"Why won't you take a mate, Siena?" he asked, his tone quiet and undeniably tender. This, in spite of the irrational surge of jealousy the very suggestion burned into him like a violent brand. Every cell in his body screamed with possessive, predatory protest. "There's no call for you to hurt like this," he said hoarsely, hardly able to speak under his emotions.
"Because the last time a female ruler mated, it was to a bloodthirsty bastard who nearly destroyed her people after she died and left him to rule alone!" Siena's hand fisted as her rage toward her father flared. "Three hundred years wasted with war and the ramifications of it. Thousands of both our people slaughtered. And for what? Over what? An imagined slight? A male ego slightly bruised? No, I would rather die than subject my people to such a torment again."
"Siena, not every man is like that," Elijah argued.
Siena laughed at that notion. She reached out and touched him suddenly, both hands slipping over his lower ribs, making him draw in a sharp breath.
"Certainly you do not speak of yourself. You are the most seasoned warrior of your race, this muscle built on the battlefield."
"Because it has to be, not because I thrill in it," he said tightly, biting back the groan building under her curious touch.
"And you took no pleasure in killing my father?" she asked, the accusation whispered hotly.
"I took as much pleasure in the doing of it as you took in the occurrence."
"Oh, yes," she mused absently, her hands drifting up his sides slowly. "You did do me something of a favor, did you not? You freed me to free my people."
"I did what I had to do to stop the killing."
"So noble," she noted, her hands lifting away so just her fingertips skimmed his skin as she drew graceful traces over the definition of his chest, shaping pectorals, ribs, and the bumping ridges of his abdomen.
"Siena, stop," he commanded, grabbing her hands into his, forcing them into stillness so she could not keep him off balance with the temptation of her touch. "If you want to hate me, then do so just as things are. Don't create more reasons to despise me. We have had enough hatred between our people."
"But I don't hate you either, Elijah," she insisted, again battering him with the sound of his own name. He could not understand why that affected him as it did.
Of course, her proximity and her allure did not help much.
"Then why are you acting like this?"
She stilled as she seemed to think on it. Her tongue came out to lick slowly between her lips, that erotic speculation brightening her eyes once again.
"Because I have never in my life felt this…this desire that I feel at this moment. I want to understand why that is, Elijah." Elijah was not expecting her to lean into him so suddenly, her nose drifting across his skin as she took in a deep breath. "Why is it your scent appeals to me like no other?"
Elijah couldn't speak to answer. The beast that was his need for her was rearing up violently within him, thrilling over the way she brushed against his body as she took in his scent. Before he could counter the impulse, he lowered his head to her throat where it curved into her shoulder and returned the action without hesitation. The smell of her was divinity. Ambrosia. She was highly aroused, and it was reflected with a heavy dose of feminine musk that bled through him like an erotic poisoning. It burned through every vessel, every nerve, releasing endorphins and blood all along his body so both would settle heavily in anticipation of her next action.
He did not resist when she pushed her hands out of his hold, the movement sending his slack hands sliding down her forearms as she reached for him. At first, all she did was drift haunting touches of fingertips over his hairline, his forehead, his nose and cheeks and chin. Without truly touching him, she cradled his head between her hands, her fingertips fluttering like the wings of a butterfly near his ears as her hands shook violently with her pent-up needs. She reached up with her mouth, her lips and breath brushing over him with sensations both there and nonexistent all at once. Elijah made an anticipatory sound of agony, low in his chest, painful conflict exploding over his pupils as she looked up into them with aching clarity of purpose. He dreaded it, longed for it, both with every fiber of his soul.
"Siena, please," he begged one last futile time.
Then her mouth was against his and all protest faded to nothingness. She was perfect. So utterly perfect.
No woman can be so unbearably perfect…
Elijah thought this fiercely, even as he convinced himself otherwise just by leaning in to meet the lush caress of her mouth. He drew hard for a breath that might actually provide a measure of oxygen for a change, and it did so on the back of her scent and the cinnamon confection of her taste. Her lips were hot against his, and pliant beyond reason. Elijah encircled her head with his hands, drawing her up tighter into the kiss she had just barely begun, and showed her exactly what it was she was toying with. Part of him still hoped the intensity of it would frighten her as it had the day before.
And part of him did not.
