Goddess of the Rose (Goddess Summoning #4)(82)

His snarl was a wave of thunderous sound. He lifted her into his arms. His hooves thudded heavily against the pelt-covered floor as he strode to his pallet. He laid her there, but before he could cover her with his body, she stood, causing him, once again, to pull back. In his pained expression she read too easily what he was thinking.

"You've got to stop believing that I'm afraid of you. I'm not. I didn't stand up to get away from you. I just thought you would like this off . . ." Mikki began to unpin the silver rose brooch that held her chiton together over her right shoulder, but her hands were trembling and she could not unclasp it. Frustrated, she looked up at him and then her expression changed to a seductive smile. "Would you do something for me?"

"Anything," he rasped.

"Unsheathe your claws and get this thing off me."

With a movement catlike in its grace, he silently extended the daggers from his fingers. Quickly and easily, he sliced through the material at her shoulder. She shrugged and the chiton fell from her body. His dark eyes gazed at her. He lifted a hand to touch her breast and then jerked it back when the still extended claw met her soft flesh. Mikki caught his wrist.

"Your control is so great that you can create beautiful art with these claws. Use that same control to touch me with them. Let me feel your power against my skin." Unflinching, she pressed his hand against her breast.

Hesitantly, he let the sharp points graze the creamy smoothness of her skin as his hand moved from her breast to her stomach and slid slowly . . . slowly . . . over the wet, hot core of her. Mikki sucked in her breath and shivered.

"Don't stop," she moaned.

His eyes never left her face as his claws trailed down her thighs and then around to rake softly over the voluptuous swell of her ass.

"Turn around. I want to see your back," he said, his deep voice rough with desire.

Mikki turned. She felt his lips replace claws as he kissed the raised pink lines he had left on her back.

"I thought I had ripped through your skin." His breath was hot against her skin.

"Of course you didn't. They're just scratches."

His lips moved to the small of her back, and his tongue tasted her. "I didn't think I would ever touch you again."

She turned and wrapped her arms around his neck as he licked and teased her ni**les.

"Don't ever stop touching me, Asterius."

She sank down to the pallet, pulling him with her. He knelt beside her. Sheathing his claws, he touched her face gently. "I could not stop now, Mikado, even if Hecate herself appeared and commanded it."

"Shh." She pressed a finger against his lips. "I don't want to think about anything else except you." Slowly, she lifted her hand until the same finger that had pressed against his lips traced the smooth line of one dark horn. "You are amazing. I don't ever think I'll get enough of touching you."

"Mikado, you are a rare and unexpected gift." His deep voice trembled with the depth of his emotions. "I have never known the love of a woman - never, in all the eons of my existence, has a woman touched me, accepted me, loved me . . ." He had to pause before he could continue. "I will love you for as long as there is breath in my body, and beyond, if the Fates and our goddess will it."

"Come to me, Asterius. Show me the power of your love," she beckoned.

He worshipped her with his mouth and hands. He drank in her body as if he would never get enough of it. He explored her and, with the superhuman senses of a beast, he read the flushes and changes in her body, learning what brought her the most pleasure. And then, when he thought he could never know anything sweeter than watching the passion he had built within her, she pressed him to the pallet and began her own exploration. When her tongue teased him and she whispered against his skin that the hard length of his body was magnificent and how much she desired him, Asterius thought he would die of such exquisite pleasure.

"I need to feel you inside me."

Mikki opened herself to him. He trembled with the effort of controlling himself as she wrapped her legs around him and arched against him. Blood rushed painfully through his body, and the roar of the beast filled his mind. The beast wanted to pound violently into her, to bury his aching hardness in her wet heat. He clenched his teeth, sliding carefully in and out of her, trying to focus on her soft sounds of pleasure through the tumult in his mind. And then he realized that she was meeting his gentle thrusts with a fierceness that blazed in her eyes. When he bent to kiss her, she bit his lip. He growled. She smiled.

"Let the beast loose. I want him," she said in a deep, sultry voice.

Her words ignited a flame of lust within him that he was afraid would consume them both. Unable to fight against the combined force of her desire and the power of the beast, Asterius grabbed her ass and lifted her up to meet him as he impaled himself within her, over and over again. Mikado didn't shrink from him. She answered his passion with a strength that was goddess-touched. The beast and the priestess blazed together, until finally the man within could no longer stop the raging force and he poured a lifetime of need into her as beast and man together roared her name.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

HE couldn't stop looking at Mikado. She was asleep, her naked body pressed against him. She was using his arm to cushion her head. One of her long, smooth legs was thrown intimately over his inhuman one. Her hand lay limply on his chest. He drew a deep breath, letting her scent imprint upon his senses.