CHAPTER 9
His back slamming against the wall of the private booth knocked the wind out of August.
He leaned there, struggling to catch up. Maya didn’t give him the chance. She dipped her head and her lips seared his chest, the light silken brush of her hair across his stomach sending him out of his mind. He half-groaned half-growled as she licked and nipped at him, swirled her tongue around his left nipple and kissed downwards, paying close attention to every single muscle on his stomach, as if she didn’t want one to feel left out.
Holy fuck.
August caught her shoulders, wanting to slow her down and make sure she was alright with what she was doing.
She didn’t have to do it if she didn’t want to, didn’t have to feel pressured into anything.
She answered him by grabbing his shoulders and shoving him hard against the wall, her head lifting from his stomach as she snarled at him, sending him a message loud and clear.
She was doing this, and trying to stop her had only pissed her off.
Another growl left her blush lips.
He frowned at her. Like hell he was submitting to her.
She stroked her tongue over his stomach, her eyes locked on his the entire time, and his knees shook as bliss washed over him.
All the fight that had flared to life inside him died.
Maybe he would submit to her a little.
Just a smidgen.
His cock twitched in approval, jerking against the tight confines of his black jeans.
Maya’s golden eyes lowered to his chest, grew heated and hungry as she raked them over him, clearly liking what he had to offer.
Gods, he shouldn’t be doing this, but he couldn’t stop himself. The realisation that she was virgin territory should have had him being all noble and shit, spouting how it wasn’t right and she really didn’t want to give something so precious to him.
Should have.
His reaction had been quite the opposite.
Knowing that she was untouched, that he was her first, and she wanted him to be that for her, had only made him want her even more.
He wanted to ruin her to all other males.
He gazed down at her as she kissed across his stomach, cranking him higher with each one.
Gods, he needed her.
Maya lifted her eyes to his.
That corona of blue was back, faintly glowing around her pupils.
Odd.
He had never noticed any blue in her eyes when she wasn’t aroused or angry.
She knocked that thought plain out of his head when she slid her eyes over him and they froze on his shoulder.
She straightened in an instant, a feral snarl rolling off her, her eyes locked on the wounds he bore.
Wounds she had given him.
Before he could say anything about them, she was on him, her tongue stroking over the red lines. Damn. The pure hit of pleasure that swept through him in response to her cleaning his wounds had another part of him weakening.
Somewhere in the region of his chest.
He stared down at her, reeling and feeling as if at any moment, he was going to fall.
And he was going to fall hard.
Hell, he couldn’t move as she laved her tongue over the wounds, her actions screaming of a need to take care of him, to help him heal.
He must have stared a little too hard, because she lifted her head and growled at him again.
Only this time it wasn’t a warning that he was making her angry.
It was pure, unadulterated, possession.
She planted her hands against his chest, shoved him back against the wall and kissed him.
Hard.
Before he could catch up again, her lips left his, trailed down his neck and over his chest. She sank downwards, her hands drifting over his body as she kissed lower, as she swirled her tongue around his navel and dropped to her knees before him.
August swallowed hard.
She trailed kisses along the waistband of his jeans.
He might have made a valiant effort to claw back some nobility and stop her at that point, but the fire in her eyes dared him to try it, and promised he would regret it.
They held his as she made fast work of his jeans, popping the first button and then gripping the two sides to pull them apart in one swift stroke. Cool air washed over his cock and he groaned, swallowed hard and tried to keep his head.
Maya made that impossible when she lowered hers, still holding his gaze captive with hers, and slowly ran her tongue up the length of his cock from root to tip.
He bit his lip, tipped his head back and pressed it hard into the wall.
Dear-fucking-gods.
She moaned and licked him again, not even the slightest tremble in her as she gripped his hips and held him fast, stopping him from moving. He wasn’t sure he could have even if he had wanted to move. He was ninety-nine percent certain he had already left his body and was just floating above it, watching as she went to war on him.
She was killing him.
Her soft warm tongue pressed into the ridge on the underside of his cock, sending tingles shooting down to his balls, and he groaned and pressed harder against the wall, fought to keep standing as his knees weakened again.
She loosed another moan and feathered kisses up the length of him to the tip. He grunted as she took him in her hand and pushed downwards, revealing the blunt crown. Oh gods. He wasn’t sure he could handle this after all.
She moved her hand up and down, stroking his shaft, ripping moan after moan from him that she seemed to enjoy as she studied his cock. He barked out a groan when she lowered her hand to cup his balls, earning a startled gasp from her. Her surprise at his reaction lasted all of a second, a brief reprieve that didn’t give him enough time to pull his shit together before she discovered how to completely undo him.
Maya rolled his balls in her hand as she licked the head of his cock, fluttering her tongue over it and teasing the slit.
“Fuck.”
She blinked up at him, a hint of colour on her cheeks.
