Enchant the Dawn (18 page)

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It had taken her hours to walk the thirty blocks between her flat and this building but she felt better for the fresh air and the time to think. She barely missed getting splashed by a white panel truck zooming around the corner and through a puddle before screeching to a halt double parked on One Hundred Nineteenth. She decided to let go of a city-dweller’s perennial resentment and figured the badly drawn and garish advertisement for carpet cleaning was revenge enough on the driver. Squaring her shoulder and deciding to ignore the van and the strange violent energy within, she went into the building determined that he’d at least have to hear her out. By the top of the stairs, she was beat. True, she could dance the night away in Morningside or Harlem but she still huffed and puffed by the time she arrived on the top of the sixth floor. She walked down the hall, looking at the ceiling in the semi-darkness until she spotted the ladder on the wall and the hatch at the top. She started to climb up and cursed her clogs as one got stuck on a rail and fell to the floor.

She shrugged.
What the hell?
Kicking off the other shoe, she continued her climb and pushed at the trapdoor opening a window to the sky. Pulling herself up and sitting for a moment on the tar surface of the roof, she gazed up in wonder.

The sky was orange, something only possible in this great city, the clouds so close she felt she could reach out and touch them. The rain that had let up for a few hours had left the clouds behind to serve as a reminder, and the lights of New York at nighttime reflected back on a city shimmering and clean. It was a beautiful sight, something utterly unique to city life, where so many people lived so close together and lived life to its fullest at all hours of the day and night.

She lowered her gaze and looked around, seeing the wall encircling the roof of the building. There were pipes and vents, buckets and a stepladder, all the kinds of things you’d expect to find on a rooftop where the maintenance man lived. But there were also the shadows of flower boxes and sturdy stems reaching for that orange sky and waiting for the sun to break through those clouds someday soon. She wondered what the place looked like during the day, if those plants were bright red geraniums to brighten up the gray skyline or if they were the beginnings of tomato plants or something sensible. What would a man like Daron West plant in his rooftop garden? What was his favorite color? What did he wear to sleep?

I don’t know but I’d sure as hell like to find out!

There was a small shed on the roof, a bit beat up but in decent condition from what she could make out in the dark. She went to get up on her feet, when she noticed one of the shadows that surrounded her move slightly. She quickly suppressed the urge to scream, instead taking a deep breath and rising, pacing slowly across the damp tar on bare feet toward the man in the shadows.

“Hello.”
Gotta start somewhere. I think just kissing him might be a bit too aggressive.

“Hello, Sophia Hunter. What do you want from me?” His voice was taut, not quite hoarse but far from welcoming. She would have been much happier if he had called her “
ashavi
” again. Then she would know that he still wanted her. Her stomach clenched, as though it wanted to turn and scuttle away, find a safe place to hide and not deal with the messy prospect of feeling anything ever again.

Standing straighter, she willed the fear out of her voice as she answered as truthfully as she could. “Everything. I’ll take everything, as long as you’ll take the same from me.”

He stepped closer and she could see that he’d not weathered the last few days any better than she had. His eyes looked like they’d seen far too little sleep and his hair was no longer tamed into confinement. Still, in the ever-present twilight reflected off the clouds above, his face was a thing of stark beauty. Beauty she knew she would never grow tired of, if given the chance to spend fifty years watching the subtle changes of age.

The silence stretched on as he looked into her eyes, searching for something. His closer presence had increased her power with ease and gradually she saw him illuminated from within, his eyes formed of emerald fire. She had thought of a thousand things to say on the long walk here, only to have them evaporate when she needed them most.

I should be nervous
. Agonized even, from waiting to see how he would respond, what he would ask of her. But all she felt was peace. The pounding of the millions around her, the ebb and flows of their lives, had been blocked out. Her world was limited to herself and to him and that was enough.

Peace was not calm though. Memory and fantasy merged to tickle the back of her brain with desire. She wanted to see all of him again, every single inch of him. She wanted to strip him bare and lick his skin, feel him pulse under her tongue until he exploded for her and she tasted his essence. She wanted to bare herself completely and see his eyes light with desire as she lowered herself on to him and joined their bodies as one. Lust pulsed within her, hotter and stronger than anything she’d ever felt before and mixed with the sharp intensity of something indescribably sweet.

He still said nothing but held out a hand. She placed her hand in his without hesitation. Gasping it, she was flooded with the chaotic tumblings of his mind. Anger and hurt were there, desire that magnified her own until she could barely restrain herself from tearing off her clothes from the heat she felt within. But behind the primal instinct, there were stronger, truer feelings. It was those feelings that could give her peace. She swallowed, finally acknowledging to herself that what he felt was love. Love that was deep and abiding, more than a match for her own.

Tears came unbidden as she closed the gap between them and slid her free hand up his simple linen shirt and behind his neck, pulling his face down to meet hers. Their lips met and soon their hands roamed, removing any hindrance to touch until they were both naked, the cool air a welcome relief from the heat they generated.

Her nipples were hard, the sensation was on the edge of painful but she escaped his efforts to capture one between his teeth. Instead she kissed her way down his chest, running her hands through the thick black hair above his cock. She nibbled on his hipbone as his fingers threaded through her hair with the gentlest of touches, as though he still didn’t quite believe that she was here, that she wouldn’t run if he pushed her too hard.

How to prove to him that was foolish? She ran the very tip of her tongue along the underside of his gorgeous cock, from the base to the tip, where she planted the lightest of kisses. She relished the slight shiver she felt running through him. Her hands were wrapped around his strong thighs, her knees cushioned by their discarded clothes.

