Shelter from the Storm Chapter 17

All standard disclaimers apply. This story is mine, as are the characters of Leyza Berard, Ray Garcia, Phillippe and Marie Vachon, Francine, Solange Laperrier and Jeremy Cole. Please do not borrow them without asking.

The Highlander concepts and the characters of Duncan MacLeod, Joe Dawson and May Ling Shen are not. They belong to Gregory Widen, Davis/Panzer, Rysher, Gaumont and probably a few others I've forgotten. I've dared to use them without permission, and hope they'll forgive the transgression, because this story is merely a labor of love. I'm not making a cent from it.


He stopped beside the bed, then he set her back on her feet. As she tried to regain her balance, she swayed slightly, and he caught her in his arms. With his hands buried in her hair, he bent to kiss her, gently at first. Then he let the passion build until his heart pounded in his chest, until his breath came in labored gasps, until he thought he'd explode in a crescendo of desire.

Easing her head back, he framed her face with his hands and feasted on her reaction to the kiss. The pulse in her neck beat against his fingers. Her eyes glistened. Her lips, moist and swollen from his kiss, were parted in a clear bid for more. Her hands trembled as they caressed his chest, and her breasts shifted with a sensuous motion as she fought for each breath.

He brushed her lower lip with his thumbs in a gentle promise to return, then he moved his hands slowly down her neck, and across her shoulders. Taking to time savor the velvet touch of her skin under his palms, he dragged them across her breasts.

Using his thumbs again, he paused to graze her nipples. Leyza gasped at the first touch. Closing her eyes, she arched her back to press her breasts into his hands. Her response nearly shattered what little control he had left.

He wanted to throw her on the bed, now, to answer a primal and primitive call. He wanted take her unconditionally in a wild tempestuous mating. And yet he had a burning need deep in his soul to make the smoldering passion last as long as he could.

Pressing a tender kiss in the hollow of her neck, he eased his hands down to the hem of her dress. He crushed the soft fabric under his hands and let his fingers brush her thighs as he drew the dress up, then pulled it over her head.

Leyza shivered as the thrill of being nearly naked before him caught her off guard. She returned her hands to his chest as she watched him drop her dress on the floor. She'd abandoned conscious thought the first time he drew his tongue across her nipple. How could she think with wild tremors racing through her body at his every touch? She simply surrendered to the dazzling sensations.

Skimming her hands over the hair that covered his chest, she brought them up to his shoulders. She relished the firm curves of his biceps as she traced them with her fingers, then she lowered her hands to the waistband of his trousers. Once again he stopped her from opening the zipper.

"Not yet," he said, his voice hoarse and deep with hunger.

"But--" she began a protest.

"My rules, remember?" he muttered against her mouth before he kissed her deeply again.

Moving with the swiftness of a jaguar springing to attack, he lifted her again, then set her gently on the bed. He caressed her hair, paused to kiss her mouth, then with tormenting slowness he scattered kisses down her neck and across her breasts. He wanted to taste her, needed to taste her. To fill himself with every inch of her.

She moaned and squirmed beneath him as he took his senses on a journey of exploration. Running his hands over her smooth supple skin, breathing in the scent of her - a heady mix of perfume, lavender soap and musk - savoring the saline taste of her on his tongue, he drowned in a deluge of delight.

Leyza couldn't contain the explosive bursts of pleasure that shook her continuously as he moved down her body. Incandescent showers of need formed an aching vortex in the tender flesh at the juncture of her thighs. If he didn't take her soon, she would go mad with wanting him inside her.

When his quest brought his tongue to her navel, he slid off the end of the bed, then knelt between her legs. Though she had a strong notion of what he was up to, she levered herself up to her elbows to check.

His head was bent over her thigh as he quickly undid the clasp that attached her stockings to the thin black garter belt she'd worn instead of panty hose.

She took a deep breath and laughed to relieve some of the intense pressure building within her. "I think you've done that before," she said, breathless with anticipation.

He chuckled softly as he lifted his head. "Probably, but it's been so long, I don't remember," he said.

His hair fell in an enchanting tangle across his forehead. That and his lascivious grin as he eased the silk stockings down her legs, nearly did her in. She dropped back to the bed with a groan, then lifted her hips to let him remove her last bit of clothing - the garter belt and a tiny pair of black lace panties.

He drove her back to the brink again as he skimmed his hands up the insides of her thighs, then followed them with the warm wet pressure of his lips. As his mouth neared the center of her need, she found the strength to say, "Duncan, wait ... don't--"

He lifted his head, and his eyes shimmered with the full radiance of his desire as he looked at her. "Don't?" he whispered, then he cocked his head. "You said this was my game."

Leyza struggled to hold on against the tantalizing stimulation of his thumbs as he caressed the tender inside of her thighs. She'd said that, intending to pleasure him, to fill his every need, his every desire, but this wasn't going according to plan.

"But I wanted to--" she stammered. Her train of thought kept jumping the track. How could she think when his mouth hovered so close to the most sensitive patch of flesh on her body. She couldn't form a cohesive thought, couldn't put together a coherent sentence. "I thought, I would ... I wanted--"

"But this is what I want," he said, then he lowered his head.

