"Do you not still want me, Mona Lisa?" he asked softly, his dark eyes glowing.
I licked my dry lips. His sizzling eyes followed the movement.
"I will always want you," was my simple, truthful reply.
His eyes squeezed shut, then opened, his eyes blazing like burning sapphire. "You are more than I ever hoped to find, a Queen I never dared to even dream of. Will you not lay your hands upon me? Grant me permission to lay my hands upon you?"
He crawled with sinuous grace onto the bed, his knees resting on either side of me, sinking down onto the mattress, moving carefully as if afraid of frightening me. He needn't have bothered. The extreme lust I was feeling for him, the desperate control I was exerting to not fall ravenously on him and devour him up was scaring me near to death as it was. I scooted back a few inches and fell onto my back as he straddled me and lowered himself down, his arms braced on either side of my head, stopping just short of contact in an unnatural distance that was harder to maintain than just the natural touching of skin against skin would have been.
"Do you not wish to touch me?" he asked.
"Yes." Oh, sweet mother may I, yes! Taking a deep breath, I reached out a trembling hand and lay my fingers upon his chest. His skin was cool and smooth, silken skin over living rock. It felt so good it edged toward pain. We both groaned with the thrill of contact. I snatched my hand back.
He rolled in a fluid motion onto his left side. I turned to face him. He reached out his right hand and I was comforted, reassured when I saw its fine trembling. He touched me lightly in the same spot that I had touched him, just above the heart. I gasped at the pleasure of it. Nothing more, just that light touch, and liquid desire trickled down my thigh. The scent of my arousal thickened and permeated the room. Gryphon's nostrils flared and he breathed harshly, deeply, but did nothing more. When I could stand it no longer, I reached out and placed my entire palm flat against his chest. He shuddered and grated, "Yes. More."
I stroked him, unable to stop myself, not wanting to, and his hand moved as mine did. A light stroke along the collarbones, a second hand to trace along the line of his shoulder, down the slope of his arm. I buried both hands in the cool falling silk of his hair that felt even better than I had imagined, and made a surprising discovery at his nape. "You have soft, downy… feathers?"
He hummed an acknowledgment, absorbed in the feel and play of my own hair.
Suddenly, I had to taste him. I whispered my need, "Gryphon," and rose up on my knees and lowered my lips to his. Satin smoothness. Sweet coolness. And soft. So soft. I brushed my lips against his, enjoying the smooth glide of skin against silken skin until he moaned his need for more and parted his lips. My tongue slipped into the shockingly warm cavern of his mouth and I lapped along his teeth, traced the wet lining of his cheeks, and brushed against the roughness of his tongue. Gryphon groaned again, gripped my shoulders, and pulled me down to him. The pleasure-pain of flesh against flesh, the meeting of my peaked nipples against the smooth hardness of his chest, the brush of his warm, swollen member against my soft belly spurred him into action. He rolled, pinning me beneath him, his lips moving aggressively against my lips, his tongue entwining with mine in a rub-slide-enter-retreat plunging motion that had me parting my legs and arching my hips against his. I pulled him to me, wanting more of his delicious weight. I slid my hands with frantic greed down his back, over his slender waist, to the succulent rounded globes of his bottom, urging him to come into me.
His hot mouth moved down my cheek, onto my neck, and I gave pounded. He filled his mouth with my flesh, pressed his teeth down with restrained ferocity, growling with his desire to pierce the flesh and taste the sweet blood. But instead of biting me, he sucked hard and released me, laving me with his rough tongue, and dipped down to taste the hollow at the base of my neck.
"Tell me you want me," he said roughly.
"Yes," I cried.
He took my nipple into his mouth, laving the sensitive tip again and again.
"Please, Gryphon." I gasped.
"Yes, say my name." His voice rumbled in a pleasant sensation against my breast. "Tell me you need me."
"I need you now. Please."
He bit down gently on my nipple and I reared up, crying out as he tugged and sucked with leashed savagery, his other hand molding, caressing, squeezing my other breast, his thumb rubbing over the nipple, sending thrilling sensations spearing through me.
"Oh, God. Gryphon… Gryphon!"
"Yes, yes. Say my name," he said hoarsely, his other hand sliding down my stomach to brush through my curls. He parted my folds and slipped a finger into me and I stilled in shock at the wonderful, surprising sensation—such magnificent pleasure—not even daring to breathe as he stroked gently in and out.
"You're so tight. Relax, yes. Let me…" He slid a second finger into me and I quivered uncontrollably and whimpered, my lashes fluttering shut. He stroked and soothed me with his other hand as he pushed in past the second knuckle, then further.
"Yes, that's it," he crooned. "How beautiful, how sweet you are. More than I ever dreamed." He stretched me wide with his fingers then slid out. His weight lifted, and my eyes flew open with a cry of protest that stopped as he stood and pulled me forward until my hips hung over the edge of the bed, lifting my legs over his shoulders. His cheeks were slashed with color and his dark eyes glittered like blue diamonds. With his eyes locked on mine, he guided himself into me, filling me slowly as my eyes widened at the incredible feel of him, at the supreme agony of being stretched by him.
"Oh." I breathed at the breathtaking miracle of wet pleasure instead of dry pain.
"You're so hot. So hot." He panted. "Yes, like that. Take me. Am I hurting you?'"
"No. Your wound…'"
"I'm fine." He groaned and thrust in all the way. "Fine," and started to move.
"Yes." I moaned and held myself still for fear of aggravating his wound, of hurting him while he devastatingly destroyed me with his deeply measured strokes. I watched him, drank him in, the sight of him, the feel of him—the sweet agony of pleasure clenching his face, the Tightness of his body sliding into mine, letting him control it all while I took him and held him tightly within.
He began to move faster, muscles rippling, straining, as he thrust deeper, more forcefully, destroying me, tearing me apart with such frightening pleasure. I felt myself tighten even more, moving toward something that grew and grew in power. And when I thought he could not be more savagely beautiful, he began to glow. We began to glow, a light that started at our joining and spread up our entire bodies, filling us with an incandescent glory that made his skin translucent and limed his mink-black hair with a halo of light, lighting him with a terrible beauty that brought tears of agony and joy to my eyes. Yes, came the thought. This is what we were meant to be, and that power swept over me, flooded me, tore me apart, and rebuilt me even stronger. I convulsed, pulsing and pulsing and pulsing. Blindly above me, I heard Gryphon cry out, "Mona Lisa… mine!" and then he was pumping hotly inside me, groaning sorely, dearly, as he filled me with his seed.