Claiming Ecstasy (2 page)

My heart stopped. I struggled against his impenetrable hold.
He knew.

“Stay out of my head.”

He twisted his hips, plunged deep, and I moaned in tortured
pleasure.

“Never.” Nicolas shoved into my psyche with metaphorical
hands.

I looked down as he used his magic to break my spirit. It
seemed real, corporal. Ropy lines of dazzling blue light skipped over my skin,
sank under it, touched things never meant to be caressed. My flesh was so fragile,
so pale, its bluish, almost silver hue was visible through my skin, moving in
patterns. An illusion, but the feeling was terrifying.

“Stop,” I cried out, the sensation overwhelming.

This wasn’t pleasure. This wasn’t pain. This was
Nicolas—sick, twisted and wicked. This was why I secretly loved him. This was
why I was prepared to do anything to please him. That thought scared me more
than anything he could, or would, do to me.

He let go of my wrists, bent my knees up to my stomach and
resumed thrusting his long, hard cock in and out of me. A deep rumbling
vibrated from his chest. Our skin slapped together with a wet, slick sound that
battled the crashing sea around us. His pale skin was luminescent in the
darkness. Rippling muscles tightened with every grunt and I couldn’t look away.

With every thrust of his hips, he bumped the mouth of my
cervix. The pain of him piercing me so deeply wasn’t enough for him. He
steadied my face with his strong hand and I knew it was because he wanted to
see the blissful agony making my eyes shine with tears. I didn’t want him to
see me so vulnerable. I turned away, deliberately giving him my cheek. My
defiance made his cock pulse once, twice.

We were so tightly joined that his growl echoed through me. He
grabbed my face and forced me to look at him.

“You won’t kill me.” His words were a statement.

Even Nicolas didn’t believe I could fulfill my destiny.
Anger simmered.

“I will.” I lifted my hand to stop him from holding my
cheeks, but my fingers weren’t long enough to close around the thickness of his
wrist that I tried to pull away. With a quick bark of cruel laughter, he
squeezed tighter and I gasped.

Still laughing, he pursed my lips together and held my
unwilling gaze. “I do believe in you. I believe that you are mine. Tell me what
you want and it’s yours. You only have to ask. Stand by my side, make a choice
to join me and I’ll never deny you anything.”

Darkness filled his eyes. An unruly lock of curls fell from
the tie holding his hair back. It fluttered across his forehead and tickled my
lips. I’d never seen him look more beautiful or more dangerous. I’d never seen
him look so sincere.

“I want to live. Living means you have to die. There is no
other way,” I said.

“Bullshit,” he hissed. “Who do you fight for, Jolie? That
bitch mother of yours who has beat you down at every turn? Your so-called
people who spit at your feet when you walk by? You don’t belong with them.”

I moved to push him off me—I’d had enough of this game for tonight.
Nicolas was quicker. Lifting my arms up, over my head, he pinned me to the floor.
The second he removed his fingers from around my wrists, I rose to fight him. I
was met with resistance. My arms were bound.
When did that happen?
I
looked first to my left, then my right. As I turned my head frantically back
and forth, my long, dark brown hair became whips against my cheeks. Brilliant
silver manacles pinned me in place.

I no longer felt Nicolas’ power inside my body. It had
manifested itself and I was too distracted to notice. Brilliant coiled snakes
were etched into the silver. The chains weren’t real, but I was bound by his
magic, stretched out before him. Helpless, just as he preferred me.

He’d gotten inside my head in a way he hadn’t been able to
before. The authority he would wield over me, the prophesied destruction my
eventual desires would cause, was the very reason that my mother had tried to
drown me when I was born. She’d known that one day Nicolas Larkin, Vampire
King, would possess my tender soul and lead everyone to their deaths.

Maybe Mother should have killed me.

Nicolas growled, fangs exposed. “The only person who will
kill you is me. You’re mine.”

The fury and passion in his eyes was almost enough—hell, it
was more than anyone else had ever given me. But was it worth dying to have?
Should so many people die because I was in love with a man who saw me as a
trinket?
I think he would love me if he could.
Too bad the demon inside
him didn’t understand love. It understood possession. Dominance. He’d long
since had my body but it was my mind, the forbidden treasure that was all my
own, that Nicolas longed to possess. And for the first time since we’d become
lovers he was able to penetrate me in a way that left no secrets.

