Elijah by Jacquelyn Frank

him. She felt her stomach tighten with instinctive anticipation, even as her mind rebelled against the feeling, understanding that she was in a fair amount of danger and that all of this behavior was primitive and unjustifiable. For her. For him, waking into a world of confusion, it was not. She was the one with her senses about her, she lectured herself sternly, her fingernails digging into the wrist that still pinned her head to the pillow.
    The warrior touched his nose to her temple and inhaled deeply once more. His lips touched her; she felt them part just enough to imprint a wisp of moisture, like the barest of kisses, against her cheek. Siena felt a wash of chills flowing down the front of her body in inexplicable and wild response. Her breasts grew taut beneath the heavy velvet fabric of her dress, the pointed crests of her nipples rubbing his chest in an inadvertent flirtation of response.
    Elijah made a low, appreciative sound in his throat before raising his head from her again, his jeweled eyes bright but smoldering as they drifted down to her breasts. The vocalization called to Siena, very deeply, sending a rapid rush of heat and awareness bursting across her skin. She felt her mind turning away from logic and reason as the primitive reply to that call bubbled up from her own throat.
    Her answering song had a dynamic effect on him, and she could feel the evidence of it solidifying between their bodies. Her golden eyes grew wide as she felt that male weight and hardening heat against her inner thigh. Just like that, an instantaneous metamorphosis, and for some reason just the understanding that she was responsible for it melted her body from the inside out. She inhaled a quick, full breath of emotion. She was suddenly overwhelmed by this feeling, this rush of adrenalized sexual response that she had always tried to tell herself she was not in the least curious about. And she hadn’t been…until this very moment.
    It was raw and base, like the driving hunger that followed a long hibernation. She felt sensations darting around inside her, hot and intrigued, crying out a call that she couldn’t hope to understand. She was poorly prepared and felt it keenly. Siena was a creature of instinct, but she was also one of complete bodily control. Until that moment, she would have sworn there was no part of her that was a stranger to her. That was the only way it could be for any being that altered the shape and nature of who it was with the will of its mind alone. Yet, there was no control in and of that moment, and her entire being was now very much a stranger. She was first flushed, and then chilled. She was terrified, but craving. She was seeping liquid heat, and locking up in solid awareness. The contradictions battered her from the inside out and she felt wildly, deliciously out of control of it all.
    The warrior felt the female’s heart pounding madly beneath him, the sensation causing a curl to one side of his lips as he looked down at her. She was aroused, he could smell it, feel it, and hear it. He was aware of how he was reacting to this delicacy entwined with his body. He was fully Page 19

    aroused against her; her hot skin, so soft and smooth like a thick satin, cradled him. He felt a tremor shimmer through her and he was pressed with the urge to rub himself up against her supple body. It made no impression on him that he was still weak and wounded. His mind was little more than an endorphin-pushed rush at that point. He was blind to everything but the sensations and the desires of his instinctive thoughts.
    Elijah was no stranger to women—he enjoyed them immensely, in fact—but this was something quite remarkable. Never had he reacted so strongly, so quickly, to a female before. Except, perhaps, one other time. But he had refused to acknowledge it then for what it was, excusing it as part of the heat of battle. It had been the attraction of creatures who, though they were completely differing species, were