Page 55 of Dark Rival

He smiled and dipped between her thighs and rubbed against her. She couldn’t stand the exquisite pleasure and she writhed. He restrained her.

“Be still,” he murmured. “Let me do the fucking. Lie still an’ enjoy it.”

She looked at him.

He was dead serious. “This one time, ye can obey. Let me pleasure ye, Ailios.”

She nodded—or thought she did. It was really hard to respond because he was starting slowly, with agonizing deliberation, to push inside—only to pause after every single inch.

She lay as still as she could, starting to cry from the pleasure and pressure, and she let him stroke her, bit by bit, until it was long and slow, deep and deeper still. Madness began. She was blinded by the need for a release. She didn’t know how she could hold so much pressure inside her—or how he could do so, either. Because she felt his pleasure, too. It had crested into a tidal wave, one about to crash down on the shore—on her. And finally, she couldn’t stand it; finally, she wanted to beg.

“Aye,” he said, and he gasped, surging deep.

Allie felt the block being lifted. She felt the huge damn break. She cried out, exploded and flew farther, higher, than she’d remembered, weeping his name, shattering a hundred times, each time more intense than the one before. He came with her, each time, violently, long and endless. “Ailios.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALLIE AWOKE IN A BED twice as large as her own. She lay naked beneath a fur and instantly she thought about Royce’s very hot, very endless lovemaking. She smiled, reaching for him, to move into his arms. He was gone.

That was okay. She looked up at the ceiling, grinning so widely her mouth hurt. Wow. Those first two times hadn’t been a dream. She hadn’t imagined all that supernatural sex.

Mr. Medieval was hot.

She lay still, thinking about the heated night—thinking about his passion and her own. For her, loving him now as she did, it had been even more intense than in her time. That first night it had been only sex and desire; she’d begun to fall in love with Royce after spending that night with him. As for his passion, it had been so off the charts there was no way she’d believe he wasn’t in love with her, too. In fact, unless she was imagining it, she felt that he was even more insatiable than he’d been in 2007. That was pretty impossible, though.

Or was it? Everything had changed and so swiftly, at the speed of light. In the future, he’d waited almost six hundred years for her. Last night, although he hadn’t had to wait centuries for her, they’d shared a lifetime in a few days—a very dangerous, intense lifetime. They’d fought and argued, they’d saved Garret from the rockslide, they’d fought demons, she’d healed him from a mortal wound—and he’d comforted her while she tried to adjust to the shock of the truth about her mother.

Allie sat up slowly. That last action meant as much as anything, if not more. He was a very complex man, with so many sides—he could be savage and barbaric, but he could be caring and kind. She thought about the way he’d used the ax to destroy the giant who’d captured her and her stomach vanished. He’d been scary. He could have used an energy blast but he’d preferred an ax. She’d been afraid to rush up to him to heal him. But hadn’t she needed someone that ruthless, that brave and that determined to hold the line, her entire life? Royce had the savage intent and the strength to fight the most powerful demons and win.

Allie shivered and lifted the fur. She almost wished she hadn’t recalled his savagery and bloodlust. But she had to admit that she had a primitive side, too. She was fascinated with the savage warrior. She admired his intensity.

Still, she would have never dreamed in a hundred years that the same man would hold her while she unraveled. He had probably been just as surprised. Now she could see how the medieval version would evolve into the modern man she’d first fallen for. However, it was a bit presumptuous to think he was starting that transformation already. Maybe, maybe, he could do it in a hundred years.

Allie got up, wrapped in the fur, smiling. She wasn’t sure what her life span was; apparently her mother had lived at least six hundred years. It would be interesting to watch Royce embrace his softer, kinder side. Her heart leapt impossibly as she imagined long nights like the last one, times spent before the fire or on the ramparts, gazing at the stars.

She was falling for this Royce, and she had better slow down, because Mr. Medieval might be back at any moment and he was not ready to hold hands. Her smile faded a little. One thing had been missing last night. He hadn’t cuddled and he hadn’t talked.

Allie focused. She needed patience—she’d be his teacher now. It was okay. All that sex was coming from his macho side. He needed a bit of time to learn how to be intimate and about the enhanced pleasure intimacy could bring.

Maybe she’d start teaching him tonight.

In any case, things were looking up. They were becoming friends, and they were lovers, too. The beast wasn’t as scary as he’d seemed, and he was starting to eat out of her hand. Now she had to figure out why he’d wanted to die in 2007. It was time to get to know him—she needed to get inside his head.

Allie was eager to know him better, but she was not at all deluded. If he didn’t like talking—and he had made it clear he did not—figuring him out might not be that easy. That was going to take time, no matter his kindness last night.

Her heart wanted to float up to the ceiling like a hot air balloon. Last night made up for his initial hostility; it sure did. And she had time, didn’t she? There was no rush to go home, even if Royce changed his mind and let her do so.

Allie walked over to the hearth, wishing a fire flamed there. She’d assumed her stay in the past would be a brief one. In fact, she’d assumed her future with Royce would be in the future, too.

They were meant to be together, that was clear—he was the one for her. But in which time?

Allie became uncertain. She would stick around in the fifteenth century for a while, but at some point, when they had a way to prevent his murder, she was going to the future to be with the modern Royce, wasn’t she?

Unease began. She would leave her medieval man there at Carrick, in the fifteenth century, and with a leap through time, she would be reunited with Royce instantly. But he’d be left behind in his time, and he’d spend centuries without her—until he aged into his fourteen-hundred-year-old self and was reunited with her.

How could she leave him for five hundred and seventy-seven years? They were embarking on a new relationship. He’d become her guardian as well as her lover. He needed her, here and now, and she needed him.

Allie looked around at his chamber, thinking about the bedroom in her Manhattan penthouse. Then she shoved the memory of her luxurious room aside. The Middle Ages weren’t as bad as she had expected. Nothing at Carrick was that dirty, and while there was a lot of body odor, Royce smelled great. She would bet a fortune that he swam in one of the lochs every morning.