Her Reaper's Arms Read online

  he reaches puberty. Hell, I may not be able to give you a baby, sweeting. Did you think

  of that?”

  She considered his handsome face. A man as sensual and powerful as this one

  could not be anything but virile and—she blushed—potent. “If he will be like you in all

  else, I think I could live with that. I would love him despite the thing inside him.”

  Bevyn’s heart twisted and he gave her a look that he was certain had made her

  womb clench for she drew in a tremulous breath.

  “That’s a long way off. Let’s not worry about it,” he said, wanting this conversation

  finished. “But like I said, if you don’t want to make love with me…”

  “I belong to you, Milord Bevyn,” she declared, chin raised defiantly. “Take what

  you want.”

  For a long moment he stared at her then took a deep breath, pushing all his own

  worries aside.

  “I will pay for it,” he said. “By the gods, they will make me pay for it, but I can no

  more stop making you wholly mine than I can cease to breathe.”

  He rose up in the bed and knelt there on his knees, sliding her chemise from her

  shoulders and down her upper body, waiting patiently as she arched her hips up so he

  could pull it free. She lay there beneath his scrutiny as he swept his gaze over her

  nakedness, claiming it for his own.

  “You are so beautiful,” he said, holding his hand out to her to help her sit.

  She cocked her head to one side, wondering at his motive until he put his hands to

  her hair and began to take the pins from the blonde curls, pulling the long locks over

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  her shoulders, fingering them, lifting them to his nostrils to inhale the scent of lemons

  that clung to the tendrils.

  “So beautiful,” he said with a sigh, letting the lock he held fall to her shoulder.

  “I am as you see me,” she said. She held no illusions of how she looked. To her, she

  was nothing special—simply an ordinary woman with commonplace looks. She had no

  way of knowing that to him she was the most beautiful woman to ever walk the face of

  the earth.

  He wanted—no he needed—to lose himself in her soft, wet folds. He knew it was

  wrong, that he should not do it. He knew the consequences but he didn’t care. All of his

  life he had been denied what he wanted, had his needs and hopes and longings laughed

  at, subjugated, pushed aside, denied.

  No more!

  He wanted and he would take, penalties be damned.

  Lowering his head to her breast, he drew her nipple between his lips, glorying in

  the feel of her hands threading through his hair to hold his head. He plied his tongue

  across the swollen tip—tasting her, suckling her, drawing strength and courage from

  her sweet offering. He laved her, swirled his tongue around her engorged peak, planted

  soft kisses along the firm globe he held in his hand.

  Shifting until he was atop her, pushing her legs apart with his hips, he settled down

  into the sweet valley between her thighs and clasped her other breast, holding it as

  lovingly as he did its mate. Alternating his attention from one silken mound to the

  other, he licked her nipples, gently nibbled them and raked them softly across his lips

  and cheek and chin. All the while, his eyes were on hers—melded, fused, locked.

  “You are an incredibly handsome man, milord,” she told him. Her fingers plowed

  slowly, sensuously through his dark curls.

  “I am as you see me,” he repeated her words back to her. He flicked his tongue over

  her nipple then drew it into his mouth.

  Lea stared into those beautiful amber eyes with their long, thick lashes and

  shivered. His face was flawless without a nick or a cut to mar the flesh. Not one blemish

  showed on those fine features except for the dark blue tattoo. She traced the sweep of

  one stylized wing with her fingertip.

  “What manner of bird is this?” she asked.

  “It is the Coure crow,” he replied, his teeth lightly clamped to her nipple. “It

  symbolizes good judgment although there are those who would argue I possess such a

  trait.”

  She smiled. “What trait would you say you possess, milord?” she asked.

  He snorted and released her nipple with a loud pop. “Stubbornness perhaps?”

  “And are the Coure men known for being stubborn?” she inquired.

  “Stubborn and willful, I’m told. The reason the Coure clan has the tattoo is because

  of Beldyn Coure, the patriarch of our family. He had it inked on his cheek to denote that

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  he had fallen prey to the wiles of a designing woman by the name of Justine Crowe. She

  all but destroyed the clan before he besieged her keep and took her captive, later

  strangling her with his bare hands. To me, the tat symbolizes a man thinking with the

  part of his anatomy that is the least wise of his organs.”

  “I’ve heard each Reaper has his own facial tattoo,” she said. “What…?”

  “Enough talk of other men, wench,” he said, dragging his body up hers, grinding

  his hard cock against her pubic mound. “You need only think on one man and that is

  the one about to make you a woman.” His amber eyes turned dark gold. “His woman.”

  Lea gasped as he plucked at her nipples—first one then the other—with his teeth. It

  was a heady sensation that held no hurt within it but sheer, mindful pleasure that sent

  chills down her sides and made her belly clench. The sweep of his tongue swirling over

  and over, around and around her swollen buds made her slam her hands to the sheets

  to keep from brutally grabbing his hair. She grabbed handfuls of the rough cotton and

  twisted.

