Stone's Soul Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Stone’s Soul

  ISBN 9781419918223

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Stone’s Soul Copyright © 2008 Lexxie Couper

  Edited by Kelli Kwiatkowski.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication August 2008

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Stone’s Soul

  Lexxie Couper

  Dedication

  For Sexy Man. You’re always in my dreams.

  Prologue

  Kilauea, Hawaii Island

  1542 A.D.

  Kale stared at the woman before him. Her glare, sharper than his blade, cut his skin. Or at least it felt that way. He’d known rejecting a goddess was dangerous—more than dangerous—but he wasn’t anyone’s play-toy.

  His heart had shattered the night his sweet Lani and their baby girl died during childbirth. He’d lost his past, his present and his future, and his heart had not recovered. Pele had come to him, promising that which only the gods could—to ease his pain and soothe his grief. And only fools refused gods. Or so he’d thought. Now here he was, Ali’i, High Chief of his tribe, no man’s fool, telling the volcano goddess it was over.

  Kale studied Pele as he stood naked before her. She had taken from him, milking his body of orgasm after terrible orgasm. She had ignored his protests, insisting she was helping him recover from the emptiness Lani and their pepe’s death had caused in his soul. She’d used his body in every way she saw fit. And still his heart ached for a spiritual and emotional connection once had, but now denied him.

  He’d had enough.

  Pele narrowed her midnight-black eyes and rammed her fists to her curvaceous hips. “You scorn me, human?” Her lips—lips that had caressed his body with ravenous greed more than once—curled. “You reject me?”

  “Yes.”

  Infinity swirled in her black stare. “Then I was foolish to take Lani.”

  Kale’s heart thumped hard and his breath caught in his throat. “What do you mean, ‘take Lani’?”

  Pele laughed, the sound cold and cruel. “I took her life force from her as she squeezed out your spawn. I had been watching you for many moons, my Ali’i, and my appetite for what I saw could no longer be suppressed. I removed the mortal obstacle and her offspring.”

  Icy numbness spread through Kale. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  The goddess curled her lip again, disdain flashing across her impossibly beautiful face. “I share with no one.”

  Kale stared at her, incredulous, his blood roaring in his ears. Fury burned through his being. Fury and murderous rage.

  “But now I see I was mistaken. Your body may be divine, but your heart…” She cocked a sharp eyebrow. “Unless you beg for my love, I must reject you.”

  Fury clenched Kale’s jaw. “You murdered my wife, you murdered my unborn child and you expect me to love you? I will never love you, Pele! My days of worshipping you, of being your play-toy, are over.”

  Pele’s ink-black eyes glowered. “You will not love me? I am Pele! The volcano goddess. The goddess of fire. Your goddess! If you will not love me then you are incapable of love.”

  Kale shook his head, his chest a twisted knot of rage and grief. “No, Pele. I have loved more deeply than you would ever, could ever understand. My heart is capable of love, it is just not yours.”

  The goddess laughed. “Ha! Your heart is cold. Hard. You are like a precious stone, just as beautiful and just as cold.” Her eyes shimmered, swirled with the life of a million stars. “Let it be as I say, then. Until you know love again, until your heart is hot with passion once more, a precious stone you will be!”

  A chilling smile stretched her lips. She lifted her hands toward Kale. “A stone the color of your eyes.”

  True and unending agony flooded through Kale. Every molecule in his body began to burn, a frozen heat of inescapable pressure. He threw back his head, his scream tearing from his throat.

  And then, everything became still.

  And was gone.

  Chapter One

  Present day

  The Discovery

  Jordynn Harrison looked at the small, dirt-encrusted stone in her hand. Something about it puzzled her. It didn’t look right. About the size of a walnut, its rough surface seemed somehow unnatural. Too concise in formation. She raised it close to her face, rolling it between her thumb and fingers, searching for clues in its texture. Hmmm. Definitely not igneous. Maybe evaporitic, possibly metamorphic…

  A soft warmth spread through her fingers. A tingling heat.

  Jordynn frowned. She brought the stone closer still, studying it intently. No naturally formed stone she knew of conducted heat without a heat source, and despite the humid mid-summer afternoon, she didn’t think the dormant Hawaiian Mauna Kea volcano constituted as a heat source. Nor, for that matter, did her fingers.

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Odd.”

  Without warning, a blistering heat singed her fingers, like she’d closed them around the molten tip of a fire poker. With a sharp and totally undignified yelp, Jordynn dropped the stone. “Ow!” She studied her stinging fingers. Long, slightly calloused and ingrained with dirt. Typical geologist’s fingers. Yet, despite the pain radiating from their tips, free of any blisters or reddening burn marks.

  Jordynn frowned, turning her inspection to the hastily dropped stone at her feet. Gingerly, she picked it up. Small, dull and cold. Hardly anything to make her cry out like a little girl. She turned it over and over, gnawing on her bottom lip as she did so. Something about it looked…wrong.

  She spat on the stone’s grimy surface and smeared away some of its crusted dirt.

