CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
As it turned out, my chamber was not big enough to hold our evening. Once I explained my curiosities and showed Bree and Mika the book Elora had given me, they squealed and called in the other women in my life.
“Ladies night has officially begun,” Mika said, raising the blender from behind the bar in the living room. She set it atop the counter and Bree handed over several bottles from the lit wall of alcohol. “Let margarita madness ensue.”
Jade opened the heavy wooden doors and rushed in waving dvd cases in the air. “The research material is here.”
Nyssa and Elora followed carrying trays of food.
Gemma sat perched on the back of one of the sofas, smiling from ear to ear. What’s the research material?
I relayed her question and Jade held the covers toward the seating area. Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL.
A round of whistles and laughter sounded as ladies accepted their drinks and milled around the room.
Bree held her glass up. “Here’s to Lia. May the doors opened to her tonight never close. And may her cards bring her everything she deserves.”
Mika raised her virgin margarita and smiled. “Long live the sex cards.” Another round of laughter erupted. “But before we get ahead of ourselves, Lia, why don’t you tell us what you want from tonight.”
I drank my glass down to the bottom and waited for the icy lime chill to cool my insides. “Tonight, is about discovery and rediscovery. From my hair and clothes to voicing my thoughts and taking control of my path. Tonight, is about creating plan on how to emerge a more confident and happier me.”
“Did somebody say extreme makeover?” Lexi skipped through the doors and behind her, Rowan and Cowboy carried bins and bags and what looked like large fishing kits. “And lookie-lookie, I came prepared.”
When everything was set down, she shooed them out of the room and closed the doors. “Let’s get this party started.”
The evening progressed with both hilarity and abandon. Lexi cut and styled my hair, showed me how to apply makeup and yet appear I wore none, and glued tiny purple gemstones in a flower and vine pattern across my breast and down my side.
Jade’s movies captured both my fascination and imagination. Gemma whooped the loudest though no one could hear her but me. Even the mated females seemed to find Channing Tatum and his band of dancing brothers titillating.
“Lia, repeat after me.” Bree’s words slurred with drink. “Dude, nice ass.”
I laughed and waved my pen. “I could never say that.”
“Why?” Mika asked. “Samuel has a great ass.”
Hells yeah, Gemma said. The way his slacks cling to those curves makes me want to lick his ass like an ice cream.
I threw a cushion but it passed straight threw her.
“That line works every time,” Bree said. “Maybe you’re not an ass girl.”
The others laughed and Elora passed me another drink. “What is it you notice about a male’s physique, child? What warms you to your core and makes your mouth water? Broad shoulders? Banded arms? Piercing eyes?”
My ears flushed hot, right to the tips.
“Don’t be shy,” Nyssa said, holding up navy lace lingerie. “No one shall repeat a word spoken in the confidence of the margarita confessional.”
“Here here,” Lexi said.
I thought about what fueled my fire within. Samuel possessed the attributes Elora mentioned, yet none held my sexual fascination. “Very well, Samuel wears pajama pants in the evenings and the way they hang on his bare hips shows the fine hair of his navel and how his hip muscles angle down beneath the waistband of his pants.”
“Yesss,” Bree hissed. “The mighty V. Gotta loves a man with tone.”
“Back to the cards,” Mika said. “Where are we, I’ve lost track?”
I shifted to the beginning and cleared my throat. “Pleasure yourself. Shop for sex toys. Touch a naked male. Grind on a dancefloor. Give a full-body massage. Fondle a partner in a summer rain. Give a blowjob. Get naked within risk of getting caught. Tie him up and have your way. Skinny dip foreplay. Sex-play in the moonlight. Ride a cowboy.”
“But not necessarily our Cowboy,” Mika added.
Bree whistled. “Though don’t rule it out. That man is ripped like nobody’s business. Have you seen him naked? Yumm.”
There was a digression while the room discussed Cowboy’s attributes and then Nyssa pointed to a page in the book. “Sex with food.”
My pen poised above the next card. “I shall add food into the ambiance of a sexual moment but not use food as part of the sex. I draw the line.”
Nyssa nodded. “The line is yours to draw. As you wish.”
I wrote that down and waited for the next idea.
“Go dominatrix on his ass,” Lexi added.
In the end, I had twenty sex cards and ten personal challenge cards to work towards my self-empowerment.
“Gods, Samuel,” I said, leaning my thrumming head against the cool stone wall of our shared bathing room. “This is worse than yesterday, when I was possessed.” I struggled with the cap of the toothpaste and squeezed a dollop onto my brush. “My mouth feels as if Mika’s bearcat has climbed in and curled itself around my tongue. Is that normal?” I finished brushing my teeth and scooped some of the running water with my hand. It was cold and after I rinsed, I drank down a couple swallows.
