There, for a moment, she’d felt so incredibly special. For the first time in her whole life, she hadn’t felt alone in the world. She’d been a part of someone else. Her heart pounding, she’d pressed her trembling lips together as she rolled the ring around and around in her palm to look it over and appreciate just how exquisite a gift it was. No one had ever given her anything like it. The emeralds had winked at her in the firelight as if they knew some jest that had escaped her notice. As if they were possessed of some ancient spirit themselves.
Never had she expected such a gift from anyone, especially not her loa, who didn’t appear to value anything so extravagant or expensive. Rather, he was more akin to her father, even to the point that Nibo usually walked about barefoot.
Though it seemed foolish, his gift made her wonder if it were possible that they might have a life together after all. Dare she even hope for it? Yet why else would he have given her such a costly present, especially when such things didn’t seem to be part of his world?
With a devilish glint in his eyes, Nibo took the ring from her shaking fingers, kissed it, then placed it on her hand. He looked up at her, a small, timid smile on his lips. “Like your presence in my life,ma petite, it fits.”
She closed her eyes, savoring his words that brought so much joy to her heart because no one had ever valued her before. She was nothing, and she knew that. God knew that others were so quick to remind her of that, in so many ways. Indeed, they took pleasure in telling her how unimportant she was. For a minute, she thought that maybe, just maybe, if he saw her as something more, perhaps she wasn’t as worthless as they all made her feel. She wanted to be the lady of beauty that he seemed to see whenever he looked at her with those sparkling amber eyes. Not the ugly thing that made the others curl their lips when they looked at her in daylight. The girl who made them jeer and make snide comments about her lowly birth or pity her because of her parentage or penury.
This night, she felt beautiful and special. Not pathetic.
Yet even so, she knew that Nibo was a loa not known for being faithful, and that she was a mere human.
How could they have any kind of future together?
Valynda wanted desperately to ask him what he meant by giving her such a present, but no matter how hard she tried to bring that question to her lips, she couldn’t. It was as if she knew better.
As if her heart feared the real truth and so it forced her to remain silent as he claimed her lips for a scorching kiss under the bright moonlight.
Valynda drew him to her so that she could taste him fully. His rich, masculine scent filled her head and set her to trembling. Aye, this was what she wanted.
All she would ever want, even though a part of her was terrified on so many levels. If anyone ever learned of this, it would be the end of her. Somehow that didn’t seem to matter. How could it? Her life was absolute misery. She’d never really wanted it, and in truth, she hated every second of it.
The only happiness she had were these little moments with Nibo. He, alone, didn’t judge her or look at her as if something was missing. He made her laugh instead of cry. Whenever she spoke her mind, he didn’t censor it. It was as if she were a ghost flitting about in a pseudo existence until he came along and awakened her into her real body to make her truly live and breathe.
Her body burned for his touch. Burned for him.
Wanting to feel every inch of his lush body, she ran her hands over his back, delighting in the dips and curves of his muscles. He buried his hand in her hair, cupping the nape of her neck in a way that made her scalp tingle. Moaning against his lips, she ached for him in a way she barely understood.
While she’d never had a man of her own before, she understood from her girlfriends and the bawdy talk she’d overheard on the island the mechanics of coupling. What she wasn’t quite ready for was this onslaught of heat that suffused her, nor the demand that her body flooded her with. What was this warm wickedness? No wonder they preached so vehemently against it.
She felt alive and on fire. Molten, even.
The very next thing she knew, Nibo picked her up in his arms and carried her a small distance away to a secluded area of the beach so that no one would be able to see them. He laid her against a bed of soft moss on the sand.
Valynda tried to understand the fire in her blood and the strange aching that defied anything she’d ever known or experienced. Every part of her felt as if it were engulfed by flames. As if it were aching for something she couldn’t explain or describe.
Nibo stared at her like a starving man eyeing a governor’s banquet. The raw hunger in his eyes sent even more ribbons of heat through her.
She wanted him to devour her and she longed to taste the rich, salty dips and ridges of his muscles until she’d had her fill. But part of her heart told her that she would never be sated with him. Nay, she would always want him and yearn for his touch. How could she not? He was too inviting. Too much fun.
Too delectable.
Licking her lips, she offered him a hesitant smile. “What can I do to please you?”
Nibo closed his eyes at her words, savoring each and every syllable. No woman had ever asked him such a question before. It was such a sweet dream. But then, so was she.
Maybe he was damning both of them to an eternity of rumors and hostility, but for his life he couldn’t stop himself from seizing this one moment, this one woman, even though he knew it was a bad idea from every which way he looked at it. He needed her, and the only way he could let her go would be to cut his own heart from his chest. It made no sense. He knew that.
This was absolute madness.
But he couldn’t leave. She would be worth each and every torment ever delivered, every bit of wrath he evoked, and he would gladly relive all of it for this one instant in time. To him, she was worth it all and more.
Because she was that precious to him. That unique.
Valynda, who didn’t cater to his ego. Who made him laugh when he felt bad and who saw things that others missed. In no time at all, she had become a vital part of his world.
She wrapped her arms about him and he shivered from the tenderness of her silken limbs sliding against his flesh. Lying next to her in the sandy moss, he tasted her sweet lips, her neck where he inhaled her divine, lavender-rose scent. His lips tingled from the saltiness of her skin and he drank of it deeply. This was the only food he needed, the nourishment he had been starving for the whole of his life. She filled a hole in him that he hadn’t known was there until the night he’d found her on the beach with her lunatic friends.