  A chill rippled up her arm, lifting the fine hairs on her skin and making her nipples pinch into tight peaks. Jordynn blinked, staring at the now dullish-green stone in her hand. What the…?

  Another chill shot up her arm, followed by a wave of pulsating heat.

  Her pussy clenched in response, as though replying to an unknown question.

  Do you want to be filled?

  Oh yes, please!

  “What the hell?” Her muttered words sounded oddly loud in the silence and she blinked.

  Unease crashed over her and she swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. Silence? In the forest? She tore her stare from the strange stone to look out at the lush Hawaiian rainforest.

  And saw a man standing on Mauna Kea’s rim.

  A naked man, with long, glossy-black hair and deeply bronzed skin stretched over hard, sculpted muscles.

  A naked man staring at her through thick, black lashes with piercing eyes the color of wild limes.

  Jordynn started, dropping the stone aga
in.

  The man disappeared. Just like that. One second there, the next, gone.

  Jordynn’s throat squeezed tight. “What the hell?”

  She spun about, searching the landscape surrounding her. Nothing. Just towering koa, choking vines, spreading ‘Ama’u ferns, a cloudless blue sky and the volcano’s rim.

  Jordynn shook her head. Okay, so she was seeing things. Maybe it was time to head back to the cabin and take a break. She shot a look at her watch. She’d been collecting stone and mineral samples on Mauna Kea’s rim for the last five hours. Removing her cap, she dragged her fingers through her hair, grimacing at the grimy sweat slicking her scalp. Okay, she definitely needed a break—and a shower—after which she’d lay out what she’d collected today and begin to make notes.

  She flicked her gaze to the unusual stone lying beside her right foot, frowning at the faint hint of green glinting through the dirt-encrusted surface. Green the same hue as the man’s eyes.

  “Oh for Pete’s sake,” Jordynn growled before squatting down and scooping up the stone. “There was no man. Idiot.”

  Slight, gentle heat licked at her fingers, tingling her palm, and she frowned again, stuffing the stone into her canvas specimen bag. A soft beat throbbed between her thighs—wet and insistent—but she ignored it. She needed a break. Really. She was on the verge of losing her mind!

  * * * * *

  His tongue lashed at her clit. Laved it with furious fervor. She arched her back, forcing her sex harder to his talented mouth as she fisted the sheets below her. God, what was she doing?

  Getting tongue-fucked by a complete stranger.

  Jordynn’s heart leapt into frantic flight. Yes, that’s exactly what she was doing. The best tongue-fucking of her life, in fact. She stared at the ceiling through heavy-lidded eyes, her body hot and slicked with sweat, her pulse a triphammer in her neck.

  Fuck. The anonymity of the situation was intoxicating. Why had she never done this before?

  Because you’ve never let anyone this close before?

  Because you’re asleep?

  Before she could digest the questions, the tongue in her sex moved to her ass and she bucked, a cry of rapturous surprise bursting from her. It echoed around the small confines of the cabin, bounced off the crude wooden walls and came back to her, mingling with the soft moans now slipping past her lips. This was not how she’d planned to spend the afternoon.

  She shouldn’t be doing this. She shouldn’t be letting him…

  His hands, large and strong and masterful, claimed her breasts, cupping each with steady pressure. She writhed beneath him, pleasure rolling through her like a velvet fog, clouding rational thought. Oh God, what was happening?

  The hands on her breasts grew fiercer, long fingers finding her taut nipples with a pinch. She gasped and arched again, bucking her hips higher. “Yes.”

  His tongue lashed at the puckered hole of her ass in reply, his fingers twisting her nipples in counterpoint. It drove her wild and she tossed her head from side to side, too overcome by unadulterated pleasure to control the clichéd action.

  The head between her legs lifted, two piercing eyes the color of wild limes staring down at her. Release the stone.

  His lips didn’t move. Jordynn sucked in a breath. His lips didn’t move but she heard the smoky smoothness of his deep voice all the same.

  Release the stone.

  She shook her head at the words. They made no sense, but then, neither did the scalding lust surging through her. How did she know the man between her legs? Did she know him? Was she awake? Or just in the throes of the most amazing sex dream of her life?

  Do any of the answers matter?

  “Oh God.” Her moan floated on the still air.

  His eyes flashed, seemed to glow with an inner light. His body grew hotter, scalding her flesh. His hands on her breasts grew savage, flooding her pussy with excited cream. His fingers pinched her nipples, rolled the distended tips between the thumb and forefinger of both hands. She bowed her back, pressing her breasts harder to his attention. Jesus, she felt on fire. Her sex was throbbing, her pussy lips swollen and sodden with her juices. Her clit ached and she thrust her hips upward, wanting his masterful mouth to return to her sex. “Please,” she ground out through clenched teeth.

  A chuckle slipped from his lips and green fire danced in his intense stare. Smoldering desire. Devilish mirth. I know you want more…

  Dropping his head slightly, he blew a fine stream of cool air on her flushed sex. She drove her heels into the mattress, arching her back more and lifting her cream-slicked slit closer to his teasing mouth. Her blood-filled clit screamed for the feel of his tongue and teeth.