Samuel shook his head and filled the glass and held it out to me with two white tablets. “Take these and drink every drop.”
When I had done as he asked, he passed me a warm hand towel and I pressed it over my face. It smelled like the almond soap Mika stocked in the laundry and for some reason I found that remarkably soothing. When I looked up, Samuel’s gaze was locked on mine and he was fighting a smirk.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I said, flopping the towel over the side of the sink. “I feel like an utter imbecile.”
His laugh was deep and sexy. “Why, because ye went out and got shit-faced with your cousin?” He shook his ebony hair, guiding me to my small primping station outside the bathroom. Angling my shoulders he sat me into the dainty make-up chair and moved to stand behind me. I tugged the hem of my night shirt down to cover my legs. “Everyone has the right to let off steam, Lia. Besides, this has been a shitstorm for you: Galan, the ghost thing, the attack on you and now your mother? It’s perfectly understandable that you’d hit a wall.”
“Mayhap, but I still feel foolish.” I reached to the vanity counter and retrieved my hairbrush.
Samuel leaned over my shoulder, hand out. The scent of his cologne, faded from the passing day, filled my sinuses. I handed it the brush to him, closed my eyes and waited for the world to stop spinning.
“Lia, honestly, luv, don’t worry. At least you didn’t throw up on me this time.” I covered my face with my hand as he laughed against my back. “No. Seriously. You’re fine. A little water to re-hydrate, a good night sleep and other than a touch of quease and a headache you’ll be a new woman by morning.”
“If only,” I whispered. “What I should give to live someone else’s life for a time.
Was I a strong enough female to speak up for and take what I wanted? In truth, what I wanted went against the very nature of my raising and Highborne beliefs. Yet, Highborne beliefs were the crux of my life’s turmoil. Was I more than the laws of my race? An individual with the right to choose?
I inhaled passed the lump in my throat and spoke my heart. “I want to erase the vile images playing in my mind. Let us replace them with something passionate and welcome. I want to be devoured as a female should be by her first encounter. And to what you said, I wish for you to take me every way a male can take a female.”
Samuel inhaled and when he spoke, his voice was rough and deep. “I’m afraid to ask this, but are ye sure? It’s been one helluva night. What about being Bound and all that? Highbornes are only allowed—”
“I reject what was done to me. In a few days, I may well be living a different life and if so, I want something of my own choosing to remember.” I kissed the pulse racing in his neck. “There is just the two of us here. No one need know. Would you deny me?”
After a long moment, Samuel groaned. “I want that too and so much more but—”
I placed my fingers over his lips and blinked back the sting in my eyes. There was so little time. Soon I would be swept away by fate’s cruel reality.
Tightening his arms around me, he stood and held me against his chest. His stride was strong and sure as he walked us over to the bed we had shared, and yet not shared. His gaze remained locked on mine, hunger plain in his extraordinary eyes. Laying us, as one, on the soft bronze coverlet he claimed my mouth and kissed me deep and slow.
Before Kobi, I had never truly been kissed. Boys. Family. Friends. I was thankful Kobi and I shared some affection because I knew better what to expect. The mechanics were the same, yet kissing Samuel ignited things inside me. Powerful things. The wanton scent of him was addictive, his manly spice no longer guarded.
“Sharing yerself with a person ye feel for is incredible, a physical and spiritual bonding of two bodies and two souls. I want it to be that for you . . . to erase what came before.”
“And you feel for me that way—you want to share yourself with me? Despite what came before, what you witnessed—you still want me?”
Looking down on me, he smiled. “Ye’ll tell me if ye need to stop or slow things down, aye? No fault. No foul. If something doesna sit right with ye, say the word and we’ll deal with it.” He waited until I nodded before he reclaimed my mouth.
Stretching out beside me, his lips moved with restrained hunger. He kissed his way across my jaw and tugged the towel bundled tight against my chest. “I want rid of this thing, mochridhe. I dinnae want anything between us.”
“Then take it and lay your hands on my skin.”
He inhaled a deep breath as the cloth barrier fell away.
Samuel’s grin had my pulse racing. “You stare as if my body is new to you. Why?”
He bit his bottom lip and smiled. “Before now, I was in no position to take in the sights, ye see?”
I brushed a fingertip across the tight pink nipple on his chest.
“Aye, I cast a few lingering glances yer way from time to time but now I can enjoy it. Ye take my breath away, Luv. I want ye to know that.”
“I thought my feminine wiles had been lost on you.”
He raised an ebony brow and a soft blush warmed his cheeks. “Why do you think it took me so long to get out of bed each morning? I could hardly saunter around the suite with this guy standing at attention.”
