Healing Eden (22 page)

Her lips parted, more than a little surprise coloring her expression.

Instinct pulled him, urged him to erase the confusion on her face with his kiss and with slow teasing touches.

Histus, he’d just promised her he wouldn’t push her and now he was fantasizing just that. He opened the door to the shed and squeezed her elbow. “Go inside. I think you’ll like what you find.”

She blinked, studied him a second, and stepped across the threshold. Her gasp fluttered back to him, carried on the scent of rich, damp soil and herbs. Plants of all kinds lined either side of five rows and along the back wall. “These are yours?”

“Me?” He followed her inside, snatched the towel he’d tossed down with his shirt, and wiped his brow. “Praise the Great One, no. I’m surprised my mother even let me in here. I can kill them with a single look.”

Her lightness was back in full force, her strides quick to roam the aisles of all his mother’s favorite plants.

He settled in to enjoy her response. “I hired a nearby couple to keep the farm up. The wife loves plants as much as mom did.”

Galena dipped to sniff a tiny pink flower with sharply pointed petals and traced the leaf beside it. She stopped at the drishen bush nestled at the far corner and lightly flipped one berry so it wiggled on its tendril. “My brothers used to eat these until they made themselves sick. These are a lighter color than what we grow at the castle though, more white instead of pink.”

He looped the towel around the back of his neck and held tight to both ends. If he was smart, he’d keep his distance and stay out of trouble. He took two steps forward anyway, then two more, close enough to tempt himself, but not quite enough to touch. “Try one.”

She reached for a cluster higher on the bush and traced the rib of a fat leaf. The sun streamed in from the skylights and accented the sweep of auburn hair down her nape. Stretched in that position, her breasts strained the top of her gown. It would take two, maybe three seconds for him to get the bodice unlaced.

“What am I to you?” Galena murmured.

His brain clambered up from its single-track strategy on how to get her naked. Drishen. They’d been talking about drishen.

“Earlier,” she added still studying the fruit. “You said, ‘if you choose me.’ How can I choose if I don’t know what I am to you?” She lowered her hand and turned, her raw vulnerability cranking his protective inclinations to full bore. “Am I a fling? A passing interest? A curiosity? A—”

“Everything.”

Shit. So much for no pressure. His knuckles protested his grip on the towel and his forearms ached from the morning’s hard use. Did he keep going? Or try to keep things light?

Fuck waiting. She was here of her own free will. If he’d learned anything the last few months it was to face the challenges life threw him head on. “I keep thinking about how to make my life right. Everything I’ve missed and everything I want. For me, it all comes back to you.” He stepped closer, only inches and her sweet scent between them. The rough towel grated beneath his fists. “But I won’t hide. Not anymore. So the question is, what do you want from me?”

She studied him, his face, his bound hair, down his neck to his chest, and his belly. She traced the top ridge of his abdominals and her voice cracked. “I’m scared.” Slick from the sweat still on his skin, her fingers slid up, slow until her palm covered his heart. “But I’m not torn. Not in this.”

The touch rippled through him, contractions spearing to the base of his cock. Everything he wanted was right here, his if he’d dare to reach for it. But he couldn’t pressure her. She had enough of that already. It had to be her choice. Her desire. He covered her hand with his, the beat of his heart reverberating through the touch. “You’re sure?”

She leaned close and the turquoise in her eyes glittered bright. Her heated exhalations danced across his skin. “I’ve come for you. Twice.”

She meant visited. Surely that’s what she meant.

With a tentative, yet innocently wicked lick, she sampled the skin along his sternum. “I’d say that shows certainty.” She dipped her head as though to make another pass.

“No.” He pulled away, not enough to break contact, but enough to let him catch his breath. Without conscious direction, he buried his hand in the hair at her nape, fisting the thickness in a loose grip. “Come inside where it’s safer. I’ll shower and we’ll—”

“I don’t want safer.” She held his stare, regaining the distance he’d created. “Don’t cosset me. Let me feel.” She kissed his chest, lips parted and tongue trailing a wanton path. “Let me fly.”

He tightened his hold, every scrap of his attention lasered on her plump, perfect mouth and the press of her soft breasts. Her white teeth peeked out for no more than a heartbeat, and he imagined them digging deep for a sweet, torturous pain. She wanted to fly? Fuck, he’d make her soar. “You didn’t try one.”

