Chapter Eighteen
Annalise
His lips were just as she’d remembered them.
Warm. Strong. Hungry.
She moaned softly as his tongue parted her lips. They explored each other frantically, the tension that had been building between them as they skated around the room finally breaching its containment. It poured over both of them, bringing them closer together. It was an awakening experience to kiss someone while standing up without having to crane her neck all the way back just to be close to them.
It would be hard for her to move, but why would she want to? His arms and chest were right there, in easy reach for her. The tips of her breasts, already hard and sensitive to the touch, strained to be released, knowing that his smooth skin was just a few layers of clothing away. Her fingers tightened around his biceps, and he flexed them just for her.
“You’re so strong,” she whispered with a smile, taking a quick breather before kissing him again.
And again.
She was floating on clouds, the feeling amplified by her increased worldview. Every time she opened her eyes Caine’s face was right there. But not just that; she could see everything. Her line of sight was no longer blocked by furniture or other obstacles. It was an unbelievable feeling. It made her feel more powerful. More confident. As a result, she was also feeling more comfortable. More able to open up to Caine.
Which is how his hands came to be sliding up her sides, and she didn’t stop him as he cupped her breasts, easily finding her hard nipples as they poked through both her bra and shirt. Each caress of his thumbs sent tingles down her spine, threatening to cause her already-shaking knees to give out.
“Oh Caine.” She threw her head back, exposing her neck to his mouth, feeling his tongue flick along the most sensitive of nerves near her veins and down across the bumps of her collarbone. “That feels nice.”
His responses were nonverbal, growls and a long, drawn-out groan as she quested south with her hand, sliding the palm of it across the hard bulge in his pants. It was enough to drive her wild. She loved a man who wasn’t afraid to express himself. Caine’s reactions to her touch were almost more than she could handle. Knowing that somehow this behemoth of a man was but mere putty in her hands was almost enough to make her lightheaded with power.
But then one of his hands dipped below her waist and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to collapse into a pool of pleasure at his feet. He knew just the right amount of pressure to use as he dragged his thumb up the inside of her leg and across her mound. Even through the jeans she could easily feel his touch. He somehow found her center, tracing slow, teasing circles around it with infuriating slowness.
“You had better be planning on finishing what you’re starting there,” she moaned, pushing her hips toward him, demanding that he continue to please her.
“If that’s what you want, I will. Just say the magic word.” His voice rumbled in her ear, sending tremors through her body with each arousal-filled word.
He desired her. Wanted her. Needed her. She could feel it not only in the hardness around which she wrapped her hand, but also the urgency of his voice and the tightness of his body. Somehow she’d managed to seduce the hottie to end all hotties. More than that though, he wanted her for her mind, not just her thick body.
Probably more for her mind, she told herself.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?’ she whispered, stroking him harder.
“Whatever it is that goes on in your head that causes you to shy away from me. To cut me off.”
“I don’t mean to,” she apologized. “It’s just that, though you’re hot and I have an interest in you that I really shouldn’t, I can’t help but wonder why you’re interested in me.”
“Well, right now, I want you,” he replied. “Your mind. Your body. Your soul. Yes, I may be fixated on your sexy curves and fantasizing about just where else your freckles cover, but I want this because I want to be closer to you. I want to have you. I want to make you mine, just like I want to be yours. It’s as simple as that, I promise you.”
“You want me?”
“What part of anything I’ve done has ever said anything but that? From the moment I met you, I told you I wanted to call you mine.”
“I just thought you wanted another sexual conquest. A notch on your belt.”
“Sex is an integral part of it. But it’s not the only part, Annalise. There’s so much more to you than the physical attraction I feel. I’m intrigued by you on a mental level, a metaphysical ground. However you want to define it, I’m there, and I want you there as well.”
She shivered at the intensity. “How can you know?”
He winced. “Don’t hit me. But it’s a dragon thing.”
“I want to hit you.”
“You said you wouldn’t!”
