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He caressed her nub with his fingertips, lightly caressing her core. She grew hotter, her body quivering in delight.
“I am going to kiss you here.”
She stared at him in scandalized shock. She thought to protest, but the look of raw need on his face froze her. Months of pent-up longing welled. She wanted him any way that he wanted her. She arched her hips in acquiescence and was rewarded when he dipped his head and kissed her as he promised.
He licked her core. Intense heat surged through Sheridan, igniting need in her blood. Heat crawled through her veins. She arched up and whimpered. Fire throbbed low in her stomach hot and wicked. Pleasure rippled through her and she panted for breath. The scrape of his teeth over her nub was more bliss
than she could stand, but she still angled her hips more against his mouth, fingers gripping his hair. He murmured approvingly. His tongue lapped, and she cried out, tightening her grip in his hair.
Desire coiled hotly between her legs. She met his eyes and blushed. His eyes glowed dark and hungry as he kissed her in a place she had never thought possible. She bit back a moan as he gently slipped a finger inside of her and started to thrust, a slow, delicious rhythm. She felt herself starting to dissolve.
Yet he was still not finished.
His tongue flicked, circled, and drove her mindless with need. Her heels pressed mindlessly into his shoulders and her fingers gripped his hair frantically as passion stormed through her. She thrashed and screamed as with each sultry flick and caress of his tongue Elijah drove her higher and higher until she splintered. The feeling was exquisite, sweet ecstasy spearing though her.
He rose above her, the beautiful smoky green of his eyes holding hers captive. He plunged back inside her and began to move, sliding in and out, slow and easy. His lips took her with gentle pressure, far softer than anything Sheridan had ever received from him. He moved against her, his deep strokes slow and measured. Her nipples peaked and his callused fingertips caressed them, rousing nerve endings to life as he bestowed more pleasure on her than she had ever received. Pleasure she never wanted to end.
***
Sheridan’s cries wrapped around Elijah soothed the dangerous mood he had been in. He kissed her lips and groaned as he rode her slow and easy. She felt so supple and tiny in his arms, and it gutted him that men had thought to take her against her will. It would have destroyed her.
He buried his face in her throat, lifting her hips higher to receive his thrust. She was so damn soft. Small where he was large, soft where he was hard, but enough. He wasn’t an easy man. His sexual needs were complicated and coarse and she’d always taken him with innocent hunger. He hardly knew how to be gentle, but she made him yearn for it. He yearned to pepper her with praising and loving words.
She moaned, gripping his sweat slicked shoulders as another wave of pleasure drowned her. Her body trembled as delight rippled over it. Her heat drew him under, and a choked, guttural sound exploded from him as he pulled from her at the last minute and released onto the sheets. He would not risk getting her with child.
He rolled over and pulled her trembling frame to him. God she had been perfect, she’d mewled and rocked against his face, lost in pleasure, and even now he could still taste her on his tongue, sultry and sweet. He hadn’t intended to take her at all. But he’d seen the fear in her, despite her attempt to be brave.
He had known then that all of his resolve to keep her at a distance would never work. He’d wanted to love her with nothing between them. Not the past. Not the future. No doubt. He only wanted to wipe the fear from her, and his nightmares from his mind. He had almost been too late, and even now though she trembled in satisfaction, Elijah still felt the echoes of fear that she had been harmed irreparably.
“You do not have to leave, Sheridan.” He was probably being a damn fool, but he would not let her leave. She had not been able to hide the desperation, the pain in her eyes when she spoke of fleeing. The Whispering Creek was her home, and as long as he breathed he would not allow Sullivan to take it from her.
Chapter Thirteen
The rain drummed steadily outside, more gently than how Elijah knew it could squall. Sheridan shifted in his arms. “Did you mean it when you said I would not have to leave?”
He heard the hidden question in her voice and hardened himself against the hope. He would give Sheridan her home, but nothing else. “Yes. But not marriage.”
She stiffened, then slowly relaxed. He waited for her response and when it came it surprised him. “Teach me how to defend myself. I never want to feel how I did today, ever. The fear was stifling, too overwhelming. Instead, men must fear me when they think to take me or what is mine by force.”
He looked down her diminutive frame wondering how she thought there could ever be a time when she would inspire fear. Even if she wielded two six shooters it would not make a difference. Lust was what she inspired. Her sensuality was not a calming one. It did not compel a man to want to treat her like a lady.
He sighed. “Sheridan.”
“Elijah, please.” She craned her neck and looked up into his face. She looked hopeful, too hopeful. His gut told him to reject her, but he couldn’t.
She continued frankly, “You continually tell me I am a woman alone in a dangerous territory. A wealthy woman. It’d be a challenge every day just to hold on to my fortune and virtue against those that would take it. I must be able to defend myself. Even if I eventually find a partner, I want the ability to stand beside him and protect the things we cherish.”
Denial surged inside of him at the thought of her with another man. As he looked at her, he realized she spoke of another man possessing her deliberately, testing his reaction. There was a taunt in her eyes, daring him to reach for her, to hold her. He clenched his gut against it and blanked his expression. She lowered her lashes quickly burying the flare of pain, but he saw.
He hauled up so that her body draped over him with her looking down in his face. “You were not made for fighting.”
Her chin came up and she scowled. “I am not weak, Elijah.”
He paused, thinking carefully. “No you are not.”
“You do not like the idea of other men having me,” she said firmly.
He laughed at her boldness. He sobered quickly when she shifted and sat up straddling his hips. Her features took on a serious appearance, more than any he’d ever seen on her.
