The Wellspring Page 8

  Marc began to lean forward and Yule knew what was coming. She held her breath, terrified that even the faint sound of exhalation might break the man's momentum toward her. She closed her eyes as the last centimeter was crossed and Marc's lips sealed over hers.

  Marc felt like flames and desert sunlight. The gentleness he’d always displayed was still embodied in the calloused palms that held her face, but his kiss was pure, burning passion. His mouth moved over hers with the sharp edge of possessiveness, firm lips opening hers, demanding tongue pressing for admittance. With a moan of surrender, Yule opened to him and felt bathed in fiery radiance.

  She reached up to bury her fingers in the thick curls of Marc’s hair. The strands were heavy and silky soft between her fingers. She caressed his head, delighting in way the heat of the man's skull warmed her palms. There was so much unexpected sensation in which to take pleasure. She sighed into his mouth as her fingers traced the delicate skin behind the man's ears then clutched at his shoulders when one of his hands slid confidently between their bodies to cup the place between her thighs. Her moan of apprehensive pleasure was muffled against Marc’s lips as his talented fingers kneaded and stroked her through the cloth of her swimsuit. The flat of his palm pressed over her mound hard, his fingers curving down to lightly tease where it was already growing damp with arousal causing Yule’s entire body to shudder.

  "Groves and Grottos, Marc!" she gasped, tearing her mouth free.

  Marc wouldn’t let her escape so easily, his hot lips searing a path across her cheek and along her jaw. He kissed her frantically, as if addicted to the taste of her skin and fearful of the withdrawal he’d suffer should she vanish. Yule felt consumed by a ravenous beast and was stunned by her exhilaration. She threw back her head, inviting the man to attack the bared length of her throat, and to her delight every inch of her neck was licked and suckled.

  Marc wanted her! He wanted her so badly his entire body shook from the force of it and Yule felt powerful, high on the rush of being desired, but all it took was a flex of his fingers between Yule’s thighs to remind her how completely and utterly she wanted to surrender to the man’s desire. She was lost on the waves of uncharted emotions. She felt eager hands tugging on the shoulder straps of her swimsuit and raised up long enough for Marc to strip her of the garment then eagerly helped Marc to shed his swim trunks. Their bodies met—skin to skin—and Yule moaned, hungry hands sweeping boldly over the curves of Marc's firmly muscled shoulders. She traced the knobs and ridges of the man's back, smoothed her palms over the sleek chest that rippled beneath her fingers. He was lean muscle and grace, tanned skin shining like gold in the sun. Against that nutmeg skin, Yule's natural skin, no longer spell-tanned, was strikingly pale.

  "You're like the inside of an ocean washed shell," Marc breathed worshipfully, running a calloused palm over Yule’s right breast causing the nipple to harden. His blue eyes were bright when he watched this happen, like the deepest part of the sky. "So smooth and perfect. You're beautiful, Yule. I’ve been going crazy over how much I want you."

  "We can take what we want here," Yule gasped, reaching down to boldly grasp the man’s erection in her hand. He was hard and dauntingly large in her small palm and she tried not to let her apprehension show as she met his sea blue eyes. "Take me, Marc. Here, on the grass, inside the beating heart of Atlantis, take me."

  Marc made a sound like a growl, deep in his chest and he sat back, curving a hand around the back of Yule’s head. She hadn’t released his member and now it was aimed at her face and she knew what he wanted from her, daring her to do what she just challenged him to do. She could smell Marc's arousal like a pungent spice on the air and even though she’d never given oral sex before, it made her hungry and desperate for a taste of the man. Mouth watering, she hesitated only to take a breath before pulling the heavy erection between her lips

  Marc groaned like she’d punched him. It was the only sound apart from the faint hum of industrious bees working among the flowers. Yule lapped experimentally at the circumcised, plum-shaped head then licked the strong flesh, tasting musk, salt, and the indefinable essence that was Marc's alone. Marc tasted of honey and iron and she licked a pearly drop from the tip of man’s weeping member and decided she’d never sampled anything so delicious.