“No, you asked me not to. It’s very different.”
Caine lifted an eyebrow, but he didn’t push the issue.
“A dragon thing, is it?”
He nodded.
“Well, you’ve shown me that you’re a dragon. How about you show me that you’re human?”
She started to stroke his hard cock through his pants once more. “Think you can handle one more demonstration today?”
Caine laughed, lifting her into his arms and making a beeline for the bedroom. “What’s all this talk about just one demonstration?”
She yelped as he threw her down on the bed, leaping atop her and pinning her down by simply being there.
“Well, I suppose a double confirmation wouldn’t hurt,” she admitted. “If you think you can manage that.”
He all but tore her clothes off in a frantic rush to get her naked. Somehow in the process of his eyes going wide at the sight of her exposed skin she was able to maintain her composure and strip him as well. Annalise marveled at the hard lines between his muscles, the way they flexed and bulged as he lowered himself to kiss her some more.
Curious, she reached around and dragged her fingernails down his back. Yep. More muscles there. Caine groaned into her neck as she did that, producing a thoroughly arousing sensation as her skin vibrated under the low noise.
He kept kissing his way south, drawing a line from her neck to one breast, down just below her navel and then back up to the other side, taking her nipple into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around it, sucking gently. Pleasure from his touch mixed with heat from his body. It all flowed in and around her to create a heady mixture that left her weak and ready when his mouth finally made its way between her legs.
Caine licked hungrily, and her body responded to the soft, heated touch of first his tongue, and then his fingers as well. He played her body like an instrument, not needing to speak as he learned what made her tick, and more importantly, what made her cry his name out softly into the pillow she had buried her face in. Fuck, it felt so good. Why had she waited this long!
“Right there,” she gasped as he hit a particularly delightful spot. She craved more. Needed more.
Her body was shaking now, unable to keep the tightness in her legs from spreading until it enveloped the rest of her. She grabbed at her breasts, touching herself while Caine watched. He growled something, lost in translation from her ear to her brain as he overwhelmed her body with an ecstasy she’d never known before.
Spine arching to the ceiling, everything went rigid at once an instant before her brain, breasts, and entire body exploded. The orgasm slammed through her body. Her legs tightened around his head and she gathered great fistfuls of comforter in her hands. His name ripped from her mouth over and over again until she was out of breath, her lungs refusing to work.
Air became a precious commodity and she struggled to suck it in, her vision going dark. Warm juices flowed down her thighs, brought forth by the perfect combination of tongue on clit and fingers inside her. It was unlike anything Annalise had experienced. Her sexual life was limited in scope, but she’d thought it to be adequate.
Only now was she finding out how very wrong she was.
“Are you sure you want just two confirmations?” Caine teased, kissing the insides of her legs as he did, making her shiver.
It took a few seconds for her to find the breath to reply as she ran her fingers through his oddly white hair. Just another thing that made him weird, yet gave credence to his claims of being an ice-wielding dragon. His brothers also had the same colored hair, though his was longest. She kind of liked it that way. It gave her something to hold on to.
Like now, when she gripped it and pulled him away, leaving her a soaking wet mess. “I don’t think I could handle another one like that. Not yet at least,” she admitted. “That was some intense work.”
Caine grinned, not bothering to hide how much he enjoyed hearing those words. Every male liked confirmation of his sexual prowess, and this time she was more than glad to give it to him. He had fucking earned it.
He lowered himself to briefly kiss her. With their bodies so close together she was pointedly reminded of what was to come next. His hips glided back and forth slowly as they locked lips, dragging his shaft against the top of her raised mound in delicate strokes that had to be more than just tantalizing to him.
“I think I’m ready to handle this though.” She wrapped her hand around him. He was as rock hard as his muscles, throbbing in her grip. Annalise slid the tip a little lower, biting her lip as he brushed against her opening.