I had to kill him.

Nicolas was in my head, heard the thought as if I spoke it
out loud. He smirked victoriously and thrust into me with renewed strength and
vigor. He fucked me in the truest sense of the word. He possessed my body with
the dark flames of death he held so close around him and my throat constricted
as I screamed and thrashed from the intense heat of it.

Every time his hips hit the junction of my thighs, every
time the base of his cock bottomed out against me, he wrenched an aching moan
from my throat. Struggling, I pulled against my illusory restraints, not to be
free of him but to rake my nails down his back. Not being able to touch him
made me crave it even more. I longed to feel his skin rip beneath my fingers,
but my bonds were unbreakable. My wrists were physically bruised and leaking
blood from my fight, from the friction of his restraints as he pounded into me.
The stark sounds of sex overtook me. The slap of our skin. The rasp of my
breathing. There was pain and agony. There was pleasure and bliss.

I was spiraling, spilling, babbling. “Yes. Oh. Gods. Harder,
please, Nicolas. Fuck me.”

The thick, deep peals of his laughter ricocheted through the
night and sent a new shiver of anticipation down my spine. In that moment, I
wanted him to wrap me in his shroud of death and turn me so I’d be his forever.
I was so close and I wanted the relief so badly. I hated this world. Hated my
family. Hated the things people said to me when I dared venture to court. I bit
my lip until I tasted the rusty salt of copper.

He delved his tongue inside my mouth, chasing the blood from
my swollen lips, and a new wave of arousal clenched inside me. Our teeth
clashed. I felt no pain when I stroked my tongue on the sharp point of his
fang. He pounded into me and sucked my tongue into the cavern of his mouth.

Our lips sealed. Our tongues dueled. He silenced my frantic
cries with each moan and gasp he stole from me. When he pulled away, I followed
him as far as I could until his chains stopped me. I watched, helpless as he
raised his chest off mine. I missed the weight of him already.

Nicolas supported himself, hands on either side of my head,
the bulging muscles in his forearms and biceps delicious. He lingered there,
hovering over me with that one lock of hair teasing my cheek. He was so
beautiful it hurt. He didn’t touch me except with his cock, a maddening assault
full of grace, power and menace. Dark strands of his hair fell over his face
with the tilt of his head. He watched himself piston between my wet thighs. My
breath caught.

“Come for me,” he commanded.

Something in me, the last little shreds of my pride, rose
against his domination. He was too greedy. In his gluttony, he created a path
to freedom. I exploited the weakness and pushed free of his magic.

My arms were no longer restrained and I immediately stroked
his back, reveling in the smooth, flawless surface of his flesh. I smiled in
triumph as I dug my nails deep into his slick, corded muscles. I smelled his
blood. This time he cried out.

“I’ll come when I want to,” I growled against his lips
before I captured them.

I unleashed the power coiling inside me. The sheer force of
my will struck out like a snake and the sky lit with electricity, with magic,
as we fought for control of each other. Nicolas plunged deeper with a smirk and
a twinkle in his glimmering blue-gold eyes that told me he would not give up so
easily. He shoved his fingers between my legs, pinched my clit. I shuddered, on
the edge. I thrust my hips against his, ground my pelvis against his cock and
his hand. I would give as good as I got. We fought—for what I wasn’t sure—back and
forth, both pushing and plunging until we were a blur.

Under the sensation of sex was the maddening assault of his
magic crashing against my mental shields. He was trying to possess me again.

The more magic he thrust at me, the quicker and harder he
moved his body against mine. Tension gathered in the very pit of me. He thrust
harder, faster. With every slap of his hips against mine, his greedy fingers
manipulated my clit with biting pinches that drowned me in sensation after
sensation. Gods, I was going to lose the last sacred parts of myself in him,
when I did, I feared what would happen, who I would kill—him, my people,
myself?

“Please,” I begged.

I dug my nails into his back and arched off the floor. The
first crack split down the center of my mental walls. From there, another
fissure splintered out to the left. My body felt as if it was made out of glass
thrust into hot water, then quickly drenched in icy seas. I couldn’t breathe. I
couldn’t think.