  Long fingers curled into her hair, guiding her head into a rhythm with which she complied, sealing her lips around the turgid flesh and sliding wetly back and forth along its length. It passed hot and slick across her tongue, the leaking tip pressing against the back of her throat with each swallow. She could feel fine tremors passing through the strong thighs upon which she braced her hands, but didn’t realize this was a sign that Marc was getting close to orgasm.

  Suddenly, she was pushed away and briefly wondered if she’d done something wrong, but when her back crushed the grass—releasing the clean, crisp smell of summer—her breasts were quickly crushed by a sleek, sweating chest as Marc fairly pounced her and she knew she’d done it right. Marc's ragged breath stirred the long tendrils of hair that had fallen around Yule's face.

  "Do you have any idea how amazing you look right now?" the man asked huskily. Yule shut her eyes as rough fingers dragged down her spine and settled over the curve of her buttocks. A large palm massaged the firm muscle. "Your naked body sprawled wantonly in the grass like this— It makes me want to do bad things to you. Open your eyes."

  “I—I can’t,” she admitted, biting her lower lip. “No one’s ever said anything like—like what you said.”

  “How many people have you been naked with?”

  Yule’s eyes flew open at that. “No one else—” And she broke off, blushing and trying to repress a smile when she saw the mischief in his eyes and realized he was teasing her. “I’m just—not the kind of girl that gets said to,” she finished.

  “I plan to say even more, like how edible your breasts are and how I plan to lick and nibble every square inch of you then do things you’ve only read about,” he teased further, the light of lust rising higher in his gaze.

  She shivered at the sensual threat and at the touch that possessed and demanded. "Do them," Yule whispered, nerves alive with need. She arched her back, driving her belly into his ramrod stiffness. "Do all of it, do everything! I'm begging you!"

  Her legs were abruptly pushed apart, knees shoved towards her body to open her as widely as possible. She didn’t have time to feel embarrassed at the position because Marc was suddenly licking her there. She cried out, burrowing her hands into the grass as the slick wetness of the man's tongue traced trails of liquid fire around her sensitive opening then pressed between her folds. She whimpered and tried to move, wanting more, wanting less—she didn't know. Marc's strong hands tightened around her hips, holding her firmly so that she couldn’t escape the intimate invasion. Yule let her head fall back on the soft grass. The heart of Atlantis throbbed against her forehead and filled her already whirling senses.

  She moaned softly as Marc continued to lick her. Each slow, deliberate swipe of wetness made her body tremble with pleasure. And when he curled his tongue into a point and jabbed it into her drenched entrance Yule thought that she was one step closer to death—or rebirth. She squeezed her eyes shut again, unable to help it, gritting her teeth against the maddening tickling—good sensation of that tiny, concentrated invasion. She found herself involuntarily trying to push back, wanting him deeper, needing him to satisfy the ache the way only he could. When the tongue abandoned her, Yule collapsed onto the ground with a combination of relief and disappointment.

  Neither of which she was allowed to endure for long.

  Marc was above her again, the blunt head of his manhood replacing his tongue, nestling just between her outer folds. "Relax for me, love. I'm going to make you feel even better, I promise."

  Yule did her best, remembering the man's considerable size, but fear still squeezed her stomach as the pressure increased against her. Her thighs tried to close even as she wanted what he was doing, bu
t her held her spread and still, hands gentle and commanding. With a harsh groan, Marc flexed his hips and pierced the tight outer ring of yielding muscle. The slide inside her slick channel was easy after that.

  Yule shuddered at the incredible sensation of stretching—of fullness. She felt taken over, breached, invaded. Her body surrendered to Marc without the shock of pain she expected and instead she savored the penetration. She pushed toward him with her hips, needing to feel the thick flesh slide within her, and when it pulsed against the confines of her inner walls she moaned.

  "Do you like the feel of me inside you?" Marc asked with a raspy, barely controlled tease, his lips playing with the curve of Yule's ear.

  "Yes," she managed weakly, thinking that was a silly question. "Oh, yes."

  "You feel so incredible, Yule, so damned tight around me. All I want to do is bury myself deep inside you and never come out. How would you like that, love? Having me inside your beautiful body ready to—" He flexed his hips hard. "Pleasure you whenever you wanted it?"