  “Ah, wench, that is nothing,” he drawled, and moved down her until he could flick

  his tongue into the concavity of her navel. That too brought waves of shivering to her

  body.

  She could not have stopped him even if she had been of a mind to as he slid lower

  still and his hot breath fanned across her nether curls. She raised her head to look down

  at him as he buried his face against wiry hair, rubbing his whiskers against it as though

  he were a cat marking his scent.

  “You like that?” she asked.

  “Shush,” he said.

  He didn’t want to think. He wanted to act. He didn’t want to consider consequences

  or penalties or what it was going to cost him to do what he had set his mind to. He

  simply wanted to feel.

  Lea Walsh would have been astounded to learn that the man whose hands were

  molding her breasts so expertly as his breath mingled with her pubic hair was as much

  a virgin as she. Though his staff had been suckled by many a woman, had been handled

  by even more as they eased him—and at times jerked him—to pleasure, he had not once

  slid that steely cock into a feminine sheath.

  “You must never touch your staff except to hold it to relieve your bladder,” the brothers

  had warned him when he had taken his vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in that

  lifetime before he had been reborn a Reaper. “To spill your seed is a wasteful sin and

  punishable by being thrust into the fires of the Abyss.”

  “Do not stroke your cock when you are in Reaper form!” Morrigunia had sternly told

  him. �
�If you do, you will suffer My displeasure!”

  While the Triune Goddess had implied it was all right to relieve his need if he were

  in Transition, Bevyn had never once done as he’d seen animals do. He had never licked

  that part of him when he was in wolf form. He thought it a disgusting thing and

  morally wrong. That, Morrigunia had told him, was what whores were for.

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  “But never stick your cock into a female unless you want her as your lifelong mate!” the

  goddess had also warned.

  With Lea’s warm, spicy scent in his nostrils, he knew this female was his. She had

  been born to belong to him. He knew it as surely as he knew his heart was beating in

  synchronized rhythm to hers. He needed no permission to take what was—by rights—

  his, though there was no doubt in his mind that a price would be exacted.

  He stroked his thumbs over her nipples—back and forth, back and forth and smiled

  when she arched her hips up against his chin. Trailing his fingers down her chest, over

  the sweet indention of her belly, across the soft flange of her hips, he molded his fingers

  around her upper thighs, caressing her as he rubbed his chin against her mound.

  “You smell so good,” he told her, once more finding her eyes locked on his. “I could

  lie here all day.”

  “We’d never get anything done like that,” she teased.

  He smiled lazily and slid his hands to the insides of her thighs, feeling her shiver

  delicately as he touched the sensitive flesh, kneading the smooth muscles. He nudged

  her thighs farther apart until he could see the dark pink creases of her sex.

  “That,” he said, easing a finger to her softness, “is what I want to devour.”

  Lea gasped as he touched a part of her that sent goose bumps prickling all over her

  skin. She writhed beneath that contact, feeling to the very marrow of her bones. “WWhat did you do?” she asked.

  “This?” he asked, and began a slow, rhythmic circling with his thumb around

  whatever it was he was touching.

  “Aye!” she said with a hitching breath.

  “So soft,” he whispered. “So supple.”

  He stroked his thumb between one slick fold and then the other—slowly,

  methodically, whisperlike, his nail grazing her flesh, bringing scent and moisture from

  between her legs.

  “Milord, please,” she said, her head whipping back and forth on the pillow. She

  had no notion of what it was he was doing but it was pleasure-pain that was fast

  controlling her every breath.

  “Lie still, wench,” he ordered, and turned his hand palm up to slowly drag his

  index and middle finger upward along the valley of her sex.

  She wriggled, arching her hips up, seeking something she did not understand,

  wanting something for which she had no name.

  He stroked her until she was moaning and undulating her hips, mercilessly

  tormenting her with his strong fingers, his well-groomed nails. By the time he put his

  mouth to her clit, she was nearly mindless with need.

  Her hands plowed through his hair and she held him where he was, her neck

  arched back as he lapped at her dewy flesh, tasted her, making soft, smacking sounds

  that only added to her arousal. Her heels were digging into the mattress, her legs

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  splayed as far apart as her bones would allow, her hips arching up to his seeking

  mouth.

  She tasted of honey—warm and spicy—and the scent of her reminded him vividly

  of peaches fresh from the vine, cut open in the hot sun to seep their juices from the slit.

  He spiraled his tongue over and around her clit and nibbled it, pushing the hood back

  to gain the very most of that receptive nub. He dragged it over her folds and stabbed

  with lightning forays into the creases, keeping well away from that dark, sensuous dell

  into which he wished to plunge.

