He was a Spartan. A hawk warrior whose eternal life had been spent in protecting humans from darkness and danger. A thrill sang through her own veins, a rush of love and need so intense that her eyes filled with tears.
“I need more of you,” she cried, pressing her face against his chest, loving the way his light hairs tickled her face. She inhaled his earthy scent, savoring it.
Leaning into him, eyes closed, she trailed her fingertips all along first one wing, then the other. A hushed, hypnotic silence spun between them as if time itself had stopped for this one, shared moment.
As she became more aggressive with those strokes, he moaned, a low, rumbling sound that vibrated through her. Arching, he pressed his chest outward. Inviting, she was sure, more intimacy . . . and letting her know how her touch pleasured him.
She moved her hands farther down, to his waist. Stroking the small of his back, she did something very daring: slid her fingers beneath the band of his pants. She could feel the firm shape and muscle of his buttocks, and the muscles flexed at her touch. Ever since he’d landed on the balcony and she’d gotten her first glimpse of his beautiful, unusual body, she’d been growing damp between her legs. Now, feeling the sculpted strength of his form, that wetness intensified, as did that aching, burning sensation that she knew only he could satisfy . . . by entering her.
But there was something she needed first, desperately. “Please, Aristos,” she asked. “Turn around so I can see your wings.”
He hesitated a moment, then slowly complied, pivoting so that all she could see was the broad, unusual expanse of the appendages. Her gaze roved over first one wing, then the other, and she studied every feather. Then, spreading her hands wide, she reached out, feeling them with long, indulgent strokes.
He released a piercing cry, a hawk’s reaction, and she pressed her face into the feathers, breathing him in. They tickled her nose, her cheek, but she didn’t stop. Very gently, she began pressing kisses along his right wing, rubbing her lips along that prickly length. The wing jerked, and flapped a moment, then settled again. Gently, she moved her attentions to the other one, showering it with slow, velvet kisses.
“I love you. All of you,” she murmured, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms about his thick waist. She was lost in his otherworldly body, tantalized by his strangeness, his beauty. “You’re gorgeous. I want more of you.”
In a flurry of feathers and motion, he turned, pulling her against his chest. The wings pressed forward, wrapping her close, and she could feel his thick arousal. It jutted into her belly, more threatening than his wings could ever be—and equally exciting.
He thrust his hips forward, groaning as he murmured her name. The sound was foreign, changed because he was transformed, she realized. With a wildly beating heart, she dared to slide her hand between them, stroking the pronounced bulge in the front of his pants. His wings shuddered and unfurled wide at his sides.
She withdrew her hand and took a backward step. For long moments, they simply regarded each other. Then, never breaking that soul-binding stare, she reached to the top of her corset and began opening it.
He wasn’t about to let her do his job, he thought, and took her hand in his much bigger one. He felt ham-fisted and awkward because of his size; she was a delicate, fine-boned china sculpture, and he was the proverbial bull in the shop, but such facts hardly mattered. Not with the way she watched him through hooded eyes, the tip of her tongue darting across her lips, her pupils dilated to pure black. Everything in her expression shouted need and desire—and an unwillingness to wait a moment longer to have her longing fulfilled.
As gently as he could, he led her toward the king-sized bed. His wings fell heavily across his back, tickling the bare skin. He flashed on an image right then, of Jules writhing and naked beneath him, those same wings brushing the bare legs she wrapped about his torso.
In a flurry of fevered motion, they were on the bed, tangling together in a graceless, surging motion.
“Gotta get these clothes . . . off,” he cursed, but she was already beating him to it. She had her fingers working at his zipper, struggling to lower it. The task was made much more difficult by the way his cock punched against the thing. As if his hard-on could find its own way out of his pants and into her beautiful hands.
After a moment, she sighed, reclining against the pillows. “I think you’d better take over this job, my love.”
He knelt beside her and cautiously unzipped his pants, pushing them down about his thighs. He’d worn boxers, and immediately his erection jutted out through the opening, the air cool against his heated flesh.
