Djinn & Tonic (The Houri Legends: Book 2), page 14
“It’s okay. I’m protected.” He still hesitated. “It’s okay. I’m protected. Trust me.” His eyes searched her, and found what they were looking for. He relaxed, assuming she meant she was on birth control. Close enough.
Now, the only thought in her head was for him, for the final culmination of what had seemed like an eternity of holding back, of keeping away and telling herself no. In this moment, the answer was yes, and that filled her. She lifted up again, one hand propping her up, the other holding the hot, trembling hardness of him, pushing the tip against her cleft, gasping at the pressure.
Leila sank down slowly, millimeter by throbbing millimeter, swallowing him with delightful, excruciating slowness. Her gasp of pleasure turned to a moan as she collapsed forward to kiss him, clumsily and hungrily, still driving him deeper inside herself. He tried to thrust up, but she matched his motion by pulling back. He grunted in protest, and she kissed him, putting her hands by his face. She wrapped her arms under his head and bowed her back upwards to pull almost off him. Pure ecstasy rocketed and raged through her, and she drank in every nanosecond of it. She was quivering with the tip of him barely inside her, then plunged her hips down to take him all the way in and she knew he was nearly there, about to explode already, and she held them there, him buried so deep their hip bones were ground together. Her lips were against his neck, their breathing synced, the winds raging around them, the magic billowing through them.
She was caught up in momentary flashes of sight through his eyes, feeling what he felt. Leila latched onto that fleeting sensation she knew was him: alien, strange and disconcerting, but also intensely erotic, a feeling of maleness in her mind. She briefly experienced the sensation of bulky muscles tensed to hold back, feeling her lips on his neck, but it wasn’t her neck, it was his, and she was him now, completely—
My hands are rough and big, touching her back so gently, cupping her ass and wanting to pull her closer but holding still, stroking her spine and tangling my fingers in her hair, every muscle in my body flexed in the effort to hold back and I’m God so hard so deep inside her and she’s so hot so wet so tight around me and I’m about to explode, not just come, but literally explode heart mind body and soul and she’s holding me back, keeping me just this side of the edge, holding perfectly still, barely breathing and Holy Lord I’ve never ever experienced anything like this in my life, and I want to rock myself into her drive into her but she’s not there yet, I want it to be together—
Leila withdrew back into her own mind, so disoriented she might have fallen over except for Carson holding her in place. His eyes were boring into hers, seeking, asking, bright with wonder. He must have felt a similar reversal, felt her throbbing with pulsating wetness, desperate to drive him in deeper but holding back, not to tease or torture, but to draw every moment of heaven from his presence within her as she could. She had never felt such ecstasy as this moment with Carson, never felt such love as radiated into her from his being. She wanted it to last forever, but he was aching with need and she could feel it. He was tensed and waiting, wondering and holding himself back with a Herculean effort.
“I don’t know…what just happened,” she breathed. “I’ve never…I don’t know.”
She had drawn it out as long as she could, and now it was his turn. She pulled her hips up so he slipped out of her. He went rigid all over, his jaw clenching. Leila lay down on her back, waiting, wanting him to resume control.
His gaze was hooded with need, every muscle in his body still tense and trembling with unspent passion. Leila knew he would explode the moment he was back inside, and that was exactly what she wanted. She had never known desire like this before, never known such primal need. It was pure heaven there with him, every single second of pleasure a moment she would remember for as long as she lived.
He crawled toward her with predator grace, his body long and lean and hard, every muscle defined in the golden glow of late afternoon sunlight. He was a god then, male perfection embodied, sexual power and masculine strength defined. Leila’s breath hitched as she watched him approach. Love was too small a word to contain what she felt for him in that moment, too insignificant to express the universe of emotion in her ifriti soul.
