Temptation, Chronicles of the Fallen, Book 3 (15 page)

Reaching beneath her, he gripped her bottom, angling her, holding her in place as he fastened his mouth over hers again. Gideon slammed inside her, to the hilt, capturing her scream, swallowing it.

And then he started to move. Long, deep thrusts that bound them together, body and soul. He tore his mouth away and pressed his cheek to hers. His hot breath was ragged in her ear.

“You’re mine now, Maggie,” he growled, his voice raspy and thick. “I claim you as my mate, and I’ll
never
release you from my keeping.”

She couldn’t reply, caught up as she was in the sensations of his body laying siege to hers. But a sense of rightness, a sense of finality slammed through her.

Gideon buried his face in the side of her neck. One hand was clamped on her bottom, firm and unyielding, possessive, gripping painfully tight, the other still held her wrist. The muscles of his arms and back were taut beneath the exploring fingers of her free hand. Fine beads of perspiration glistened on his skin. Her own flesh felt damp with it. Her legs were still wrapped tight around his lean waist, her still ankles locked over his taut buttocks. His back flexed and bunched as his lean hips pumped in an ever increasing, primal rhythm until flesh slapped flesh.

As he pushed them mercilessly toward that glimmering peak, a fleeting thought shot unerringly through her mind.

Some things are supposed to happen, just the way they happened.

Gideon released her wrist, released her bottom, and wrapped both arms around her waist, squeezing her tight enough that she had trouble breathing. His thrusts increased, frantic, pounding, pleasure almost to the point of pain. Her own orgasm had begun to coil tight, waiting for that final second to spring free.

And then Gideon issued a feral snarl against her flesh, driving himself impossibly deep. His teeth clamped onto her shoulder, setting off a chain reaction. All around her, his body went hard as tempered steel. Her own body quaked and shuddered, exploding in a kaleidoscope of colors and sensations. Her orgasm slammed into her the moment she felt him jerk and pulse deep inside her as a deluge of hot seed gushed from him. She screamed his name, gasped for air and screamed again.

Chapter Thirteen

Chest heaving, Gideon dropped his forehead to Maggie’s. There were no words for what he’d just experienced. His body still shook with the aftermath of their union. He kept his arms wrapped tight around her, afraid if he let go, even for a moment, she might slip away from him.

Buried deep inside her, his still-hard cock continued to throb and spasm. His hips followed of their own accord, flexing, driving his shaft deeper still. In his arms, Maggie’s limp body tensed. She made a small whimpering sound in the back of her throat.

Oh God, did I hurt her?

He prayed not. Especially now, when it seemed as if his body had taken over his will, for he truly didn’t know if he could release her. Already, he could feel his arms tightening around her, seemingly of their own accord, caging her to him, trapping her. His hips began to roll, grinding himself into her against his will.

If he’d hurt her, he told himself, he’d stop…somehow. He would. He didn’t know where he would get the strength to leave her, but he would do it. For her.

“Oh,” she gasped softly.

Gideon touched his forehead to hers, and forced his eyelids open. Her face was flushed. Her lips were softly parted and swollen from his kisses. Just that brief glimpse of her face was enough to send fresh waves of fiery need coursing through him. His shaft jerked in response.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, his lips hovering close to hers.

She shook her head, bumping her nose against his. At last, she looked up at him. Those beautiful eyes glittered like the rarest, most precious of gems. They captured him as nothing else could.

Clawing at the meager shreds of his control, he forced his hips to stop moving.

It nearly killed him.

Her brow wrinkled, and she cried out softly.

“I hurt you.” By all that was holy, he’d pull out and let her go. In just a second. It would probably make him stark raving mad, but he’d do it. He’d—

“No!” she cried when he began to slide out of her. Her nails dug into his shoulders, her legs tightened around his waist, her heels dug into his ass. “Oh my God, Gideon, don’t stop. Whatever you do, don’t stop now!”

A rush of pleasure, hot and all-consuming, surged through him, making his chest swell. A wide, wicked grin broke loose. He reflexively tightened his arms around her and he began rotating his hips once more. She purred—actually purred—like a cat that had fallen in a river of cream. Maggie arched her back, rubbing her breasts against him. Luxurious bliss.

It was more than he could take. He slammed inside her with a brutal thrust of his hips. Her shoulders cracked back against the wall. Her sharp gasp of breath, her tiny moan were the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard, next to her earlier cries of pleasure, of course. He’d be hearing those sounds from her again, even if it took all night.

Gritting his teeth, he angled his head until they were cheek to cheek once more. Gideon forced himself to pause, praying she wouldn’t move. Even the tiniest flexing of her inner muscles would put him straight over the edge and he wanted more than just rough wall sex. He wanted her in his bed. All. Night. Long. In every way imaginable.

