Pursued(85)

“What are you thinking?” Elise asked, breaking the silence for the first time in hours. “Why have we stopped? Is this it?”

Merrick frowned and looked around. He’d lost the trail and his feet had automatically stopped walking. The vegetation around them had gotten considerably denser and darker but it still wasn’t the solid indigo of the Deep Blue.

“Not yet,” he said aloud, frowning. “Hang on—lost the fucking trail.” He lifted his head and sniffed, trying to pick it up. There were two possible ways it could have gone but if he picked the wrong one, they’d wind up right back at the town and have to start all over again. He sniffed harder but all he could catch was Elise—her heat and need invading his senses, making him crazy. No fucking good. I have to get away to find the path or I’ll screw this up for sure. “I need to scout ahead,” he told her. “And I need to go by myself—have to concentrate. You’ll have to stay here.”

“I can be quiet,” she objected.

“Yeah, I know,” he growled impatiently. “Very fucking quiet—you proved that all afternoon. But it’s not your noise that bothers me.”

Elise put a hand on her hip, glaring up at him. “So what does bother you about me?”

Merrick ran a hand over his head. You want the short version or should I recite the whole fucking list? He managed to keep himself from saying it out loud—barely. “Your scent,” he said briefly, instead. “It confuses my nose—I can’t find the trail with you hanging around so close.”

“My scent? Are you saying I stink?” she demanded.

“No,” Merrick snarled, finally losing it. “You smell hot. Your hunger…your need…they’re coming through loud and clear, baby. I can feel it through the bond…see it in your face. And now it’s hanging in the air like a Goddess-damned cloud of perfume. You’re so hungry you’re practically in heat but you won’t fucking admit it!”

Elise opened her mouth to reply, but Merrick didn’t give her a chance to say anything. Suddenly, the thin thread of self control he’d been holding on to all day snapped. Grabbing her around the waist, he lifted her and pulled her in for a fierce, hungry kiss.

At first she fought him, beating against his chest with her small hands and trying to get away. But Merrick wasn’t about to let go. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t take her by force—but this much, he permitted himself. This kiss, this touch, was what Elise needed—what they both needed, so desperately it was about to tear them apart.

Then, suddenly, she was kissing him back, her arms looped around his neck and her lush lips open, welcoming the invasion of his tongue. Merrick groaned low in his throat and took her offer readily. Gods, she tasted so sweet, felt so right in his arms… Despite all the holding and touched they’d done before Elise had begun to shy away from him, this was their first kiss. And somewhere in the back of his mind he realized it might be the last. He wanted to make it count.

Easing up on the intensity some, he stroked her tongue with his, savoring her sweetness, and then sucked tenderly at her bottom lip. His shaft was hard as a rock and throbbing for release inside his pants, but he refused to rush. He held her to him, one hand cupped under her full ass, and threaded the fingers of his other hand through her long black hair, pulling her closer, letting her know through his gentle, persistent touch how much he needed her.

Turning the oral assault into a gentle caress had the desired effect—Elise moaned softly and melted in his arms. Merrick could feel her hunger turn to lust, could smell her sweet, feminine scent intensifying and he knew she was getting wet. Gods, what he wouldn’t give to peel down the tight black jungle-pants she was wearing and expose her hot little pussy. He wanted to touch her again, wanted to slide his fingers deep into her slick channel and stroke her soft, slippery petals until she moaned his name.

But even more than that, Merrick yearned to taste her. He imagined parting her thighs and burying his face between her legs, learning her taste with his tongue, lapping her wet little cunt until she quivered and clawed his shoulders, until she came all over his face again and again…

Suddenly he realized he was right on the edge of losing all control. If he didn’t stop kissing her right now, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He wouldn’t rape her—that was out of the question. But the need to taste her, to get his tongue inside her and lap her sweet nectar would be too great to be denied. And she doesn’t want that…I know she doesn’t. I can’t…I can’t…