Chapter 28
Power in Her Hands
Malachy stared, open-mouthed, at her Anita-approved lingerie for so long that Cora began to wonder if she had broken him. Then his hands found her waist and fitted them together, and the hardening length pressed against her belly banished all doubts.
“Are you sure, Cora?” Brimming in his midnight blue eyes was a tenderness that made her heart clench.
They had been through hell and back together, and she would do it again to have him here now, holding her and asking her permission to take what she was so willing to give.
Before, her body and innocence had been taken without consent, until little of her shredded pride still clung to her bones.
Now, with him, no memories or phantom sensations haunted her.
There was only Malachy, a safe harbor after an endless voyage.
“Absolutely.” She loosened his tie and tossed it on the four-poster bed.
Next went his jacket and waistcoat, then his shirt, a button at a time, revealing the lean angles of his body to her hungry gaze.
In the sway of candlelight, the broad expanse of his chest and the planes of his abdomen were bathed in golden shadows.
God, he was lovely. She melted at the simple seduction of his nearness.
His hand caressed her cheek. “Do you trust me?”
She met his gaze. Trust. Cora had never trusted anyone. But what other word could encompass the warmth radiating through her as he held her tight? In his arms, she felt safe. Cherished.
Malachy had pulled her out of an abyss of unspeakable sorrow after Teddy died. Her mind had been a pit so dark she couldn’t crawl out of it, her thoughts so cancerous that she hadn’t wanted to. Now, the fractured pieces of her no longer quite fit back together, but with Malachy, she felt whole.
“I do,” she said wondrously, surprised by the truth of it. Her hands curled on his chest, over his swift-beating heart. “I trust you.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pressed all his wanting, all his longing, into her skin.
His lips brushed against hers, coaxing them apart with a sweep of his tongue.
His touch flowed over her, skating along the flare of her hips, the cinch of her waist, the curves of her breasts, heavy in the cup of his palms.
Warm hands kneaded her breasts. Dipping his head, he wet her nipples with the heat of his mouth, drenching the thin layer of silk between them.
One hand tangled in his dark hair, willing him not to end the sweet torture, as the other followed the trail of dark hair down his abdomen.
She unfastened his trousers, tugged them down over his straining length.
His cock sprang free, long and thick and dripping for her.
Saliva flooded her mouth as her gaze roved his body.
Every inch of him was hard and beautiful and all hers.
Greedy fingers closed around his length and stroked. Her thumb swirled over the bead of arousal at the tip, dragging it along the throbbing vein underneath. His sharp intake of breath rang victorious in her ears.
“Fuck, I need you.” That was all the warning he gave before her back hit the soft bed.
The mattress dipped under their weight as he settled atop her. She loved how his body covered hers, how his weight pressed her into the forgiving mattress. Dark strands of copper hair, pulled by her hands, swept his forehead.
Malachy unwrapped her like a present, sliding her silky lingerie down her body until she was bared to him. He gazed hungrily upon her, pupils blown wide.
Naked and flush together, there were no more barriers between all the places where their bodies touched, all the places where they could touch. His cock stirred, hard and leaking desire against her abdomen. Mere inches separated their bodies from joining.
“Do you need me, love?”
“Yes,” she breathed.
Clever fingers slid between her thighs. “Christ, you’re wet for me.” A finger stroked through her slickness to rub her clit in unhurried circles. “We’ll go slow. As slow as you want.”
“As slow as I want,” she echoed as desire lit a fire inside her.
A sinful idea took shape in her mind. She wrapped her legs around him. A slight tilt of her hips, and his rigid length was sliding through her drenched folds. Their moans saturated the air.
Her legs tightened around his waist with the shallow thrust of his hips.
The head of his cock stroked her clit with each luxuriant glide, slow at first, then faster, his breath hot on her face, muscles straining above her, his rigid length caressing her most intimate flesh.
Delicious tension wound tighter within her as her nails raked down the sweat-slicked muscles of his back.
Lost to sensation, lost to each other, their tongues tangled in a helpless kiss.
His cock brushed her entrance. They froze, breaths ragged, hearts thundering.
Malachy’s gaze poured over her, nude and wrapped around him. Her arousal coated his length, nestled between her folds. His muscles strained as he held himself unmoving above her, poised at her threshold. The reins of his self-control hung by a fraying thread.
“Ah, Jesus,” he said, low and agonized. “I won’t be able to stop. You should be in control.”
With a twist of their bodies, she was on top.
Her fingers bit into the taut muscles of his chest, her thighs clasping his hips.
He was stretched out beneath her, a feast for her hands and eyes.
She reached down to stroke him, hard between their bodies, loving the sharp hiss of his breath as she massaged a spot beneath the swollen head.
“Fuck, that feels too good. A brief interlude while I kiss your cunt.” He cupped her bum and lifted her to straddle his face. His breath was hot on her sensitive flesh. “Your sweet, wet cunt.”
She gasped, bracing her hands on the headboard for balance.
His tongue swept over where she needed him most, and her protests melted into a moan.
Pleasure spread through her veins like warm honey.
Her thighs tightened around his head when he teased her clit, and he coaxed them apart with a long swipe of his tongue.
Her hands fisted in the sheets beside his head, carded through his mussed hair. Each flick of his tongue, the gentle sucking of his mouth, coiled the spiral of heat building inside her tighter and tighter. A long finger slid in, and she clenched around him.