Shocked that she had made him swear like that with only a touch?
He wasn’t. Hell, he was holding back. He wanted to unleash every fucking swear word in the dictionary, and some made up ones, on her, in every fucking language he knew.
His knees almost buckled when she wrapped her lips around him, her hand still working magic on his sac.
“Sweet fucking gods almighty.” He shook as she took him into her mouth. It was moist. Hot. Too fucking good.
He snapped.
His left hand shot to her black hair, twisting it into his fist, and he grunted as he shallowly thrust into her warm mouth, struggling for control, aware he was probably scaring the shit out of her.
She moaned.
Actually fucking moaned.
The vibrations of it ran down from the head of his cock to his balls, which instantly tightened.
“Oh fuck,” he breathed and pushed her back.
He gripped his cock, held it so tight it killed like a motherfucker, stopping himself from climaxing.
August breathed hard.
As his body began to relax, the urge to spill fading, he grew painfully aware of Maya’s eyes on him.
And how he was standing over her with a death grip on his cock with one hand and her hair with the other.
“I was… ah…” He looked down at his hand on his length and tried to convince himself to release it, but for some damned reason he just ended up standing there, still holding it like he was about to jack off and spill on her face. “I didn’t want to…”
He wasn’t sure whether he was saying he didn’t want to climax on her face, or hadn’t wanted to climax at all.
Maybe it was both.
Maya blinked.
Her amber eyes dropped to his cock and the damn thing jerked in response.
“It was a bit too good.” Gods, he sounded like the virgin now.
He had talked dirty to countless females, had been blunt and an adult about things, saying shit straight.
It didn’t feel right to do that with Maya though.
She had him tied in knots, wanting to do everything right. Perfect.
“Oh,” she said, raising her eyes to his again.
A flicker of understanding shone in them.
She reached up and took his hand from her hair. He wasn’t sure what she was going to do when she released it.
His breath left him in another dizzying rush when she wrapped her hand around his on his cock and began moving it slowly, just enough to keep him painfully hard, and her eyes met his.
“I’ll stop when you say. I just want to make you feel good, like you made me feel good.”
She leaned in and undid him all over again, wrapping her lips around his flesh as she moved his own hand on his cock.
“Gods, Maya, just looking at you makes me feel good.” He cringed when he realised he was sounding like a complete pervert again.
He hadn’t meant looking at her while she sucked on his cock. He had meant looking at her anytime, when she was doing anything.
Which was one hell of a fucking revelation.
It knocked him sideways so hard he almost missed the massive cue his body threw at him.
He pushed Maya back the second it registered, breathing hard as he struggled to tamp down the need rushing through him, threatening to catapult him over the edge.
Maya gazed up at him, a touch of innocence in her eyes as she watched him, but mixed with a hell of a lot of wickedness.
Wickedness she certainly seemed to be embracing.
She rose to her feet, clamped her hands over his shoulders, and kissed him hard.
August groaned and lost himself in it, in the way her tongue met his and teased his fangs, sending hot shivers dancing over the skin she seared with her light touch, stroking her hands over his shoulders and down his chest.
“I want you.”
Those whispered words were his undoing.
He shot past the point of no return in a heartbeat, left it so far behind he couldn’t even see it in the distance, and caught her around the waist, lifting her at the same time as he turned with her to pin her back against the wall.
She moaned and kissed him harder, hooked her right hand around his neck and tugged him closer. He groaned as her legs looped around his waist, the skirt of her dress falling away to allow his aching shaft to press against her slick heat. A little whimper left her lips and she trembled as she tentatively rubbed against him.
Damn. He wouldn’t last five seconds if she did that.
The need to be inside her, to fill her up and satisfy her every desire, was too strong, driving him to obey it. He clutched her bare backside in his left hand, groaned and shuddered as her moistness coated his fingers and she whimpered again, rubbed him harder, a desperate edge to her actions and the feelings that echoed inside him.
She needed him.
Gods, he needed her too.
He seized his cock with his free hand, slowly lifted her with his other one and eased it down through her folds, drinking in her gasps and moans as he rubbed her with the blunt head. When he reached her core, she stilled, breathing hard, and he focused on her, trying to pick out her feelings, needing to know what they were as they stood on the precipice.
No fear.
There was only excitement, arousal, need that matched his own.
She really wanted this.
He eased his hips forwards, pushing slowly into her, a monumental achievement considering his every instinct was screaming at him to claim her, to make her his.
She moaned and breathed harder, her breath washing across his lips in sharp bursts as she tried to keep kissing him. He kissed her gently, giving her something to focus on as he inched deeper.
Gods, she was tight. Hot. Fucking incredible.
He breathed harder too, fighting to hold himself back and deny the urge to spill before he had even started to make this good for her.
“August,” she whispered against his lips, and he had never heard his name said so sweetly, with so much need.
