Tragic Beauty (Beauty & The Darkness #1)(19)
He pulls back and gazes into my eyes as I reach up and stroke the scratch along his cheek. My finger comes away streaked in blood. I bring it to my lips and suck, tasting copper, tasting him.
The change happens in an instant. His eyes dilate fully and turn to black. He dives into my neck and bites, hard, while he grunts and shoves his body into mine. I cry out, but my voice isn’t in protest.
I stare up at the night, at the moon peeking through the treetops, and somehow, some way, I always knew it would be like this.
He shifts his angle, and finds his way in deeper, his body pulsing and rubbing against that center between my legs. It sends shockwaves blasting through every cell, every nerve, until I arch into him, throw my head back and come. The world explodes within me, but he’s there to hold me together. His arms tighten around me and I meet his eyes while he comes with me. In that moment, I see a life—my life, our life, but it’s a life I know can never be.
“Oscar,” I whisper.
He stills, gazing at me with such tenderness I think I might break from the weight of it. His lips graze across my tears, his cheek rests against mine. Ever so gently, he withdraws from inside me and gathers me into his arms. I’m limp, unable to move. He holds me to his chest as I begin to weep. Without a word, he stands, cradling me against him, and walks us back through the trees, past the pool, and into the house. By the time he makes his way upstairs to his bedroom and into the bathroom, where he turns on a soft light, my tears have dried
He sets me on the vanity counter and takes my chin between his fingers and looks deep into my eyes. “Are you alright?”
I nod, even though I don’t feel alright. But I don’t feel bad. I just feel…different. Like I’ve been reborn, in a brutal sort of way.
Gavin studies me. The beast is gone, sated for now, leaving the man with tender green eyes. He shakes his head. “Crazy girl,” he whispers.
His gaze drifts past me and remains there. “Do those hurt?”
I crane my head over my shoulder and blink when I see my reflection in the mirror. On my back, along with some smudges of dirt, are a maze of cuts. Some are small, some are large, some are seeping blood. There are some bruises as well, but nothing bad. I turn back to him and shake my head.
He grazes his fingers over more scratches along my legs, my hips, my arms and up by my shoulders. “What about all these?
I shake my head again, and that’s when I notice his arms. I gasp and reach for his hands and hold them while I stare at the outside of his forearms—his mangled forearms. There’re covered in blood and bruises and gashes. All of them would’ve been on my back had he not protected me.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper.
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
I can’t stop staring, can’t stop the tears that fall.
“Hey,” he says firmly, cradling my face with his hands. “Look at me. Don’t be sorry. I’m not sorry. That was…,” he pauses and closes his eyes, “that was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”
The sincerity in his words touches me deep, easing the hurt. “Really?”
“Really.” He taps me playfully on the tip of my nose. “Now stay here and don’t run off. I’m not sure we’ll survive it. I’m going to start us a bath.”
Gavin steps away and walks across the bathroom to an oversize black bathtub that sits beneath a large window, the lights of Santa Barbara twinkling beyond it. Around the tub is a soothing palette of silvers and charcoals, with flashes of obsidian stone from the nearby shower that shimmers under the overhead lights.
I sit there in a daze—a dreamy, delirious daze, while I watch him. His body is scratched all over, much more so than mine, giving his tall muscled build a warrior’s appearance, as though he’s just been through a battle, which in some ways, he has—we both have. I watch him sit on the edge, testing the water with his hand while he adjusts the temperature. His ab muscles bunch and ripple as he leans over, his biceps flexing with every movement. I imagine him here on his own, drawing a bath for no one but himself. It seems a lonely act. But I sense that’s how he lives his life. On his own.
With the water now rushing, he walks past me and adjusts a switch on the wall that sends the room into a deeper glow. He steps back and takes me into his battered arms without a word.
I cling to him, watching his face, watching his long dark lashes rise and fall against his green eyes. The cut on his cheek has dried too. It gives him a feral look that heats me to the core. I reach up and gingerly run my fingertip over it. “Did I give you this?”
He smiles and meets my gaze. There’s something like pride in the way he looks at me. “Yes.” He leans down and kisses my forehead. “Yes, you did, my little nymph.”
My…
The word strikes me like a fist to the chest. It shouldn’t mean so much, but it does. Because it means I’m his, even if just for a night. I stare at him while he stares back. Something in the way he looks at me has me wondering if he let the word slip. He almost seems as struck by it as I am. His mouth tightens and he looks away.
Neither of us speak as he approaches the tub.
He steps in and carefully lowers me down. I suck in a gasp when the water envelopes the cuts on my feet and legs, but he holds me steady. With one hand, he reaches over and turns off the faucet, and sudden quiet descends. Now there’s nothing but my shallow breaths and the ripple of the bathwater as we move.