I was there on the brink, ready to slice my wrists on his
fangs and demand he consume every drop of me when everything stopped. It
just…ceased. Nicolas pulled out, his cock wet from my juices and bobbing up and
down.

Nicolas conjured a sharp, gleaming dagger. He grinned, menace
and death dancing in his eyes, as he pressed the sharp point of the knife
against the raging pulse in my neck.

“I think I’ll make you beg me for it.”

I transferred my gaze from the arm holding the knife against
my throat to Nicolas’ cock bobbing against my thigh. The large, thick crown was
dark with arousal and glistening with my juices. With the loss of him inside me,
I was empty and desolate.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

I looked him straight in the eye, deliberately bringing my
head up so the stinging bite of the blade cut into my throat. Blood welled and
a single stream of warmth rolled down my neck and over my shoulder. “Do it. I
dare you.”

Nicolas stared at me with desire swirling darkly in his eyes,
and my stomach fluttered. He wouldn’t leave me alone for long. He couldn’t.
This was just another game, it had to be. I knew in my gut that he craved me as
much as I did him. Or maybe I’d gambled and lost.

He bent, ever so slowly, and drew his tongue along the
stream of blood. The knife fell to the floor and the metallic ting of it rang
out. I would not feel relief at the momentary respite.

“Let’s play a game.” Nicolas’ hands were rough now, his
fingers bruising as he pinched my swollen nipples. He drew his face from my
neck, down my chest, over the indentation of my ribs, nipping as he went.

I pressed my heels to the floor, tried to push away from the
overwhelming need clouding my mind. “What does the winner get?”

He held me still and dipped his tongue inside my navel. I
retreated into my thoughts to avoid melting into the climax that hung balanced
on such a fine line. The moment he stroked his slick, hot tongue across my
pussy I was going to explode. This climax would be different. I knew it. He
knew it. If I let go now, he’d have all of me, even the hidden parts he hadn’t
yet discovered.

He parted my sex with his fingers. “If I win, I get all of
you.”

“And if I triumph?” I asked as I arched up, off the ground.

“Then I’ll save you the burden of killing me—I’ll meet the
dawn. Whoever reaches orgasm first loses.”

His words spun through me. Touched me deep. He’d kill
himself so I wouldn’t have to do it. Did he sense my conflict? My guilt? He stabbed
his tongue between my folds and I lost track of the conversation. I screamed
and clutched the silken strands of his hair. He soothed my clenching muscles
with each deliberate caress of his mouth, delving deeper and deeper with each stabbing
thrust.

“Your pussy tastes like nectar.”

He curved his tongue, stroking me as he pressed his nose
against my clit and shook his head back and forth. Back and forth. Back and
forth. I writhed against him, my thighs quivering. I tried like hell to hold
on. The stakes were higher than ever—the real question was, did I want him to
have all of me?

I heard his voice inside my head, a tickling whisper.
I already
have all of you
. His assault of my pussy was uninterrupted.

I opened my eyes to see him smirking against my thigh. He
thrust two fingers deep inside me. He curled and then twisted, the sharp edge
of one of his fangs brushing my clit.

“Fuck me.” My lids fluttered.

I couldn’t see anything beyond the purple haze clouding my
mind.

You are so delicious. So fucking sweet.
He still
spoke inside my head. It was more intimate than the actual act of sex.
I
could eat you for hours, make you climax over and over until you begged me to
stop. Only I wouldn’t. I’d fuck you with my tongue some more, then I’d fuck you
with my cock. You want it, don’t you?

He added another finger to stretch me wide, and stroked his
cock against my thigh. One wicked word, one thrust of his tongue at a time, he
worked to coax my orgasm from deep inside me.

I did. But what about honor? I was tired of games. Tired of
living.

My mother’s voice reiterated,
You are weak. Nothing. He
only wants you so he can manipulate you.

Anger surged and I flipped him. His head slammed into the floor
and I smiled cruelly. I released his hair from its binding and threw the
leather cord behind me. His tresses looked almost black against the dull-gray surface.
The strands were slicked with sweat and damp ocean air, curlier than normal. I
pressed my hands against his chest and impaled myself onto his rigid cock. I
threw my head back until the ends of my hair danced across his thighs.