Lips still pressed to his skin she lifted her gaze, eyelids heavy, yet questioning.

He turned her and wrapped one arm across her collarbone to grip her shoulder, tucking her back against his front. Drishen berries dangled high overhead. With a quick snap, he pulled one pearl fruit free and brought it to her lips. “Open.”

Her heart fluttered beneath his arm. Dropping her head to rest on his shoulder, she opened her mouth, gaze locked to his.

He pressed the fruit against her mouth. “Bite.”

Damn, if the color of her eyes didn’t deepen. Her perfect little teeth rent the delicate flesh in half and her eyes closed on a quiet moan. “Sweet.” She licked her lip. “Like lemonade without the bite.”

A marauding, almost feral need to claim and possess clawed past the last scrap of his reason. She was his to taste and touch, to consume. He ran the halved fruit along her lip and tossed the fruit aside. “My turn.”

Her pupils dilated and her warm breath fluttered against his face.

He lowered his head and licked, her full, soft lips slightly parted and coated in the sweet, delicious juice. Her wet heat and fruit drenched taste sucked him in, overriding everything but the need to claim and dominate.

She moaned into his mouth and stretched back, cupping the back of his head and arching so her soft ass ground against his cock.

He nipped her jaw and cupped her breasts, her beaded nipples teasing his palms through the fabric. He tweaked the taut points. “I want you naked.” He grazed her neck with his teeth. “Right here, right now.”

Her husky groan wrapped around him, and her hands covered his and squeezed in encouragement.

“Tell me, Galena.” He ground his hips against her, prodding her with the pulsing hardness she’d created. “Tell me you’ll take what I give you.”

She urged his mouth back to hers and whispered against his lips. “Everything.”

* * * *

Galena’s fingers tangled in Reese’s bound hair, his chest against her back, her neck craned to meet each slick lash of his tongue against hers. The position was awkward and limited the depth of how she answered his kiss, but no way was she shifting from the firm clasp of his hands on her breasts.

He pinched the tight peaks and she gasped.

His voice rasped against her lips. “Here all this time and you haven’t asked.” He nipped then sucked the sting he’d left behind. “You noticed my hair. Why not ask me why it’s bound?”

She’d more than noticed, had actually volleyed back and forth between thrill at the thought he’d done it for her, and utter rage he’d bound it for someone else. In the end, she’d been afraid to mention it.

“Ask.” His thumbs flicked her nipples.

“Why?”

His lips skated the shell of her ear, and flutters danced down her neck.

“You.” He growled, a delicious vibration. “I can’t think beyond you. Can’t want beyond you.” He spun her, throwing her off center so she fell against him, his heartbeat against her palm furious. “Free it.” Not a request, but a command thick with need.

Quivers rippled through her belly and her thighs tensed. She wasn’t sure what provoked her more, the intimate act or the dark demand. “You’re too tall.”

He traced the exposed curves at the top of her bodice, drawing slow, tantalizing patterns and leaving gooseflesh in their wake. The corner of his mouth lifted, a smile of sorts, but wicked as he eased to his knees and trailed a hand down her leg. “You’d better hurry, Lena. My mouth’s that much closer to heaven.” Slipping his hand under the hem of her gown and coiling it around her ankle, he slid one sandal free. “Once my tongue’s between your thighs, I might not stop.”

His words jolted through her, and a steady ache centered at her core. She fumbled with the knot holding his hair in place. Already he’d removed her other sandal and she’d barely managed to breathe, let alone release the tight strands.

He tugged the ties of her over-bodice, unwinding the laces while his other hand skated up, up, up the back of her leg beneath her skirt. “Focus, Sweetheart.” He teased her thigh, ghosting his fingers to the inside, then out along the seam between her leg and ass. “Free me so I can make you burn and beg.”

She jerked at the band holding the mess in place and it snapped against her fingers. It should have hurt, should have brought a curse to her lips, but every neuron focused on his touch.

He pulled the bodice loose, leaving only the crimson underslip. “I think you want to burn.” He rose, towering over her like a wild god, the tawny mass of his hair no more tame than a lion’s. “Do you want to beg? To scream?”

God, yes, she wanted that. No propriety, and no formality, just raw, uninhibited passion.