She was plenty ready, rocking her hips forward, silently begging for him to push inside her. Although she expected it, wanted it, and knew it was coming, the sudden sensation as he pushed her walls apart ripped a gasp from her throat. She looked up at him wide-eyed, focusing on the intensity in his gaze as he watched her face.
Caine wasn’t intent on what was going on between their thighs, but instead he latched on to her facial expressions. With each gasp, lip bite, or moan his breathing grew harsher, raspier, which was the only sign of his arousal until he was fully encased inside her. Then, and only then did he let out a shuddering sigh, his eyes closing.
It was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.
Her fingernails caressed his cheek, her touch lifting his eyelids once more. They stared at each other, lost within one another’s souls. Connections on a level this deep just didn’t exist. She’d told herself that for years on end, having it reinforced by the horrors with which she was forced to live.
But right here, right now, Caine was shattering those preconceptions and hurling them into the abyss. Never again would she look on love and happiness in the same cynical manner. True feelings for someone else was possible, and Caine was the prime example of that. His unabashed, unashamed, and unrestrained desire to have her was a force that broke down her previous notions and inserted his own definitions in her mind.
Plus it felt damn good. That was a side that she’d not thought about either. That when two people were intimate for reasons beyond mere lust, that the pleasure each felt would be amplified as well. Caine was thrusting into her harder now, leaning back on his knees as he towered over her, and she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted something before in her life.
“Harder,” she moaned, reaching over her head to push off the wall, trying to capture more of him inside her, hoping to satisfy the hunger his cock had awoken.
They writhed and crashed against one another, uncaring of the noise, uncaring of the covers falling from the bed or the way the frame rolled onto an angle on the floor. At one point Caine lifted her up and pinned her against the wall, thrusting up into her.
As a curvy woman Annalise had never before experienced being tossed around and manhandled. Caine taught her the true meaning of it now, using his strength to both of their advantages. They were against the wall, on the edge of the bed, and at one point he simply stood in the middle of the room and lifted her up and down while she scratched and clawed at his back, driven wild by his demonstration of strength and power.
Eventually he all but threw her down on the bed, climbing on top of her, preventing her from rolling over onto her back. She frowned, but when he slid inside her from behind, she nearly came. Something about that position struck every wonderfully pleasurable spot inside her all in the right order.
She was going to come, and there was little she could do to stop it.
Her walls clamped down around him, her jaw tight, unable to tell Caine what was happening as her body reacted of its own accord. But he grunted, obviously feeling the reaction inside of her. A hand pushed underneath her, finding her clit instantly.
It was too much. She buried her face in the bed and screamed his name as he fucked her to a second orgasm, his thick cock gliding in and out of her with abandon, relentless and yet never too hard all at the same time.
“Anna!” Caine called her by her shortened name for the first time as he slid from her, unable to contain himself.
She shivered as warmth splashed across her ass and back again and again. Only one other person had called her Anna, but they couldn’t hold a candle to Caine. He claimed her for his own, and she let him, urging him onward as he spilled himself across her freckle-covered body.
Moments later he collapsed next to her, his breathing deep and rushed, his cheeks filled with redness. She stared into his beautifully sculpted face, smiling to herself at the flushed features and dilated pupils, all signs of someone in the throes of perfect ecstasy.
“Wow.”
Caine nodded. “Wow.” It was a gasp, the huge lungs only able to suck in enough extra air for the one word.
“That’s it?” she teased, feeling him running down her back in rivulets, pooling in the small of her back. Normally she hated the feeling and sensation, but with Caine…with Caine everything was different.
With him, she didn’t mind it if he claimed her as his own.
No, she craved it.
“That’s it? Did you seriously just ask if that was it?” he panted.
“I meant your response,” she giggled. “No smartass remark or comeback?”
Caine grinned. “What, one ‘come back’ isn’t enough for you? Okay. I suppose we could do it again, if you insist.”
Annalise groaned, closing her eyes and burying her face in the pillow once more.
What had she gotten herself into?