As he began to pleasure her with long strokes of his tongue, Leyza lost the tenuous grasp she had on conscious thought. Her body seized control, then quickly surrendered to the exquisite torture of Duncan's mouth as he laved her tender flesh.

She wanted these wild sensations that ripped through her to go on forever, yet she desperately needed the release only one thing could bring her. She needed him inside her, filling her, driving her to the top and over. And she needed him now.

Slipping her fingers into his hair, she tugged gently. "Duncan, please," she moaned. "I can't ... you're making me--"

He lifted his head slightly, stopping the torture, but prolonging the agony. "Just let go," he murmured, as he pressed a kiss into the fine patch of hair that covered her mound.

The glittering passion in her eyes, thrilled him. He fed on the surge of potency that came from knowing he could evoke such a vibrant response from her. He wallowed in the supreme confidence, the ego boosting power of control. He needed to watch her succumb, to feel her surrender, to know he hadn't lost his touch.

He gave Leyza no choice, but to let go. He licked her, stroked her and probed her with his tongue and fingers until she could no longer hold on. Her insides flexed, clenched, then the shuddering release shattered her in a fusillade of tingling tremors.

She sucked in deep breaths and sprawled limp as a rag doll while he continued to nuzzle her tenderly. Just when she thought he would never stop, he lifted his head and gazed at her with a rather smug, pride-filled grin, then he showered her with kisses as he moved up her body.

"You son of bitch," she said, laughing as she wriggled out from under him.

He chuckled softly, then let her roll him to his back. "What'd I do?"

"You spoiled my plan," she said, pulling down his zipper. This time he didn't stop her. He lifted his hips obligingly as she dragged his trousers and his briefs carefully over his swollen shaft, then down his legs.

He smiled, then raised his head to watch her slip off his shoes. "You had a plan?" he asked with an arched eyebrow and a laugh that sounded more like a giggle.

She dropped the shoes, then tossed his trousers over her shoulder. "A very good plan," she said, then she ran her hands up the insides of his thighs while she crawled up between his legs. "One you spoiled, but I'm going to remedy that right now."

His body twitched in a reflexive spasm when she cupped him gently between her hands.

Falling back, he groaned. "Don't do that unless you mean business," he said, laughing and gasping for breath at the same time.

"I always mean business," she said with a wicked chuckle, then she lowered her head and treated him to a dose of his own medicine.

His senses reeled and a swirling kaleidoscope of pleasure sucked him under its powerful centrifugal force. Suddenly the entire vortex of the universe revolved around his cock and the warm moist burrow of her mouth.

The urge to submit, to surrender to her expert touch vied with the need for control. He wanted to lie back and simply swim in the river of delectable sensations, yet he also wanted, needed to feel her lying beneath him while he conquered her with powerful thrusts. "I think you've done that before," he said in a throaty whisper while the battle inside him raged.

"Probably, but it's been so long, I don't remember," she mumbled, teasing him with his own response to her same comment.

Inexorably, his need to conquer won out. Won out before she could drive him over the edge of his control. He sat up and slipped his hands under her arms, then he tried to pull her up, but she resisted.

"I'm not finished," she said, laughing against him.

"My rules," he insisted, clinging to control with a tenuous grasp. "You promised."

She glanced up at him. "I'm taking it back," she said, then she licked her lips and lowered her head again.

Exerting more pressure, he pulled her back up. "Not fair," he said, "You can't change the rules once the game's begun."

"Watch me," she said laughing as she pulled away.

Teetering on the edge, he reached down, then circled her waist with his hands. She ducked her head and struggled slightly as he dragged her up his body.

Though the flames of her passion had been banked by her first release, the tantalizing taste of him and his rich musky scent had quickly fanned them back to life. Her whole body pulsed with wanting the one element that had been missing the first time - the full measure of him filling her. She gave up the struggle, then straddled him. Reaching between her legs, she grasped him, then guided him inside her. He slid his hands up to her breasts as she arched her back.

He let out a low growl, then he clutched a handful of her hair to pull her back further while he took the peak of her breast into his mouth.

Leyza moaned as he suckled her deeply. Searing strands of intense need flowed from the touch of his tongue on her nipple and fed the fire raging deep in her belly. He held her pressed to his mouth with strong fingers that flexed over the skin of her back, and she couldn't move her head because he held her hair in the steel trap of his fist. But it didn't matter because with each upward thrust he brought her closer to the rapture every cell in her body craved.

With each upward thrust, Duncan lost another measure of the anguish that had nearly conquered him. With each upward thrust, he regained another misplaced piece of his soul. Then the need to control, to conquer overcame him, and he rolled Leyza under him.

She gasped at the sudden shift in position. For a moment she struggled against the dominating force of his body pressing down on hers, then some primal instinct whispered, this is what he needs - what you wanted to give him.

She opened her legs wider to welcome him, then she wrapped them around his waist and surrendered to the sheer ecstasy of pleasing him.

Sensing her surrender, Duncan claimed her mouth, then poured every ounce of himself into bringing them both to a place beyond thought, beyond reason. A bright shimmering tower of pure feeling, pure joy.

Then with little warning, shuddering release thundered over both of them in a skyrocket blast of sparkling sensations. It sucked them under a bubbling cauldron of bliss, then set them adrift on a shining sea.