She was not terribly confident in her abilities to drive him as insane as he had driven her in the past. Most of her experience in giving lavish attention to the male organ had been to appease the drunken begging of her partner of the moment or to satisfy her own intense curiosity. Without the forgiving blankness of inebriation, she had more of her imagination to call on. That meant she could think of ways she could disappoint just as much as she could think of things she was eager to try to please him. Whatever she lacked, she could learn.

Sliding the engorged head past her lips, she savored the flavor of him, pushing her tongue gently into his slit and then sweeping slowly down over the glans. Her hands drifted up to caress firm buttocks that tensed with her actions, trying to fight the urge to thrust into her mouth.

She smiled around him and took him deeper into her mouth, rubbing the head of him against the top of her palate, stroking the back with her tongue. He pulsed harder and let out a low groan. She looked up at him and the intensity of his eyes sensed a shiver up and down her spine, pooling heat and wetness in her core until she was aching for him. She sucked hard, creating pressure to add to the actions of her tongue. His fingers pulled her hair tightly before he purposefully relaxed trying to be gentle.

Gentle was surely wonderful but she needed to show him she wouldn’t be scared off so easily. He tasted too good and he was leaking just enough of his spicy essence to make her hungry for more. Smoothing a hand over his hip and down his thigh, she cupped his sac in her hand, stroking the balls inside with subtle pressure. When she was sure he was caught up in this new sensation, his eyes closed and with his hands stroking small circles in her scalp, she took a deep breath and swallowed the length of his cock.

Her mouth was watering for him, it was simple to fight any reflexes and take him all in. He cried out, thrusting against her until they learned a rhythm. Her tongue pressed against the back of him as he slid within her mouth farther and his pleasure radiated to her. His pleasure was her pleasure and one hand circled the base of his cock and her other hand dived down to stroke her own clit, hard and tight and aching for him. Her juices painted his skin as her hands came up to grip his hips and with a hissed breath and a shout, he came hard in her mouth. She held him fast, forcing him to let her drink him all in, swallowing his essence and taking all of him.

When she finally relented and let him fall from her lips, her tongue sneaked out to lick one last time at his slick skin. He knelt in front of her, holding her face in his hands and pressing slow light kisses on her lips, breathing in her breath and tasting his essence on her tongue.

She had lost count of the men she’d been with when it had reached more than she could count on her fingers. But she had stopped not too long after that, knowing that the empty pleasure was only cutting her off from an aching wound, not sealing it. They had used her and she had used them. Her enjoyment of the act had probably been more her body’s memory of what things should feel like, rather than the truth of it.

This was different.

She could feel something new and vibrant living within her. The impenetrable heat of his gaze, the goose bumps that followed the light trails of his fingers against the fine hair of her naked arms. She felt utterly alive for the first time in her adult life. The shades of color of his skin against hers, the rain-clean scent of him, the brush of his lips on hers went straight through her like cleansing fire.

He pressed forward and she leaned back upon the pile of discarded clothes, loving the feel of his weight upon her as he settled between her legs. She shuddered when he drew the tip of his tongue down her neck and gasped when he bit the dip where her neck met her shoulder. His hair cascaded over them both, black flame against the orange fire of the sky. The scent of him filled her as the taste of him still lingered on her tongue.

He breathed softly across the skin of her breasts, making her nipples ever harder and she arched her back in response, trying to get closer. With the lightest of strokes, he laved her nipples and whispered something she didn’t understand in a gypsy language, “
Buut guli, ashavi
.”

He pulled back for a moment looking into her eyes as his lips curled into a devilish smile. “You are very sweet, my love.” Then he dived back to her breasts, sucking her nipples into his mouth, one and then the other, biting them, pulling them between his fingers until she was practically screaming, her hands twisted in his hair forcing his head tight against her chest.

She felt like lightning was prickling under her skin. With her eyes closed, she could see it, her body white hot with energy swirling to pull his in, to join them together and satisfy her deepest longings. She moaned incoherently, unable to speak anything but his name.

He gave her a respite, his hands drifting over her ribs as his lips and tongue caressed her stomach. She laughed softly, gratefully, happily and she could feel his answering grin just before his tongue swept into her navel and she laughed long and loud. It seemed a natural part of loving this man, to be filled with laughter. Most men would probably take offense at laughing in the midst of sex but he chuckled with her, their sparkling joy contagious.

His lips trailed over her hip, his fingers drawing circles on the underside of her knees as her legs fell apart. He inhaled deeply and smiled that sinful smile that she could see in her mind’s eye and feel against the bone of her hip. She knew he knew how much she wanted him. She knew that her smell was something he craved. Her labia were swollen and parted, revealing all to him. His tongue darted out to touch one of her lips, stroking the flesh and causing her to hiss with impatience.

His voice floated up to her, although she was never sure if he had spoken aloud or somehow she heard him in her mind. “Let it happen,
ashavi
. Don’t think. Let go of your tight hold on the world and feel.”

And something within her unfurled, like the first opening of a bud as it became a flower. His mind was hers, his feelings were her own. All of him flooded into her, the thrill of his blood through his veins, the incomparable flavor of her, the hot scent of her filling his nostrils, the incredible pleasure he gained from her soft sighs and the subtle movements of her hips toward his tongue. He lapped at her clit, the flat of his tongue rasping against her then darting into her entrance to taste the heady fluid that made her ready for him. In that moment, he wanted nothing more than to worship her, to reveal the divine within her and learn everything about her, body and soul. With that knowledge, that deep confirmation of his very being, she lost the hard callous she’d worked to acquire since the death of the boy she had loved. As he thrust a finger inside and sucked her clit into his mouth she came, her legs shaking and tears leaking from her eyes.