  He felt her tugging on his hair and yet it felt good to him. It gave wildness to the

  moment that did nothing save spur him on as he flashed the tip of his tongue at her

  opening then moved a finger to that creamy entrance where her juices were freely

  flowing.

  “Bevyn!” she cried out, and he knew that minute touch, that small sortie into her

  folds had brought about her first sexual release.

  He lifted his head and looked up at her wide eyes as she stared at him with her lips

  parted, her tongue sweeping across the full lower flesh to make his loins burn with

  need.

  “What was that?” she asked, her body quivering as the last spasm faded away.

  “The beginning, my love,” he whispered. “Only the beginning.”

  He eased his finger deeper inside her until the first joint and then the second

  disappeared from view. She tensed around him, her vaginal muscles locking on to him

  with fervor.

  “Relax,” he said, putting his free hand to her belly and pressing lightly. “Relax and

  let your man pleasure you.”

  Lea’s heart soared at the name he had called himself. He was indeed her man and

  she was without a moment’s hesitation his lady. She was reveling in his touch, was

  mesmerized by it, and as his finger moved inside her—circling and slightly

  withdrawing, going a bit deeper until she could feel his folded fingers on the entrance

  to her opening, she moaned, grazing his scalp with her nails.

  “That’s my woman,” he said. “Pull if you want to.”

  She could not imagine herself ever hurting him but when he thrust a second finger

  inside her, her hand jerked spasmodically in his curls and she heard him grunt then

  release a low chuckle.

  “Leave some up there, wench,” he teased.

  He was slowly rotating his fingers inside her cunt and Lea was lost in a rush of

  pleasure so great she could only close her eyes and enjoy it. She felt a third finger join

  the other two and wondered if his cock would be as wide, would stretch her as his

  fingers did.

  “That is what I am doing, wench,” he said as though reading her mind. “I am

  preparing you for him.”

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  She was slick, her juices coating his fingers. He knew she was but a hair’s breadth

  away from another orgasm so pushed his fingers deep and held them there, his other

  hand pressing down on her belly to send the blood flooding into her groin.

  “Oh god!” she cried out, and the wave of squeezes that clutched at his fingers

  nearly made him come. His cock was steel-hard and burning with desire, his balls so

  tight he thought they well might burst from their fleshy sacs. He had to tamp down his

  building release until he was sure she was primed for his entry.

  “Easy, milady,” he said, soothing her as he would a stallion he was readying for the

  saddle. “Easy.”

  The last tremors faded inside her and yet Lea knew there was something extra for

  which he was preparing her, something more that would bring the stars down from the

  heavens.

  With her eyes on his, he withdrew his fingers from her body—puckering his lips at

  her groan of protest as though he were reprimanding her—then opened his mouth to

  lick her juices from his flesh.

  “Ah Bevyn!” she sighed, shuddering. She was nearly beside herself wanting him t
o

  slide his body over hers, to press her down, to capture her. She ached to know what it

  felt like to have him inside her, his rigid cock—the cock that pressed so hard against her

  thigh—seated deep.

  Her taste was unlike anything he had ever known and it felt right. It tasted right. It

  was right but he wanted more so he went to the source, journeyed to the well to take his

  next sip.

  His mouth on her nearly sent Lea up in flames. He was suckling her opening,

  drinking from her, slipping his tongue inside, lapping at her folds and then lifting her

  hips to flick that wicked muscle around her anus, pressing it into the tiny opening.

  Another hard wave of spasms shot through her and she raked her nails across his

  shoulders, unable to keep herself from doing so. She trembled as he dragged the broad

  plane of his tongue over and over and over her slit as she came, the flood of her juices

  coating him.

  She was well primed, he thought as her arms fell to her sides, and then he was up

  and over her, shifting one hand under her delectable little rump, lifting her for his

  penetration. His other hand went to the base of his cock and he positioned himself,

  readied his shaft to impale her.

  “Look at me, sweeting,” he ordered, and watched her eyelids flutter open. “Watch

  my eyes while I take you.”

  She knew there would be pain. Mable and the other women had warned her, but

  there was no pain when he slid into her, only the most remarkable pleasure, the most

  intoxicating gratification she could ever have imagined. He went slowly but firmly into

  her and pressed as deep as his large rod would go then he stilled, allowing her body to

  adjust around him.

  “It didn’t hurt,” she said.

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  “I would never hurt you, milady,” he said.

  He waited until she moved her tight ass before he eased out of her a little then

  drove back in slowly. His jaw was clamped tightly shut to control the urge to pound

  into her, to relieve the hot ache, the brutal tension that was racking his body.

  “I love you,” she said.

  It was those three little words—words he had never expected to hear ever said to

  him—that were Bevyn Coure’s undoing. He lost all sense of gentleness and what little

  restraint he had.

  “Put your legs around me,” he grated out between clenched teeth. “Lock your heels