His mouth burned fire into hers, his powerful hands pressing fingerprints into her scalp as he clutched her tightly. His hands shook as hard as hers had, and she felt the vibration from head to toe. He tried for violence, tried to frighten her with the rough, slashing intensity of his kiss, crushing her beneath his mouth, even going so far as to release a predatory growl of warning, of danger. He battered and bruised her, bit at both of her lips as he threatened to devour her like prey, tearing at her soft, vulnerable flesh with hunger and intensity.
Siena refused him any avenue of salvation, slamming her hands against his chest, thrusting her weight into a push that pressed him aggressively to the stone wall behind him, unlocking her mouth from his just long enough for her to tilt her head in the opposite direction and capture him once more. She reached boldly for the caress of his tongue, rushing into his mouth with her urgent seeking in a way that made every nerve in his body sing with pleasure. She was no virginal miss who patiently accepted only what he orchestrated. She would conduct as much as he would, and the idea of it floored him. With that change of aggression and the honesty of reaction it forced from him, she released a sound of delight and encouragement.
Discouragement fell to the wayside as he burned with the press of her body and the appetite of her mouth. She wriggled her body into his, her soft curves spreading over the hard planes of his muscles. She fit him perfectly, so tall and so elegantly shaped. He did not dwarf her, and he found that enticing beyond reason. His hands drifted to her neck and throat, slipping under her heavy hair to encircle the warmth of it. Even the collar she wore was warmed by her body heat. Before he realized he was even attempting to do so, he had unlatched the intricate collar and it slid down the front of her body.
Siena jerked back suddenly in shock as she felt the collar abandon her throat in order to be replaced by his hands. She grabbed up the collar before it could slide down her chest and then looked from him to it in disbelief.
"That's not possible," she whispered, shivering as he once more closed the distance between them to nuzzle her bare neck with his mouth, his cradling hands holding her to him though she was trying to keep a specific balance to her body. She moaned at the astounding sensitivity of the area. It had not been exposed to the touch of anything but gold and moonstones for her entire lifetime.
"Put it aside," he urged her, his tongue tracing her carotid artery up the entire length of her neck in a way that turned her legs to jelly. She gasped with pleasure, her eyes closing as he repeated the circuit in the opposite direction, adding the teasing scrape of his teeth until she was trembling with chills. Siena felt as though her entire body was moving out of her control, just as her world careened off its axis.
"Elijah, the collar…" she tried to explain, her words little more than soft pants of sound.
"Put it aside," he commanded again, enunciating each word firmly.
Siena let it fall from suddenly nerveless fingers and tilted her head so he had increased access to her neck and throat. He made a sound of male approval that sang through her with an operatic note of delight. He was encircling her with the steel bands of his arms a moment later, lifting her up to the tips of her toes. He seized her mouth and kissed her into a state of total breathlessness and numbness of thought. She felt light and utterly feminine. He could make her forget her own strength so easily with his large, powerful hands and demanding masculine body.
Elijah lifted her off the floor, swinging her easily around until her feet touched the bed. She laughed when she found herself standing on it, looking down into his eyes. Her laughter faded the moment she realized the access their new positions allowed him to her br**sts. His lips twisted into a devilish smile as he lifted his knuckles and skimmed over first one nipple, then the other, teasing until she could no longer bear the sensitivity. She was fascinated by the instant response of her body, the reactive thrust seeming erotic even to her as she watched him taunt her with his touch. She could barely catch a full breath as he leaned into her, nuzzling her through the fabric of her dress. The silky material seemed like nothing to him as he drew one of the points into his mouth, sucking until she thought she was going to collapse from the intense pleasure. He lifted his head away only long enough to hook the strap of the dress with his pinkie, peeling down the dampened silk until it was no longer a barrier to his mouth.
Siena cried out soulfully as his mouth, so full of wet fire, surrounded her once more, drawing her deep onto his tongue and then releasing her to pull his teeth across her teasingly. This time her knees did buckle, but he held her in place as if she weighed no more than her dress.
Elijah reveled in the taste of her, the feminine fullness of her br**sts, the sensitivity of the gold-and-rose point of her nipple as he flicked his tongue over it until she made another of those sexy little whimpers of unmistakable pleasure. He sucked her deeply into his mouth when she did, and she jerked bodily against him. He felt her hands clutching at his head and shoulders, the mindless grasp of a woman lost in her bliss, and it rushed through him in ripples of tightening need.