5
T
his was absolutely the last thing Sebastian had expected. Hell, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d called the cops after the stunt he’d pulled during their run, but she didn’t appear upset or angry.
Just the opposite—she’d invited him inside.
It was almost two in the morning. She said she wanted sex. So did he, in that overwhelming manner he’d learned to associate with running as the wolf, only tonight it was tempered by Lily’s presence. Stronger, because her exotic beauty had grabbed him by the balls from the very beginning, but also caution.
He did not want to screw things up. As much as he wanted the physical connection with Lily, the pure, unabashed relief of need, he wanted more. He wanted to know her, to explore feelings that had slammed into him the moment she’d walked into that reception tonight.
Lily Cheval was special.
He wanted to know why. How. What it was that made her so different. Her aura remained as clear and bright as it had been when he first saw her. She wasn’t angry. She was sexually aroused and had made it very clear she wanted him. No games. No pretense, but it made no sense. None at all. She wasn’t anything like any other woman he’d known.
She was better. A million times better.
He took the key from her hand and unlocked the front door. Held it open for her. Lily turned and smiled as she stepped inside. Her shawl trailed over one shoulder in a shimmer of copper and crimson, the colors slipping in and out of her aura.
He barely noticed the tastefully decorated entry, the large living room, or the subtle lighting that gave everything a soft yet welcoming glow. No, there was only Lily, glowing brighter than everything else.
She filled his senses.
“I always feel like I need a shower after a run,” she said.
How the hell could she sound so carefree? So entirely relaxed and casual? He blinked like an idiot. Shower?
“Would you care to join me?”
It wasn’t often that a woman got the better of him, but Sebastian stopped in his tracks and stared at her. “Lily?” He sighed and shook his head. She was so far ahead of him, he wasn’t even in the race, but at least his soft chuckle made her grin. “Please tell me, in simple words, what the fuck’s going on?”
She grabbed his hands and leaned close, pressed her mouth against his, and surprised him with a sharp nip of his lower lip. “You must not read the gossip rags,” she whispered. Her mouth stayed so close, he felt her lips moving against his. “Chanku are not human. We are creatures ruled by our strong sex drive. Our
very strong
sex drive. After a run, arousal peaks, and believe me, it’s especially powerful tonight. I promise you, the sex will be incredible.”
She stood back and sighed. “I could masturbate, but it’s not nearly as much fun, not when I’ve got a gorgeous man I find terribly appealing standing in my foyer. I won’t get pregnant. I’m immune to human disease, and I want you. From the look in your eyes and the obvious erection in your trousers, I’m guessing you want me, too. It will be fun, Sebastian.” She grinned. “C’mon, big guy. Let your hair down.”
He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. She slipped into his embrace as if they’d been lovers forever. “Let my hair down? That sounds like something my father might say, only he’s much too uptight.”
“It is something my father says. In fact, give me a minute.” She slipped out of his embrace and closed her eyes. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She’d clasped her hands over her flat belly and raised her head, but he felt a buzzing in his mind and wondered if she communicated with someone.
He was trying to figure out how to read her thoughts when she wasn’t actually projecting, but then her eyes flashed open and she smiled. “I had to let Dad know I’m okay. He tends to hover, and he’d caught my distress earlier. I suggested that if he continued hovering, he might see more than he wants.”
Sebastian ignored her reference to his behavior—they’d have to talk about that later—but he wanted to know more about her link with her father. “His mind is that strong? He’s in Montana, right?” That made no sense at all. Sebastian and his father could barely communicate across a room.
“He uses a combination of his Chanku abilities and his skills as a wizard, but we’ve always had a very close connection. He worries about me.” She laughed. “He’s an excellent worrier. But no more about my father, especially when he’s promised to leave me alone. Knowing him, he won’t hold his promise for long.” She grabbed Sebastian’s hand and tugged.
She didn’t have to pull very hard, though he planted his feet at the doorway to the master bedroom. What an ass! Any other guy would be all over her, but he couldn’t get past what had happened tonight, how he’d lost control. How he’d lost the memories of the entire event.
It scared the crap out of him. What if he did the same thing during sex? What if he hurt her?
