Bound in Death (Bound #5)(61)

He leaned into the shower and yanked on the water. Then he stripped without looking at her.

He put his hands on the shower’s glass door. “Why did you faint?” Because of what I am?

“His memories were too much. I couldn’t shut them out any other way, so I guess I just shut down.”

Alerac nodded. But he knew her words weren’t the total truth. “You were afraid of me.”

“Alerac…”

With a twisted smile, he glanced over at her. “You still are.”

He climbed into the shower, and the rushing water poured over him.

The blood washed away. If only it were so easy to wash all the sins from his soul.

Then Jane was there. Naked, entering the shower with him. The water slickened her skin. Steam floated in the air around them.

“I am afraid of you,” Jane confessed.

She was trying to break him.

“And I’m afraid of myself. Since I’ve met you, I’ve changed.” Her body brushed against him.

If the woman was so scared, she needed to be stepping back. Not getting closer. Because in another few seconds, he’d be grabbing her.

He didn’t plan to let go.

“I’m not the same woman you found in that bar. I-I still don’t remember Keira, not really. But I’ve seen her, through your eyes.” Her lips pressed together. “It’s more than that, though. I’m stronger than I realized. You make me strong.”

That was bullshit. She’d always been strong. Someone weak didn’t trade her life for another’s.

“I know that I’m going to keep changing. I’m not going to be fully Jane, not fully Keira, but something in the middle. That scares me.” Then she made a mistake.

She touched him.

Wet, silken flesh.

His cock was already erect and aching. The too-big shower suddenly seemed too small.

“And you scare me, too. Because I know that you’re dangerous.”

Not to her, dammit, never to her.

“You make me feel so much. Desire. Need.” She stood on her tip-toes and pressed her lips to his. “When I’m with you, I feel like you belong to me.”

He did. Had, from the moment he first saw her.

“And I belong to you.”

He pushed her against the tiled wall. “You do.” He didn’t care what twisted magic Lorcan had spun. Jane was his. In life. And beyond death.

He wouldn’t let her go. He’d find a way to break that spell or curse or whatever the hell it was.

He’d find a way.

Jane’s fingers slid down his body. Curled around his aroused flesh as he kissed her beneath the rough spray of the shower. His cock jerked at her touch. He was so ready for her. Always, for her. She stroked him, pumping his flesh, bringing his arousal to a harder, sharper, desperate edge.

Enough.

He lifted her up against that tile. Took her breast into his mouth. Licked and sucked and when she moaned, it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

Her pleasure.

He kissed a path to her other breast. Her legs curled around his hips, and she positioned his cock right at the entrance to her sex.

“Now, Alerac, I need you now.”

He drove into her. Her silken heat covered him, straining around his length. His hands had flattened on the tile behind her. Their eyes were on level now. He stared at her.

In her gaze, Alerac saw every dream that he’d ever had.

Saw her.

He withdrew and thrust. Again and again. But he didn’t make the rhythm rough and wild. Not this time. This time, he kept a stranglehold on his control. This time, he wanted to prove that he could be more than the savage who went wild for her.

His cock angled over her clit as he thrust. Her breaths came faster, harder. Her nails pressed into his shoulders. And her gaze held his.

His cock swelled even more. He drove deep.

Kissed her. Stroked her with his tongue and his lips, and she came around him, shuddering, her sex quivering along his length.

He held his body still as she came, loving the feel of her pleasure, and then, only when she was sated, he carried her from the shower. Her legs were still wrapped around his hips. His cock was still in the paradise of her body.

He lowered her onto the bed.

“Alerac?”

He smiled at her. “You make me happy.” As few things in this world ever had.

Jane blinked at him, and her gaze seemed to soften. Then she smiled. “You make me…happy, too.”

He kissed her again.

Started to thrust. Still not too hard, not too wild. He wanted her to come again. Endlessly. He wanted to show her all that he could give to her. Wanted to prove that their life together could be good.

If she gave him a chance.

If she wouldn’t fear him.

Her heels pushed into his lower back. “Alerac, I want everything.” And her sex clamped around him, her delicate inner muscles tightening.

For an instant, he paused.

“Everything,” she said once more, her voice a sensual demand. Then she arched toward him.

He put his hand between their bodies. Stroked her, pushed right when he knew her need was centered most.

He forced his control to hold. Forced it—

She came.

He shattered. No, his control shattered. He thrust fast and furiously now, determined to claim her, every single bit of her. When the pleasure hit him, it consumed Alerac, wiping away his past and his future. Wiping away everything.