Caress Part Three (Arcadia Book 3) Read online

  I wake gasping for air, swept by a wave of panic that subsides only when I manage to untangle my body from the covers and sit up.

  For a moment, I have no idea where I am. Gradually, the bed and the room resolve around me. I force myself to breathe slowly until my heart stops hammering against my ribs and I am reasonably certain that I can stand.

  The rank wisps of a nightmare still cling to me. Afraid to chance returning to sleep, I leave the bed and pad over to the tall doors at the far side of the room.

  Earlier, I observed that they give onto a second floor balcony overlooking the garden. I am about to open them when a sound stops me. It is faint but distinct, and very close. I strain, listening as it comes again, a little louder and more quickly. At first the intervals between the sound are random but then it becomes so steady that I finally realize what I am hearing.

  Rain is splattering against the glass panes of the doors. Rain. As with so much else, I know what it is without having any memory of ever experiencing it. That at least I can remedy. Without hesitation, I fling open the doors and step outside.

  The stars are gone, replaced by dark, roiling clouds backlit by streaks of lightning. The columned overhang above the balcony protects me until the wind, mounting in the heart of the storm, slants the rain past it. Drops fall across my face, against my body, warm and delicious, smelling of a distant sea and a lush, moist land.

  I catch their taste on the tip of my tongue and laugh, stretching out my arms, holding them high so that the rain sluices down my bare skin, streaming in rivulets toward my breasts. That quickly, the silk nightgown dampens. The fabric clings to my nipples, making me suddenly aware of them.

  Hesitantly, driven by curiosity about my own body, I touch one, then the other, watching as they harden. The sensation is startling.

  Scarcely breathing, I skim my hands over my breasts, noticing that they feel heavier and fuller. My fingers drift slowly downward, finding the contours of my waist, the dip of my naval, the flat, suddenly quivering plane of my abdomen until they come to the juncture of my thighs. Pressing lightly, I’m surprised to feel through the fragile silk a hot, satiny wetness that owes nothing to the rain.

  Emboldened by the darkness, swept up in the fury of the storm, I grip the fabric of my nightgown. Slowly, I begin to raise it, baring my ankles, my calves, a little higher, until just as I raise the gown above my knees, I freeze.

  Ian is standing nearby, watching me.

  My entire body blushes. Too late I realize that his room must be only a short distance from mine, a space that narrows to inconsequence as he comes toward me. His chest is bare above black pajama bottoms that ride low, exposing the V of his hip muscles and his tight, washboard abdomen. As the rain blows over his broad shoulders and cut torso, his skin glistens darkly.

  A few feet away from me, he stops. “I told you to go to bed.” His voice is soft and almost detached.

  I drop the gown so that it falls once again around my ankles and lift my head. Quelling my embarrassment, I return his stare.

  “That’s something you tell a child.”

  Reluctantly, the corners of his mouth twitch. “Your point being that you aren’t one?”

  “I’d say that’s obvious. Besides, I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have no idea. Perhaps I’ll find out tomorrow, if you choose to enlighten me.”

  He needs a moment to realize what the defiant edge in my voice, the tilt of my head, the straightness of my back and shoulders mean. When he does, the heat in his eyes sends a ripple of dark excitement through me.

  “Sarcasm, Amelia? You truly are full of surprises.”

  He closes the distance between us until we are separated by mere inches. If I swayed toward him even a little, my nipples would rake his bare, sculpted chest.

  Softly, he asks, “Do you really want to challenge me?”

  Of course not! This is a man to placate and soothe, above all to please. But when I open my mouth that isn’t what comes out.

  Instead, I hear myself say, “I told you earlier, being compliant isn’t in my nature.”

  His grin is wolfish. Before I can even think of drawing away, he brushes his knuckles down my cheek, along the line of my jaw and throat to the soft hollow at the base of my neck where he presses lightly.

  My breath catches. His touch is both arousing and strangely comforting. He holds me spellbound.