What if he really was the one killing those girls?
“Lily.” He tugged his hands free of her grasp. “I’m afraid. I know you think I’m nuts, but what if I hurt you? What if . . .” He shook his head, a short, sharp jerk as much to clear his thoughts as to deny his fears. He couldn’t be the one killing those girls. He wasn’t a killer, damn it.
Lily stood there a moment with her hands on her hips, just smiling at him like he was a complete idiot. “If I’m not worried, you don’t need to be, either.” Then she winked, reached down, grabbed the hem of her dress, and slowly pulled it up her body, over her head.
His mouth went dry. She wore nothing but a tiny scrap of lace that might be considered panties. No bra, but with perfect breasts like hers, she certainly didn’t need one.
“I’m going to take a shower, Sebastian. If you want to join me, it’s through that door.” She cocked her head toward the far side of the bedroom, turned around, and still wearing her high heels and those tiny panties, walked away.
His feet might as well have been locked to the floor. Any remaining blood in his circulatory system immediately left his brain and went straight to his cock. Each soft footfall she made echoed in the heavy pulse engorging his shaft.
He was practically panting by the time she paused in the open doorway, bent at the waist with her back to him, and carefully removed first one shoe and then the other. Then, with a slight shimmy of her hips, she slid the tiny lace panties over her hips, down her long, long legs, and stepped out of them.
Sebastian’s hands were shaking so hard he could barely get his pants off. He was thankful he’d not put his shoes back on after shifting, because he doubted he’d be able to manage laces, the condition he was in. He kicked his pants off his feet and almost tripped when the left one hung up on his foot, but his gaze never left Lily.
She was breathtaking, a vision in shimmering light. Her aura spiked in brilliant shards of pink, the flashes so bright, so iridescent, he wondered if she were ready to orgasm without him.
He was practically running when he hit the bathroom door, but he skidded to a halt the moment he caught up to her. The bathroom was a sybarite’s fantasy—huge and completely open on one side to windows looking out onto a softly lit walled garden. The shower was nothing more than a natural stone enclosure with walls a little over three feet high that reminded Sebastian of a woodland grotto. Ferns and orchids grew in small niches inside the shower proper, and indirect lighting lent the effect of moonlight in a dark forest.
A skylight overhead would give natural light during daytime, but now it was a fantasy of shadows and falling water, dark stone and soft lights with Lily standing in the middle, a forest nymph beneath a shower of rain. Wet, her hair hung well past her hips, a dark, sleek mantle rather than the tangle of loose tawny, coppery curls she’d worn earlier. Her skin glimmered like warm honey in the low lighting, her burnt umber nipples ruched now into taut points of arousal.
Sebastian stared at her, lost in her beauty, in the sleek muscles, long legs, and slightly rounded hips. She ignored him, which was probably better than he deserved. What an ass he’d been, but self-recrimination solved nothing, and after a moment, he let out a deep breath and stepped beneath the warm water.
Still she ignored him.
He pressed close against Lily’s back and wrapped her in a loose embrace. Water fell gently over his head and shoulders. Her breasts rested softly against his forearms. She leaned against him, tucking her head beneath his chin and her sleek bottom against his groin, sighing as she ran her long fingers over the tops of his thighs.
He kissed his way down her neck, over her shoulder, and across the curve of her jaw. Then he bent and placed kisses along her spine, over the rounded curve of her bottom. Finally, kneeling, he gently turned her toward him, lifted her left leg, and draped it over his shoulder.
She tangled her fingers in his hair for balance. Chuckling when she lightly tugged, he pressed his cheek against her inner thigh and inhaled the musky scent of aroused woman. Impatiently, Lily tilted her hips forward. Sebastian wrapped his hands around her hips, clutching her buttocks and holding her still as he nuzzled the soft curls between her thighs.
“Now, damn it!”
He lifted his head and laughed. “She speaks!” He sighed dramatically. “But only to give me orders. So demanding.” Then he leaned close and ran his tongue across her clit.
Lily groaned and laughed at the same time as he teased her with tiny licks and nips. If he was reading her right, this woman liked control. He imagined she was a voracious lover, used to getting her way, used to directing her men.