“So tight,” he rasped. “Need to get you ready.” A second finger joined the first as his tongue lapped and teased and drove her bucking hips into a frenzy.
One hand on his shoulder, one hand braced on the wall, she rode the friction of his tongue, chasing her own pleasure.
His fingers slid in a delicious rhythm, filling her, stroking a spot deep inside her that made her cry out his name in a breathless mantra as she came apart in a blinding burst of pleasure.
He lapped up her desire with a heartbreakingly gentle touch. She quivered. His hands on her thighs were all that supported her from collapsing in a boneless puddle.
“Good.” Malachy lowered her down his body until she straddled his waist, her wet center dripping onto his stomach.
Her hands and lips mapped the terrain of his body, kissing and stroking, exploring all the angles and edges of him.
His cock jutted between them, straining for her caress.
She trailed a finger down his shaft, and he lifted his hips in invitation.
She fisted the heavy base, fingers closing around steel, and stroked.
Her certainty wavered, not on whether they should, but whether they could. His size was rather… daunting.
When she continued to hesitate, he shifted to reach for something on the bed. “You’re in control, Cora.” He handed her his discarded necktie. “Blindfold me or tie me up.”
The strip of black silk felt like power in her hands. Malachy Bane had surrendered control. She slipped the silk between her fingers, gazing down at his beautiful body splayed beneath her. His dark gaze captured hers, and the decision was made. He liked to watch, and she would not deny him.
She grabbed his wrists and raised them overhead, gliding up his body to tie him to the four-poster bed. “A necktie seems a flimsy restraint for a portal mage.”
He watched her tie him up, licking the wetness from his lips. “I won’t touch you until you ask me to.”
She slid down his restrained body, her drenched folds gliding along his hard length.
The low groan that rumbled in his chest was all the encouragement she needed.
She gripped the thick base, slowly stroking him as she rose up on her knees.
The wide crown breached her entrance, already ripe from his mouth.
They drew in a sharp breath and held it.
The muscles in his arms, bound overhead, bunched and strained against the necktie. “Take as much of me as you want, love.” His deep voice was roughened by desire.
She slid down an inch, gasping. The head stretched her core, and her inner muscles fluttered at the welcome intrusion. “And if I want all of you?”
“I’m yours.”
He groaned as she rocked her hips and slid down another hard inch. She sank further, moaning at the delicious stretch as he filled her, deeper and deeper. A cant of her hips, and he was inside her to the hilt. The sound that tore out of his throat filled her with feminine satisfaction.
“So tight.” He watched where he disappeared inside her, where she left him glistening. “That’s it, love. Take all of me.”
She luxuriated in the feel of him pulsing inside her, the strength of his bound body straining beneath hers, sheened with sweat and arousal. For the first time in her life, Cora was not being taken; she was taking. And she would take everything Malachy Bane had to give.
Hands on his chest, head thrown back, she rode him. Panting, breathless, her eyes squeezed shut at the pleasure, the pressure, building inside her.
She sank into sensation, both ethereal and visceral—the tenderness of his vulnerability; the intimacy of their joined bodies; the empowerment of using his hard cock for her pleasure.
His hips tilted up, deepening the angle.
Through gasping breaths, her lips formed his name.
His heels dug into the bed as he pounded into her from below, deep and rhythmic.
Her body met the canter of his, stroke for stroke, chasing the orgasm building deep in her core.
Even with the brush of his pelvis against her aching clit, it wasn’t enough.
“Touch me,” she panted. “Please, Mal.”
In an instant his hands were free from their restraints and on her. His touch coasted up her thighs, digging into the flesh of her hips, rocking her against him as he thrusted upward in a punishing rhythm. A hand slid between their joined bodies and he read her pleasure with his fingertips.
“That better, love?”
Molten desire pooled in her core as he stroked her in agonizing circles. Every muscle pulled taut, ready to snap. Back arching, she rode him, her thoughts swept away on a rising tide of sensation. She was scarcely aware of the words spilling from her mouth.
“Fuck, Malachy, yes, yes.”
With a swipe of his thumb, a thrust of his hips, she fractured. A burst of pleasure, then a deep, final ache. Pleasure crested in rolling waves that swept her under into silken depths and carried her in pulsing ripples to a languid shore.
“Ah fuck, you’re going to make me come, milking my cock like that.”
He grabbed her hips and fucked her, hard and fast, drawing out her pleasure as he raced towards his.
Their gazes locked. Expression rapt, she saw the beautiful moment when Malachy came apart.
Head thrown back and throat exposed as he emptied himself deep inside her.
The primal sound that tore out of his throat made her core clench.
He was perfectly, achingly beautiful. Vulnerable and all hers. She cradled his face in her hands and whispered his name like a prayer.
“Cora.” His lips met hers and she lost herself in his slow, drugging kiss.
Boneless and heavy with pleasure, she collapsed beside him, her cheek pressed against his sweat-sheened chest, listening as his breaths and heartbeat slowed.
“I had no idea it could be like this,” she said. A marvel and a sick mockery that for the first time in thirty years, she had not only chosen sex but thoroughly enjoyed it.
“Oh, love.” He gathered her close, stroking her back, smoothing her tousled hair. A sigh escaped her lips at the tender pilgrimage of his touch. Her heavy eyelids closed. A bone-deep sense of contentment washed over her. “We’re only getting started.”
They drifted off to sleep, their minds light, bodies heavy, and hearts full.