The scarlet-toe raised its sleek head and watched silently as Gryph led Sariana into the cabin. Then, apparently satisfied that all was as it should be, it went back to sleep.
Gryph ignored the small creature. His attention was centered on the woman in front of him. He was shaking with need and he hadn't even gotten her out of the cloak. He sought for self-control with all the skill at his command, determined not to bungle things this time.
Carefully he undid the fastenings of the cloak and eased it off Sariana's shoulders. It fell into a pool at her feet and in the moonlight he could see the shadows and curves of her body beneath the soft chemise.
He yanked impatiently at the laces of his shirt, flinging the garment heedlessly into the shadows. His fingers were on the buckle of his belt when he saw the direction of Sariana's wary gaze. She was eyeing the prisma lock of the weapon kit.
"Not this time, Sariana." He left his belt undone and reached out to catch her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He dropped a short, reassuring kiss on her parted lips. "We don't need it now. The link between us was forged that first time. We'll never need the prisma again."
She tilted her head questioningly, her eyes shimmering. "I don't understand." "I know. It doesn't matter." He bit her very gently on her lower lip. "Just trust me, Sariana. This time
it's going to be very good for you. I swear it. There is so much passion waiting to be discovered in you. I would have to be completely inept not to be able to help you find it this time."
She sighed softly and stepped closer under the gentle urging of his hand. Gryph slipped the chemise over her head and stared at her slender, graceful body with hungry fascination. Next to her he felt large and heavy and awkward. She was so soft and tantalizing. His fingers grazed lightly over the peaks of her br**sts and he was rewarded when her sensitive flesh responded to his touch.
"You're so strong and hard," she breathed wonderingly as she spread her fingers across his chest. Her silver nails glimmered in the moonlight as she moved her hands to the broad curve of his shoulders.
Gryph thought he would go out of his mind. He brought her closer, sliding his fingers down under the sensual weight of her bu**ocks. He lifted her up against him, letting her feel his rigid manhood. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with a newfound boldness.
Gryph felt the first stirrings of the mental and emotional link that would soon leap to life between them. An intri-guingly alien excitement raced through him. He was already starting to pick up on Sariana's sensations. Memories of that first night when he had experienced theshock of his own intrusion into her body even as she experienced it slammed into his head.
Gryph fought to control the crossover effects of the link this time. Sariana would not have the vaguest idea of how to channel and focus the devastatingly intimate contact. He had only a rough notion of how to do it himself, based on his training as a Shield.
It was freely acknowledged among Shields that however experienced a man was with prisma or with
women, he was a novice when it came to establishing the permanent link with his Shieldmate. Each man struggled through the experience alone and unaided.
The task was made even more difficult, Gryph realized, because the woman involved had no training at all. No woman ever received Shield training.
In his case the whole event was further complicated by the fact that, in spite of having been through the initial linking, Sariana insisted on denying that anything out of the ordinary had taken place. He knew he would soon be getting the full impact of her reactions. She wouldn't know how to conceal them. Already he was being inundated with her rising passion.
The problem was that, for a man, there was no greater aphrodisiac in the universe than a woman's genuine passion. Gryph's desire was feeding hungrily on the rich feast it was being offered. The blaze within him was rapidly turning into a roaring fire.
With a stifled groan, he picked Sariana up and settled her in the middle of the wide bunk. He couldn't take his eyes off of her sleek, slender body while he jerked off his boots and stepped out of his trousers. She lay there devouring him with her eyes, one leg slightly drawn up to partially shadow the secrets between her thighs.
Gryph sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned over her, bracing himself with a hand on either side of her. When she touched his thigh inquisitively he groaned again and bent down to taste the tip of her breast with his tongue.
"You don't even know what you're doing to me," he whispered. "Here I am going through prisma fire trying to control myself and you're showering me with everything you've got."
She smiled up at him as her soft palm found his extended shaft. "Aren't you going to shower me with everything you've got?"
"On top of everything else, you're going to turn out to be a tease. I should have guessed." He felt her uncertain touch on his sensitive flesh and he shuddered again. She was going to drive him wild. He reached down to cover her hand with his own. "That's it, sweetheart. Pet me and stroke me and drive me out of my mind. I don't have much of a grasp left on it, anyway."
She looked up at him with genuine delight as she felt his physical reaction. He certainly wasn't going to bother trying to hide that part from her, Gryph decided. He couldn't have camouflaged his body's blunt, bold responses even if he had wanted to. It was hard enough trying to restrain his emotional reactions.
He pulsed under her touch and felt the thrill that went through her as she learned the extent of her own power over him. He didn't know whether to laugh or groan. He knew from past experience that Sariana was a woman who enjoyed exercising her strengths and abilities. When she discovered just how much talent she had for manipulating him, Gryph told himself, he was going to be in big trouble.
But a man could die happy in this kind of trouble.
"It's worth the risk," he told her, knowing she wouldn't understand the cryptic statement. "Besides, two can play at this game."
He flattened his palm on her stomach and swept his fingers through the triangle of hair below. She flinched when he unerringly found the.nub that was the core of her sensations. Her fingers flexed on his leg and he felt the tips of her silvery nails digging into him.
Gryph stiffened in reaction and closed his eyes against the excitement that swept through him. For a few seconds he lost his grip on the control he was exerting. The power of his own emotions was too strong. They slipped from his grasp and poured into Sariana. She quivered beneath him, drawing back instinctively as his raging desire hit her mentally as well as physically. She let out a soft protest.
