J.R. Ward the Black Dagger Brotherhood Novels 5-8 - J. R. Ward [607]
Silk, she thought. That shirt had to be made of silk. No other fabric gave off that luminescent glow.
“You are so beautiful,” he said as he stared at her, “standing there in the light like that.”
She glanced at her Gap black pants and her two-year-old knit turtleneck. “You must be blind.”
“Why?” he asked, coming over to her.
“Well, I feel like such an ass for saying this.” She smoothed the front of her off-the-rack-and-then-some slacks. “But I wish I had better clothes. Then I’d be beautiful.”
Rehvenge paused.
And then shocked the crap out of her by kneeling before her.
As he looked up, he had a slight smile on his lips.
“Don’t you get it, Ehlena.” With gentle hands, he stroked down her calf and brought her foot forward, balancing it on his thigh. As he undid the laces on her cheapo Keds sneaker, he whispered, “No matter what you wear…to me, you will always have diamonds on the soles of your shoes.”
As he slid her sneaker off and stared up at her, she studied his hard, handsome face, from those spectacular eyes of his to his thick jaw to his proud cheekbones.
She was falling in love with him.
And like any trip through thin air, there was nothing she could do to stop it. The leap had been made.
Rehvenge bowed his head. “I’m just glad you’ll have me.”
The words were so quiet and humble, at odds with the incredible breadth of his shoulders.
“How could I not?”
He shook his head back and forth slowly. “Ehlena…”
Her name was spoken roughly, as if there were a lot more words behind it, words he couldn’t bear to speak. She didn’t understand, but she knew what she wanted to do.
Ehlena took her foot from him, got down on her own knees, and wrapped her arms around him. She held him as he leaned into her, running one hand up the back of his neck to his mohawk’s stripe of soft hair.
He seemed so fragile as he gave himself up to her, and she realized that if anyone tried to hurt him, even though he could more than take care of himself, she would commit murder. To protect him, she would kill.
The conviction was as solid as the bones beneath her skin:
Even the powerful needed protection sometimes.
FORTY-THREE
Rehv was the kind of male who took pride in his work, whether it was putting French-bread pizzas into the oven and cooking them to perfection or pouring wine…or pleasuring his Ehlena until she was nothing but a limp, resplendent stretch of utterly satisfied, naked female.
“I can’t feel my toes,” she murmured as he kissed his way up from between her thighs.
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not. At. All.”
As he paused to lick at one of her breasts, she undulated, and he felt the movement against his own body. By now, he was used to sensation breaking through his numb fog, and he relished the echoing warmth and friction, no longer concerned that his bad side might break out of its dopamine cage. Even though what registered wasn’t as sharp as what he felt when he was unmedicated, it was enough so that his body became undeniably aroused.
Rehv couldn’t believe it, but there were a number of times when he thought he might orgasm. Between her taste as he lollipopped her sex and the way her hips rocked into the mattress, he nearly lost it.
Except it was better to keep his cock out of the picture. Seriously, how was that going to work: I’m not impotent, miracle of miracles, because you’ve triggered my marking instinct, so the vampire in me wins out over the symphath. Yay! Of course, this means you have to deal with my barb, along with where that piece of meat hanging between my legs has been on a regular basis for the last twenty-five years. But come on, that’s hot, right.
Yeah, he was in a big hurry to put Ehlena in that position.
Riiiiiiight.
Besides, this was enough for him. To pleasure her, to serve her sexually, was enough—
“Rehv…?”
He looked