More Than a Man (12 page)

Drenched in pleasure, drowning in bliss, she
didn’t notice he’d untied her until his fingers laced with hers and
he pinned her hands to the pillows. She swam through gauzy layers
of wonder, of pleasure built so slowly it hardly seemed like
arousal at all, until she could open her eyes and study their
linked hands. The pillowcase scraped her sensitized skin, made her
aware of every curve and plane of her body.

Aya’s hands slid away from hers. Bereft of
his touch, she pressed her fingertips to her palms and sought him
out. Naked in the candlelight, he knelt between her legs and looked
at her. He hadn’t touched her nipples, her sex, hadn’t touched any
of those places that were the focus of arousal. Now he didn’t touch
her at all. His hands splayed atop his thighs, framed his jutting
erection.

Noelle inhaled, pulling in his scent. Sex had
never been like this. Sex was hot, fast, fun, intense. Never this
deceptively sedate, intensely focused …beauty. Yes, that was it.
This was beautiful. This was making love.

Suddenly, she wanted him more than she wanted
her next breath. “Touch me.”

He smiled. “I have been touching you.”

Too enraptured to argue, she cupped her
breasts and lifted them in offering. “Please.”

The shadows were too deep for her to see his
eyes clearly, but she thought his expression softened. He leaned
forward, brushing her hands away and replacing them with his.

Big hands, long fingers, lay gently for a
moment before moving to cup her quivering flesh.

Her spine bowed, pressing her into his touch,
demanding a firmer caress.

He grunted in surprise as her belly snuggled
up against his hardness, but didn’t back away. The lovely glow
began to coalesce into something more focused, more purposeful. She
raised her knees and tilted her hips until she trapped his cock
between their bodies.

He exhaled a ragged breath. “Noelle.”

“Touch me,” she repeated.

One fingertip grazed her peaked nipple.
Sparklers danced through her belly. Again, he smiled, teeth bright
in the dim light.

As if swimming through syrup, she lifted her
arms, laid her hands along his ribs. He froze. Deity. She was
touching him. Really touching him. Fascinated, she walked her
fingers over the ridges of his abdomen, smoothed them over the
slightly raised area where one of his tentacles rooted.

Aya shuddered above her, pushing his arousal
into her softness.

“These are sensitive,” she realized, and
deliberately stroked her fingertips across two of the marks.

His strangled groan mingled with their rapid
breathing and sent a thrill through her. She did that. Her touch,
her body, her response.

“
Really
sensitive.” She gripped the
bunching muscles of his back and levered herself up to lick one of
the tentacle entry points. Unexpectedly, he pushed her hands aside
and dropped his head to capture her nipple. Heat. Oh, Deity.

She scored him with her fingernails, stunned
by the sudden blaze within her. She couldn’t contain her moans of
appreciation and arousal when he moved one hand down to cup her
wet, aching sex.

Her hips arched wildly as he pressed one long
finger inside, tucked his thumb against her clit. She shot from
glowing to incandescent in an instant. Her muscles locked around
him and her fingers dug in. Distantly, she knew she was leaving
marks. She didn’t care. When his teeth tugged her nipple, it just
felt good.

He crooked his finger inside her, pressed
hard along the sensitive front wall. At the same time he rubbed a
circle with his thumb around her distended nub and she
exploded.

Streamers of fire lit behind her eyelids and
she lost all control over her body. Distantly, she heard herself
scream, felt her body jerk and shudder under him. Though he
released her breast, he didn’t move his hand, holding it still
against her, letting her ride out the orgasm until the spasms
subsided into periodic shivers.

Only when she was still, her hands limp
against his back, did he free himself from the tight clasp of her
flesh.

Her eyes flickered open. Aya’s face was
carved into hard planes in the dim light, his jaw locked and his
shoulders and arms rigid. Her hands fell from his back and slid
down to rest at his hips as he rose above her.

Noelle sucked in a breath, the force of Aya’s
hunger speeding her pulse again. With a low growl, he pushed her
thighs up and apart. Big, slightly rough palms slid up the smooth
skin of her inner thighs, over the curves of her calves to encircle
her ankles.