  “I think you have a lot to learn about yourself,” he says.

  Step by implacable step, he backs me against one of the columns along the outer edge of the balcony. The sudden hardness against my spine comes as a jolt. I have a flashing image of myself secured to the column, my hands raised high above my head, fastened with silken bounds.

  Slowly, holding my eyes with his, Ian reaches for the golden pins that still hold the coiled diadem of my hair. He pulls them out one by one.

  As he does, I watch the play of emotion across his face. He looks like a man in the grip of a compulsion as irresistible as what I myself am feeling, a ravenous wildfire of hunger for each other that threatens at any moment to rage out of control.

  Having freed my braid, he wraps it around his hand and gives a tug, drawing me even closer to him. A low groan breaks from him as his mouth claims mine, sucking at my lower lip. I feel the sudden, sharp nip of his teeth before his tongue plunges into me, exploring, stroking, demanding.

  Abruptly, my legs give way. I catch hold of his shoulders just in time to avoid sliding down the length of his body to his feet.

  A shudder runs through him. I can feel how desperately he is fighting for control.

  “Last chance, Amelia,” he says against my mouth. “Go back inside now.”

  I’m beyond being able to speak. All I can do is shake my head.

  A long quiver of anticipation runs through me as he grips the neckline of my nightgown. With his eyes locked on mine, he slowly pulls the garment down to below my naval. My wrists are caught in the sleeves, trapped against my hips. I feel the rain cool against my back, sizzling away the heat pouring from me, from him, from us.

  Looking down at my exposed flesh, he groans. “You are so beautiful.”

  Releasing my braid, he wraps his fingers around the base of my breast, his long fingers squeezing lightly, caressing, and lowers his head. I feel the rasp of his stubble against my skin in the moment before he sucks my nipple into his mouth, swipes his tongue over me—once, twice—and sucks again hard.

  A cry of mingled shock and pleasure erupts from me. I grab hold of his hair with both hands and pull. He releases me but only for a moment. Covering my breast with his roughened palm, he circles it against the hypersensitive nipple as he takes the other into his mouth and subjects it to the same exquisite torment. I writhe against the column as all thought of trying to stop him vanishes.

  Abruptly, he lifts his head. What I see in his eyes should frighten me but I’m beyond that, driven by need for this man that eclipses all else. My throat is so tight that only a whisper escapes me.

  “Please…”

  For a moment, I am terrified that he will not respond, that he only means to toy with me, proving his mastery and leaving me to suffer for defying him. But if any such thought has occurred to him, he is beyond acting on it. Instead, he makes a low, guttural sound and bends, tucking an arm under my knees and lifting me effortlessly.

  A few quick strides and we are in the golden room. He kicks the doors closed behind us, carries me over to the bed and drops me flat on my back. Before I can draw breath, he comes down on top of me, kissing me deeply if swiftly, his mouth trailing from mine down my body until he is stopped by the nightgown bunched around my hips. Sliding his hands under me, squeezing the cheeks of my derrière, he pulls the gown the rest of the way off.

  He is still wearing the pajama bottoms but even so the combined sensation of his skin against mine with his weight and strength controlling me is more than I can bear. Desperate for what I can barely glimpse, I struggle to
move as my hands push against his shoulders.

  “Please…Ian…please!”

  I’m not resisting…exactly. But I need…something…to touch him…to have some control over what is happening to me…

  Against my throat, he murmurs, “Another time, luscious, I’ll give you free rein but not now.”

  Before I can more than dimly realize what he intends, he grasps my discarded nightgown and coils the fabric between his hands, pulling it taut. An instant later, my arms are stretched above my head, my wrists secured to a column of the bed.

  The sudden crash of reality with the fantasy image I had minutes before on the balcony sends a surge of panic through me. I cry out at my own helplessness and begin to struggle in earnest.

  But not for long. His breath warm against my skin, he murmurs, “Easy, just breathe, Amelia. Breathe.”

