9. Ellie

I felt a warmth flutter up my spine, the gentle touch of callused hands caressing me awake. Snuggling into my pillow, I smiled contentedly. I'd been dreaming about Cadmus again, experiencing mindless pleasure?—

"You awake?" he murmured.

I moaned his name, answer enough.

Firm hands spread my thighs wide, then pressed against the small of my back to keep me still.

"Cadmus?"

His hand slipped between my legs to cup my exposed cleft.

Smoothing through my folds, he primed me, making me wet and eager. Dear lord, but what a way to greet the morning. I couldn't help the gasp that left me when he propped up my pelvis using elemental magic, a ripple of energy that reverberated through me from head to toe.

"You are so sexy," he murmured in a throaty voice.

Magic poured through me in waves of riotous sensation as he encouraged my response. Those rough hands fanned the flames of desire, his fingers bringing my body to life. He continued to torment me, pushing me closer to climax while balancing me on a desperate edge of need.

I couldn't help riding his hands, needing more of him, wanting everything. And then he buried his mouth between my thighs.

"Cadmus."

Driving his tongue inside me, he gripped my thighs hard and sucked my clit. I bucked uncontrollably, awash in ecstasy as I exploded. Even as I shook and my nerves screamed with pleasure, he refused to relent, stirring me to a higher plane of bliss.

I couldn't help thrusting against his lips. He licked my cream while caressing me all over, snaring me in his erotic web.

Tense and strung out like a bow, I shuddered, needing him to finish me once more. As if sensing my desperation, he knelt behind me and prodded with his hot, steely cock. He dipped inside me, teasing at my sex.

"Ah, Ellie. I've really missed you." His deep voice made me shiver, his presence behind me a solid reminder that I had never really been rid of him, as much as I'd wished it.

Even knowing how much a mistake this intimacy might prove, I couldn't refuse him, couldn't resist the temptation of being one with him again.

"Please, Cadmus. Put yourself inside me." I tried to squirm, but he wouldn't allow me to shift.

"Where? Here?" He slid between my thighs before pulling back to position himself at my small, puckered hole. "Or here?"

He felt thick and hard against my anus. Excitement took hold.

"We never quite reached this point in our relationship," he said thickly, his body tense as he forced himself to hold still. "You have no idea how much I want this, how much I want you."

He prodded my hole, and I gasped, nervous at the unknown.

"Later, Ellie, when I have the time and patience to prepare you," he rasped and repositioned himself between my folds once more. "I can't wait."

He thrust hard, his position from behind causing him to surge so far inside me that I felt completely full.

"Oh, yes," I gasped, relieved and finally getting what I'd been craving.

Thick and hard, he shoved repeatedly through my tight walls, reaching that hidden spot inside me no one but he had ever managed to find. Darkness climbed through me, wrapping around Cadmus' powerful pleasure until I felt consumed by our sexual combustion.

"That's it, baby." He was breathing hard, moaning and gripping my hips. "Come for me. Let me take you over until you feel nothing but me inside you."

As his excitement built, he thrust harder. Faster. His pleasure lit my own, and feeling his answering Darkness mixed with his Light, I cried out and came hard.

He pumped twice more before swearing as he came, and shockingly, I felt him empty inside me. If it weren't for his hold on me, I'd have fallen on my face a while ago.

"By the Light, Ellie." He rested his heavy weight on my back, kissed my neck, then rubbed his stubbled cheek over my shoulder in an erotic caress. "I can't believe what you do to me."

"Me?" I tried to catch my breath, dazed and wary at how easily he'd mastered me, taking me back to a time when we'd shared such joining regularly and with an eager expectancy. Affection and something more took root as I heard him sigh my name.

No, no, no.

This had not been on the agenda when I'd agreed to allow him to stay with me. Sure, I'd fantasized about sex again with the great Cadmus Storm, if for no other reason than to verify the accuracy of my memories.

Check. I had not exaggerated.

He really was that good in bed.

That said, I needed to remain in control, to distance myself from my pesky emotions. I'd needed to get laid. It was as simple as that. If a man could do it, so could a woman. I'd simply had sex with an available man and satisfied an itch.

No sense in wrapping my heart around a physical attraction.

I slowly disengaged from Cadmus, pasted a false smile on my face, and slid out of bed.

