Kinked (Elder Races #6)(98)

Quentin studied the First’s craggy, good-humored face. Graydon had said it in all sincerity. “It’s good to be home.”

The days continued to trickle by. Alex gave them each a hug and a gift of the top fifty Oscar-winning movies on DVD. Bayne and Constantine brought stacks of pizza and beer one night, and stayed overlong.

Aryal showed Quentin her apartment in the Tower. He took one long look around at the chaotic mess. Then he said, “I think it’s a good thing if we each have our own place for a while, yes?”

She grinned. “Yes.”

After their fight in the gym, she ate better but still had trouble sleeping. When her face started to grow tight and stressed, he made love to her with single-minded passion until they both fell into oblivion.

To work off nerves, they went running, sometimes for hours on end until their bodies poured with sweat, setting two treadmills in the gym on their highest setting. They burned out the motors in two pairs of treadmills. Nobody complained.

One evening, wearing a pair of her jeans and one of his old sweatshirts, she disappeared for a short time. He said nothing when she left his apartment. He’d had a key cut for her, and really, he couldn’t watch her 24/7. He was with the surgeon on that one. She was a big girl. In the end, it was up to her to decide to do the right thing.

He regretted that thought almost immediately and paced furiously, because he had developed all the obsession in the world needed to watch her 24/7, if only she would show up again so that he could get to it.

A key turned in the lock forty minutes later. He spun away from the living room window where he had been staring out blankly.

Aryal walked in. She carried a longish bag and looked settled on some kind of decision.

“Hey, sunshine,” he said. His tone was mild. He was such a goddamn liar.

“Hi.” She shut and bolted the door behind her.

He picked up a novel he was trying to read and thumbed through the pages. “Where’d you go?”

“To a store I know.” She took a deep breath that shuddered a bit, and then it was her turn to pace through the wide-open area. The jitters were back. Her gaze bounced to him and away again. “I haven’t said it yet, and it’s past time. I love you. And I am really grateful for what you’ve been doing over the last several days.” She craned her neck from side to side. He saw, grimly, that her hands were shaking. “I have one more favor to ask.”

“For God’s sake, just spit it out.”

She reached into the bag, drew out a crop and threw it at him. He stared without catching it. It struck his chest and fell with a clatter to the floor. Whatever he had braced himself for, he hadn’t expected this.

He said, “Aryal.”

She had never asked such a thing of him before. This was a game changer.

This was not what they were together. They played at games of dominance and bargained for time with each other, and that was one of the very best things they did together, the strain of the give and the sweetness of the take, all leavened with the spice of uncertainty.

She tore off the sweatshirt. She didn’t wear anything underneath, her racy, streamlined torso bare. “I need you to do this. I feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t do something. I’m like an addict. It’ s—” She looked outside at the sky, her face stark. “It’s my food, water and air. It’s all of that, and we aren’t even paragliding.”

They had talked about trying to paraglide, and had decided against it for the two-week wait. She didn’t trust herself not to shapeshift if she got into the air.

“I get it,” he said, and he did. Her pain crawled in his marrow. The waiting and the uncertainty were a cruel combination. If they only knew one thing or the other, they could take steps to deal with it.

Her face clenched. She kicked off her shoes, tore off her jeans and came to stand in front of him.

“I have to get this feeling out,” she said through her teeth. “Help me get it outside of my body.”

Slowly he picked up the crop and he turned away as he looked down at it. That whip she had inside of her that was so like his—it wouldn’t stop driving at her until she got some relief.

“I love you too,” he said. He turned back around and struck at her, a fast, controlled blow across one thigh.

She jerked and bit back a strangled sound. She said, “Again.”

He walked around her, struck at her bu**ocks and watched as a reddened welt raised against her pale skin. While he was no stranger to whipping scenes, his experiences had always before had a sense of playfulness to the game.

This wasn’t playful. This was raw. He felt so strange, heavy and aching and his chest started to burn again, and all he wanted was her inner pain to ease so that she could get some peace for a little while.

“Come on,” she said. Her nose sounded clogged. “Do it.”

The crop rose and fell across her back, that beautiful back with the etched muscles that was so strong and feminine at once. He said from the back of his throat, “Please tell me if this is helping.”

Her head nodded jerkily. “ I—I think so.”

His arm rose and fell.

Rose and fell.

Every time he watched her jerk under a blow, he seemed to step outside his own body. He struck her again, and the crop almost fell out of his nerveless fingers. He honestly didn’t know how much more he could take.