  "Oh, gods," Yule whimpered, pulling up fistfuls of fragrant grass. "Please, Marc—I don’t know what I want you to do, but whatever it is, do it now!"

  Marc was laughing softly at her desperation. "I might have an idea. Something like this?" Marc pulled back until he was nearly free of her tight confines then surged forward in a smooth, commanding stroke. His member dragged over her sensitive nub then bumped into something deep within Yule that briefly turned her vision white and sun-spotted. She cried out, arching against that explosion of electric like ecstasy. "That's where the pleasure hides," Marc murmured, his voice taking on a note of strain. "Let me show it to you again."

  He began to piston into her rhythmically, slowly at first, each sure stroke striking that place inside her that had Yule writhing beneath him as if she were trying to escape the very thing for which she begged. Time and again Marc filled her only to empty her once more, like the tide rushing onto the shores of Atlantis. Each ebb and flow left Yule panting in an agony of need and she returned the torture the only way she knew how, tightening her inner muscles, trying to milk the hard flesh that impaled her. Marc was relentless atop her, his rhythm calculated to bring Yule to the peak of desire as slowly as possible, to draw out the moment into eternity.

  Yule’s head rolled from side to side on the grass while the pulse of her home joined the throbbing in her chest and between her thighs. She instinctively ground her hips against him each time he buried himself to the hilt in her heat and she smiled in satisfaction at his gasps of pleasure. She could feel the heartbeat of Atlantis surrounding them, seeping into her skin, and wondered if Marc felt it too. The harder Marc pumped into her, the deeper he pushed Yule into the living core of Atlantis where the source of all—All what? She didn’t know, she grit her teeth against the pressure building inside her body, suddenly frightened of what was happening.

  “It’s all right, Yule, it’s all right,” she heard his ragged voice assure her as if from a distance. “I’m right here with you. Open your eyes, my love. Open them and see me.”

  His love! Her green eyes snapped wide at that and she saw him smiling down at her, but only for a moment. His surprisingly muscular arms (for she’d only ever seen him in long sleeves before this and never realized what lay beneath the fabric), slipped around her and drew her up as her sat back in a kneeling position, her thighs spread wide across his lap, manhood still embedded in her fiery depths.

  His mouth savaged hers, calloused fingertips stroking her shoulders and the muscles alongside her spine as she strained against the forces working inside her. His lips moved to her neck, sharp teeth closing on tender skin and gently biting. She panted and dropped her head on his shoulder as the thrusts into her body grew more forceful, their rhythm irregular. Yule moaned despairingly as Marc slammed into her again and again, uncertain she could resist the urge to—scream? She didn’t know what exactly, explode maybe, but whatever it was she didn't think she could take any more. The pressure was becoming too much and—

  “Please, baby, please come!” Marc begged, his breath short and harsh, hinting at a desperate kind of amusement. “I don’t know how much longer I can wait for you!”

  Wait for her? But she was right here. “I’m right here!” she gasped, drawing back just enough to look into his dark, sparkling eyes.

  “Open up, baby. Lose control. It’s okay. I’ve got you,” he promised her again, clutching her body to his as his hips jerked spasmodically upward and she suddenly thought she knew exactly who he was and precisely what they were doing—and the heartbeat of Atlantis swelled in her ears as the feeling in her core swelled and spread through her body—

  “Are you enjoying yourself?”

  Hermes query jerked Yule awake with a start, the travelogue crystals spilling from her lap and rolling across the top quilt. She sat up and pushed back her hair from her face, looking around in confusion. She watched Hermes open the drapes and squinted at the sunlight streaming in.

  “What time is it?”

  “Nearly eleven,” he told her, bringing a breakfast tray to the bed. “I’d have woke you sooner, but I had a late night too.” He smiled blissfully at the memory and she gave him a scolding, amused smile. “Besides, you seemed to be having a hot little dream-tryst. Want to share the details?”