Shock blasted through him when she moved in his arms, pushing him deeper inside her far quicker than he had intended.
He stilled, afraid he had hurt her.
Her moan was ambrosia to his ears, soothed his soul and eased his heart.
He held her on his cock and breathed hard to cope with the onslaught of feeling that being inside her stirred in him. He hadn’t been prepared for it, hadn’t expected to feel so moved by just being inside her, so content and so lost for words.
What was it about Maya that made her so different to every female he had ever known?
What was it about Maya that made her feel like home?
As if he had never truly known the meaning of that word until she had walked into his life?
He shut out the thought that came next, not wanting to contemplate it, because it wasn’t going to happen. She had told him this was a moment of madness, a wild fling before she left him forever, walked right back out of his life.
This was all they could have.
No matter how many times he told himself that, he couldn’t make it sink in. Something soul-deep rebelled against it, roared that it didn’t have to be this way, even when he knew that it did.
He couldn’t take a mate from a different species.
Not even when that mate was as beautiful as Maya.
He needed to find his fated one and set an example.
Even if it killed him.
He wasn’t sure anyone else could ever make him feel the way Maya did.
Her lips sought his, brushed sweetly across them and pulled him back to her, an anchor in the violent storm of his emotions. He growled and kissed her hard, couldn’t help himself as he cursed the gods, cursed his ancestors and every fucking power that had made Maya and had put her on his path.
If he couldn’t have her forever, he would at least have her for now.
He swallowed her gasp as he eased out of her and back in, setting a slow tempo that felt too good, brought light back into his soul and chased the shadows away, narrowing the world back down to only them.
She softened the kiss as he thrust long and slow into her, a moan leaving her lips each time their bodies met. He drank down each one, drowning in her and the light that seared his soul, grew brighter with each passing moment, bathing him in warmth.
What was it about Maya that made him feel this way?
August pulled back and stared into her dazzling amber eyes, seeking the answer to that question in them.
Gods she was beautiful.
She stared right back at him, her rosy lips parted on her moans as he took them higher, her hands clutching his shoulders, clinging to him as he clung to her.
“August,” she husked, and ripped a groan from him as she started to move, countering his thrusts, driving her body down onto his cock as he thrust back inside her.
He kept watching her, memorising every emotion that danced across her beautiful face and shone in her eyes as he sent her higher, quickening his pace just enough to have her eyebrows furrowing and her head tipping back, and her nails pressing into his bare shoulders.
He wasn’t sure he had ever made love to anyone.
Maya was his first.
And gods, he wanted her to be his only.
He wanted to be her only.
He leaned in and pressed his forehead against hers, overcome as that thought, that burning need ricocheted through him.
Maya’s palm came to rest on his cheek, gentle and soft, her touch filled with understanding and telling him that she could feel him, could feel the conflict and the confusion, and the damned feelings she had awoken in his heart.
She stroked her fingers along his jaw, tipped his head up and caught his lips in a soft kiss.
Damn it.
He growled and kissed her, tried to wash away everything that was dragging him down and forget it all.
She moaned and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, her kiss turning fierce, helping him shove all the messy shit out of his head. He swallowed her gasp as he clutched her backside in both hands and drove deeper, faster, until her heart and his thundered in his ears and she started to rock against him, her body flexing around his cock.
Her need spiked.
He felt it the moment it did, the second she reached the pinnacle and was close.
He kissed her deeper, meeting her desperate thrusts, weathering the storm as she clawed at his shoulders and locked her feet behind his bottom, using them to force him harder into her.
August curled his hips, driving as deep as he could go.
Maya tensed.
He covered her mouth with his and kissed her, muffling her cries as she shattered, her body quivering around his cock and her nails pressing so hard into his shoulders he could smell the tinny scent of blood.
He groaned and followed her, grunted with each throb of his cock as he spilled inside her, claiming her in the only way he could. She trembled with each pulse of his length, whimpered whenever her body echoed one, an aftershock of pleasure rolling through her.
Sweet gods.
When he had finally caught his breath, he swept his lips across hers.
She didn’t respond.
August pulled back, a ripple of fear racing through him to leave him cold.
Maya stared at him through wide eyes, tears lining her lashes.
He stumbled backwards when she shoved him, pushing him away and landing on her feet.
“Maya…”
She refused to look at him.
He reached for her, aching with a need to hold her and find out what was wrong, to comfort her because she was hurting, but she smacked his hand away.
The cold feeling spread, icy fingers reaching towards his heart.
She rubbed her tears away, sniffed and lifted her head, her black hair falling around her shoulders.
Her eyes met his.
No trace of feeling in them.
“This was fun… but it was all we can have… just this stolen moment with each other.”
She was gone before he could respond, leaving him reeling in the booth as the curtain swayed to his right, staring at the black wall where she had been.
That cold filled the hollow space in his chest where his heart had been.
A heart she had stolen.