Immortals After Dark 04 - Wicked Deeds on a Winters Night

the sight called forth an answering clenching between her thighs, so powerful she nearly cried out...
    She knew what was happening—she was suffering from the immortal phenomenon of overstimulation .
    The transition from mortal to immortal was a time of uncomfortable adjustment. Eyesight and sense of smell improved exponentially, and even tactile awareness increased, yet it took time for transitioning mortals to get accustomed to the difference.
    In short, her senses were bombarding her, and that was a problem.
    Because superhuman senses meant superhuman lust.
    “Gods, Mariketa,” he rasped, “I can feel your eyes on it.”
    She finally forced herself to drag her gaze away. As soon as she turned from him, she heard him enter the water. With a gasp, she lunged for the side to get out, but he caught her with an arm looped around her waist.
    “Let me go!” she demanded, struggling against him, briefly stunned by the rock hardness prodding her.
    “I’m enjoying your squirming, but no’ your kicking so much. Ach, watch that you doona hit me in the ballocks! We’re both going to need those in working order.”
    Galling! “You bastard—stop poking me with... with that !”
    “You keep squirming, witch, and I’m no’ goin’ to be able to keep my hips still either.”
    She froze, out of breath and realizing she couldn’t fight him anyway. He was breathing hard, too, but not from exertion. She felt his warm exhalations on her neck and ear and shivered, her nipples hardening against his arm.
    “You need my help in here—even if you doona want to admit it.”
    “You think I can’t clean myself?”
    “You brushed your teeth for a good ten minutes, and you’ve washed your hair twice and you’d probably do it again for good measure, but your arms are likely getting tired.”
    “They’re not!” They were . “I’m fine.”
    “Oh? Then let me see your hands.”
    She rolled her eyes and raised her hands. At his tsking sound, she glanced down. Her nails were dirty! Her face flushed wildly. Damn him!
    When he spun her around, she draped her arm over her breasts. Glaring at the ceiling, she allowed him to wash one hand at a time. Using the lather, he massaged each finger from base to tip.
    Her eyelids began to grow heavy as he firmly pressed his thumbs into her palms, one then the other. “Your hands are so small,” he said, his voice pleasingly low and rumbly. “But pretty.” She just stifled a shiver.
    He finally let her go, and embarrassingly, she swayed. Once she opened her eyes, mustering up the energy to lay into him again, she found him running his thumb claw against the limestone. “What are you doing that for?”
    “Dulling the verra edges. Give me those wee hands again.” More massaging followed until the fight in her was blissed away. When he began carefully running his dulled claw under each of her nails, she watched his face. His brows were drawn in concentration while he painstakingly went about the task, as if this was very important for him.
    “There,” he said when finished. “Now for all that hair of yours.” He eased her around again.
    Still rendered relaxed and cooperating, she let him tend to her. With his claws retracted, he massaged her head thoroughly until she felt she was the consistency of a puddle. And she knew he was wearing that look of concentration as he did it, because he wanted to get this right. What she didn’t know was why.
    If this was meant to torture her and make her miserable enough to remove the spell, then he was doing a shoddy job of it.
    But MacRieve couldn’t truly believe she was his. Could he?

17

    A s he worked shampoo into her long hair, he said, “See, Mariketa, this is no’ so bad. If you’d known you’d be treated like this, I probably would no’ even have had to blackmail you.”
    “You had no right to go through my things like that.”
    “I’d warned you that you’d find me overbearing. Strange, though, when I investigated your belongings, more questions were raised than answered. What is the patch for, the one in your bag?”
    She shrugged. “Birth control.”
    “A contraceptive ?” he hastily asked. Bloody perfect.
    “Yeah, so?” She stiffened. “Do you think I’m easy now?”
    “Sensitive about this, Mariketa?”
    “Most guys my age would look at the tattoo on my back and the patch on my arm as tramp stamps.”
    “Tramp... ? Oh, I see.”
    “I’m not. A tramp.”
    “O’ course no’,” he agreed, trying to keep