Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(68)

Stop. Stop. Stop.

She started shaking her head. Somehow she found a paltry scatter of words. I—I don’t think—I can’t—

Can’t what, beautiful girl? Can’t relax and enjoy this? It’s wicked but not bad. It’s just a little naughty fun and even if it doesn’t feel like it, it’s perfectly private. Rune whispered temptation in her head with as much wily wisdom as the snake in the Garden of Eden. He pinched her harder, and she strangled a squeal as her back arched. You’re safe, trust me. I would never let anyone see you like this. God, your breast feels like it was made for my hand. Such a perfect, perfect fit.

She was going to push him away. She was, any minute now, but then he pulled his hand out of the caftan, which left her blinking in disappointment.

She twisted to face him, her arms going around his neck even as his mouth came down on hers. He kissed her, hard and hungrily, and she let her eyes fall closed as she kissed him back. His heart pounded. She loved the sensation of his blood coursing throughout his long, powerful frame.

He turned them and pushed her back against the wall, covering her with his body, and fresh shock detonated as he ran a hand down her torso between them to unfasten the two buttons of her caftan that were over her groin. Before she quite knew what happened, he had slipped his hand inside and slid his fingers into the moist silken tangle of private hair.

He was touching her. Right there in the hotel lobby. He was touching her. The pleasure of it had her so crazed it escaped in a high, thin, nearly inaudible scream as she clutched his hand against her. He swallowed the sound as he f**ked her mouth with his tongue.

And nobody noticed. Nobody saw. The indifferent world wheeled on its clockwork way around them.

Shh, darling, Rune said. His mental voice sounded as ragged as she felt. His big body bowed over her, lungs working like bellows. He was so hot, the feel of his body burned through the caftan. Holy gods, I’m finding religion here. You feel like heaven on earth, you’re so soft and wet and silky. What I wouldn’t give to be able to taste you right now.

She let go of his hand and gripped one of his rock-hard thighs as she sank the other fist in his hair, and somehow she managed to find her telepathic voice again. Okay okay okay. This has been really amusing—

Amusing. More like apocalyptic.

—but I don’t think I can take any—any more of this—

Even as she stuttered, he found the small stiffened bud of her clitoris and stroked it with a forefinger.

The climax sucker punched her, a left hook that came out of nowhere and clipped her on the jaw. All the strength ran out of her body and her legs turned to rubber, and she went down for the count.

She slid to her knees and he came down with her. He cupped her between the legs and kept a firm steady pressure on the tiny throbbing pulse of her pleasure, bracing his weight on one forearm against the wall as he bowed over her. He was panting as if he were running in a full-out sprint, his Power a fiery cascade around them. He pulled his mouth from hers to sink his teeth into her neck as she shuddered through the throes of the climax. He was swearing steadily in her head, and the jagged curses sounded like poetry.

Then the cataclysm racking her mind and body eased. They both held still, breathing heavily.

Rune asked, Are you all right? I didn’t push things too far, did I? Even his mental voice seemed hoarse, as though he had been shouting.

She had to think about it. She had witnessed many things, always holding herself separate from the sexual excesses of history, but she had never seen or heard of anything like what she had just experienced. It was not just the exoticism of the act itself. It was the exoticism of him, that playful, affectionate, dangerous on-the-edge man.

Just a little bit of naughty fun, and perfectly private. You’re safe, trust me.

A ghost of a chuckle escaped her. He poisoned her with affection and compassion, and he taught her what it meant to play again. He gave her hope and tore down her past, all with a fierce laugh in those remarkable eyes. He had already taken her soul on an impossible moonlit flight. She might as well give him her shredded, useless heart too, since she hadn’t been using it all these years.

She whispered, “I’m okay, you lunatic. But I really cannot go any further out here . . .”

He was already shaking his head. “I don’t think I could hold on to the cloaking and take you at the same time,” he growled. “And I will not risk exposing either of us like that.”

Because she was safe, and she really could trust him. She really could.

She hiccupped in a silent sob, a physical reaction as involuntary and shocking as the climax had been.

He smoothed the tangled hair away from her face. Are you sure you’re all right, darling? he asked again, sounding concerned.

His handsome features were blurred like the memory of a dream, and the giant invisible force that had been propelling her forward these last several years, faster and faster, shoved her into a realization and then she really was moving at the speed of light.

What was this feeling? She had sensed it before in so many others. She felt shards of it, for dogs and other creatures, nations and ideals, and old lovers who had been gone for so many, many years. She had always felt those shards were pieces of something that was bigger than anything she would ever be able to understand, until just now, as they coalesced and made a whole.

Love. This feeling was love.

She sat back on her heels, dragged the back of one hand across her face then leaned forward to kiss him. Stop worrying , she told him gently. I’m fine.