She took a breath, trying to still her frenetic heartbeat. “Do you know what you’re doing? What that does to me?”
“To the mind, a remembered emotion is no different from an emotion prompted by something in the present moment. If you were to vividly recall an argument you had with your boss a year ago, it would recreate the same physical response as having an argument right now. We’ve discovered that an emotion given to us by another as I just did to you does the same thing.”
“You know what you showed me, don’t you?”
His gaze held hers again, not letting go. “Yes, I know what I showed you.”
She licked her lips. “Isn’t it unfair, making me want you?”
“As you did to me a moment ago?”
His calm matter-of-fact handling of such a sensitive subject, such a
strange
subject, allowed her to deal with it as prosaically as he. She could acknowledge the truth. “I had forgotten about that.” But her cheeks still burned.
“It can get confusing,” he agreed, his tone even.
Friendly. “You may end up wondering what came first, like the chicken and the egg. That is why I had to show you that what I’m about to do next isn’t because of what you just showed me. That it isn’t your emotions goading me.”
Her heart gave a little jump. “What you mean is that you….” She took a deep breath, trying to finish the sentence, but she simply couldn’t.
These were concepts and words that only an hour ago were the stuff of fantasy movies and the types of novels she used to avoid. Now she
had
to deal with it, yet a part of her still felt ridiculously self-conscious and stupid using language that properly belonged to wizards and fairies.
Tell me this way if you can’t speak it aloud
. His voice sounded in her mind.
We two will never be able to hide from each other.
Jenna knew she would have to deal with the long term implications in his thoughts and that she had glimpsed in the memories he had shared with her. For now she took a deep breath and deliberately spoke aloud. “You wanted me before I gave you my thoughts. That is what you wanted to show me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
So I can show you this
….
The images/feelings came at her as a sensual junket, too entwined to differentiate or to separate out the perspective. Her body, naked, against his. Hot flesh against hot flesh, the overwhelming joy of sliding his cock into her, the heavy weight of her breasts in his hands, the shape of her nipples against his tongue and brushing his teeth. Her hair sliding across his chest and the intoxicating scent of it wreathing him. Softness. Warmth. Striving for the climax, straining against each other. Murmured delight….
Without warning, the glass in Jenna’s hand snapped at the base, giving way beneath the pressure of her fingers. The bowl of the glass smashed upon the table with a sodden crack. She jumped backwards, trying to avoid the cascade of water, her heart ricocheting against her ribs with more than surprise at the mishap.
The waiter hurried over to sop up the damage with a clean napkin, while Jenna attempted to pick up glass fragments with fingers that felt thick and clumsy. All the while she felt Rhys’ gaze upon her. He probably found her telling reaction amusing.
The waiter waved her hands away from the cloth. “No, no, your fingers. You will cut them, mademoiselle. Come, sit at another table. A clean table. Then we can clean up this mess and bother you no more.”
She had to look at Rhys then, to see if this was to his liking. She was shocked to realize that far from being amused, Rhys—finally—was showing
a reaction to their exchanges. His eyes had narrowed and she saw his breathing had quickened.
She didn’t want to move to another table. She wanted him to take her upstairs and do to her what he had just shown her. She wanted, oh, she wanted to screw, make love, fuck wildly, until she was an empty husk, drained and depleted.
She wanted, above all else, to feel him slide his cock into her. That supreme moment that only came once—the sweet novel pressure of him pushing into her, hard and hot and deeply satisfying. She threw the thought at him, realizing that already the trick came easier and took less concentration to manage.
She saw his broad chest lift on a sharp inhale. He looked at the waiter. “We’ll just pay and go.”
Rhys’ big hand rested on the small of her back as she headed for the elevators. He spoke in a quiet undertone. “The stairs are quicker.”
The elevator is more private
.
It seemed to take minutes for the elevator to arrive and for every second that ticked on, Jenna could feel the tension building. It almost crackled between them.
An image slide into her mind of the two of them inside the elevator car, frantically tearing off clothes, reaching for each other. Rhys’ hands on her bared breasts, the sound of their shortened breaths and the feel of her soft flesh….
Jenna’s clitoris throbbed in response and every fold of flesh between her legs was slippery with her juices. Ready.
When at last the elevator door slid back and showed it was empty, she almost gasped with relief. She hurried in. Rhys stepped in behind her and stabbed at the fifth floor button. Had he taken that information from her mind?
The doors slid shut with indeterminable slowness but even before they met in the middle, Rhys’ hands were on her shoulders, turning her to face him.