“Hold on to me, Maggie,” he growled in her ear. “I’m takin’ you home. And once we get there, I won’t stop again. I swear it to you.”

She murmured incoherently, but she tightened her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist, so he took that as consent. Gideon gathered his focus, pulled in his power and shimmered them to his bedroom at the plantation.

Strong as he was, his legs trembled as he solidified with her still locked in his arms, naked but for the identical hammered silver cuffs and still intimately joined. Two unsteady steps got them to the bed. And every tiny movement caused minute shifts in the tight sex encasing his cock. The sensations rippling up his shaft nearly drove him out of his mind. He’d wanted to draw this second time out, as he hadn’t been able to the first time. He’d wanted to wallow in the sensations. He’d wanted to savor every nibble and kiss, every caress and every taste of her.

As he lowered them to the bed, she deliberately clenched him and wiggled her hips. His stunned gaze shot to hers, and she smiled a smile that put Eve to shame.

“So, are you going to show me this beast I’ve been tempting?” she asked brazenly, flexing her inner muscles yet again. She flicked the tip of her tongue across her lower lip.

Gideon stared down at her. If he lived millennia more, he’d never forget every second, every detail of their joining, nor would he forget that look upon her precious face in that moment.

His restraint snapped. Oh, he still intended to spend hours and years and centuries exploring her, bringing her to peak over and over, pleasuring her out of her mind. Until she couldn’t tell where she started and he ended. Until she couldn’t stand the thought of him not being inside her.

He still had every intention of making love to her slowly, tenderly.

She rocked her hips up impatiently against him, seating him balls deep inside her searing heat.

Slow and tender would have to come later, he decided. He gave up fighting for control and gave in to the wild desire driving him.

The shadows moved around her. She worked to keep her breathing slow and even. Silent. Randy was here. Somewhere in the dark with her. Her skin crawled. Maggie knew what he wanted. The other girls had warned her. Even if they hadn’t, she could feel his intent. His sick, twisted hunger. It made her want to retch, made her want to shiver and scrape the creepy crawly feeling away. But she couldn’t give herself away. He’d hear her, and he’d know that wasn’t her in the bed. As it was, the bunched up mound of pillows huddled under the covers on that narrow, hard bed would only buy her minutes at best.

Maggie pulled in a silent, deep breath, bracing herself for what she had to do. Even from this distance, she could smell him, the stale sweat and sticky fetid odor of old booze. Too much old booze. Hatred burned through her, fortifying her.

She flexed her fingers, readjusting her grip on the wooden handle of the cheap steak knife she’d stolen from the kitchen. It wasn’t much, but it was all she could get her hands on that she didn’t figure they’d notice as missing right away. It was nearing midnight, but it had to be close to eighty inside the tiny room in the back of the trashy trailer house. A trickle of sweat ran between her shoulder blades—her palms were slick with it—but it had nothing to do with the heat wave sweeping through the Midwest and everything to do with anxiety.

The muffled, uneven treads of his footsteps moving across the threadbare carpet sent goose pimples rippling across her flesh. If she screamed, would her foster mother hear?

Of course she would. The walls of the trailer were paper-thin. The real question was, would she come to investigate? And if she did, would she see what Randy intended, how evil he was? Or would she blame Maggie?

Would she turn a blind eye and pretend nothing was going on, as she had with the other girls?

The blankets were ripped from the bed in fury. “You little bitch,” Randy hissed, his large, potbellied form thundering past the small window. “Where are you, Margaret Mary?”

Maggie clutched the knife tighter as he lurched closer.

“There you are,” he slurred, wiping a forearm beneath his nose. “Like to play games, do ya? Well, just you wait. I got a helluva a game for you and me to—”

His words ended on a pained howl. A gush of hot, wet fluid soaked her hand, ran along her forearm, splashed her T-shirt.

Maggie bolted upright on a huge gasp, fighting her way free of the restraining arm thrown over her waist, struggling frantically away from the hot, naked, male body lying next to hers in the bed. She twisted, thrashing, elbows flying. A whoosh of air blew her hair into her face as a hard, lean body wrapped itself around her and subdued her, trapping her in iron bands.

“Shhh,” a deep, sleepy voice murmured in her ear. A bristly cheek pressed to hers. A big body rocked her gently. “Shhh, Maggie. Shhh. It’s okay. It’s okay, love. Shhh.”

“Gideon?” she whispered, half afraid Randy was still here, hiding in a corner somewhere.

“It’s me, Maggie. I’m here. Shhh.”

He held her as she shook; the tremors always came after the terror. Then he held her as she sat, silent and ashamed, in the soft light of early dawn.

“Talk to me,” he finally said, lying back, pulling her down onto his chest.

She shook her head, burying her face in the warmth of his neck. He shrugged his shoulder up, using the crook of his finger beneath her chin to force her to face him, waiting until she looked at him.

