Waking Eden (The Eden Series Book 3) Read online

Fuck.

  “I want to feel more. Do more.” She gripped his neck and urged him toward her mouth. “Please.”

  Her plea fluttered against his lips a second before he caved and kissed her.

  God, but he loved her taste, the rich wine on her tongue mixed with her own unique flavor. He pinned her against the countertop, greedy for more, angling her with hands at either side of her head for his assault.

  Trinity gasped into his mouth and gripped his shoulders.

  Slow, dumbass. She’s had a shit day.

  He rested his forehead against hers and fought to calm his breath. If his brother or Ludan saw him now, they’d never let him live it down. The best living strategist for their race, thrown off kilter by a barely-five-foot ray of sunshine.

  He stroked her cheekbone. Her jawline. Peppering each stroke with easy kisses.

  “You don’t have to be soft with me.”

  Oh, histus, yes he did. She’d suffered enough today. Suffered enough her whole life. She deserved to be cherished. Not thrown on the kitchen counter and taken wild. “It’s your first time. You need soft.”

  “Is that how you’d be with other women? Soft?”

  Ramsay gripped her chin. “I won’t ever be with you the way I am with anyone else. Ever.” The sooner she understood the distinction the better.

  Her head jerked back as if he’d slapped her. She shoved his shoulders and wiggled free, then stomped toward her room. “God, I’m an idiot. Not good enough for my mother. Too Goody Two-Shoes for you. Figures.”

  He shot across the room so fast the lamp perched on her end table wobbled and the blinds rattled against the window jam. He spun her to face him, the hunger he’d kept in check fighting its way past all his barricades. “I think you misunderstood.”

  Trinity took a cautious step back.

  Something inside him snarled at her response. He wrestled his instincts and kept his hands to himself. “If you want edgy and raw, I’ll give it to you. I’ll hold you down, fill your ears with every fucking dirty word I can come up with, and push your boundaries until you fly, but there will never be anything between us as empty as what I felt with other women.”

  The world around him stopped. The import of his words slammed into his soul as hard as one of Ludan’s right hooks.

  Shit.

  She’d never be like anyone else. Couldn’t be.

  Mine.

  His muscles unlocked, every fiber in his body unwinding in a liberating stretch. A wild animal freed from a cage it hadn’t even known existed. Powerful. Fucking invincible.

  “You shouldn’t say things like that.” Trinity’s voice shook. “We set boundaries and you’re crossing them. You’re supposed to be teaching me, not toying with my head and my emotions.”

  “Boundaries.” He stalked her, every one of his steps forward answered with a backward step of her own, herding her through the living room. “You’re absolutely right. I think we need to clarify.”

  The hallway shadows closed around them.

  He shifted, steering her into her room without so much as a touch. Another step. Then another, the bed looming behind her. He flicked the small bedside lamp alight with his mind.

  “You’re scaring me.” Trinity’s legs met the mattress.

  “Do you think I’d hurt you?”

  Her mouth opened on a tiny O. “N-no.”

  He palmed her nape, massaging her tense muscles. It was either that or wrench her head back and claim her perfect lips. “No, I won’t.” He sampled the column of her neck, licking and sucking a path up along her jawline, freeing the buttons down the front of her prim pink shirt.

  “I’ll tell you what I will do.” He pushed the crisply starched shirt off her shoulders and unlatched her matching bra with just a thought. He pulled the sweet lace and silk number free and tossed it aside. The pendant that had drawn them together hung heavy between her breasts, dark filigree against creamy skin. “I’ll devour every glorious inch of your body, and I’ll keep at it until you don’t know where you end and I begin.”

  “Ramsay.” She gripped his shoulders and tried to pull him close, her nipples hard and practically begging for his touch.

  He nudged her off balance so she fell back onto the bed and made quick work of her tailored brown slacks, sliding them and her panties down her trembling legs and thumbing her prim pumps off in the process. “Scoot back, Sunshine.”

  She hesitated, one hand fluttering to rest between her breasts.

  “You said you wanted to feel.” He pulled his T-shirt off and threw it to the floor, his muscles twitching with anticipation, craving the contact of her soft, giving body. “Stretch out for me. Show me you’re ready.”