Her breath caught in her throat. The way he
held her ankles reminded her too much of the way his tentacles had
wrapped around her wrists in the dressing room, reminded her of
waking tied and spread for him. She shuddered under him, fantasies
of him using his tentacles as he had the cloth springing full-blown
into her brain. Oh, Deity. She couldn’t have imagined, couldn’t
have dreamed, how much she’d love that idea.

She swallowed hard, concentrating instead on
the nudge of his hard thighs against the lower curve of her
buttocks. He leaned forward, resting her ankles on his shoulders
and planting one hand on the bed beside her ribcage.

The position opened her up and pinned her in
place. Unable to move her torso, she pulled her hands around to
rest them on his chest. His nipples stabbed into her palms, the
metal hoops marking a cold circle in the center, making her itch to
lick and nibble. Neither of which she could do now. Later. She’d
get to it later. Tomorrow. Next week.

“You’re mine,” she marveled.

“Yeah, I am.” Aya reached between them to
guide himself to her opening. He pressed so that the leading curve
of his cock lodged inside, but then stilled with his head bowed
over her, face hidden.

Noelle shifted her hips the tiny amount she
could and dug her fingertips into his pectorals, pressing his
piercings between her flesh and his. “Don’t stop,” she
breathed.

“Have to. Want you too much.” His voice was
low, gritty, and went through her like an electric current,
bringing her sated nerves back to life. Was it possible to have too
many orgasms in a day?

Then his words clicked. Too much? He couldn’t
want her too much. She worried he didn’t want her
enough
. A
thin trickle of happiness wound through her, adding a sweet edge to
her growing arousal.

“I think you should want me even more.” She
flicked his piercings, smiled at his low grunt. “Come on, Aya. I’m
dripping wet for you.”

“Deity, woman.” His laugh was short,
strained, and it ended on a groan as he adjusted his angle. In
torturous slow motion, he pressed forward.

Noelle gasped, caught by the sheer size of
him. Her urge to tease vanished, swallowed by the all-encompassing
sensation of her muscles straining to accommodate him. It was one
thing to imagine, to fantasize. It was something else to feel that
hard width moving inexorably into her body, stretching her,
stinging her nerves to attention. She was suddenly very glad for
his slow advance.

Every centimeter he gained pulled her body
tighter, wound her arousal more closely around her core. Pleasure,
pain. Not too much pain. Like the pinch in the dressing room, he
knew just how far to push her.

Finally he seated fully, meshing his pubic
hair with hers in an oddly soothing caress. Again, he stilled, this
time with his cock sunk into her. Tears gathered at the corners of
her eyes, and she didn’t know why. It didn’t hurt anymore. The
relentless pressure of his girth sent shivers across her skin. The
way he stretched her, filled her, she wanted to stay like this
forever.

“Ah, baby, you feel so good.” He planted his
other palm alongside her head. Leaning down, careful to keep his
weight off her, he captured her mouth in a hungry, demanding
kiss.

Spice flooded her mouth, the tingle adding
piquancy. She could kiss him forever, he tasted so good.

They ate at each other, building the urgency,
feeding the heat, until Aya ripped free, his chest heaving like a
bellows.

She blinked up at him, lips still tingling
with his cinnamon-hot flavor.

“I want to watch,” he muttered. “I want to
see you.”

Head bowed, he began to move. His withdrawal
was every bit as slow as his initial penetration, letting her feel
every bump and ridge of his cock as he dragged through her tight,
wet clasp. With her legs stretched upwards and his hips canted
slightly backwards, the leading curve pressed along her g-spot.

She whimpered, tilting her pelvis, trying to
keep him inside. When he barely breached her, he stalled, paused
for a beat, and began to sink into her again.

The contrast of his ravenous kiss with the
deliberation of his measured thrusts confused her. She didn’t know
how to respond. She wanted to move, wanted to pull him back inside,
pull him down for another kiss. Instead, she could only writhe
beneath him.

In retaliation, she pinched his nipples,
compressing the tips around the metal of his piercings. His hips
jerked forward, a quick tug and drag that had them both
moaning.

“Faster,” she pleaded.