Samuel’s pajama pants hid what he pointed to and that set me to task. “Why am I the only one naked? I hunger to view your body as much as you wish to view mine.”
He winked and laid back. “If yer new resolve is all about taking control and men not paving yer way, I say work for it, duck. If ye want my clothes off, have at it.”
I licked my lips and shifted up on my knees. Samuel was a fit and tightly muscled male and unlike him, I had not resisted the urge to gaze at him on the few incidents when he had been naked. I knew well what awaited me. Gathering the waistband of his bottoms, I slid them down his legs.
My fingers caressed the fine dusting of dark hair which followed the contours of his muscular chest and down further until they reached the juncture between his thighs. His erection stood thick, the tip glistening with moisture. The sight of him sent a shimmering bolt of energy through my body and stole my breath.
Samuel remained deathly still.
“Is this all right?” I asked, pulling back my touch. “Have I overstepped?”
He shook his head, his diamond eyes glittering. “More than all right. Go ahead. I’m good.”
My hands glided from his knees, splayed over the tops of his thighs until they met at the juncture of his pelvis. His skin was soft and warm, but not smooth like a Highborne. “Your body hair tickles my fingers. It is incredibly stimulating.”
“Good. Stimulating is good.”
Working my courage up, I drew a deep breath and closed my fingers around Samuel’s arousal. His hips surged forward as the length of him bucked in my grip. His head dropped back. Despite my inexperience Samuel was rapt. It was not just him enjoying this, though. My whole body tingled with awareness. There was a heated urgency to my insides that had me captivated.
“And what do I do to increase your pleasure, Samuel?”
He moaned, his hips rolling, as his hand closed over mine. “Here, like this.” His hand guided mine from base to tip, slowly at first, but as I became more confident a little faster, a little rougher. He also made the most wonderful noises when my thumb lingered at the small opening at the crown.
“Yer going to have to stop that, darlin’.”
“But I enjoy touching you.”
His stomach flexed under my ministrations, the dim light of the lanterns catching the ridges of his physique. His breath grew rapid and shallow and the muscles of his neck stood out like tight cords pulled to their limits.
Samuel’s hand came down on mine and he choked out a rough laugh. “And I’m glad about that, but yer going to make me come and it’s far too early yet to get there.”
“Do you mean release?” My mind churned. I controlled his pleasure. “Are you nearing your release?”
“It’s more than near. I’m biting it back with every ounce of strength I’ve got.”
“Why ever for?”
He cupped my jaw and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “Because, I want this to be about you, my sweet lass. I want to show you how wonderful it can feel when two bodies come together. Then you can play more. I promise.”
Samuel always kept his promises. “All right, we will come back to this soon.”
“Soon,” Samuel said.
I laid down beside him and tugged on him to cover my body with his. His reluctance was obvious. Ignoring my invitation, he rolled to his side facing me, pulled my leg to drape over his hip, and shifted closer. A strong hand splayed up my back, closing the gap between our two bodies. Pressed tight together I felt the heat of his flesh, the excitement of his heartbeat, his rigid arousal trapped against my belly.
“Again, if ye need to stop or slow down, ye swear ye’ll tell me, aye?”
I cupped his jaw, the stubble of his day’s growth a seductive prickle against my palm. Close like this, the rich scent of him drove me to wanton madness. “I swear it, but I welcome your touch. I welcome everything you and I share.”
His lips against mine were gentle, exploring, sweeping me away into dreamy contentment.
I sank my fingers into his hair, soft and still damp from his shower. He growled into my mouth as I raked my nails against the back of his skull. The sound vibrated against my breasts. After a few moments of nipping at my bottom lip, he swept his tongue against the seam of my lips and I allowed him entrance into my mouth.
The teasing swordplay of our tongues hit me right between my thighs. I fisted my hand in his hair. Kissing Samuel was nothing like kissing Kobi. Kobi was aggressive and demanding. Samuel was playful and affectionate. His hunger enveloped me and I enjoyed the process enough not to rush.
Tight in his embrace, his hands roamed a seductive circuit down the valley of my lower back and over the curves of my backside. With each returning caress, his fingers came achingly close to brushing the core of my body. Samuel’s affections woke things inside me, a pulsing that made me feel bold and aggressive.
“You are driving me to madness,” I said, when I could take it no longer. “Please, Samuel, I ache for you.”
He smiled, his lips returning to mine. “And where do ye ache, my beautiful, lass?” He drew his finger down the side of my neck and across my collarbone. “Here?”
I bit his lip, my agitation growing. “Mayhap a little lower.”
