Phoenix Burning Page 4

  Her conscience gave one last protest, but Phoenix tuned it out. Ivar was a vampire and they could have each other a few more times before she needed to worry about draining him too deeply. Hooking both feet around the outside of the front chair legs, she opened herself farther, showing him everything.

  Phoenix wanted to tease him, tempt him. She wanted to rub her clit and talk dirty to him, to get him to drop that iron control, but she couldn’t. Not because she was so hot that a mere brush of his fingers might cause her to orgasm. Not because her thoughts were so scattered, she couldn’t manage to come up with anything to say that wouldn’t make her sound like an idiot. Both were true, but the reason she didn’t act on her idea was simpler than that—Ivar wouldn’t forgive himself for a lapse in his honor.

  She wanted to protect him, even from herself, and Phoenix had no idea why.

  “What—” She had to clear her throat; the word had been unintelligible. “What did you promise me?”

  His eyes did lift now and meet hers. “I gave my oath that I would behave myself.”

  “What if I don’t behave myself?” If she climbed on top of him—The light bulb finally went off in her brain and she muttered under her breath, “Duh, girlfriend.” Then more loudly, Phoenix said, “I release you from your promise. I want to do everything with you. Tonight. Now.”

  Ivar didn’t move.

  Phoenix tightened her thighs, trying to resist her need to go to him, unzip his jeans and straddle him. “What do I need to say or do to rescind your oath?”

  “I need,” he said slowly, “to be certain it’s not desire speaking, that you’ll not regret it later. You were adamant about not having sex again when we went up the stairs. Nothing has changed except for how stimulated you are.”

  She tried to clear her head. If Ivar could manage to make sense even when he had his eyes morphed and his fangs extended, she could find the right words to make him understand.

  “I fed from you tonight, took your sexual energy as you climaxed, and I’m sated. It’s not hunger driving me and that’s the only thing that would be beyond my control. This—” she gestured vaguely to herself, to her splayed position. “This is desire, and while it’s intense, I could contain it if I wanted.”

  His expression didn’t change.

  Fighting to maintain clarity, she continued, “I want you, Ivar. The only reason I asked for your promise was because of how I could hurt you. Fed or not, I’ll still take your energy every time you climax with me. I won’t be able to help myself.”

  “I’m a vampire, not a human.”

  “I know, but I can still kill you. Like blood, sexual energy is tied to life force. Unlike blood, this energy doesn’t replenish itself. Even a sip will add up over time.”

  One side of his mouth curved upward. “And you changed your mind about more sex because...?”

  “Because you are a vampire. Because you’re right. I can be with you more than one time without worrying I’ll endanger your life.” Phoenix freed her feet from the chair legs and leaned forward so she could touch him. “I’m no longer a nestling, not after tonight, but I’m new to this and I was concerned about inadvertently taking too much from you. You’ll stop me if that happens, I believe that now.”

  Some of the rigid tension in his muscles relaxed. “You’re certain? You won’t wish later that you hadn’t relieved me of my oath?”

  “As long as I don’t hurt you, I promise you that I won’t be sorry about anything that transpires between us.”

  “Good enough,” Ivar said, and in a motion so fast, Phoenix saw blur more than man, he surged to his feet, swept her into his arms and strode to the bedroom.

  * * *

  In an instant, Ivar absorbed the inside of her bedroom—the blankets kicked off the foot of the bed, the three different sized vibrators lying atop her nightstand and the fading fragrance of her earlier climaxes mixing with the more potent scent of her current arousal. He’d have sworn he couldn’t get any harder, but his body proved him wrong. What was it about Phoenix that got to him like this?

  Her lips pressed against the side of his neck. He expected a kiss, but she nipped him, the bite hard enough to make him jerk in reaction. Slowly, Ivar lowered her feet to the floor, letting their bodies slide against each other.

  She looked up at him, eyes big and hazy with desire, her hands resting on his shoulders and her lips moist and parted. Something inside him shifted with the force of a magnitude nine earthquake. He didn’t know what caused it and he didn’t care. Not now. Not when he had Phoenix willing in his arms.