“No more secrets, remember?”

She felt her temper stir. She wanted to cuss him out, to rail at him, to tell him to mind his own business. She wanted to push him away to a safe distance, physically as well as emotionally. But he’d held her, soothing her after the dream. And she remembered the night of unimaginable intimacy they’d shared after Gideon had shimmered them back to the plantation.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t shut him out, not now. Not anymore. He’d possessed her body, time and time again last night. And, somehow, when she wasn’t paying attention, he’d staked his claim on her heart too.

A fact that left her every bit as horrified as it did giddy.

“It’s always the same,” she began, her voice not nearly as steady as she would have liked. “I don’t have the dream very often, but when I do, it’s always the same.”

He waited patiently, a slight crease between his brows. Her palm rested just over his heart, and she counted each beat, letting them soothe her. One hand smoothed up and down her naked back, the other traced the delicate carvings on the silver cuff she wore.

“The night Randy…came to my room. I hid in the shadows in the corner. Stuffed pillows under the sheets to look like I was still in bed. I could hear his footsteps. I could smell him. Stale sweat and old liquor.” She worked hard to quell the shudder but didn’t quite succeed. “I had the knife. It was so hot that summer, and that trailer held heat like an oven. I was sweating. I was so afraid I was going to drop that knife…” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head, shuddering at the memory. “I always wake up as soon as I stab him. As soon as I feel his blood gush over my hand.”

She made to push up and away from him, but he caged her, refusing to let her go free.

“I can’t—” She shook her head, fighting down the hysteria. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“You don’t have to. Come here,” he rumbled, cuddling her closer. Then his voice took on a new edge, one that made her shiver. “You don’t ever have to be afraid of that bastard anymore. I swear to you. He’ll never hurt you again. I’ll never let anyone ever hurt you ever again.”

God, what was it about him that centered her? He was like a rock, something solid and unmovable that she could hold tight to and never lose her way.

Even as she thought that, she chided herself for being a fool. She counted on herself. Others counted on her. She didn’t rely on someone else, and certainly never for her own emotional well-being. But, dear Lord, how he tempted her. Oh how she wanted to believe him.

“I know.” Anxious to dispel the pall that hung in the air around them, she leaned up and whispered, “Kiss me, Gideon. Make me forget.”

She didn’t have to ask again. Tenderly, Gideon reached up and laced his fingers through her hair, drawing her face down to his. His lips brushed hers, once, twice, and then his tongue slipped past her teeth. In one smooth motion, Gideon rolled, sweeping her beneath him.

His thigh slipped between hers, his hands began to explore. He’d spent every moment of last night touching her, learning the taste and texture and scent of every inch of her body. As if committing them to memory in case he woke in the morning to find his curse had returned.

As such, she was sure he knew her body better than he knew his own. She certainly knew his. She’d refused to be denied, and had explored him as well. The only place he wouldn’t let her touch was his back, and the unspeakable scars where, as she’d correctly surmised, his wings had been torn from his body.

She’d asked if, after all this time, they still hurt. He’d refused to answer, simply changing the subject by kissing her senseless. Even now, as her fingertips brushed over his shoulders, sliding dangerously close to those scars, he was quick to capture her wrists and force them above her head as he moved his mouth to feast on the column of her neck.

Slowly, leisurely, he began working his way down her body, leaving a trail of fire in his wake. He lavished attention on her breasts before kissing his way down each of her ribs. He grinned wickedly against her skin, knowing full well what he was doing to her. Maggie tunneled her hands through his hair, savoring the way it twined softly around her fingers. Gideon paused to dip his tongue in her navel, making her shiver deliciously. He edged lower, and Maggie caught her breath in anticipation.

The moment his lips touched her lower abdomen, Gideon froze. His entire body went rigid. Frowning, she glanced down, peering at him in confusion. He’d reared his head back. His wide-open eyes stared hard at her stomach, a look of stunned shock etched on his face. But it was the audible swallow that stirred her concern.

“Gideon?” she asked, pushing up to her elbows.

He didn’t move, didn’t budge an inch. Just continued to lie there, staring at her stomach. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

“Gideon!” she insisted. He was really beginning to worry her now. What the hell was going on? Had he just now remembered something? Had he had some kind of vision?

At last, he began to move. Slow, cautious, he sat up, leaning back on his haunches. With exquisite care, he reached a trembling hand toward her. She wanted to move away from him, wanted to put her clothes on and run and hide. But unspeakable, nameless fear held her still.

Gideon flattened his hand gently against her lower abdomen. He sat there for a long moment, unmoving, simply touching her, the look in his eyes distant as if he was focusing very hard on something outside himself.

And then his gaze connected with hers for a heartbeat. In that one glance, she caught fleeting glimpses of tangled emotion. Panic. Fear. Disbelief. Shock.