“Always in a hurry. Slow down, Noelle. Savor
it.” He sat back on his heels, arching her back and forcing her
hands from his chest. The new angle was shallower, and she missed
the deep connection.

Her protest strangled in her throat when he
pinched her clitoris between his thumb and forefinger. Heat flashed
over her in one huge, engulfing wave. Not waiting for sensation to
subside, Aya twisted the bit of flesh, not hard, not far, but
enough to find nerves she’d had no clue she even had. Teetering on
the edge of orgasm, she bucked under him.

“Do you want it, baby?” he demanded.

“Deity, yes,” she sobbed, beyond caring about
anything more than the slow friction of his cock and the hard
promise of his fingers.

“Tell me what you want. I need to hear it.”
He pulled back, leaving them barely connected.

“You, I want you. Please.” She could barely
get the words out. Need was a living thing inside her, clawing to
get out. It pulsed through her, rushed over her. No longer soft, no
longer the sweet desire of her first orgasm. This was harder,
hotter, more intense.

“You have me. Always.”

Good. That was good. But… “I want you inside
me. Right now.”

Aya slammed into her, his pubic bone smashing
his fingers between them, compressing her clit and sending pleasure
exploding through her, over her, out of her. She screamed again, a
high pitched wail that echoed in the darkness, as her body clamped
down around him.

He rode her fast and deep through the orgasm,
each thrust prolonging her pleasure, dragging out the shudders of
completion, until he grabbed her hips in both hands and pushed so
deeply into her she had the brief hysterical thought that they
might actually merge into one being.

Locked together, with his cock stretching her
swollen, sensitive tissues, she felt his gathering orgasm, felt the
throb that presaged his release. Still quaking from her own orgasm,
she wrapped her fingers around his forearms to anchor both of them
as he threw his head back, torso arching. The lines of his body,
both obscured and illuminated by the candlelight, held in that taut
arch, beautiful in his struggle for completion. With a hoarse
shout, he ground his sac against her bottom and she felt the heavy
pulses of his release. Actually felt them, every single one.

Long moments later, he shrugged her ankles
off his shoulders, letting them run along the muscled length of his
arms to fall limply open around his hips. Dropping forward, he
covered her body with his, sheltering her smaller form beneath the
strength of his larger frame. Though he softened inside her, he
didn’t withdraw. Instead, he tucked his hips tightly against hers
and rolled them so he lay on his back and she lay draped over him
like an exotic throw.

He grabbed the trailing edge of the covering
and pulled it over the two of them before wrapping his arms around
her waist.

Noelle shifted slightly, settling her weight
to use his shoulder as a pillow. It wasn’t very comfortable, but
she didn’t want to move. In fact, she didn’t ever want to move
again.

In the flickering candlelight, honesty seemed
easy. “I was mad at you,” she admitted.

His head turned and his legs moved restlessly
under hers. “Why?”

She heard the surprise in his voice. “You
weren’t here. I expected you to be up right after me.”

His arms tightened around her. “I had to get
some things. I wanted it to be romantic. It took me longer than I
expected to find candles.”

“Oh.” She lifted her head and took a good
look around the room. “They’re beautiful.”

One shoulder moved, muscles bunching and
relaxing, in a shrug. “You are beautiful. These are just
atmosphere. And, as it turned out, I didn’t need them, since you
were asleep when I got up here.”

“I tried to stay awake but I was pretty
tired.” She could hear her own words begin to slur. ”Even more
tired now.”

He tucked her hair behind her ear and cupped
her nape, drawing her head back to his shoulder. “I should have
thought you’d be upset that I was taking so long. It took me nearly
forty minutes to find everything.”

Now it was her turn to shrug. “No, you told
me you needed something. I should have just been patient.”

He stilled under her. “Thank you.”

Puzzled, she pushed up again to look in his
shadowed face. When she did, he slid free of her body and she was
surprised at the magnitude of loss she felt. As if she’d lost a
connection to herself. “What for?”

His face was relaxed, unguarded. “For
realizing I didn’t deliberately keep you waiting.”

“You’re welcome, I guess. It’s not that big a
deal.”