The muscles in my legs flexed each time I pumped on his
engorged flesh. He felt so good, not just inside me, but his power swirling
around me. Nicolas didn’t realize he was exposed in times like this. His magic
called out to mine. Just as he drank off my power, I could drink off his. I
could consume it, absorb it—so it was not just his body I was fucking, but also
his mind. It was sweet, his power, maybe the only thing about Nicolas that wasn’t
controlling and dark. This was how I knew for sure he wasn’t evil, not like my
mother. For a moment when the blue hues of his power met my red ones, we were
truly joined and I wasn’t alone anymore.

He drew me into him with his magic, its cool touch like a
million minute orgasms all over my body. I gasped and moaned and my hips rose
and fell at an inhumanly fast pace.

The purple haze surrounding us caressed me in places his
hands couldn’t reach. I shivered and my muscles clenched. He groaned and flexed
his fingers until they bit into my hips. He held me, his pelvis rising from the
ground to fuck me long and deep. I bent forward until my breasts pressed
against the hard surface of his chest. He pounded into me faster and harder
than I ever thought possible.

He threaded his hands under my arms and up my back until he
held my shoulders. Every time he thrust up, he pushed down on my body so the
impact was doubled.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Don’t ever stop,” I moaned.

I was close, too close. Our fucking was a precarious dance.
I wanted it to end but at the same time I wanted it to go on forever. I wanted
to bend to him, to give him what he wanted in exchange for the way he made me
feel when I was lost in total abandon.

But I couldn’t give up, could I?

I imagined myself standing at the edge of the cliff,
watching the ocean below glittering in the moonlight. My chocolate-colored hair
blew in the night breeze, exposing the elongated points of my ears—proof of my
Seelie heritage. My sheer gown fluttered behind me and hinted at my naked body
beneath. I looked like an angel, with blue eyes like Nicolas’ in their human
appearance.

The waves beneath me broke with a potency I could never
replicate. For all of my power, for all of Nicolas’ power, we could never equal
nature’s true force.

I was torn between reality, the concrete, and my mind, the
chaos. Where I stood, at the edge of Nicolas’ mansion looking out over the sea,
was a special place in my imagination. I retreated here often. It wasn’t real.
It was neither cold nor warm. There was no scent, no freshness of the clean
air. It just was.

Nicolas flipped me over so I was no longer on top, and my
fantasy world melted away in a wash of sensation. I was no longer in the inner
sanctuary of my mind. In reality I smelled the salt of the sea, strong and more
potent than the smell of sex that Nicolas and I created. Heat radiated off our
bodies and warmed my soul. Nicolas’ cool fingers pressed into my skin as he
pinned my arms to the floor.

He pushed into me with ferocity. His large tight muscular
body felt so heavy on top of me I could hardly breathe. I gasped and thrashed
and my lungs burned as he tried to send me into oblivion.

“You. Will. Come. Lover. You will give me everything,” he
growled.

He buried his face against the crook of my neck and panted.
He didn’t need to breathe, but in times like this, he often forgot. He was just
as close to the edge as I was. He wanted me. Needed me.

I struggled out of his grasp and snaked my hand between us
until I could press against his chest. I released my magic, willing it through
my arms and out of my fingers. The dizzy, slow release was like being shot up
with a narcotic. Only instead of being injected, I was ejecting.

Nicolas gasped, and his eyes turned from amber to black. He
grabbed my hands and brought my arms above my head. I was stretched out before
him once more, a forbidden feast. But nothing was forbidden to Nicolas.
Nothing. He took my nipple into his mouth. The caress was warm, wet and soft
for only a moment before his fangs rubbed across the tender nub. He suckled
there, greedy for the blood pulsing under the surface.

“Nicolas,” I cried out in a breathy voice.

My stomach contracted in waves of glorious pleasure. I
pushed my breast farther into his mouth and wished he’d bite me harder. Why
couldn’t I just give in? What was stopping me?

His flesh slapped against mine and the sound of it echoed in
my ears. I could no longer hear the ocean. Each time his hard, thrusting cock
invaded my core the woman in my mind who stood at the edge of the cliff took a
step back. She walked away from the precipice in slow motion, yet her hair and
gown still fluttered around her in silkiness. Like being zipped through time, I
was there again, in my inner sanctuary.

The air that once had no feeling was now cold and damp.
Nicolas appeared in front of me in this realm. I gasped. This was my private
asylum, the source of my power, and he’d followed me here. He was fucking me in
reality but he was also here, now, in my chaos. Infused with both of our
magics, my private place had just become so much more than a daydream.