  Reaching out, he cupped her cheek with his hand and traced the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. He wanted to take his time, love her the way he’d been fantasizing about for nearly six weeks. She had other ideas. With a smile that made his stomach knot up, Phoenix drew his thumb into her mouth and ran her tongue over the tip before sucking lightly.

  He felt that in his cock. Just as she’d intended.

  “Is that your way of telling me you want to play first?” Ivar asked.

  With a final twirl of her tongue, Phoenix released him. “No, that’s my way of trying to hurry you up. I’m too far gone to waste time on a lot of foreplay.”

  “We’ll compromise. I’ll make you come fast and then we’ll play.” And he’d survive the self-inflicted torture somehow, but he wasn’t giving up the opportunity to explore her fully, and at his age, he should have enough self-control to keep from coming.

  “Ivar.” It was a protest.

  He caressed her cheek. “There’s more to sex, fledgling, than fucking hard and fast to orgasm. I plan to show you that.”

  “I don’t need—”

  “But I do.” He slid his hand into her hair, letting the strands flare between his fingers, and leaned forward. His lips brushed lightly over hers, there and gone before she could take the kiss deeper.

  Phoenix had her own ideas. With a quick yank, she ripped his shredded T-shirt completely from his body and tossed it to the carpet. Her eyes dared him to make her pay. Ivar suppressed a smile. It wouldn’t be that easy to sway him from what he wanted to do with her.

  “You want our clothes off then?” he asked. He’d been striving for politeness, but instead of tea-with-the-queen, his voice had come out raspy. Heated. Needy. No wonder Phoenix looked smug. She thought she had him on the ropes.

  Ivar wasn’t as rough with her clothes as she’d been with his. Unzipping her skirt, he used his palms to skim it over her hips until gravity took over and it pooled at her feet. Despite his effort to appear unaffected, he was certain Phoenix heard his gulp. She was wet and the lamplight made her pussy seem to glimmer. She had her tank top off and across the room before he got past the sight of her arousal.

  She reached out, but Ivar stepped back and shook his head. “Not yet. Widen your stance for me.”

  At first she stared at him blankly, but then she complied. Damn, he liked her spread for him. Only him. Pushing that idea away, he knelt in front of her and moved until he was in the gap between her legs. Ivar put his hands on her hips and guided her pussy to his mouth.

  He wanted to tease her, torment her until she begged him to make her come, but he wouldn’t be able to last that long. Using both hands, he opened her farther and zeroed in on her clit. Wrapping his lips around it, Ivar sucked gently.

  Her hands clenched in his hair, holding him in place, and she moaned. The moan became a keen and increased in volume. Phoenix tried to rock against his face, but he tightened his grip on her hips and held her steady. He felt tremors course through her. It wasn’t until she was shaking that he released the suction. “Don’t scream,” he said softly against her pussy.

  “Wha—”

  Ivar didn’t let her finish her question. He swirled his tongue over her clit. The second time he did it, her hands yanked at his hair and she ground herself against his face.

  Phoenix didn’t scream.

  The muffled, choking sound, though was every bit as erotic. Ivar wished he’d
taken the time to unzip his jeans before starting this because her every action, her every sound made more blood flow to his cock.

  As her orgasm began to subside, he slowed his tongue and softened his touch, but he didn’t stop licking her. Not until her grip changed from one that kept him close to a way to hold herself up. Without releasing her, Ivar stood. Her bottom lip was swollen from where she’d bitten it to contain her cries. Her eyes were so foggy with lust that it didn’t appear as if she could see anything and her breathing was ragged, harsh.

  Sweeping her into his arms again, Ivar set Phoenix down in the center of the bed and stood back, watching her until her gaze seemed able to focus once more. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said, voice thick. She cleared her throat and asked, “Why do you have all those clothes on yet?”

