scepter in deeper. “Fucked by a stick.” And that’s all you’ll be fucked by, damn me!
The hot, aroused sounds she made hit him like cannon balls in the groin. His linen shirt clung to his sweaty chest and he felt an urge to hump his cock against anything, anything nearby. Dear God, against her.
She was so damned wet, she took the entire shaft inside her, down to the globe at the end which stuck out of her cunt whenever he buried it completely. “Do you like it?” he rasped, quickening his thrusts.
“Yes, please,” she cried, her breasts jerking as she began to hump it, ride it, her eyes drifting shut.
“And a little slut you are,” he cooed, inching his face closer so he spoke the words into her mouth.
Her eyelashes fluttered open. When their gazes collided, he knew her lust-filled eyes could only be a mirror of his own.
She should’ve been gone by now. Instead she was begging for more, and he was aching for it, aching to give it to her.
“Where else do you want it? Tell me. In your mouth, your ass, where?”
“Everywhere.” Her sultry whisper filled him, skimming across his heated skin. “I want to be filled. I want you to fill me.”
Those wanton words were heaven and hell and everything in between to him.
He flexed one hand at his side, stretching his longest finger. “Let’s see if this will do.”
Stella screeched and bucked when she felt that finger part the entrance of her ass. It burned, stretched, and carved its way inside the tight tunnel. Choking cries tumbled out of her throat as she twisted and arched for more.
“Oh, but you want something larger, don’t you?” His breath warmed her face.
She yelped in pain, feeling something big and thick enter her ass only a second after his finger withdrew. Her eyes widened, the pain of this new, slow penetration stuffing her with a strange sort of pleasure.
Her brain was cloudy, comprehension fogged by her need. “What…what are you doing to me?”
“I’m fucking your ass with my fingers,” he murmured, wrenching the staff into her pussy while he moved two fingers behind her. “Good, hmm?”
She saw his eyes stray downward to watch the dark, smooth rod disappear through her slick folds, his features held tight with a mask of control.
She closed her eyes to block away that expression and pictured him on top of her, imagined the wooden rod was his cock inside her. In her mind, he was fucking her, like he had fucked her in her memories, in Faith’s memories. She was so wet, she felt a trickle of cream slide down one thigh as the scepter continued to stab inside her.
She did not know why he was doing this, why he did not take her, why he did not slip inside her instead of using this object. She didn’t know why she liked what he was doing to her, but she did. She was ravenous, her body burning so hot she thought her skin radiated light like a sun.
“Please,” she cried, not able to finish, but the words swam past her head, quick and desperate and loud. I asked for your body! I want your body! I want you, you, you!
“I said I cannot,” he said gruffly. Sweat gathered above his brow, his breathing so ragged it aroused her just to hear it, so near to her, so sweet and warm, as he did these wicked things to her. “Now all you need
is a cock to suck, and you’ll have everything you want, won’t you?”
“Kiss me,” she sobbed, and he did. She latched onto his tongue and sucked it while the thick, smooth stick pounded inside her, stretching and filling her, magnifying her need, her hunger. His fingers were vicious, plundering her ass slowly, thoroughly.
With a guttural cry, he shoved the scepter up inside her and left it there, buried to the hilt. He took a step back as if he were going to flee, his features twisted, corrupted with desire.
“Damn you,” he said, raking a trembling hand through his hair, his eyes wide as if some unknown fear had come back to haunt him.
“Don’t stop,” she sobbed. “Touch me. Please, touch me, fuck me.” She was panting, her pussy deeply impaled, her clit pricking with want.
Feeling a surge of desperation when he didn’t move and only stared at her in horror, she began to roll her hips with the stick firmly embedded inside her, keeping her painfully stretched while she twisted and moved. Sobs tore from inside her as she wished to come, to be set free of the unbearable tension inside her.
“Do you want to come?” he asked softly.
She didn’t hear the coarse desire in his voice, was only aware of the coiled tension in her sex, the need. “Please, please fuck me.” Stella had never had so little pride, so little honor. Begging had never cost her so little.
“I asked ‘do you want to come’?” he repeated, angry now.
“Yes!”
With the staff motionless inside her, he came to her, scraping the pad of his thumb over the damp nub of her clit. Her eyes flew wide open, and she screeched. Her hands flailed helplessly in the air as she tried to release herself, her body bucking under his thumb and the expanding force of the baton.
“Is this what you had in mind?” He pressed her clit in with his thumb, then tugged it with two fingers.
She whimpered, and he repeated the question, his voice strained.
“I said fuck me please!” was her broken cry.