With a slow, catlike smile, she studied his erection. “I suppose, long as you’ve lived, that you knew Michelangelo.”
He grinned like a fool, beaming at the praise.
“For surely,” she added, drawing in a breath, “you represent his ideal of masculine beauty.”
His wings spread behind him, dragging across the bedspread. That wouldn’t do. This moment, this joining of their bodies, should be graceful, easy. He swallowed, and absorbed the feathered appendages again.
She leaned up on her elbow. “Later? You’ll . . . have them again? For me?”
“Anything Juliana Tiades wants, milady shall have,” he promised, wondering what she’d make of the soft down that covered his pubic area when in hawk form.
She collapsed onto the pillow with a delighted grin. “I want to be naked, wrapped all in your feathers,” she said, and he blinked in shock, afraid he might come just from thinking about that idea.
With a heady, intoxicated groan, he followed her down onto the pillows. She parted her thighs, welcoming him much closer, and he began working at her layered bustle. Lifting it up about her hips, so he could settle between her legs, he was overcome by the image of her as a birthday present, one intended only for him.
“You said you wanted me to unfasten you,” he reminded her with a growl. “That night when you’d ordered the French lingerie.”
“I want you to open me. Completely, Aristos, because everything I am is for you . . . so I should belong to you completely, too,” she encouraged, staring up into his eyes. He must have hesitated, because she nodded, dragging his right hand to the front of her corset. “Unbind me, Aristos. We’ve waited so long for each other. Make me yours for all time.”
As if by some unspoken agreement, they began peeling away the layers together. Ari’s pants went flying across the room in a balled-up heap; her lingerie vanished beneath his deft fingers. And then they were bare, totally, with no separation between their bodies at all.
“Take me,” she urged, pulling him down atop her own body. “We should never have been denied this moment. . . . Please, make me yours now.”
She twisted her hands through his hair, tongue mirroring that motion inside his mouth. They were all motion and heat, hands caressing each other. Rocking together, hip to hip, a crazy tempo already going between them . . . and he wasn’t even inside of her yet.
Angling his hips, he pressed the tip of his erection against her slick opening. He wasn’t sure any woman had ever been so wet for him. It was important to be gentle, but he almost wondered whether he was capable of restraint, what with the way she lifted her hips, urging him inside of her.
He shifted his weight, pushing more firmly, and she gave a light yelp. He lifted his body, but she instantly seized his hips, urging him back to her.
“You . . . surprised me; that’s all.” She panted slightly, burying her face in his long hair. “Do it, Ari. I’m ready; it’s okay.”
“I’m a big guy,” he warned her, narrowing his eyes as he studied her much smaller body beneath his own. “It’s gonna hurt a little, but I’ll be good to you, baby. I’ll make it as painless as possible . . . and as sweet as you deserve. Then the really fantastic part comes right after. I promise.”
He leaned on his elbows, needing to look right into her eyes, but his sweaty hair waved across his face. She brushed it back, keeping that palm against his cheek. His late-afternoon beard shadowed his face, and she rubbed her fingers across it, frowning slightly.
“Juliana,” he said slowly. “Don’t look away from me. I don’t want to hurt you; you know that. So let’s move through it together. You and me, sweetheart.”
After a moment, she gave a resolute nod. He started to apologize for the impending pain, for his monumental size—that he was bigger than a mortal man. But she cut the words off with a kiss, cupping his face between both her palms. She moaned and said, “Ari, do it. Now.”
And so he did.
Having learned as a child that pain was best endured swiftly and without hesitation, he gave a single, jolting thrust, sheathing himself fully inside her. She tensed, a sharp little cry passing her lips, and he held his entire body still, even though he all he wanted was to start moving deeper within her.
Better for the pain to have its way, and then the sensation would be done. Forgotten, too, because he planned to obliterate it from her mind and body—to replace it with a series of pleasures so heavenly, there’d be no way she would recall this momentary unpleasantness.
She sucked in a breath and clung to him, her fingers digging into his broad shoulders. He waited, his forehead pressed against hers. At last, she relaxed, sighing beneath him.
