Guardians of Paradise by Jaine Fenn

to get deeper into his head while his guard was down, but the release was too sudden, too unexpected.
     
    When he collapsed onto her she felt a moment of nausea, revolted by the idea of his seed inside her, although she knew he was clean and healthy - his Sidhe mistresses would not have tolerated anything else.
     
    So far all the experience had done was increase her contempt for the man, but if she stopped now she would have achieved nothing; his deep shields remained as strong as ever.
     
    Besides, the backwash of his climax had awakened something in her mind that was nothing to do with sex or pleasure. A shadow of unity.
     
    Stifling her feelings of distaste she thought to him,
     
    
     
    He withdrew, leaving her feeling sticky, and a little cold. Though she did not relish the thought of continuing, now he had made himself vulnerable to her by letting himself go in orgasm, she felt more comfortable with this thing they did.
     
    When they resumed she found that his shields had finally begun to relax. She took care broaching them. If he chose, he could still block her. She did her best to make sure he was distracted enough not to.
     
    By the time he was ready to enter her again she was somewhat distracted herself. Even though the situation was unpalatable, there was no doubt his mixture of confidence and subservience was arousing her, helped by her imagining that the hands stroking and fondling belonged to Taro. She was also growing more confident herself; having maintained a parallel mental connection to their physical contact, she suspected she could, if she chose, control his pleasure purely by exerting her will over him. It was tempting, but as she had said herself, that was not the bargain they had made.
     
    This time, she took the lead.
     
    As she rocked up and down and he writhed under her, she felt their physical union strengthening their mental connection, a coming together of minds that fed off the coming together of bodies.
     
    This wasn’t unity, because unity had nothing to do with such mindless grinding and rubbing to stimulate physical pleasure. But it was what he craved, and perhaps what she needed.
     
    Letting her body do what it wanted, she dived deeper into his head. The resistance was gone. In return, she felt her mind opening, just as her body did.
     
    Opening to him.
     
    He knew this sensation well; his life was built around such false unity. She was new to it, inexperienced and uncertain. He began to take control. She felt her resilience cracking, felt herself falling into desire, willingly becoming its slave. He knew how sex could affect the mind. Even as he gave himself to her, he was undermining her psyche.
     
    But he was only human.
     
    She was Sidhe.
     
    She neither knew nor liked this man, but in some ways she understood him more completely than she did Jarek or Taro. He was a creature of the Sidhe, conditioned to their touch; his joy was to love and obey them.
     
    To receive such adulation was her birthright.
     
    First she reined back her own pleasure, dissociating herself from what her body was doing so she could focus. Then she clamped her will over his, deflecting his attempts to subvert her mind. At the same time she froze his pleasure, cutting his consciousness free of the cycle of arousal and fulfilment.
     
    He gasped in shock.
     
    She released him again, amplifying and enhancing the sensations he yearned to feel. He bucked beneath her, giving a wordless cry. Those parts of his mind not drowning in ecstasy were filled with remorse, a wordless pleading for her forgiveness for having dared to become the dominant partner.
     
    She took him to the brink and left him there, not granting him the release of orgasm, pulling back even as he begged her to let him go.
     
    Then she did it all over again.
     
    This was almost too easy. He revelled in the exquisite torture, any ambition to fight