  She pushed toward the head of the bed, her arms shaking and her eyes wide with a mix of passion and uncertainty.

  The minute her head hit the pillow, he stroked an invisible touch along the inside of her wrists, lifting her arms until they rested at either side of her head, and pinned them in place.

  “Ramsay?” So much said with just his name. Apprehension. Innocence. Hunger.

  “Shhh.” His cock throbbed, hard and straining with the single-minded focus of sliding home. He mirrored the calming stroke at her wrists along her hips, warming the air and guiding it in a sensual slide against her skin as he shed the rest of his clothes.

  Trinity arched into the warm gust. Her eyes slid closed and her legs parted a fraction. Welcoming, yet hesitant.

  “Look at me.” He crawled onto the bed and nudged her legs apart with his knees, soothing the inside of her thighs with his hands.

  Her eyelids fluttered open and her breath caught. Her gaze locked on his raging erection before snapping to his eyes.

  “You wanted to talk boundaries, so let’s talk.” He leaned over her, one hand anchored in the mattress beside her and the other splayed across her belly. “I don’t want any.”

  She gasped. “What?”

  He cupped her breast and teased the tight skin with his thumb. “I plan to knock down every last resistance and fill every decadent craving you’ve got. I’ll be the one to teach you, the only one, but my fuck buddy days are over.”

  Beneath his palm, her heart hammered and her sweet breath fluttered across his face. Breathless. Vulnerable. “I don’t understand.”

  His.

  “I’m saying I don’t want distance.” He pressed his hips against hers, giving her his weight and rocking his shaft through her wet folds.

  So close. Almost home. Exactly where he needed to be. “I want what’s mine.”

  * * *

  Trinity’s breath hitched then froze in her chest. Every inch of her burned, straining for more of his wicked touch, craving the fullness he promised but stopped just short of giving.

  He wanted her. Not just sex, but her. Trinity Blair. The bookworm who’d always kept to the corners. The woman who didn’t have a clue how to touch or seduce a man outside of a Cosmo article.

  “You’re thinking too much.” He nipped her earlobe, the delicious rumble of his voice vibrating in all the right places. He pinched her nipple and a ripple fired through her belly straight to her sex.

  Her hips flexed into his and the muscles at her core contracted. God, she wanted him. Every hard inch, fast and deep. “Please, Ramsay.”

  “Please, what?” He shifted again, the wide head of his shaft slicking through her wetness, so close to the sweet contact she ached for, then gliding up and teasing her clit. “Please fill you up? Take your sweet pussy and claim you?”

  A short squeak eked past her lips. The muscles in her abdomen spasmed and her thighs squeezed his hips, trying to keep him in place, to urge him on…something. Anything to ease the pounding need.

  “Say it, Sunshine,” he muttered against her mouth, the sound of his voice as grated and broken as what was left of her thoughts. “Tell me who you belong to, and I’ll give you want you want.”

  So dangerous. Her mind grappled and clawed, trying to find a little reason to cling to. To keep from tip
ping out of balance and exposing her heart to his blistering fire. Her body sang, every inch of her skin prickling with heightened intensity, her core desperate for the connection he withheld.

  Destiny is what you make it.

  Her father’s last words rattled through every fiber of her being. Caution lost its grip and her spirit unfolded. Her eyes snapped open.

  Silver eyes blazed wild and bright into hers, flecks of white sparking almost neon around the edges. “Say it,” he demanded, his hand moving between them to guide his cock into place.

  Live.

  Feel.

  Love.

  “I’m yours.” The words escaped, releasing with them a rush of emotion so powerful every vein pulsed as though charged with lightning.

  He gripped her hip, pinning her in place, and smiled as only a triumphant predator could. “Damn right.”

  He surged forward in one bold thrust.

  A ragged, nearly inhuman cry shook the room. Hers. And God, didn’t that make sense. The sensation was perfect. Her sex full, stretched to the point of near-discomfort, and yet the most incomparable pleasure.