His ebony brow arched and he eased back a bit to watch me. “Lower, the lady says.” His hand swept down my shoulder to my breast. The warmth of his palm cupped the mound as his thumb brushed and fondled the tip. “Here? Do yer breasts ache for me? Shall I focus here for a bit?”
He was enjoying himself far too much. Did he not know how I yearned for him? “That would be glorious, but I was thinking a little lower yet.”
His manly growl had another flood of warmth moistening my core. My back arched and I stiffened. Samuel’s smile faltered. “Are ye all right, Luv?”
I pushed my breast harder into his palm and moaned at the zing of sensation it sent through my body. “I seem to be having a problem in my most private parts. My body weeps for you, yet you take no notice.”
“Oh, I noticed.” His palm slid down my belly and cupped my mons. “It’s exactly where I want ye to be. Wet and aching for me—Oh Christ,” he gasped and his hips rocked against me. “I forgot ye’d be bare.”
“And is that a good thing?”
He bent forward to capture my lips again as he curled a finger through the silk of my sex. “Lia, yer burning alive . . . and yes, everything about ye is a good thing to me.”
His fingers circled and stroked where I ached. Lightning tingled beneath my skin, building, consuming. My body arched upward. He slid a finger inside me and I moaned into his mouth and squirmed. How could a simple touch make me feel this much?
“Gods, what is happening to me, Samuel?”
“It’s your release. Remember the pleasure yer touch gave me? This is how it feels.”
I meant to respond but had no idea how to speak. My mind was a blur of erotic colors, sensations and scents. I was naïve to think I knew what sex with Samuel would be like. He had experience and I knew nothing. He had been with females who knew their bodies and minds.
What if he needed more from a female than I could be for ?
“Lia? Lia girl, stay with me. Are ye all right?” His hand stilled, his fingers retreating.
I wanted to cry at the injustice of losing the sensation, of doubting this perfect moment.
“Do ye need to stop, Luv?”
“Stop asking me that. Do you ask that of all your lovers? Am I so broken you cannot simply be lost in the moment?”
The sting of his hand on my bare backside stole my thought. His spank was not hard, yet shocked me to silence.
“I told ye, I dinnae want to hear ye speak about yerself so. Yer not broken. Not unworthy. How in the two realms did we get from me pleasuring ye back to that?”
Strangely, the sting of hand on flesh brought a new pulse to my wanton. “We are there because I want you inside me. Not preparing me. Not gauging me. You said you desire me, yet you make no move to join with me. If I were a female seducing you from the Hearthstone or one of your warrior lovers, would you be so cautious? I think not.”
Samuel’s arms came up and rolled me over his chest. In a blur, his feet came between my ankles and spread my legs. The crown of his erection, pulsed and prodded at my damp core. Gripping me by my hips, he undulated his body, easing inside me inch by succulent inch.
“Christ yer an infuriating female. I told ye, yer perfect. Courageous. And passionate. I cannae help but want to protect ye. It’s my instinct. It’s what I was born to do.”
My head kicked back as he filled me to my limits, his hips rising, ensuring he was buried inside me to the root. He lifted my hips and brought me down firmly as he thrust upward, the aggressive meeting causing me to cry out.
“Never mistake my concern for thinking ye weak or lacking. Yer the feckin’air I breathe. And if ye need me to bed ye rough a hundred times to prove it, be ready to stay in bed tomorrow, cause ye’ll be too sore to get out of it.”
Staring into the swirling opal depths of his magical eyes, I was lost.
“Lia, stop thinking so damned much and let yerself sink into me.” Slipping his hand beneath my hair, he pulled my lips to his. Kissing me in earnest, his tongue penetrated my mouth in the same aggressive rhythm as his hips rose and bucked beneath me. His hands returned to my thighs, his gripping fingers guiding me up and down as sensations built inside me.
I soon learned the way of things, the rhythms, where he liked to be caressed and when he preferred my nails to the soft pads of my fingers. Sex was heady and surprising. It brought me to a place both powerful and vulnerable.
Straddling his hips, the sensations heated my glistening skin and burned in my core. Samuel’s thumb stroked the sensitive nerves at the base of our joining and I thought I might lose my mind. I braced my hands against his chest.
“Let the sensations explode within you. Set them free.”
The rolled off his tongue like warm honey. Sensation flashed behind my closed eyes. I trembled as everything around me disappeared. Writhing over him, I lost all sense, uttering nonsense in Elvish as my body clenched and pulsed around him.
Samuel pitched his hips and stiffened, his breath escaping in a rough hitch. His muscles clenched taut, his chest rising and falling under the strain of his own release. I had always thought Samuel a handsome male, but him in the throes of passion was a beautiful sight I would never forget.
How could anyone survive a sensation like this? How was it even possible?