Free Bitten by Ecstasy: 2 (Dark Judgment) by Naima Simone

rage and agony until little more than a trickle remained. And then even less.
    Sinéad exhaled. Opened her eyes.
    And no longer gazed into the eyes of the hippogryph, but the man, the healer. Knowledge dwelled in the depths that had returned to human. She stiffened, waited. Some would view the cleansing as an intrusive violation of privacy. She searched his closed expression for a sign of annoyance, of betrayal for encroaching on the ground of his personal hell.
    “I can’t help it,” she said, notching her chin higher. Bastien was a proud creature and wouldn’t appreciate her glimpse inside his head. Yet she couldn’t propel an apology past her lips. The “gift” bequeathed to her from the male her mother had chosen to breed with left Sinéad with little choice. She could shield herself, but she couldn’t eliminate the psychic talent that was as much a part of her makeup as her eyes, hair and wings—well, since five months ago, eyes and hair. “It’s who I am.”
    Bastien didn’t respond for several long seconds. A muscle ticked in the granite line of his jaw even as he shifted to face her head on, his shoulders and chest a solid wall of tense muscle. Aggression seemed to vibrate through his big body, but it was tempered by a gleam of desperate hope lightening his unflinching study of her.
    “Can you help me?” he asked, voice gruff as if the words had been shoved through a tunnel of glass and gravel. “Can you heal me like you did my emotions?”
    Slowly—regretfully—Sinéad shook her head. The tentative light died from his face and a part of her inexplicably longed to reach out and stroke the chiseled mouth that firmed into a stoic line of defeat.
    “No,” she whispered. “I can’t help either of us.”
    * * * * *
     
    As the moon’s pearlescent beams caressed her silken skin like an enamored lover, Bastien growled, irrationally jealous of the touch to this lovely creature’s body. Only he had the right—the privilege—of stroking her.
    Worshipping her.
    He swept the long strands of her hair to the side. Like a pool of molten silver. Awe billowed in his chest as he curled a hand around the nape of her neck.
    “Bastien?” Sinéad glanced over her shoulder at him, her delicate, often stubborn, chin grazing the rounded, soft slope. Her thunder-and-lightning eyes held a hint of question, uncertainty.
    “Shhh. Relax for me,” he murmured, cupping her hip and, with a slight tug and a low grunt of satisfaction, positioning her to his satisfaction. She resembled a sleek, mysterious feline with her ass arched in the air and her slender back curved like an archer’s bow. Beautiful. Deadly.
    Sinéad’s gaze lingered on his face another lengthy moment before she turned her head and pressed her cheek into the white pillowcase. Her arms stretched forward from underneath the pillow and she wrapped her fingers around the headboard railings.
    He whispered to her, gentle reassurances of her beauty, her strength, for he understood the trust it required her—a cruxim—to allow him at her back, leaving her defenseless and open to his desire and control. Her confidence in him was sweeter than the rich, heady scent of the cream moistening the folds of her pussy and dotting her inner thighs. He inhaled, drinking in the fragrance of her desire. Damn, he wanted to roll in it, coat his body with it, immerse herself in it so her singular aroma was a permanent fixture in his nose, on his skin.
    Groaning, he leaned over her, his body completely dwarfing her smaller one. He lifted his hand from her neck and traced the sun-kissed skin with his tongue, savoring the flavor of perspiration and her. So dainty, so petite…and yet, if she chose to, Sinéad could flick him aside with a sweep of her arm. But she didn’t. Instead she clutched the headboard, submitting to his touch. Awaiting his—and her—pleasure. His cock pounded in anticipation and arousal. He clenched his jaw as he lowered his hand from her hip, gripped his