Not waiting for an answer, he turned her and worked the buttons along her back. Open to her waist, warm greenhouse air brushed her bared skin as his knuckles circled the small of her back. “I love your skin.” He nudged her hair to expose her neck and nuzzled behind one ear. “The color and the way it tastes.” Torturously slow, he eased the fabric past the curve of her shoulders. The slip swooshed to the stone floor and left her bare. “Perfect.”

Every nerve ending pricked to attention, craving his next touch. The leather from his pants whispered along her thighs. “What do you want Galena. What do you crave next?”

“Your voice.” The answer ripped free before she could overthink it, and her skin tingled in anticipation. “The things you say and how you say them.” She leaned back, gaining what ease she could from the hard press of him. “I feel them everywhere, like a touch from the inside out.”

Reese inhaled slow and deep, a sound so sensual it ricocheted along her flesh. He gripped her hips, one hand sliding in to span her abdomen. “You feel it here.”

She whimpered, his touch so blatantly possessive she nearly wept.

“And between your legs.” His fingers dipped, stopping at the top of her cleft. “Is your pussy wet, Galena? Will you be slick for me? My tongue?”

Her legs shook, close to giving way.

“You do like the words.” He kept teasing her, so close, and yet forever away from the building thrum at her clit. He ground his cock against her ass, thick and hard as stone. “I like them too. Give them to me. Tell me where you want my fingers.”

If only she could. The words sat on the tip of her tongue, erotic images fueling her unspoken vocabulary, all of them wrong and horribly improper.

His tempting whisper tickled her ear. “Tell me. You’re safe with me.” One hand pinned her hips in place, the other teased her thighs. “Nothing you can say…nothing you can want or do is wrong. Not with me.”

God he was close. A breath away from where she needed his touch.

“It’s only us.” His voice stroked her everywhere, low and sultry like velvet sin. “Let go.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped his forearms. “Please.” Every part of her shook, desperate and demanding she obey. “Touch me.”

“More.”

Her lungs burned and her breasts ached. “Your fingers, I want to feel them slide between my legs.”

“Where?”

Oh, God. He wanted that word. So damned wrong, but exactly what she wanted. She didn’t want safe. Isn’t that what she’d told him? Her hips flexed forward, seeking the contact he withheld. All she had to do was say it. “My pussy.” Heat rushed to her cheeks, but a spear of pleasure rippled through her core. “I want your fingers on my pussy. Inside me.”

Reese growled, the slow-rolling animalistic call of a predator who’d sighted its prey. He dipped his fingers and stroked exactly as she’d asked. “You’re drenched.” He teased her entrance, dragging the moisture up to circle her clit. The steady rhythm reverberated along her arms and legs. “What else? Lift your breasts, show me how you want them touched and tell me what you need.”

It was too much. She opened her eyes and the environment crashed in on her. They were in the open, exposed where anyone could walk in.

“Look at me.” Reese cupped her chin, urging her to face him with one hand while the other kept its enticing pattern. His emerald green eyes were nearly black with passion. “You’re safe.”

He’d die to protect her. Where the thought came from, or how the certainty landed at such a moment she didn’t know and didn’t care, but he’d give her anything and everything she asked, even what she craved and feared the most.

“Let it out.” He swiped his tongue along her lower lip. “No judgment.” He sealed his lips against hers, and undulated his hips against her ass in a rhythm to match his fingers.

Something savage built inside her, a powerful and ruthless force that sent fissures through all the weighted rules that had governed her life. This was her chance to fly, free from everything but the sensations crackling between them. She cupped her heavy, aching breasts and widened her stance to give him better access.

The pad of his finger circled her entrance and his thumb brushed her swollen clit.

Head thrown back on Reese’s shoulder, she cried out, and her eyes flashed opened to the midday sun pouring through the greenhouse panes above.

“There she is.” Reese thrust his finger deep. “So fucking sweet.” He added a second finger, and her sex clamped around him.

Ah, God, sweet wasn’t right. This was pure rawness, everything carnal and wicked she’d ever wanted. “Reese.” She slanted forward and sent three tiny plants flying from the workbench. He’d said he’d make her beg and he was right. She’d do anything. Hips lifted, she pushed against him. “Please.”