“When I take your maid
enhead, you will feel pain. This part of me is…larger than the finger I used before. But tehila, I will not be able to stop. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I know it’s painful the first time. I…I want to be yours. In every way I can be.”
He spoke several words in his own language, and then plunged into her body with one swift thrust.
Ella gasped at the intrusion. A tear of pain knifed through her, but then she felt only a fullness. It was strange, yet somehow comforting. In a foreign way, she felt complete.
“Ella.” Raven’s voice was hoarse, as though he’d caught the fever. “Ella.”
“Raven?”
“I…I must. May I?” He panted against her neck.
“May you what, Raven?”
“Are you? Are you…in pain?”
“No. It…it hurt at first, but now I feel mostly full.”
He murmured in his own language again and then said, “I will move inside of you now.”
“Yes. All right.”
He pulled his hardness out of her and plunged it back inside. She gasped, not from pain, but from the fresh intrusion of his body into hers. He pulled out and thrust again, touching her, completing her. She gasped each time, and the whole of the sensation—his hard chest brushing the tips of her nipples, his lips nibbling on her neck, the hot skin of his thighs caressing hers, her body hugging his in the most intimate of ways—flooded her with an emotion so powerful, so fierce, she couldn’t keep from crying out in joy.
As she sobbed into his hard shoulder, her body climbed the peak once more and she ran toward the precipice. “Raven!” Her voice flew toward the Black Hills. “Raven!”
“Yes, Ella. Come with me. Come!”
And together they soared to the stars.
Chapter Six
Ella lay in Raven’s arms, her head snuggled into his shoulder. Though rationally she knew she shouldn’t have lain with him outside of wedlock, she couldn’t bring herself to regret the action. Against the warmth of his hard body she felt complete in a purely spiritual way. “Is it always this way?”
“No.” He smoothed his hands over the contours of her back, her buttocks. “Only between true mates of the spirit.”
“But, how do you know?”
“I have—” He cleared his throat. “With widows in my band. Men have needs.”
“Oh.” A stab of jealousy pierced Ella’s gut.
“I was fulfilling a physical need only, tehila. Now that I have you, I can fulfill the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual. There is nothing in the world more beautiful.”
“Raven, I fear I cannot… That is, when you came into me…” Ella sighed. So much emotion flooded her and she had no idea how to put it into words.
“What did you feel, tehila?”
“I felt…complete, Raven. Complete in the most wonderful of ways.” A tear trickled out of her eye, down her cheek, and spilled onto Raven’s hard shoulder.
“It will always be that way for us. We complete each other. And when we are not joined, a small part of us will always ache for it.”
“I think…” Ella let out a soft giggle. Her body felt on fire—swollen, ripe, and on fire. “I think I’m aching for it already, Raven.”
His husky laugh feathered through her hair. “As am I. But you are sore. You must heal before I take you again.”