Elijah. Jacquelyn Frank

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СКАЧАТЬ noted the comfortable couch nearby that had a distinct impression in it. No doubt this was where she had been sleeping, but she was not there at the moment. He had always thought Lycanthropes as severely affected by daylight hours as any other Nightwalker, so it surprised him she was not dead asleep. Then again, he was not exactly acting par for the course of his species either.

      A breeze blew gently into the room and his head immediately picked up so he could take it in with a deep breath.

      All Demons had an innate connection to the base element their powerful abilities came from. He was of the Wind, all of Her properties, temperatures, and volatile ways his to command and enjoy. The Wind filled him down to every last cell of his being, called to him with a lure that was almost unparalleled. And with the crisp, clean scent of Her whisper blowing around him, Elijah realized he had been indoors for far too long.

      With a single-minded thinking, Elijah followed the breeze to its source. He strode up the cavern steps, then up the slope of the floor with eager expectation. He was so focused on his goal that it took him a full minute to realize he was approaching a lake of water within the cave, and that standing in the center of it, covered only to her hips with the liquid, was his wayward Lycanthrope nurse.

      Elijah stopped dead in his tracks, his entire body tensing from head to toe with a mixture of utter shock and that sharp, brutal sexual awareness she inspired so effortlessly within him. The Queen had her back to him, the long, beautiful line of her spine gracefully exposed as she bent forward to swing her hair through the water she was using to wash it. The water lapped flirtatiously at the site of her tailbone, drawing his immediately riveted attention to that beckoning female curve of sleek waist blending into voluptuous backside. Her skin glittered with water, both real and reflected, hundreds of beads of the liquid sliding down to rejoin the surface of the lake. With her hair swept forward for washing, her long, arching spine was exposed, a palette of perfect, golden skin. She was shaped like a sculpture depicting the epitome of womanhood, strong, curved, and lush with the impression of fertility.

      Elijah completely forgot about where he had been headed, his fingers curling into fists in reflection of the inexplicable desire instantly coiling throughout his body. He should have looked away, turned away, run away. He should have done any one of a thousand things except stand there gawking at her like some pubescent boy who had never seen a naked woman before. Though the initial breeze he had been following had picked up, he felt as if there wasn’t an ounce of oxygen in the room. He could not explain or control the effect she had on him. All he could do was struggle to breathe, and continue to watch every alluring movement the siren in the water made as her flawless body sang its riveting, seductive song.

      Even the wind betrayed him, he realized a heartbeat later. It skimmed over her wet body, full of October cold, and he saw it ripple over her unblemished skin in an ever-expanding carpet of goose bumps. It worked down from her shoulders, along that length of feminine spine, until it was sprawling over her bottom and meeting the waterline.

      Siena turned slightly, throwing back her heavy head of hair, releasing an arc of sparkling water from it all the way up into the air where it almost touched the stalactites reaching down from the cavern ceiling above her. She turned a little farther, her hand trailing in a playful pattern over the surface of the water, her breasts swaying gently with the motion of her reaching arm. Elijah’s smallest remaining breath escaped him as his darkened eyes burned over her bare form. Siena’s muscular fitness might have made some females look too masculine, but the smoothness of the curve from hip into waist, from waist back out to rib cage, and continuing on up into full, perfectly lush breasts, spoke of a creature who was made to be the most pristine of feminine lures to any male with a pair of eyes in his head.

      Elijah’s gaze became riveted to the dark definition of her nipples, a blended rose and tan color that was boldly offset by the golden color of her skin. They were crested into an attractive thrust from the chilled temperature of the water and air, the effect eddying out into gooseflesh that crept over both breasts. Outside of those little puckered pores, her skin was immaculate and looking every inch as satin soft as he knew it was. She was unbelievably perfect, so well formed, and so beautiful she had the power to literally stop his heart. His chest hurt with the sensation, but not as much as the sudden, blinding urge to go to her did. He could smell her, feel her as every hair on his body became erect, making him feel as though his very skin was reaching toward her. Every sense and natural device for sensing demanded more input.

      In the water, the Lycanthrope Queen went still very suddenly. Her head cocked to one side in awareness, her nose twitching as she scented the air in order to identify what exactly it was that she had already begun to intuit on other levels as being amiss. Siena had just identified the familiar scent of masculine musk when she heard the abrupt sound of water splashing behind her.

      She whirled around just in time to spin into the warrior’s arms.

      Siena gasped as Elijah hauled her up against his body with one powerful arm, seizing her by her hair with his opposite hand. His mouth was on hers in an instant, giving her no time to even anticipate or react. Having lived a life of protected privilege and marked reserve when it came to any kind of physical contact, Siena had never been seized in such a manner. No one with an ounce of sense would have dared to do such a thing. She would have thought her initial reaction to such an action would be something in the nature of a definitive, violent slapdown.

      Instead, it was great shock that caused her to inadvertently accept his kiss. The warrior was demanding, just shy of being brutal, and reflecting to her every feeling he had been inundated with during his unnoticed moments of observing her. Siena came to life an instant later, finally trying to push away, her hands going to the enormous wall of his chest. But she felt the bulk of the bandage that yet remained over the most serious of his wounds and instinctively resisted any pressure that would potentially reopen the healing flesh. Even to save herself, for some reason, Siena could not bear the thought of causing him harm. She was not that noble a creature in general, and certainly not when she was feeling threatened, so the impulse to protect him left her baffled and disoriented.

      By the time she had finished curbing her escape impulse and contending with her feelings of confusion, she was being swamped by a thousand other sensations and emotions.

      All of them were centered around heat.

      So much amazing, delicious heat. Heat from his body burning its strength and form into hers as if she were a soft putty meant to take the impression of his fit into the memory of her own shape. They were like a puzzle. Two pieces cut apart but always meant to be perfectly reunited at some future point. They locked together like the flow of nature, thigh to thigh, belly to belly, and breast to breast. Even the water running down her steaming skin could not come between that perfect seal. There was heat from her body burning into his, blazing in places she had never felt such intensity before. The sensation was so baffling as it ran along her entire body, even the incongruous places like the small of her back, under her arms, and the soles of her feet, that it was just shy of being ticklish.

      She could not laugh at it, though. She was far too engaged by his kiss to even consider it. His mouth was like a demanding and wet fire, his velvet tongue thrusting past her teeth to demand reciprocation from hers, leaving more licking flames in his wake as he went. Had she ever thought his lips to be almost feminine? He was nothing but male, the fit of his lips skilled and aggressive and very, very masculine in their flavor and force. He was drinking from her mouth in long, satisfying drafts, until Siena could hardly catch her breath. She felt her body bowing backward. She was being held so tightly that her body was forced to fit into the aggressive lean of his embrace. Her hair skimmed through the water, the ends recoiling in shock at the contrast of the cold in the face of all that heat. The very same cold she had been enjoying only seconds ago.

      Elijah did not know what was propelling him to do what he was doing, and for that blissful moment he didn’t much care. Her sweet mouth, her СКАЧАТЬ