  His answer was to open his jeans and lower the zipper. He shoved the denim down to his thighsx. Pre-come had created a wet patch on the denim and that bemused him. No one before had left him at the mercy of his lust. Phoenix came up on her knees and stared. He couldn’t look away, either. Her dark hair fell past her breasts, her nipples had softened, but they were peeking out between the strands. Her heavy-lidded gaze and parted lips held him in thrall.

  “I had plans,” he said. “Lots of teasing, lots of foreplay.” Ivar’s lips curved and he indicated the toys on her nightstand. “Seeing those expanded the list. I had this fantasy of watching you bring yourself off with one of them.”

  “No,” Phoenix said. “I’ve given myself enough orgasms over the past few weeks and I’m tired of that. Think of something else.”

  “I already did. I started imaging I was taking your ass while using a vibrator on your pussy.”

  Phoenix sucked in a sharp breath and he wondered if he’d gone too far. She was so sexual that it was easy to forget that this was new to her, but it wasn’t shock that had caused the reaction, not with her nipples going nice and hard again. He reached out and ran a knuckle lightly over one crest, but he continued to study her and weigh her response. Then he saw it, the nervousness behind the heat. She was intrigued, but not quite ready to go that far yet. “We’ll save that for another time.”

  A shadow crossed her face and Ivar leaned forward to kiss her before she could remind him that she was dangerous to him and they couldn’t keep having sex. He didn’t want to hear it. Not tonight.

  “What about you? Do you have any fantasies you’d like to explore?” he asked before nipping her bottom lip.

  Phoenix shook her head. “Not really. Just you. Your cock. I want it. Everywhere. In my mouth, between my breasts, fucking into me hard and deep. I want to feel you pin me to the bed with your hips as you shoot your come into me. Nothing too exciting.”

  Ivar nearly choked. “Your words alone were enough to have me fighting the need to climax and you don’t think what you want is exciting enough?”

  “It’s so ordinary,” she said. “You’ve probably done everything I mentioned a billion times over the last seven hundred years.”

  He began to tell her that there was nothing they could do together that would be novel to him, but he stopped short. That wasn’t the answer she needed. There was more depth here than he’d expected and Ivar took her hands in his. “Yes, I’ve done all those things, but sweet fledgling, it will be my first time sharing these experiences with you and that makes them new again.”

  She looked dubious.

  “It’s truth,” he said and moved one of her hands to his shaft. “Feel how hard I am for you.” He slid her palm up to his crown. “Feel how moist the head is. None of that happens if I’m not aroused. I don’t need to do you on the street with people watching from their windows like we did earlier. I don’t need to blindfold you and handcuff you to the bed to get an erection. Just you, Phoenix. All it takes to arouse me is you.”

  “Show me,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing him close enough for her breasts to press into his chest. “Show me how much you want me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Phoenix expected him to take her as hard and fast as he had out on the street. What better way was there to prove want than to show she had made him impatient? But instead Ivar cupped one of her breasts in his hand and ran his thumb back and forth over the nipple as he covered her mouth with his.

  The kiss, too, was unhurried, his tongue teasing her lips before accepting her invitation to explore more deeply. Phoenix tried to incite him with her own tongue, but Ivar maintained the same leisurely pace.

  She growled her frustration and curling her hand tighter, stroked his cock. His shudder told her she was on the right track.

  His laughter filled her head, and even though he didn’t break their kiss, she heard his voice, too. Yes, your touch excites me, but we’re doing this my way. You see, my fledgling, I wasn’t merely a knight, I was a warrior monk and I learned a level of self-command that is foreign in this day and age. The inquisitors couldn’t break it and you shan’t, either.

  What he’d said raised questions—a million of them—but Ivar pinched her nipple and Phoenix forgot everything but his hands, his mouth, his cock pressing insistently against her palm. He kissed his way down to her chin, lightly bit it before nibbling his way up her jawline to her ear. Ivar nuzzled her beneath the lobe and Phoenix dropped her head back to give him more room.

  His fangs scraped against the sensitive skin of her throat and she waited, expecting them to pierce her flesh. They didn’t. Instead, he used them to tease her, to make her tingle.