His knees pushed between hers, pushing them apart, his mouth kissing Leila’s thighs, her pubic bone and belly and chest. Now his teeth grazed her nipple, nipping gently and suddenly, so she squealed softly. His hand wrapped around her other breast and kneaded it, then switched. His hand dropped away from her breast and moved downward between her legs, brushed her opening gently, then pushed a single finger in, moving in a circle. Another finger slipped in and he was moving them around inside her, looking for just the right spot. She was already wet with arousal, but when he found that spot and pressed his fingers to it so tenderly, so carefully, and circled it she gushed even more, thrusting her hips into his hand as he moved in a slow-fast-slow-fast rhythm, taking her higher and bringing her back down and then back up.
Leila had meant to draw him into her and make him explode, but he distracted her, and then oh, god, he was doing it again, and she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe for the pulsating rocking series of explosions that erupted deep inside and she needed him, all of him, now, now, god now.
She pulled him up and stroked his arousal with both hands, rubbing his tip with her thumbs and palm.
“Take me,” she whispered in his ear. It was a plea, raw and impassioned. “Take me, please!”
He covered her mouth with his, smothering her words. He was throbbing in her hands, leaking moisture, pushing his hips towards hers.
Yes yes yes.
Leila wasn’t sure if the words were hers or his, whispered or thought, but it didn’t matter. She released him and put her hands on his ass, pulling him closer, exactly as she’d seen him do in his thoughts.
It was a whisper at first, the pressure of him pushing inside, a bare breath against her passion-slick slit. A nudge, the most tender of touches. She pulled him, urging him, whispering his name, murmuring “please” with a stuttering tongue, but he resisted, going at his own pace. He looked down at Leila, smirking, and she knew he was getting her back for all the teasing she did to him.
He breached the entrance, slipping slowly inside, and Leila moaned low in her throat, thrusting against him, but he mimicked her action from earlier, pulling away. She whimpered and he kissed her, moving his torso aside enough to take her nipple in his fingers again, and now she couldn’t and didn’t try to hold in the fully voiced cry as he drove himself in at the same moment he took her breast in his mouth.
But then he pulled back out nearly all the way, and she raked her nails down his back, biting his shoulder. “Please…please,” she begged him.
She’d earned this teasing and she loved it, but she couldn’t take it anymore. He moved in again, slowly sliding up her body with his until their bones knocked together, and when he was there he moved in rhythmic, fluttering thrusts. Leila felt the explosions begin again, deep in her belly and trembling outward to rock her whole body with shuddering pulsations of pure joy. The trembling didn’t subside, but increased exponentially as he pulled out and drove back in, repeating the same fluttering motion.
God God God…
What was he doing to her? Leila was being ripped apart from the inside out now; with every motion the detonations increased their intensity. The maelstrom of ecstasy tore through him then as well. She felt his body shaking as he attempted to keep control.
Leila didn’t want control anymore; she wanted abandonment.
She wrapped her legs around him and clutched him close, rocking her hips so he was as deep as he could go, snaking her arms around his neck and pulling his face down to her lips.
His eyes met hers, mere inches away. “I love you, Carson,” she whispered, and those four words drove him over the edge.
He pushed against her hips and she matched his motions, syncing their rhythms. The tempo was slow at first, building with each thrust until he was slamming into her, she returning with equal fervor. They were frantic, wild and panting. She moaned in his ear, a wordless cry, and he whispered her name, a breath on the winds whirling around them to lift them aloft once more. When he said her name, whispering it to the winds, Leila’s soul clenched and contracted, drawing in all the love Carson was pouring forth. She tried to match his outpouring, pushing into him all the pent-up love she had, knowing it could never be enough, even if they made love thus for an eternity.
Time stopped, stuttered, and Leila felt magic all around, but all she had eyes for was Carson, for his gleaming gaze the color of sunlit earth locked on hers, and now all fell away so there was no bedroom, no past or future, only his eyes on hers, only his soul braided around hers.
