Carpathian 16 - Dark Demon

she was ashamed of feeling. She hadn't had anyone for herself in so long and she wanted to be his only .
    His teeth nibbled at her shoulder. "Not in a sexual way, or in the way of a lifemate, Natalya. She will have a private path to my thoughts, as I will to hers. Our spirits will maintain a connection, as she will have been in my keeping for over twenty-four hours.
    Gabrielle will awaken as one of us. She will not have a lifemate to turn to for support in her new world. Her sister and brother-kin are returning as quickly as possible to aid her, but she is half in love with Gary, a human. The males will not want her to continue a relationship with him as there are so few Carpathian women and they will hope she can be a lifemate to one of them. She will awaken to many problems and will need aid."
    "And you have to be there for her."
    "You wished me to save her life," he reminded gently, even as his teeth bit down over the pulse beating so frantically in her throat. "I could devour you, Natalya, and never get enough."
    She laughed again because she could hear the truth in his voice and felt the stirring of his body against her. It reassured her when she felt so vulnerable. "I believe you. I'm exhausted.
    We can't possibly, not again. I need to sleep for a week or two. And so do you."
    Vikirnoff lifted her with casual ease and carried her to the far side of the cavern where he had prepared a large bed on the ground. Candles were everywhere, the flames flickering and dancing, throwing shadows on the walls to illuminate crystals and give color to the walls. The spread appeared to be a midnight blue, velvet soft with a host of cushions. He laid her facedown in the middle of them, his hands gentle on her body, positioning her head on a soft pillow and bringing her arms out.
    "We're wet."
    "We're not." And they weren't.
    Natalya allowed her lashes to drift down as his hands began a massage at the nape of her neck. He murmured to her in his own language, urging her to sleep while he attended to her sore body. He kneaded the muscles in her neck and shoulders, her arms and back, lower still to her buttocks and thighs and calves before turning her over to attend the front of her.
    Natalya drifted in a haze of mind-numbing pleasure. She felt his tongue swirling over her pulse. Teasing the valley between her breasts. Her nipples ached from the sweet torment he had inflicted for hours, but this time it was as soothing as it was stimulating as his tongue flicked and laved and lingered. He suckled gently, before attending the undersides of her breasts and spending a great deal of time tugging on the small golden hoop in her belly.
    "You like that, don't you?" She didn't open her eyes. She liked the feel of drifting while he explored her in such a slow, languid fashion. There was something to be said for the slow sensual buildup as opposed to the violence of their earlier hunger.
    "Very much." He nuzzled the ring and kissed his way down to the tawny triangle. "I love your body, Natalya, all soft and firm and curved so beautifully." Deliberately he pressed a finger into her wet heat. "Mostly I love how you respond for me. I have had many years to imagine what it would be like. I've studied how to please a woman to be prepared. I wanted to know every way I could bring her pleasure and how she could do the same for me. But the imagination, when one has no feeling, cannot prepare for this."
    Natalya lifted her lashes just enough to watch as he dipped his head between her thighs.
    She had felt every emotion, yet she was unprepared as his tongue stroked and caressed, finding every sore spot and healing her. She was unprepared for the fire racing through her, and the edgy need that spread and built until she was gripping the blanket beneath her and lifting her hips to meet his marauding mouth.
    "I thought you were getting me to sleep." She reached for his hair, anything to stay anchored when her body was so ready to fly away with her.
    "I changed my mind. Do not move, Natalya. Just lie there and do not move."
    "It's impossible."
    Immediately her arms were anchored above her head. She couldn't see how he did it, but she lay stretched out on the blanket. He lifted her hips and placed pillows beneath her to make her more comfortable before returning to his ravishment. His mouth and teeth and tongue were everywhere, his hands possessive, demanding as they moved over her until she was sobbing for release. He took her to the edge over and over,