Chapter Twenty-One
Alaric
A storm was picking up. I radioed ahead to tell my pilot to come for Eric, to get him off the island before we returned. I saw the helicopter rising from the helipad as we approached. It was my final bit of capital, but it was the way it had to be.
Natalia was sullen, pale, drenched like a drowned rat but still beautiful, staring at me all the way home. But she was alive. The fear I had felt—of losing her, of finding her body limp and lifeless in the water—gripped me again and again, and could only be tamped down by looking over to see her there, still alive, still blinking.
I ordered her out of the boat and followed her to the staircase, but she was exhausted and so by the tenth step I had put her arm over my shoulder to help her up, and I carried her after the first landing. She slipped an arm around my neck and turned her face to my chest, and her breath against my bare skin ignited me, a reminder that she was still alive.
She was cold—even at this latitude, the ocean was cold that far out. I took her to my room, to the large bath, and I stripped her clothes from her as she stood, shivering, watching me as though she couldn’t believe that I existed.
I changed into dry clothes while she warmed up in the bath, staring at the tiles, huddled with her knees to her chest. I got her out by extending my arm, and she came willingly into the towel I held out for her.
I walked her out to my room, where she looked around, the towel wrapped protectively around her. She dropped a hand to the bed—my bed, a place she had never been. Then she looked up at me, and her hold on my heart was sealed completely in the grip of her expression. I knew what I had to do.
“Why?” she said helplessly.
There was no easy way of knowing what she meant by that. No easy answer, no matter what she had intended. Why had I brought her here? Why was she in my room? Why hadn’t I let her drown? Why, any of this? Why was she so dangerous? Why?
I reached for her, pulled her to me, and kissed her lips, which were still cool but warmed beneath mine. Then I looked at her and she stepped back.
There was a moment, fleeting and horrible, when I didn’t know what she would do.
But she brought her fingers to the top of the towel and loosened it, letting it fall to the floor. Her eyes burned into mine.
I stepped toward her, and in moments we were falling onto the bed, her body warm beneath mine, cool patches melting beneath my touch. My spine inflamed with pleasure when I drew my tongue along the edge of her earlobe and her skin turned to gooseflesh from her neck to her elbow.
The purpose of me taking her now was different than before: I wanted to taste her skin and feel every inch of her, to know that she was mine.
I moved down her body, sucking her hard nipples into my mouth to make her arch her back and press her flesh against me. As I traveled the length of her body with my tongue I found places where she was still cool, a chilling reminder of how close I had come to losing her. I needed to feel her under me, to be inside of her and burst inside of her soft flesh to know that she was really safe.
I kissed the inside of her thighs until they quivered as she dug her fingers into my hair. She pressed my face to her pussy and I teased her as long as I could, running my tongue along the soaked edges of her lips before lapping the buttery folds and capturing her swollen clit in my mouth. She gasped and pushed me to her as I darted across the face of it and made her body jerk helplessly with pleasure.
“Alaric,” she breathed, and I didn’t wait for her to say anything more—she wanted me, and I could not wait any longer for her. My thumb caressed her throat and I held her mouth close to mine as I sank inside of her hot pussy, as deep as I could get. Her breath seemed to be punched from inside of her in my first thrust, and for a moment we were both breathless, looking into each other’s eyes, her body pulsing around me.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, staring at me as though seeing me for the first time. Her body pulsed around me, her legs enclosed me and squeezed me against her. I moved with her until she was on my lap, her hard nipples against my chest, her mouth moving against mine. Our lips brushed and then crashed together, our breath mingled and our foreheads met as we gripped each other’s hair.
My arms were around her as I moved her body up and down on my lap, each sensual inch of her pussy gliding over me and driving me wild. I buried my face in her soft breasts, fingers pressed against her back, and her moans vibrated against my cheek as her breasts slid across my face and she squeezed my cock with her liquid body.
I clung to her as she rolled on top of me. I was just at the edge and could not hang on any longer, when I felt her whole body shudder and seize around me, solid as rock for a moment. Her hot pussy liquid boiled around my cock as she came. I leaned back, my hand on the back of her neck and the other pulling her by her hip so that I could thrust myself so deep inside of her that there was nowhere else to go. Everything I had ever kept tightly guarded inside myself burst open into her soft flesh, filling her, emptying me. I leaned forward onto her heaving chest, slippery with sweat, the scent of her skin hot like flowers in the air in the dead heat of summer. Her fingers raked my scalp through my hair, and I was completely lost as I had never been; I loved her, and I needed her, and she emptied and completed me.