  Slowly, he pulled back, then powered home. Then again. And again. Slow. Hard. Slow. Hard. A wicked, sensual rhythm that marked her very soul.

  Wet, exquisite heat surrounded her nipple, followed by an erotic tug. His cheeks hollowed as he sucked, and his dark hair spilled against her skin.

  She moaned and fisted the smooth strands with both hands, anchoring him in place.

  He shifted to her other breast. Plumping the mound he’d left behind, he flicked his tongue across the untouched peak. His narrow, deliciously defined hips undulated between her thighs.

  He lifted his head and straightened the arm beside her, raking his gaze down her torso and locking where their bodies joined. “Look at us, Sunshine.” He pistoned with long, steady strokes, his abdominals flexing and contracting in the most carnal display of physical perfection. His focus was singular, angling each stab to scrape the sweet spot inside her. “Do you have any idea how fucking tight your pussy is around my cock? How hot? Every time I hit the end of you, your walls ripple and tease me with how good it will be when you come.”

  His gaze met hers. His long hair fell around either side of his face and his eyes burned with an intensity she felt all the way to her toes. An avenging God staking his claim. He circled her clit with his thumb, up one side and down the other, and his mouth tilted in a wicked grin. “I want to feel it, Trinity.” Another circle, each thrust more powerful than the last. “Call me a greedy bastard, but I want to feel it, and I want to feel it now.”

  Unseen fingers cupped and kneaded her breasts, squeezing her nipples. She arched into the hedonistic touch, chasing the zing that shot between her legs.

  He speared deep and pinched her clit.

  Every muscle locked up tight, the walls of her pussy contracting in a rapturous pulse that matched the pounding rhythm of her heart.

  His shout rang out, ragged and victorious. His hips slammed against hers, seating him flush against her sex.

  She rode the sensations, flexing and fisting around him. Luxuriating in the frenetic jerks of his cock and the unsteady shake of his arms as he held himself above her.

  This was life at its most primitive. Ideal and without parallel. And Ramsay had given it to her, drawing out pieces of herself she’d never known existed. Dark. Carnal. Spiritu.

  The aftermath of her climax billowed up and embraced her, relaxation and sleep mixing with Ramsay’s languid kisses along her shoulder and neck.

  Slow and easy, he worked his cock inside her. Lazy, intimate strokes. His chuckle rumbled in her ear. “Love the way you get sleepy after you come. Like a kitten hopped up on warm milk.”

  That was nice. She did feel a bit like a kitten, only he scratched her itch in far more delicious places. All she needed now was a window ledge and she could snuggle in for a nap.

  He brushed his lips against hers and answered the thought before it fully registered. “Let go, Sunshine. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  Chapter 18

  So warm. Safe. Trinity nestled closer to Ramsay, reveling in her early morning haven and drifting between sleep and wakefulness. Hot skin. Cool sheets. Arms wrapped around her and a firm chest beneath her cheek. Perfect.

  She inhaled deep, filling her lungs with his warm, elusive scent. He wanted her. Said he wanted to claim her. Whatever that meant. And she’d slept without her ear buds again, the same as every other time he’d held her. Strange the way he kept her Spiritu buzz at bay with nothing more than his presence.

  Ramsay’s breath fluttered against her hair. A girl could easily get addicted. Heck, if she was honest, she was already halfway gone. What if she was reading everything he’d said wrong? What if it was all a ruse to get her in bed?

  But that didn’t make sense. She’d asked him, more like begged him, to get between the sheets. So, maybe what he’d said was genuine.

  And here you are lying to him.

  The thought yanked her out of her post-sleep haze and dropkicked her heart into overdrive.

  Ramsay flinched, shot upright, and tugged the sheet up to her shoulders, gaze locked on the hallway.

  The front door opened.

  He rolled out of bed and snatched his jeans off the floor. He was fastening the last few buttons when a huge man walked into her room. “Praise The Great One, Ludan, you ever think of knocking?”

  Another man came up behind the stranger. This one she recognized from the club.

  “Hi, Jagger.” Well, that sounded a bit lame. Kind of pip-squeaky and not at all befitting of what was probably a wicked case of bed head and tousled sheets.