She smiled up at him. “You’re inside me,” she whispered in amazement, stroking his face. “It feels . . . odd. But beautiful.”
“It gets better,” he murmured, giving a hesitant thrust.
Her eyes widened in surprise, and she gasped. He stilled again. Then, she wrapped her arms about his neck, nodding decisively. “I’m ready.”
She’d spent enough time imagining this moment, Juliana thought, and yet she’d never come near its real power. As Ari began to move and push inside her, the waves of pleasure were more than she’d ever thought possible. But it was so much more than that, so profound, this realization that he was literally inside of her, the two of them separated by nothing at all. She clung harder, pressing her eyes shut at the wonder of it.
You are one with me. . . .
She couldn’t stop shivering and thrilling at the knowledge that, after their years of physical separation by death and eternity, they were now totally joined; nothing could ever separate them again. Ari moaned loudly, almost seeming to sense her thoughts; he arched his long back. They made sounds of pleasure, free- falling into each other. He was hesitant and gentle at times, demanding and aggressive at others, but all of his motions seemed calibrated to heighten her pleasure and satisfaction.
Ari was every bit the romantic, tender partner she’d always known he would be. He had proven determined to pleasure her, driven by the same crashing need that was compelling her onward—that had her wrapping her legs tighter about his waist. Already she was discovering that doing so would draw him deeper within her, create a sparking jolt of pleasure in her deepest places—while eliciting a leonine purr from his full lips.
Yet no matter how deep he surged or how overwhelmed she felt with the lust and heat of it all, she couldn’t seem to get enough. So she clasped his hips, speeding his rhythm, matching it with her own frantic motions.
This, he clearly liked very, very much. For he growled, shifting her slightly so that he pushed even deeper.
She moved her arms up to caress his back, holding him close, rising with every one of his movements. But it wasn’t enough—she needed even more, a part of him that he was holding back.
As her pleasure spiraled upward, stealing her breath, she moaned, “Wings. I want you, Ari. All . . . of you!”
They came alive beneath her fingertips immediately, prickling the skin of her palms as they lengthened and expanded across his back. At that instant, pleasure trembled like a quake through her own body, her slickness gripping about him. Ari increased the friction and pace, hammering into her with murmured cries of wonder, pleasure. He whispered tender Greek words that she couldn’t understand, and then he arched upward, wings beating with tremendous, rushing motions that mirrored the way his erection jerked inside of her.
Rolling waves of intense pleasure spun through her body, between the two of them; they clung and moved, riding the sensations to completion. Until, utterly spent, they simply held each other.
Trembling, awed, they pressed their faces together—she began to sob in response to the wild sweep of emotions, hot tears rolling down her face. She couldn’t have stopped them, not if she’d wanted to. Especially once she realized that she tasted more than her own tears.
Face burrowed against her shoulder, massive shoulders trembling against hers . . . Ari wept silently, too.
Chapter 23
“W
ell, that’s one mystery solved,” Ari drawled. He was lying on his belly with one large wing curling her right up against him. “You’re a wing chick. And you like me. You really, really like me.”
“I love you!” she blurted in dismay. Didn’t he understand the depth of her feelings by now?
He only nestled her closer, wedging her flush against his hip. “I love you more.”
“So it’s a contest?”
“Spartans are competitive about everything, Jules.”
She frowned, a niggling thought edging at her mind. “I know my history, don’t forget.”
He grinned, propping his chin on both forearms. “Yeah, you know we were glorious.”
“I know you were
married
. That you were required to have at least one son; that it was the only way any Spartan was allowed to fight at Thermopylae.”
His smile vanished. “I had three.”
“Wives?” she gasped, and he cut his eyes at her.
“Woman, I thought you just said you knew your history! We weren’t polygamists,” he snarled, and then more quietly added, “I had three sons. Amazing little men . . .” He rested his cheek on the pillow again, facing her. “I miss them every day. That’s not something I ever admit to anyone, by the way.”