  Gasping, I try to do as he commands. He smiles at my effort. “Good girl, so good.”

  His approval sends another deep quiver of pleasure through me that persists as he spreads my legs, bending them at the knees so that I am suddenly open and fully exposed to him. I feel the heat of his scrutiny in this most intimate place before he lowers his head between my thighs, the rough silk of his cheeks nuzzling me.

  He looks up and his eyes meet mine down the arc of my body.

  “If you touch me, I’ll lose it,” he says, almost apologetically for what he is denying us both. His voice rasps against my skin. “Even so this time is going to be fast.”

  The broad flat of his tongue lashes out, lapping my most sensitive flesh from top to bottom again and again in long, firm strokes before the tip suddenly plunges, swirling into the source of the wetness coming from deep inside me. The pleasure is unbearable. I writhe under him, moaning frantically.

  In moments, I am on the edge of something agonizing yet exquisite that I cannot resist and desperately need. It is so close, so very close—

  I mewl in protest as he stops suddenly and slides up my body. Teasing the tip of my tongue with his, he says, “Taste yourself, beautiful. You are so damn delicious.”

  I all but buck off the bed as a hot, slightly salty flavor fills me. His hands on my hips press me down again. My breath is coming in sobs. I’m afraid that I’m going to black out when his thumbs spread me and his tongue finds the swollen nub where suddenly all the nerve endings in my body seem to come together. At the same time, he plunges two fingers into me, pressing against a spot of exquisite sensitivity that I hadn’t known existed. At that touch, I contract around him in a long, rippling sensation of pure, unleashed ecstasy.

  Distantly, I hear myself scream. Hear Ian, as well, as he groans, “Fuck, you are so hot!”

  His weight suddenly lifts from me. I force my lids open even as muscles at my core continue to spasm. He is standing beside the bed, staring down at me, with a look of fierce triumph. Quickly, he strips off his pajama bottoms.

  At the sight of him, I bite down hard enough on my lower lip to draw blood. He is a tall, broad man and it seems as though everything about him is similarly proportioned. I entertain a moment of doubt but it vanishes when he comes down on top of me again.

  Feeling him along every inch of me without any remaining barriers is more than I can bear but he still isn’t done tormenting me. Taking his length in hand, he draws it up and down along my cleft, the velvety tip rubbing over my swollen clitoris. The sensation is too intense. Tears flow from the corners of my eyes.

  “I can’t,” I sob. “Not again!”

  Abruptly, he reaches up and frees my wrists. His voice is gruffly tender as he says, “Yes, you can. Put your arms around my neck.”

  I obey and am rewarded by the sudden thrust of his cock as every slick, hard inch fills and stretches me. The small flash of pain is gone as quickly as I perceive it. But Ian curses under his breath and goes still.

  “No!” He can’t stop, I won’t let him. My hips arch upward, demanding, taking—

  A harsh groan rips from him. He begins to move again, his fingers digging into my bottom, raising me to meet his thrusts. An incandescent flare of pleasure uncoils inside me where his shaft touches that ultra-sensitive place to such effect that I instantly contract around him. My sudden acute response doesn’t go unnoticed. He pulls out almost entirely but before I can find the breath to protest, he returns, giving me just a few inches at a time until…

  As he thrusts against the same spot again, wild, animalistic sounds erupt from me. From above, I hear a very satisfied male voice.

  “That’s it, baby, come for me.”

  I am transformed into pure sensation. Thought, reason, doubt, even need vanish. Only ecstasy exists, growing and growing inside me until it crests at a peak of incandescent bliss beyond anything I have yet experienced. Ian’s final thrusts and his own throbbing release hold me poised there until at last I am gone, hurtled into oblivion.

  The entire ANEW series is available now!

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  ANEW: Book One: Awakened

  ANEW: Book Two: Hunted

  ANEW: Book Three: Entwined

  ANEW: The Epilogue

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2015 Josie Litton. All rights reserved.

  CARESS Part Three

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