  Lost in what he was doing to her, Phoenix realized she’d stopped caressing him. She’d ceased doing anything except enjoying his touch.

  You don’t have to do anything but enjoy, his voice said in her head again.

  “It’s not fair to you,” she managed to say before he trailed his tongue around the outside of her ear and made her moan.

  Ivar lifted his head, and looking into her eyes said aloud, “It gives me pleasure to touch you, to feel you react to me. Believe me, there’s nothing selfless about it.”

  “But I’ve had one orgasm already and you—”

  “Will have mine later.” His fangs were retracted when he smiled at her. The next moment, he was kissing her once more. This time he demanded her response rather than coaxing it. She gave it readily.

  He didn’t stay at her lips long, and he skimmed down her neck quickly, too. As his lips brushed over her breast, Phoenix arched, pressing herself firmly against his mouth. She wanted him to suck her nipples, to make the one on her right stand up as firmly as the one on the left, the one his fingers had been playing with. Instead, he ran his tongue across the underside of her breast. Her protest was more groan than a word. She splayed her fingers through his hair, tightened her hands into fists and dragged his mouth where she wanted. “Now,” she said.

  Ivar complied and her body bowed up, not in demand, but from all the sensations rocketing through her.

  It didn’t take her long to need more. He made her greedy, made her want everything at once. He was her fantasy, the man she couldn’t help but picture every time she pushed one of her vibrators in and out of her pussy. The memory was enough to make her want him inside her now. Wrapping her arms around him, Phoenix fell back on the bed, pulling him down on top of her.

  “Fuck me, damn it.”

  “No.”

  What?

  “You heard me.” He propped himself up on his hands and glared down at her. “Your order was to show you how much I wanted you. Fucking is too easy. Fucking won’t show you how you knot me up, how many times I’ve jacked myself off when I’ve known you’ve been masturbating.”

  He’d jerked off because of her? No, not because of her, he’d jerked off with her. Phoenix arched and writhed, trying to get him to do what she wanted. Ivar’s jaw tensed and a bead of sweat ran from his temple to his jaw, but she didn’t push him over the edge.

  His fingers teased her stomach, traced a circle around her navel, and slipped down to her hi
ps. He spread her legs, propping her feet on the bed with her knees up, his shoulders between her thighs. Her body tightened in remembered pleasure, but it wouldn’t be enough. Not nearly enough. “You’ve already eaten me,” she said, her complaint coming out breathless rather than irritated.

  “And I’ll go down on you again.” Ivar rubbed his chin against the inside of her thigh, using his facial hair to drive her crazy. “You taste sweet. I’m addicted.”

  But even in this he teased her, kissing and nipping his way down one leg and back up the other. She should take control, flip him onto his back and ride him until he couldn’t think about anything except driving his cock into her. What she did instead was push her hips up, offering herself to his mouth. She didn’t want to think about all the women he’d been with to get so good at eating pussy, but if he wasn’t going to fuck her the way she wanted, she was sure as hell going to enjoy everything he’d learned.

  Phoenix almost came when he blew air on her clit. He laughed at her, bastard, and ran his index finger through the lips of her sex before bringing it to his mouth and licking it clean. Her groan was deep enough for her to feel it all the way to the soles of her feet. Although her lips were parted from the sheer level of arousal, he used his hands to open her farther. She propped herself up on her elbows and watched him staring at her sex, and when he looked up, heat in his eyes, she knew he hadn’t lied about finding pleasure in playing with her.

  “Please,” she said, ready to beg if that’s what it took. She needed this, she needed him.

  He used both hands to pin her in place and then he lowered his mouth to her sex. He didn’t tease her long—she didn’t even have to swear at him—before he licked and sucked at her. She thought she’d known what to expect from earlier, but she realized quickly that he’d only hit the highlights then. Ivar was even more talented than she’d realized and by the time he began tongue-fucking her, she had both hands fisted in the sheets at her hips.