  Jagger grinned.

  The stranger studied her with a curious, but still lethal gaze. “No time to knock. Need to get your woman up and gone.”

  “Kinda rough to do that with you two ogling her in the doorway.” Ramsay tugged his T-shirt down, grabbed his boots, and settled at the foot of the bed. “You fuckers wanna give her a minute and wait in the living room, or would you rather I pry your eyeballs out with my pinky?”

  With a smile as big as Texas, Jagger tipped his chin, and headed for the front room.

  Ludan barely managed a smirk, but followed suit.

  The second the men were out of the doorway, the door swung closed on its own.

  “The whole moving objects thing is going to take some getting used to.” She scrambled and gathered up her clothes. “Who’s the scary guy? And what’s he talking about me leaving?”

  “Ludan. Eryx’s somo. Bodyguard in the human language. Though most of the time he’s just a grumpy pain in the ass. You already know Golden Boy.”

  Trinity shimmied into her favorite pair of jeans and tugged a T-shirt from her top dresser drawer. “You call Jagger Golden Boy?”

  “Have you looked at him?”

  Trinity paused midway into her shirt. Gold hair, gold eyes, and a tan so rich it might as well be gold. “Well, okay, I guess that makes sense, but what about the me getting gone part?”

  “Think that means the press is on to what your mom shared with the cops.” Ramsay stood and pointed to her closet. “Grab some shoes. Something comfortable.”

  Going by the men’s attire, she nabbed the pair of cute black ankle boots she’d bought a few weeks ago but still hadn’t had a good excuse to wear, and followed Ramsay into the living room.

  “You couldn’t head home and link me?” Ramsay said to Ludan.

  Ludan stood with arms crossed near the door. He jerked his head toward the street. “Need to move. Got the box, but had to stir the pot to do it. Press was there and her name’s been leaked. Pics too. Already got a good crowd outside.”

  Stationed at the window, Jagger eased the blinds back into place. “Two more crews just pulled up.”

  “I give it ten minutes, tops, before the cops are here,” Ludan said. “Our commotion didn’t last long. Cops had already figured out the box was missing when we left. No doubt they’re go
nna check here first.”

  Ramsay zigzagged a glare between Jagger and Ludan. “What the fuck did you do, Ludan?”

  Ludan shrugged. “Got the box. Had to start a little fire in the stairwell to get their eyeballs off it.”

  “Damn it!” Ramsay paced to the window and peeked through the blinds.

  Damn it, indeed. Cops and TV crews didn’t sound positive, but they got the box. The least she could do was thank the guy and introduce herself. She stepped forward and held out her hand to Ludan. “Thanks for helping us. I’m Trinity.”

  He eyed her for a minute and the smirk he’d thrown her from the hallway inched up into something both sexy and terrifying. He took her hand, the size of it encompassing hers in a way that made her feel two instead of twenty-three. “Ludan.”

  She pulled her hand away and rubbed it on her hip. “So, um, where exactly am I supposed to go?”

  “Could take her to Ian’s place,” Jagger said to Ramsay and Ludan. “Lay low and get a read for how far the press reaches.”

  Ramsay shook his head and faced the men. “Nope. All the affiliates are here already. Tulsa’s slow to pick up on stories, but not that slow. Better to take her home where we know she can’t be tracked.”

  “Home as in your home?” Trinity stomped to the window. “I can’t go there. You said humans are a no-no.”

  Two vans, a mid-sized SUV, reporters, all strung out on her lawn.

  Ramsay spun her around. “For all we know you’re Myren. You show all the signs.”

  “I’m not Myren!”

  Everything in her apartment wrenched to a standstill. She’d swear even the clock on the wall with its purely cosmetic pendulum hesitated a beat. She hurried to the kitchen. Coffee would be good. Surely they had time for coffee before they turned her whole world upside down.

  Ramsay stalked in behind her. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Trinity pushed a filter into place and shoved the plastic holder back into place. She needed a minute. Okay, more like five minutes. A little time to catch her breath.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?” Ramsay said from behind her. “More than just funny feelings when something big’s about to happen.”