He picked her up by the waist and carried her backward until she was up against the wall. The grab-rail propped her up, her head level with Rhys’.
She wrapped her legs around his waist.
He cupped her face. “Beautiful.” His voice was thick with an emotion she knew was lust rapidly whirling out of control.
“Do what you must, Rhys.” Her own voice was rough, too. She couldn’t find the words to describe the primal needs in her and the desire to be
taken
in a way that would mark her indelibly, that would change her.
His dark eyes glittered in the harsh light of the elevator. “I know.” He kissed her. She realized she had told him what she had wanted, after all. She had passed all her thoughts on to him.
His lips were hard and demanding and his tongue invaded her. She opened herself up to him physically and mentally, in every way possible. His hands rested against her, steadying her, before sliding up to capture her breasts through her sweater.
She gripped him tightly with her thighs, trying to draw him even closer. Their kiss extended and grew deeper, until the shudder of the elevator coming to a halt brought them back to the present moment.
Jenna led him down the corridor. Her room was at the far end and the corridor seemed to stretch for a mile and take forever to traverse.
When she finally faced the door, she couldn’t get the card into the slot.
Her hand shook too much. “Goddamn it.”
Rhys’ hand came over hers, halting her stabs. He guided her fingers, his own hot and hard against them. The heavy bolts thudded aside and she pushed the door open and flicked on the lights, threw her coat and shopping bag onto the chair that sat just inside the door.
She turned back to face Rhys and pushed him back against the door, throwing herself at him.
He wound his arms around her, holding her in a tight grip. His strong hand buried in her hair and pulled her head gently backwards, lifting her face and her lips up to him. He claimed her mouth with a searing kiss.
Pressed against him as she was, Jenna could fee his trembling.
He tugged at her sweater.
“Wait.” She pulled up the right sleeve of her sweater to get at the spring-loaded forearm sheath that held her knife and disengaged the spring. Then she slipped off the sheath and tossed it on the floor behind her. “If you had tugged at the sleeve it might have unloaded by itself. It’s a hair-trigger spring.”
He grabbed her waist and pulled her back to him. “And you want to be taken….”
You’re the only man in this world that can
, she told him.
He groaned, even as his lips claimed hers again. He kept kissing her as he pulled her sweater over her head and discarded it. She felt him tug on her jeans and the denim drifted down around her hips. He loosened her bra as the jeans slid lower and she pulled away from his lips long enough to kick off her boots and socks before the denim puddled around her ankles.
Then Rhys lowered her to the carpet, right there next to the door and understanding flared in her. He was out of time and out of patience. It would be now. Here.
His haste sent a thrill through her, making her nerves tingle almost painfully. All her senses were hyper-alert, absorbing every sensual stimulus. The carpet against her ass and back, Rhys’ harsh breath, the heat of his hands against her flesh.
He pulled both her jeans and her panties away together, stripping her from the waist down with one impatient tug. Jenna shrugged out of the bra, the last item she wore, as Rhys settled on his knees between her thighs. She reached for his jeans and undid them quickly, as he slid out of his shirt. The need to hurry was goading them both, now.
Despite her haste and her crumbling composure, Jenna found herself growing still for one quiet heartbeat as she gazed upon Rhys’ naked chest and shoulders and at the ripple of muscles under his lightly tanned skin.
He had a fine line of hair that feathered down into the open fly of his jeans, a subtle arrow.
And he had scars.
She had seen scars like that before, but never so many on one man. They were a crazy quilt of slices, scrapes, grazes, knife wounds and lines of thick scar tissue tracing old stitched wounds.
That is what a soldier would look like after years of hard action.
She carefully shielded the thought from Rhys.
He slid out of his jeans and she caught her breath as she saw his cock for the first time. The thick member throbbed visibly and her heart gave a small electrified jump as she anticipated what it would feel like when he slid into her. Her vagina and clit throbbed in reaction. Deliberately, she pushed the thought to him.
“Hurry,” she added.
He leaned over her and she welcomed his weight. She gripped his back and wound her leg over his hip. The blunt tip of his cock pushed gently against her slick cleft and she gave a little moan and shifted, spreading her thighs and trying to ease his access and draw him into her.
“Jenna.” He was watching her face.
“Ah, you’re teasing.”
“I’m…savouring.” His voice was thick and hoarse. “I have waited a long time for this moment.”
“
This
moment?” she asked. “This right now,
this
moment?”
“Oh, yes. This very moment…
here
.” His cock pushed into her in a very slow, continuous motion that brushed every nerve ending.
