Forbidden
Page 44

There was something almost a little obscene about being fully nude beneath him while he was clothed, trapped by the will of his mouth and hands, able only to accept what he forced on her more than willing body. It seemed as though he had no interest in the touch of her hands. That is to say, as much as her attentions were something he craved, clearly it was her pleasure that meant everything to him. Almost to an obsessive degree. Docia could barely catch her breath, never mind cling to a solid thought as he held her down, forced her to feel his need the way a child delighted with the surf of the ocean was forced off his feet by the power of it again and again. All she could do was let her hands fall onto the bed, let her body be a limp, pleasured receptacle for anything and everything he wanted to do to her.
There was time later, she thought, to learn him just as well. There would be time for her to wield this power over him one day.
Her abandon served her well. As he tongued her belly, sucked hard at her breasts, stroked confident fingers through the wet heat between her thighs, she fell into a swirl of pleasure a thousand times more powerful than the first time they had been together. Was that even possible? Was she just misremembering?
Did it matter?
Her first orgasm hit her out of the blue, without him even touching her in any way that ought to realistically produce the effect. It was an orgasm of the mind and soul made real by the body. She cried out, her back curving up off the bed, and he drew back a little, his heavy breaths sounding almost as loud as her pleasure roaring in her ears. He drew back just to watch her, to see the beauty of her riding out the sensation.
“God,” he breathed. “Good God.”
Then he was on his knees, barely keeping himself from ripping free of his clothing. In fact, he got little more than his shirt and pants open before he was back over her and spreading her legs to put himself inside her in desperate, needful thrusts.
Docia’s hands came up, grateful for his shirt because she needed something to grip, some kind of anchor. Last time it had been his skin, her nails making deep inroads. As she surged up to meet him, just as frantic to pull him inside her as he was to be there, fine weaving and threads popped under the strain of her grasp. But she needed to hold on or she was going to fly apart. The look in his eyes told her he was equally unraveling. That he felt everything she did.
She heard him groan with pleasure after a particularly deep thrust into her. She felt full and wild, and more than anything she felt beautiful and sexy … powerful. He could find her cute and adorable all he wanted any other time, because right here she knew she was sensual and erotic to him. She had absolutely no doubt. A feeling that was only reinforced as he lost control of himself, a wild, desperate rhythm overtaking him, all of it jumping out of him in dark, ferocious shouts of pleasure.
She came violently, almost painfully. Mortals shouldn’t know such pleasure, she would think later on. They weren’t capable of processing it all, of savoring it for all its massive details and tiny nuances. It was like having a wild seizure, her body jolting out of her control, sensation riding her as he was, pulsing into her as he was. Her release triggered his, and he lost all of his grace and strength, just as helpless to it as she was. There was so much delight in that for her that she crested again, way before she had even finished coming down from the initial high.
He dropped onto her only after long, hard, emptying thrusts into her that seemed to go on forever. His weight was heavy, restricting her breath when all she wanted to do was suck in oxygen. He tried to coordinate himself enough to move, but he couldn’t do it. She wrapped her arms around him to hold him tight, telling him she was just fine.
Telling him she was perfect.
And when he did finally catch his breath, he turned his head to whisper in her ear.
“I don’t love you.”
Remembering that he had insisted this went beyond love, the greatest emotion in the universe, she smiled.
“I don’t love you, too,” she said softly.
EPILOGUE
Jackson stood numbly inside the entryway of the Saugerties police department. The first thing he did was look toward Marissa’s closed door. He couldn’t help it. She was the only one in his present life, outside of Docia, who had shared what had just happened to him. He walked over to her, ignoring the questions and greetings of the others who had been waiting to hear from him for the past day as he’d tried to find some kind of reconciliation with his new existence.
At the very least, he had come to a decision.
He walked into the room without knocking, startling her. She jumped out of her seat, fussing awkwardly to smooth her skirt and the stray wave of hair he’d caught her twisting around her finger. Aha! Finally! The queen of perfect had a foible after all. Or perhaps it was newly formed after what she had gone through. The Bodywalkers assured him that she wouldn’t remember anything … at least not in a way that would make it seem like anything more than a vivid dream. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t affect her on a subconscious level.
“Sergeant Waverly, it’s traditional to knock,” she said with a frown as she walked around her desk to confront him. She was wearing a pair of stilettos in a hounds-tooth fabric meant to make them look respectable, but honestly that was impossible, because they were doing too fine a job of making already long legs look like walking sin. Hallelujah. And damn.
Jackson sighed.
“I’ve come here to …” He took a breath, and mentally his subconscious stepped back and let Menes come to the forefront. He leaned toward her. “I’m putting you on notice, Marissa.”
Marissa went very still, like the hunted creature she was about to become.
“W-what?” Her shock almost made him feel a little better about it.
“I think you can sense what I mean,” he prompted, coming close enough to drop his voice and whisper his next words against her hair. “I think you have sensed more than that all along.”
She swallowed, reaching nervously to tuck the loose coil of hair she’d been toying with behind her ear.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.
“Then I suppose I’m going to have to enlighten you,” he said, smiling when she couldn’t control the shiver that skipped through her entire body. “I’ve come to realize that there is no one on this planet, in this time, more intriguing than you are. You are a puzzle, and a pretty one at that. I think perhaps it would be a terrible shame if I were to let you slip away from me.”
“Th-that would be highly inappropriate, since you are my—”
“I’ll quit the force, then. There. The professional relationship is severed.”
“What?” she gasped, a look of shock on her face. “You can’t possibly be serious!”
Menes smiled for her, the slow smile that had captured the heart of his queen over and over again, one century after another.
“Gorgeous Marissa, I have never been more serious in my life.”