shifted, and she could feel the hard ridge of his cock through the leather.
“Ah God, Aleron… You torture me.”
He laughed again. “Yes.”
He stepped back, shaking off the glove, tweaked one of her nipples sharply, and she thought she could almost come just from that. If he would only do it again…
He did, tucking the cat-o-nine under one arm and using both hands on her.
She was writhing, moaning, immediately. The heat rose between her thighs, her clit pulsing. Pain. Pleasure. Unbearable.
“Not yet,” Aleron ordered.
She bit her lip, holding back the first waves of the climax that threatened to come crashing down on her.
“Not even now,” he said, thrusting one hand between her thighs and right into her burning pussy.
“Oh!”
He pumped into her.
“Do not come, Meeraj. You will take it.”
She moaned, pleasure burrowing deep.
“Tell me, Meeraj.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I will hold it back. I will take what you offer me, Aleron.”
“Then take this, the Seeking Kiss, my beauty.”
With his other hand he grasped her long hair, buried his fingers in it, pulling her head back. Then he bent over her throat. That single moment before his lips touched her seemed to last an eternity, anticipation burning through her, engulfing her like a flame.
“Aleron…”
His teeth sank in.
It was like a pair of hot needles at first. Then it was pure pleasure.
It began as a low hum. Then it grew, until it was piercing, shimmering like light in her veins, the edges sharp, like that first edge of orgasm, yet different, somehow. Like a sound she couldn’t quite hear. And images pouring into her head at a thousand miles an hour. Faces, male and female. The scents of leather, smoke, skin, sweat, perfume, blood, sex.
Sex.
Ah, yes…
Then sensations, hers and not hers. The fluttering touch of a hand on her skin, the plunging thrust of a cock insider her, in her pussy, her ass. Luscious red lips, kissing her mouth, her breasts, her thighs. The taut pull of rope on her wrists, the crack of a whip on the flesh of her buttocks. Pain and pleasure, sensation and sensation. And behind it all that deep sorrow she’d glimpsed in him earlier.
A face.
Lovely. Heart-shaped, the pouting mouth like a doll’s. Her eyes were gray, like the storming sky. Her skin like fine, pale porcelain. Soft, warm. Human.
She saw the face and felt…love. All-consuming. Long past, yet present still. Hurting.
The pain burrowed deep, into her chest. Into her heart. She was drowning in it.
“No!”
She was back in her body instantly, Aleron pulling his mouth from her neck. The pleasure was still there, her sex pulsing. But her chest ached so.
Aleron buried his face in her hair.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
She wouldn’t have expected that from him—for him to apologize for anything, ever. She felt vaguely shocked by it. But even more so by what she’d seen as he drank from her.
She became aware then of the dull ache in her neck. But it didn’t matter to her.
How could she still be on the verge of coming, yet wanting to cry?
One tear escaped, and Aleron, his blue gaze locked on hers, wiped it away with his thumb.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
She shook her head, unable to speak, too full of the strange mix of desire and emotion.
“Inexcusable,” he muttered, his mouth moving closer, until she could feel his breath on her cheek.
“No, Aleron. Please don’t. It’s fine… But I need you.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, his voice a low hiss.
He moved his hand between her thighs, slipping two fingers deep into her pussy, his thumb circling her clitoris. She let out a long breath as pleasure surged through her.
“Are you going to come, my beauty?”
“Yes…yes…”
She arched her hips into his hand, his fingers a lovely torture, bringing her to the edge. He bent his head once more and latched onto her neck. She felt the hot pull of her blood into his mouth. Her blood began to thrum, to sing—or perhaps