He really didn’t want to think of Lily with other men. For some reason, the wolven side, the one he usually worked so hard to call, rose up now and made his presence known.
Sebastian hadn’t realized he was such a possessive creature.
But it had to be the wolf telling him the best approach with this woman would be to take away her control. Sebastian agreed. He stroked her with his tongue and thought of shifting to lick deeper, but he’d already screwed things up as a wolf. It was enough to follow his creature’s suggestions without actually shifting. Tonight he’d make a point of not pushing her. Of giving her what she wanted.
Within reason.
Lily’s hands tightened in his hair as he licked and sucked between her legs. Water fell like warm rain against his back as he nipped at her labia and drew each sleek petal between his lips. He used his tongue to tease and lick her clitoris and the tiny hood surrounding it.
She must have been right on the edge. With just a couple of licks, her hands tightened in his wet hair and she arched her hips close against his mouth. Her body shuddered, and she cried out with her climax. Fighting his own powerful arousal, Sebastian licked faster, deeper, and she came again, harder this time, until she curled her lithe body around him, tugging almost frantically at his hair. Her taste filled his mouth, a flavor unique to Lily, an aphrodisiac like nothing he’d ever experienced. She was panting when, with a final lick, he stood, grabbed her around the waist, and forcefully bent her over the stone wall surrounding the shower.
The water stopped falling as they stepped away from whatever sensor must be controlling it, and now the silence was broken by the harsh sound of his breathing and Lily’s soft whimper as he positioned her on the smooth stones.
High enough to keep her feet off the ground, her bottom in the air, and her long hair lying in tangles on the polished stone floor below her head, it was the perfect height for sex. He wondered if she’d designed it that way, with this in mind. Wondered how many men had taken her this same way, but then he shoved that thought out of his head.
He had no right to such thoughts. He was the one here now, and she honored him with her generosity and giving nature. It was just the two of them, and that was more than he’d hoped.
He’d read more than enough of the polyamorous nature of the Chanku. Alternately disgusted and aroused by the thought of multiple partners, he’d held the images close. Images of men with men, women with women, all of them aroused, all of them together.
He didn’t need those visuals now. He had Lily, and he ran his palms over her sleek flanks, leaned close, and nipped the rounded curve of her buttock. Lily groaned, and the last of his fantasies fled. Lily Cheval was fantasy itself as she slapped the rock wall with both hands for balance, as he parted her legs and, without foreplay, rested the thick head of his cock against her.
Her gasps for air blended with his harsh breaths. The sounds of the last drops of water draining into the pipe beneath the shower and dripping from the stones, Lily’s soft whimpers, his thundering heart—all coming together in a powerful crescendo.
Lily’s hands slid across the stone wall, and he heard her fingers scrabbling for purchase on the rocks to hold herself steady. Her long, lean body writhed beneath him, and he wondered for a brief moment if he was being too rough, if he might be hurting her.
Almost as if Lily answered his brief thought, she raised her hips and pressed back against him, forcing his entry. Sebastian pushed forward, slowly, relentlessly working his way deep into her tight channel. She was sleek and hot, her muscles quivering and clenching along his full length.
And then, as if she’d turned on a switch, Lily’s thoughts entered his mind. Not words so much, but sensations as she shared the thick intrusion of his cock, forcing her vaginal walls to stretch and give way. Her nipples tightened and he sensed the sweet pain as if it were his own. Her arousal became his.
Her desire ruled his needs. Opening his mind, he shared his feelings, the way it felt when his balls brushed against her as he seated himself deep, the pulsing, clenching rhythm of her feminine muscles, the cool brush of air along his damp shaft when he slowly withdrew.
Again he drove deep, and again he retreated, his mind caught in an ever-escalating loop of sensation. A sweet yet musky scent filled his nostrils—Lily’s arousal and his own. Sounds, their small grunts and groans and harsh breaths magnified until his mind spun on overload. His muscles clenched, his body tightened, and he sank deep inside Lily, but there was no relief. She was all grasping muscles and sleek heat, holding him inside.