Page 58 of Want Me, Take Me, Haunt Me, Make Me

It was a bolder and more thorough inspection than Ligat had been used to on such occasions. He wasn’t quite surprised to find himself enjoying it. Standing a little straighter, pleasantly warm beneath her inspection, he shrugged out of the robe and let it fall.

* * *

Hazel didn’t love admitting, even to herself, how often she’d thought about what Ligat would look like naked. She couldn’t deny that she’d wondered, though—she couldn’t imagine anybody whowouldn’thave in her situation—and he more than lived up to the best of her fantasies.

He wasn’t an action figure or a Greek statue. His body was rangy, sleek, with his collarbone more clearly visible than any muscles, but its long lines captivated Hazel. Dark red sigils spiraled across all of his frame like chains or briars, with a few inches of skin between each loop shining faintly silver under the unlovely fluorescent light. A sparse fuzz of dark hair dusted his chest, then became a thicker line down his flat stomach before spreading out into a neat cloud around an already substantial erection.

Ligat’s cock was marked like the rest of him, crimson glyphs standing out against faintly flushed silver, and curved smoothly upward to slightly below his navel. The analytical part of Hazel’s mind briefly managed to wonder whether the sigils had gone on magically or if Ligat had sat, or been made to sit, through an actual tattooing process. Then the question vanished, drowned in the quicksand of her need to touch, to taste, to see how he responded and feel his hands on her in return.

Hazel had enough self-control to peel off her jeans—denim against bare skin had never gone over well, in her experience—and Ligat had enough to let her, but they’d barely hit the floor before he was kissing her again, cupping her ass and rubbing slow circlesthrough the thin cotton of her underwear. She wished she’d worn silk, or lace, or even a pair that matched her bra instead of green-flowered Hanes briefs, but if Ligat even noticed, he didn’t show it. He just hooked his fingers into the elastic at her waist and gently tugged the briefs down. Hazel had never noticed the light scrape of fabric against her legs before, and now, with Ligat trailing kisses along the side of her neck, that mundane contact made her shiver.

“Beautiful,” he said, hoarse and muffled and completely sincere.

She grasped for steadier ground, not with words but by sinking to the blankets and pulling Ligat down after her. It didn’t take much. He stretched out above her, settling his cock, hot and silky, between her thighs.

Hazel caught her breath. She could have stayed like that forever; she couldn’t endure another few seconds.

Time drew out, delicious torture, while he worked her top off over her head, not deliberately playing with her breasts but brushing over them as if by coincidence and then chuckling when she whimpered. It might have been revenge for her own teasing before, a vengeance she was glad to let him take.

She did grin when he encountered the clasps of her bra, and she sat up to give him a hand. “Not used to women’s underwear?”

“Shockingly, no,” said Ligat, watching her with eyes like campfires on a dark night. Hazel wasn’t sure he blinked while she unhooked her bra and slipped it off, and he simply stared at her afterward.

It was flattering, arousing, and unnerving all at once. Hazel glanced down at her breasts, more conscious of them than she’d been with any other lover—more conscious, maybe, than she’d been since she’d passed through puberty. Half a dozen flippant questions came to mind. Then Ligat moved at last, closing the distance between them again and tracing his tongue around one of Hazel’s nipples, and she didn’t want to ask any questions at all. She had all the information she needed: It was in the hot, slow pressure of his mouth onher breasts, in the unexpectedly silky feeling of his hair between her fingers, in the skillful intrusion of his hand stroking up one of her thighs.

For once in her life, she didn’t need to know any more.

* * *

Naked below him, arching toward his touch and his tongue, Hazel was bliss and torment at the same time. Ligat couldn’t remember ever having wanted a partner so much—he was fairly sure that the last time he’d been so achingly, drivingly hard had been in his school days, if even then—or feeling such a rising sense of urgency, and at the same time he’d never wanted less to give in to that need.

It was better to go slowly, now that he could. Better to run his fingers over her thighs, firm beneath silky skin, while he teased her nipples with his lips until her breath was ragged. When he reached the soft curls between her legs, he simply grazed over them at first. It took only a little pressure to feel how damp they’d become, and that knowledge alone made Ligat’s entire body tighten with delirious need, but he wouldn’t hurry.

The interlude with Hazel was an unexpected gift. Ligat didn’t see many carnal pleasures in his future. He didn’t see Hazel’s company at all—and his own continued existence would be damned bleak for it, literally.

So he took his time, trying to store each memory as vividly and firmly as he could: the low moans that came from Hazel’s parted lips as he stroked her open, the yielding warmth of her breasts, the slick heat of her passage around his fingers. The smell of musk and salt overpowered the scent of her soap, and Ligat rejoiced in it.

“Patience,” he urged her as she flexed her hips, though the word came out breathless.

Hazel tried to glare at him, but her eyes were clouded withpleasure. “Easy—ah—” She gasped as Ligat moved his hand, a gentle rocking that nonetheless made her clench around his fingers. “—for you to say.”

“Oh, no. Not easy at all.” He allowed himself a moment to press forward, letting her feel the steely hardness of his cock against her thigh and the moisture gathered at the tip. “But worthwhile.”

The way she squirmed in response nearly snapped Ligat’s self-control. He pulled back hurriedly, back and down to settle his face between her thighs. She was as pretty there as everywhere else: rose-pink and wet, her clitoris a stiff little bud that he couldn’t resist licking almost immediately, forgetting plans to wait any further. Hazel made a wordless, desperate sound in her throat at the contact, thrusting her hips up, and he was lost.

He would drive her over the edge before he was inside her. Anything more was asking too much.

And that didn’t take very long at all, once Ligat bent his head to his extremely enjoyable work. He had no intention of trying to rush Hazel, and he started off exploring, savoring the taste of her, but her reactions very soon revealed the rhythm she craved. Ligat gave it to her gladly, his only struggle not to rub his pulsing erection against the floor as Hazel’s body tensed and her moans turned into sharp cries.

Then she was rippling around his fingers, her moisture flooding over them, and he absolutely stopped giving a damn about the future.

Ligat slid up over Hazel, looking into her dazed eyes as he pushed the head of his cock against her. He barely managed to stop there. “Yes?” It was the only word he could think of.

“God, yes.”

She wrapped her legs around his, and he sank into her. The aftershocks of her orgasm gripped his cock at every inch, exquisite caresses that drew a half strangled groan from him. He held back as much as he could, wanting to feel more, but desire had become need, and he could more easily have stopped breathing than stayed still just then.

Hazel met him eagerly, joining in movement that startedrelatively slow and almost subtle, tilting her hips so that she was rubbing herself against Ligat with every thrust. Her short nails against his shoulders were a sharp note that danced just on the edge of pain and heightened his pleasure by contrast, and he returned the favor by leaning down to close his teeth lightly on her neck. The sound she made in his ear was half moan, half gasp, and done entirely with abandon. Ligat, braced on his elbows above her, could see her face flush as pleasure started building again.