"Ellie?"

"Thanks, Cadmus. I really needed that." I forced myself not to run to the bathroom, conscious to keep my back to him, my face a tell-all mask of confusion, need, and worry. Stopping in front of the door, I stretched and sighed, as if pleased by the physical attention and not completely unnerved by the power he held over me.

I teased, "I'll try not to use all the hot water."

Then I closed the door behind me and leaned back against it. My limbs felt like rubber, and my heart beat so fast I worried it might explode.

I felt him prod subtly at my mind and concentrated to shore my mental walls.

I did not still love Cadmus Storm.

Annoyed, I nearly ripped the shower curtain from the rod and turned on the water. While I forced myself to relax, I watched the rivulets of water slowly run down the shower walls, heading toward a certain end in the drain.

"What have I done?" I feared I'd made a monumental mistake in dealing with Cadmus Storm.

Stepping into the shower, I washed him from my body, wishing I could as easily wash him from my mind. A month ago, I'd been eager to profess my love. I'd thought that two people who'd bared their souls to each other, who'd shared intimacies so profound that we'd shared each other's thoughts, could live and love together despite our differences.

We'd shared thoughts but apparently not the same feelings. Though I could understand Cadmus' hurt when he'd found out I had lied about me identity, his reaction had been too intense, too unforgiving for a man supposedly in love.

The rejection had felt all too familiar. Another man I loved, another push away.

Now, to top that off, I'd slept with him again. Let him into my small, uncomplicated world.

Working myself into a lather, I decided to do the same to my hair and washed it like crazy. Suds and bubbles floated around the stall as I massaged my scalp, trying to rub some reason into my growing insanity. A moment of weakness — make that two moments of weakness — and I once more found myself vulnerable to Cadmus.

Who had been the idiot to suggest he stay here with me when he could have been safely ensconced in Foreia, a world away? Oh, that's right, I'd volunteered. Am I a sucker for pain, or what?

I shoved my head under the spray and rinsed thoroughly.

I hated to admit it, but the sex had been to-die-for. Considering he'd initiated me into the wild world of hedonism, it was no wonder I still wanted him so badly. Cadmus possessed bedroom skills that would put Casanova to shame. Those hands, that tongue.

I flushed and turned the water temperature colder.

Well, there was no turning back now. I'd declined my father's offer to take Cadmus off my hands. And since experiencing Cadmus between the sheets again, my sex drive had firmly left its hiatus.

But sex meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, and I scrubbed harder with the lemon soap my mother had made for me. Thoughts of my mother only emphasized how wrong two different people could be for each other. Ethim and Amanda, my Djinn father and human mother, always seemed to be at odds. They had affection, enough to have created me after all.

And visits with my father normally put a sparkle in my mother's eyes, but nothing more than that. Nothing long-lasting.

If my father found out what Cadmus and I had been doing… Not that I particularly cared, I reminded myself, but staying in Ethim's good graces might just help my mother finally reconcile with him. Hell, it couldn't hurt.

I stood under the warm shower and managed a plan, of sorts. Cadmus wouldn't be here that much longer. Despite the ache at the thought, I couldn't ignore the facts.

I had no willpower when it came to the Earth Lord, and he knew it. So I would sleep with him while keeping my heart safe. That way when everything ended and he returned to Tanselm, I would survive and perhaps even look back on this interlude with fondness.

Fondness? At least be honest with yourself. Nothing about Cadmus calls to mind fondness. Fury, lust, laughter. Sure. Fondness? Nah.

"You're much too quiet in here."

I stifled a shriek and turned to find a naked Cadmus watching me with steady brown eyes.

Determined to stick with my plan, I smiled. "Why don't you join me?" Distance, Ellie. Remember, keep it just physical. "There's just something about a naked man in the morning that sets me off. Especially when he's wet."

He said nothing as his gaze drifted over me. His erection spoke for him.

Then he sighed. "I'd like to withhold sex to get you to tell me what's wrong. But I have no self-control when it comes to you." He stepped into the shower, closed the curtain behind him, and pressed me against the shower wall. "We'll talk later, baby. You can count on it."

Before I could protest his high-handedness, his lips found mine. Like a switch, my mind shut down as feeling erupted within me, bypassing my hardening heart.