All this time, a matter of perhaps a minute, Leila’s body was wracked with tremors and convulsions as they neared completion together. Now Leila felt him bury his head in the hollow between her shoulder and neck as he moved his body on her with a desperation increasing into a frenzy, the tremoring in Leila’s loins growing into explosions, small at first. Oh god, oh god, now he was going wild, and all Leila could do was whimper his name and hold on. Leila matched his frenzy with her own, urging him onward, and her entire body was going nova, going supernova and she heard him groaning in her ear, growling the wolf-growl, saying Leila’s name in a guttural stutter as his body clenched and released a hot flood and she knew she was screaming, ululating—
I disappear, he disappears—she disappears, and I do—there is no distinction between he and she, between I and I. Vision tangles and twines and coruscates so that male and female body and mind are mixed and split and merged until Carson and Leila are not names or identities or anything at all but words snatched away by the furious coriolis wind scouring their souls clean of all but each other, each other that is I, one being knowing her thoughts of how can I give this up and his thoughts of where has she been all my life and they that is I know all the secrets and demons and fears and hopes and dreams but it’s all in a flood carrying skeins of images and fear bobbing in the gush of notions and memories until individual ideas are lost in the pointillist whole and this shared river of self is called LOVE—
and she was clutching him, curled around him as if trying to dive into his very soul, into his very essence, each limb tangled until there was no knowing where Leila began and he ended. They were held aloft in a bed of air, and she had no control over the winds and the magic.
She had no idea what had just happened, but she knew she could never ever make love to another man for as long as she lived. Carson was so fully enmeshed with Leila’s identity that she was unable to close her eyes without seeing him in her mind. She closed her eyes and relaxed into Carson’s embrace, but with her eyes shut, all she saw was the nexus of identity that was them in the timeless instant of orgasmic self-coalescing love.
Leila had always loved words, always found joy in stringing ideas and emotions together on paper word by word like pearls, like opalescent gems sparkling on a white expanse; right then, her words failed her. She lay in his arms, so content, so exhausted, so sated, trying to compose her thoughts into a poem, into a prosodic algorithm of what she felt, what she’d experienced there in her bedroom with Carson, but language failed her.
Leila knew one thing before sleep claimed her: She would never be the same.
Chapter 13: Hunting for Truth
Carson was propped up on an elbow, watching Leila sleep. Her lovely features were relaxed, one hand curled next to her face. She was naked, and the blanket was bunched by her hips, leaving her upper torso bare. He couldn’t help touching her, letting his fingers trace the barely visible line of her ribs as they expanded and contracted with each breath, her full breasts pulled by gravity to each side, flattening them slightly. Her skin was dusky, tan and taut, her navel a perfect round dip in her flat stomach; her hair was splayed in a halo around her head, covering the pillow with a curtain of fine black strands.
His heart swelled as he looked at her. He’d come to accept that he was in love with her, especially now that he knew she loved him back. It had been more difficult to come to grips with how potent a feeling love was. It filled every molecule of his being, setting his blood on fire with a fierce, protective urge. Leila stirred and groaned, cracking an eyelid. She saw Carson, smiled a sleepy smile, and rolled to nuzzle her head on his chest. Carson wrapped her in his arms and knew he would never let go, not for anything, not for anyone.
In the line of duty Carson had faced many frightening situations. Detroit was a dangerous place—though not quite the war zone the media made it out to be—and as a cop serving his city, he’d been shot at, stabbed, attacked with fists and feet. He’d been injured more than once, had faced down men with assault rifles and superior numbers. He’d felt fear then, of course; he just didn’t freeze when afraid. He swallowed the fear, pushed it down, crammed it into the smallest corner of himself and refused to let it out until the danger was past, and then he let it out, let it run through him.
Now, with Leila sleeping on his chest, a satisfied smile on her lips, looking vulnerable and so beautiful, and his…now he felt fear. Paralyzing fear, soul-shaking fear. The kind of terror that made his blood sluggish and his muscles unresponsive. He wasn’t afraid of her, of her power or her family or the fact that she wasn’t exactly human; no, he was afraid of losing her. He was afraid of letting her down, of not being man enough to take care of her.