  “No,” she firmly told him, watching him pour the cinnamon tea into antique bone china cups. “I can’t really—remember now.” And that was the truth. Something about—Atlantis she was almost positive. “There was a garden and it was in Atlantis.” She shrugged and picked up her cup. “I was reading the holiday crystals when I fell asleep. I must have dreamed up a vacation.” She sipped her tea.

  “Then sign me up with your travel agent because he definitely had you booked on Get Me Off Airlines,” Hermes teased and Yule sputtered, grabbing a napkin and glaring at him as she choked on her tea. “Croissant?” he inquired demurely.

  Chapter Four

  Hermes wasn’t alone in his misgivings about the sensibility of Yule’s accepting her vacation temp position. Marc, having listened to mere minutes of her story about it via her vanity mirror, winded his way to her living room to personally deliver his qualms.

  “Taking this job over your Retreat doesn’t sound like a sensible use of your time, Yule. I know you feel you owe him something for what he’s doing—”

  “It’s a trip to Atlantis, Marc. I’ll never get there any other way and I’ll probably never get another opportunity. I’d rather be his slave for three weeks in Atlantis than go to a Retreat that won’t teach me more than I’ve already learned.”

  “His slave? What kind of repayment is he expecting?”

  Yule blushed. “I didn’t mean—I meant as far as work, a lot of work.”

  “Fine, I understand...” He rubbed his forehead with his right index finger appearing uncommonly concerned. He eyed her steadily. “You’re such an innocent, Yule. I can’t help thinking there’s more to this than work. You could be getting into something that will spiral out of control.”

  “Come on, Marc, what could happen?” She smiled confidently. “Don’t start to worry about me now. You’re beginning to sound like Hermes. He’s convinced there’s something suspicious going on because he thinks it’s illogical for Magus Teomond to hire me. Free labor isn’t illogical, it’s smart, but Hermes likes noir.”

  “It might make sense to you, but I still smell something strange about it all and I wish you’d turned him down.”

  Yule gave a little chuckle. “Come on, Marc, it’s not like the Magus is luring me off for some illicit seduction scenario.”

  Marc didn’t smile, he frowned. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t think he might. I wouldn’t be surprised by anything a Magus did.”

  “I guess that’s just more of my innocence showing through,” she tried to lighten his expression.

  He tilted his head and yellow light from one of Hermes’ Tiffany lamps cast a glow on his face that revealed an intensity in his eyes she�
�d never seen before—not directed toward her anyway. “When we met you were so vibrant, enthusiastic about everything and you just wanted so much out of the world—I couldn’t help being charmed. Maybe our daily interaction blinded me to the subtle changes in your attitude, but I’m looking now. There’s a—mellowing to the vibrancy and something else I can’t quite put my finger on. The innocence is there, but it seems to have ripened.”

  “Are you comparing me to fruit?” She didn’t want to hear this now, to see the light kindling in his expressive eyes. Before the events of the past week, yes, she’d have fainted at his feet or flung herself into his arms if he’d said these words to her. But he was right, something had changed, she felt different and it made everything around her change as well—even Marc.

  “Maybe a peach?” he teased, gently stroking her cheek with the back of his left hand. She managed to smile at that, but she saw he didn’t believe the smile and lowered his hand. “You’re definitely going?”

  “Definitely.”

  He nodded and took a step back from her that gave her heart a small tug. “I hope you have fun, but not too much,” he cautioned and this time her smile was more genuine. “If you run into trouble, send for me and I’ll drop whatever I’m doing and wind my way to your side, fair maiden, to slay any dragons who happen across your path.”

  “Seriously?”

  “How could I help myself? The heart of Atlantis beats in all magic folk doesn’t it? Sharing that with you would be—amazing, I’m sure.” He lifted a hand in farewell and allowed the wind to take him from her sight before she say something to stop him.

  Something about his words struck a familiar chord in her, but she couldn’t think of the reason why and she started toward her bedroom, intending to call Marc back even though she didn’t have the slightest idea what she planned to say to him. Her path was blocked when Hermes suddenly winded into the room looking excited.

  “Grottos, sweetheart! Do you have any idea what’s on this little gem?” He waved the crystal Prosser had given to her.