He wore nothing but a black silk robe. The material flapped
in a wind that seemed to swirl only around us. He was a beacon in the darkness,
a tempting sin just an inch out of reach. His body was hard, like a marble
statue chiseled into perfection. His cock was solid and curved up to his belly
in proud glory.

I stepped closer, savored the press of my toes in the velvet
soft grass. He stood on the very edge of the cliff and now I could no longer
smell the sea, only Nicolas. He smelled like home. Spicy. Potent. Male. Mine.

“Do you recall the first time you saw me?” he asked.

I knelt before him as if I was an obedient servant. Damp earth
pressed against my knees. He stood above me, looming in the darkness.

Heat infused my cheeks. “I was barely eighteen and you gave
me my first orgasm just by looking at me.”

He smiled and cupped my cheek, his thumb smoothing over
across the shell of my ear before he traced my lower lip. “Aye. You were
perfection. Everything I’d ever dreamed about.”

My breath sped. “You dreamed of me?”

“Here,” he looked around, “in this place. Centuries ago. You
were the light to my dark. The breath I needed. I knew then that you’d be mine,
that I’d stop at nothing to have you.”

The chaos shifted and warm rays of sunshine caressed my
exposed back. Nicolas was inside my head, fully, completely. I was naked and
the hot rays beaming from the sky were heaven in hell as I bowed my head to
him. His cock was beautiful and I watched with heavy-lidded eyes as I took him
between my lips.

He threaded his fingers into my tresses. Oh so slowly,
gently, he pushed my head down on his cock.

“Deeper.” He groaned, something about the sound vulnerable.

In my dream world, invisible hands stroked my thighs and
eased them apart. Reality and fantasy merged. What Nicolas did to me in real
life was bleeding into my chaos. The wet, hot touch of his mouth sucking my
clit assaulted me in both realms. I cried out, the sound muffled from the crown
of his erection bumping the back of my throat.

I closed my eyes and saw myself on the stone floor of his cliff-top
fortress. My legs were spread wide and framed the man kneeling between them.
His hands looked so large, so masculine holding me open. My swollen, ruby-red
mouth elicited gasps and moans, each a keening demand for more.

It was so erotic to see myself that way. Unglued. Wanton. The
woman I was only around Nicolas. I watched my face contort, my eyes slit. I
moaned over and over with pleasure. Tears trickled down my flushed cheeks. My
fingers threaded through Nicolas’ hair to pull him closer. My hips undulated
against his face. As I saw it, I felt it. His silky hair tickled my thighs when
he devoured me with his mouth. Despite that reality, I was still here, in this
dream world with his cock deep inside my mouth.

With Nicolas, I’d found anything was feasible.

I sucked him harder, deeper and more thoroughly than ever
before. My lips were so red in comparison to his pale shaft, and we were both
drawn to the sight. As I deep-throated him, took him farther than I thought possible,
his dark pubic hair caressed my nose and cheeks.

I relaxed my throat and my stomach curled for only a second at
the first deep thrust. He wasn’t just pushing inside my mouth—now his cock was
deep inside my pussy as he penetrated me in reality. He was no longer content
to feast on my juices.

“I need to feel you, to feel my cock deep inside your hot,
tight pussy when I come in your mouth,” he whispered to me in my dream, and I
knew it applied to the other dimension.

I opened my eyes. I was still in my inner refuge, still
caught up in Nicolas’ version because the sun continued to burn along my skin.
I looked up at him and his face was lost in rapture. He let go and let me see
all that was him. A gift. A curse. I sorted through the dark tangle of thoughts
in Nicolas’ head. Above all, he coveted me. He didn’t love me in the
traditional sense my kind held in esteem. No, his feelings couldn’t be labeled.

Panic seared though me and I lashed out, found the one thing
that would hurt him the most—he longed to be human again, to walk hand in hand
with me on the Irish shore at sunrise when the fog rose from the moss like a
soft, cool blanket.

I couldn’t kill him, not now, not ever. Death before
dishonor. I knew then what I needed to do.

At my command, his pulse drummed under his skin and I
reveled in the race of blood beneath the surface of his arousal while I sucked
him off.