She opened up to accept him, sheathing the penetrating width of him, until finally he rested completely inside her and his pelvis pressed against her clit.
She groaned, her eyes closing, as she savoured it, too.
Rhys picked up her hand, his fingers curling through and over hers and brought it to his mouth. He kissed the back of her hand, his lips hot.
The magical moment passed.
Jenna`s body rallied and grew taut.
She wanted more. The sheath of muscle around his cock clenched and he gave a low laugh. “More?”
“Yes.” Her voice was strained.
He thrust slowly and she caught her breath at the deep pleasure each motion pushed through her. Her body tensed and her breath became ragged. Every corpuscle contracted with delicious tension. She was going to climax within seconds and she looked up at Rhys, surprised. Quickly, she thrust the sensations at him.
He kissed her. “Yes. Come for me,” he whispered. “Show me.”
She closed her eyes and opened her mind up in the new way, sinking herself into the swiftly building climax.
Her feelings were being enhanced.
She could feel Rhys’ sensations, too.
It was a strange sense of doubling. She saw/felt both of their feelings: The familiar, satisfying sensation of having a man’s cock buried deep inside her, hot and hard.
Then, on top of that known feeling, there was an experience of being inside her. It was odd, but the associated feelings were intensely pleasurable…the soft pressure of her muscled pussy around him, the silvery delicate stroke at the sensitive head of his cock as he withdrew and pushed back in, her overwhelming heat and softness.
All of it rising to a hard, swooshing climax that was building, it seemed, from his toes.
It overwhelmed her. With a cry that tore at her throat, Jenna climaxed. The shock wave of sensations rolled through her body and mind, blurred and doubled by Rhys’ orgasm, as he locked into a tight bow against her with a guttural groan.
For a moment the world grayed around Jenna as her climax throbbed and pulsed through her, wave after wave.
Rhys was stroking her cheek with his thumb, watching her, when she finally took notice of her surroundings once more. He looked sleepy, with his half-closed eyes, but his eyes glittered with the same intensity she had first noticed.
“Oh my,” she murmured. “Do you always share like that? How do you stop the top of your head from exploding?”
“I’ve never shared like that.” He leaned down and kissed her while she assimilated his answer. The kiss was sweet, slow and deep, then his lips moved down to her throat, while his hand swooped up to capture her breast. She recalled the sense/thought he had given her, his hand feeling the weight of her breast, stroking the nipple and gave a small sigh as his fingertips slid over her responsive flesh, sending a ripple of delight through her.
Her body stirred again, responding. His cock, buried in her, was still hard and she contracted around him.
“Mmm….” His lips moved against her collar bone.
She cupped his ass cheeks and squeezed, then slid her hands up the length of his back to his shoulders, feeling more scars beneath her fingertips and the play of muscles and tendons beneath his flesh.
When his mouth took in her nipple and his tongue stroked the tip, the sparks of excitement that flitted through her made her hands drop to the floor and try to dig into the carpet. She groaned. He knew exactly what to do, the most sensuous stroking, the perfect caress.
Her body quivered with renewed excitement. The breath-robbing, surging waves swept through her, sensitizing nerves again.
“Yes.” His tone sounded almost triumphant, as he transferred his attention to her other breast, his weight shifting over her.
“What are you doing to me?” she demanded, and gasped as his teeth closed around her other nipple and tugged.
“Changing you. Making sure you are never the same again.”
Jenna gave a deeper shiver beneath the delightful tremors he sent through her. She knew he would get his way. The process had already begun.
She could never look at the world the same way as she had even this morning.
Not anymore.
He lifted himself up carefully, picked up her hips and with an athletic movement she’d never seen before, lifted her up so she straddled his thighs. His cock had remained inside her the entire time and now she felt him push even deeper as she settled over him.
Then he got to his feet, sliding her legs around his waist, and moved into the room.
He sat on the bed with her and grinned impishly.
The expression made him seem young and carefree. “That’s much better,” he told her.
Jenna unwrapped her legs from around his waist and pushed at his shoulder.
It was like trying to move a boulder the size of a house and just as unproductive.
He didn’t move.
“Lie down,” she commanded, instead.
He obeyed, lying back on the bed.
His cock moved within her, the head rubbing against the slippery muscles there, stroking in a deeply intimate way.
She leaned over him, pleased in a feminine way to realize she had to spread her arms wide to do so. With a wicked grin of her own, she lifted herself up so his cock slipped almost all the way out of her, then slowly lowered herself back down.