Free Beyond Your Touch by Pat Esden Page B

reaches maturity. Before that, temporary marks are applied and only for fights. ” He’d said it like maturing was a specific age, no different from being old enough to legally buy liquor or get a driver’s license. Why hadn’t he really explained?
    He let out a long breath. “I can’t stop what’s happening, but I can slow it down, make it more manageable. What’s most important is that I don’t let it come on full force right now. I need to be at the top of my game when I go to the realm.”
    I wanted to wheel around and shout that there was an obvious solution that wouldn’t involve screwing with our relationship. He shouldn’t go. He should let the other men do it. But I wasn’t about to insult him. He knew what was going on inside him better than anyone, his limits and the risks. Besides, if anyone suggested I back off and not play my part in this rescue, I’d be blistering angry and would do it anyway. This was something he had to do or the guilt of escaping at my mother’s expense would destroy him.
    An empty feeling uncoiled inside me. I slipped from his grip and turned to face him. “Just until you get back, promise.”
    Before I could think, his lips were on mine, hungry and forceful, opening, moving as if he couldn’t get enough. He uttered a moan, a deep sound welling up from his very core. I kissed him back, lips parting, my tongue seeking his. He yanked the buttons of my shirt open, his tongue and teeth trailing shivers of pleasure down my neck. Gasping, I raked my fingernails across his hair, gripping his head as his mouth moved toward my breasts, sucking, licking. My nipples hardened, bliss and pain mingling into an unbearably sweet sensation.
    My shirt fell away, the cool air titillating my heated skin. I gasped and trembled. His lips returned to mine. The full length of his sculpted, hard body pushed against me, coaxing me backward and down onto the quilt-covered chaise. His hips rolled against me, his mouth now grazing my shoulder blades. I closed my eyes, lost in the rush of his weight on top of me, and his kisses. I groaned and ran my fingers up under his T-shirt, feeling his silky skin, roped muscles, the ridge of a scar, his nipples. His fingers moved downward, stroking my whole body and sliding between my legs, touching, fondling. I moaned again. My body thrummed with desire for him. I heard his zipper open.
    â€œWait,” I panted. I wriggled one arm free, reached for my bag, and fumbled for a foil pack.
    He guided my hand, helping me slide the condom over his eager cock. I wanted him. Wanted him so badly I couldn’t wait. And this time, unlike ever before, he didn’t tease or hesitate. There was a mad desperation to the way he made love to me, hard and fast, as if a battle raged inside of him, one side wanting to drive me to insanity, the other wanting nothing more than to reach the oblivion of climax.
    His aura burned bright as a comet. It didn’t just bathe me like it had before. This time its blue light melded into me, penetrating every cell of my body, my pores, my hair, my bloodstream, my heart, and my mind, all possessed by him. My ears rang and my head swam from the power of it. I could smell his passion, too, the white-hot scent of a welder’s torch, the smell of rain sizzling on parched pavement. The rush of it was almost more than I could bear and there was no holding back—explosive and fast as a summer storm, I came. He came a second later, his body shuddering on top of me, his breath hot and rapid against my neck.
    But even as I lay there in his arms—his fingers brushing the damp hair from my face, kisses soft and gentle—the high still pulsed and lingered inside me, and the aura’s soft blue glow shimmered in the air around us. And the truth of it all hit me again, hard. I wanted more. Of him. Of us. And I was afraid of losing it.

CHAPTER 6
    You can take me. You can mark my flesh.