  Another stream of cool breath tickled her pussy, followed by long, hard fingers parting her folds. She sucked in a quick breath, hot anticipation flooding through her core. The fingers explored her sex, charting a languid path from the hooded button of her clit to the smooth area of her perineum. He blew on her wet folds again, his breath a cool kiss on her fevered skin, before dipping one long, hard finger into her slit.

  Jordynn’s pussy muscles instantly contracted, squeezing tightly on the sensual invasion. He penetrated her slowly, his thumb rolling circles over her clit as he pushed his finger deeper into her sex. Liquid heat washed through her, pinching her nipples tight. She knotted her fists in the sheets beside her, ramming her heels harder to the bed, levering the lower half of her body higher, harder to his hand. “God, yes!” She dragged in a ragged breath, eyelids fluttering closed at the heady muskiness of her desire on the air. A wave of rising tension rolled through the pit of her belly. Fuck, she was close to erupting.

  His finger pumped her folds, painting his hand and her inner thighs with her juices. She whimpered, sex constricting. He withdrew his finger slightly, wriggling it as he did so. With a slight rotation of his wrist, he plunged two fingers back into her pussy.

  Jordynn bucked, her whimper turning into a low, hoarse moan. The soles of her feet tingled, electricity licked up her spine. “Jesus, I’m going to—”

  His lips suddenly closed over her clit, teeth nipping at the swollen tip of flesh and Jordynn’s raw statement caught in her throat, replaced by a choked cry of surprised rapture. He sucked at her clit, tongued her folds. Slipping his fingers from her sex, he punished her slit with his mouth.

  A shudder racked her body, a spasm of pleasure base and elemental. Her orgasm swelled through her, stronger, stronger. He devoured it with his tongue, drinking her cream as it gushed from her. She fisted the sheets, ramming her hips upward, shoving her spread, sodden sex to his mouth. “Fuck!” she cried out, fisting the sheets below her. “Oh God, more!”

  More…

  The word whispered through her pleasure-drugged mind as, slowly, the tongue lapping at her folds grew thicker, stronger. It penetrated her deeply, growing, growing until her pussy lips burned with a stretching heat and her contracting sex clamped down on a massive, driving cock.

  Cock?

  Jordynn snapped open her eyes—and stared straight into the face of her lover. Mere inches from her own.

  “How? How can this—?” The question stammered from her lips but he didn’t let her finish. His mouth crushed hers, his tongue plunging past her teeth to mate with her own. She tasted her own cream, sweet and salty at once, and another powerful climax shuddered through her body, all the more intense for the impossibility of its creation, the muscles of her sex gripping his stabbing cock in rapid pulses.

  And still he didn’t cease. His kiss turned savage, his teeth clicking with hers as he plundered her mouth with his tongue. He dragged his hands over her body, cupping each breast, pinching her nipples. His short, blunt nails raked her flesh, scoring lines down her rib cage until—with a growl in his throat and a brutal thrust of his hips—he curled his fingers around the back of her right thigh and yanked her leg upward, hooking her knee over his arm.

  Currents of pure sensation shot through her. The position spread her sex wider, granti
ng his thick cock deeper access. He pounded into her, his balls slapping against her ass cheeks, his arm pinning her leg to her shoulder. Exquisite electricity tore through her and fresh cream gushed into her sex. Jordynn whimpered. She should be in pain. Her hip joint should be screaming in agony at its overextension. But all she felt was pleasure absolute. Pleasure and the rapturous sense of being filled. Not just by his thick, rigid shaft, but on a level she couldn’t comprehend.

  She tore her lips from his and stared up into his face, searching for the answer. He gazed back at her, pumping into her with increasing speed, harder, deeper, his mysterious green eyes smoldering. A swirling whirlpool of molten green lava.

  Jordynn’s core exploded. Detonated with scalding tension. She threw back her head, the heat of her orgasm scorching and consuming. “Oh God. Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  Fingers tangled in her hair. Hot lips grazed the bowed column of her neck. “Release the stone.” The words whispered in her ear. “Release the stone.”

  Jordynn moaned, her orgasm still crashing through her, even as she stared up at the man looming over her. “I don’t…”

  Green eyes gazed at her. Grew softer. Sadder. Lost. “Please…”

  Jordynn blinked at the word. And stared up at the cabin’s dusty ceiling. “Huh?”

  Coolly humid night air fell over her body, chilling her. Her skin rippled into gooseflesh but she didn’t notice. The stranger, the man taking her to sexual heaven and back, was gone.

  Gone? Don’t you mean he was never here in the first place?

  Jordynn struggled up onto her elbows, staring about the cabin. Yep. Definitely empty.

  So why is your body flushed? Why is your pussy pulsing with the aftermath of an orgasm?

  She shook her head. A dream. A very vivid dream, yes, but a dream all the same. Had to be. She’d spent the day working and her exhausted body had punished her with a wicked dream the moment she fell onto her cot. “Okay. You’ve officially lost your mind.”