She needed him. He knew it, sensed it, and smelled it. He also knew she wasn’t ready to admit it, any more than he was ready to admit how much he needed her. It was all so crazy, so sudden, so unlikely and impossible.
Is this real? Am I dreaming this? Am I still in the hospital? Do I really love her, or is this some kind of out-of-control lust? God knew he wanted her body badly enough, but it went beyond that. It really did. Since he’d stopped drinking (whether permanently or temporarily, he hadn’t decided), he’d forced himself to ask the hard questions and answer them without flinching.
He knew he wasn’t just in love with her body, with the idea of having sex with her. He’d known he was falling in love before they slept together. His emotions were involved in this, not just his dick. He’d spent long enough thinking with that particular organ to know he wasn’t. But he needed to be sure. He couldn’t go any further with her if he wasn’t sure this was a real thing, a true relationship rather than mere sex.
He tried to imagine a relationship with her without sex: The fact that he could visualize such a thing told him enough. He liked talking to her. He liked sitting with her and telling her about his job. He trusted her; he probably shouldn’t trust her, since she was clearly keeping a whole slew of things from him, but somehow he knew she had a good reason to do so. She’d promised to tell him everything, and he in turn promised himself that he would listen with an open mind and not pass any judgment.
One thing bothered him, though. He still felt like she was planning something, like this had all been part of her goodbye to him. She didn’t plan to come back somehow.
He wasn’t about to let that happen. His finely honed instincts told him she was getting ready to do something she didn’t want to, something altruistic and stupid.
“I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth,” he whispered to her, “and I’ll save you from whatever it is you’re planning to do. I just found you, and I’m not going to let you go.”
Leila heard him, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm. “Hmmm? D’you say something?” she mumbled, a muzzy, contented smile on her face.
Carson put a hand on the swell of her ass, caressing the length of her body from calf to breast and back down, kissed her lips with all the tenderness he could summon, trying to impart all the love he felt into a gentle meeting of lips. Her eyes were still half-closed, but she kissed him back, stretching languorously, cat-like, a slight moan escaping from the back of her throat as she arched her back, curled her toes, every muscle tensed and quivering. As the stretch ended, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him to her. There had been something at once adorably cute and unbearably erotic in the way she stretched, the motion and tensity of the action stirring his heart and his loins together.
They pulled apart at the same moment, Carson not quite on top of her.
Leila brushed errant locks of hair away from his eyes, saying, “So what were you saying?”
“Sorry, I didn’t meant to wake you up,” Carson said, not quite ready to tell her what he’d really said. “I was just talking to myself.”
She wrinkled her nose, irritated. “Uh-huh. Fine, be that way. Don’t tell me.”
Carson sighed, shaking his head. “You really want to know?” She nodded, and he took a deep breath. “What I said was, ‘I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, and I’ll save you from whatever it is you’re planning to do. I just found you and I’m not going to let you go.’ That’s what I said.”
Carson’s heart was thudding in his chest, and he was suddenly nervous, although he couldn’t have pinpointed why. Leila froze, her dark eyes wide and frightened, a tear forming to run slowly down one cheek; Carson brushed it away.
“Why does that make you cry?” he asked.
“Because you can’t,” she said in a hoarse whisper. She turned away, pulling the thin fleece blanket up to her shoulder. Carson followed her, putting his chin on her arm.
“Why not? What is it you’re hiding from me? What has you so scared? Is it me? Is it us?” Carson tugged at her gently, but she resisted.
“No, it’s not you, and it’s not us. I thought you weren’t going to ask me this.”
Carson pushed his forehead against her arm, knowing he’d trapped himself with that promise. “Yeah, you’re right. I did promise that. I just—I wish you’d tell me. You won’t scare me away. I can help you. Whatever it is, I can help you. We can do it together.”
Leila laughed, but there was no humor or amusement in it. “Not this, you can’t. No one can.”
