The Wicked (Elder Races #5.5)(22)

The question had floored him. It was not just that she had been able to ask it—it was that she asked so politely. The very act had spoken volumes.

It said that she hadn’t ever had a lover drive her to bite and scratch. When you reached that level of passion, you didn’t pause to politely ask permission. At that point, permission would have already been given and received.

I will take you to that place, he thought. Where no man has ever taken you before.

He said to her telepathically, Your room or mine?

She had just taken a sip of wine, and she choked and coughed while Bailey pounded her on the back. Color flushed Olivia’s face, and her gaze turned brilliant and sparkling. When she replied, even her mental voice sounded strangled. I don’t care. Either. Both?

Laughter flashed through the heat building up in his veins. It was another surprise.

We’ll start with yours, he said. Then, because he could not stay in that room full of people and pretend to be civilized, he stalked out of the kitchen.

He knew which room she had chosen. He had watched earlier as she had looked outside and carefully marked the path of the sun. Then she had picked the bedroom that would fill with early morning light. As she had disappeared inside with her pack, he claimed the room adjacent to hers. Now he slipped into her room silently, removed his sunglasses and set them on a nearby table.

He stood at the window in the darkened room and looked up at the bright spray of stars in the night sky.

The moon called to him. It always called to him.

Come dance with me, it said. Take wing and fly wild into the night.

And he always had, before now.

This time, he said to the moon, I cannot fly with you this night, for I have another with whom I will dance, and she is even lovelier than you.

And the knowledge of that was both bitter and sweet, as he let go of one thing to reach for the other.

A few minutes later, he heard her footsteps in the hall. He already knew what her footsteps sounded like, quick and light on the hardwood floor. He would recognize her step anywhere.

He turned from the window without a backward glance as she slipped through the door, and with the acute senses of a predator, he knew that she was trembling. He closed his eyes and drew in everything about her.

She gave him a wealth of sensations. Her unique feminine scent drifted delicately through the air, filled with complexity and desire. The bare vulnerability of her ragged breathing played a solo for an audience of one.

His heart, which had grown so cramped with stress, fear and anger over the last several months, expanded, and he thought, It would not be so terrible to be blind like this.

And for that one moment alone, no matter what else happened between them or how badly this might end, he would be forever grateful to her.

Then he opened his eyes again and looked his fill of her. The barest hint of moonlight in the room was enough for his still sharp vision. It followed the curve of her cheek, and gleamed in her shadowed gaze. As he watched her lick her lips, his erection grew full, hot and tight.

As she hesitated, he remembered she had a human’s senses, and he said quietly, “I’m here.”

There, that catch in her breath. He drank it down as if it were the finest wine.

Then suddenly he was angry. He was so angry, he was filled with rage. Rage at his dead enemy, rage at himself. He didn’t want this. He needed to be selfish right now, goddamn it, yet he could not exorcise regret.

“Where are your friends, and why aren’t they looking out for you?” he snapped. He stalked toward her. “What are you doing here with me? Don’t you know you have no business being with a man under a curse? How foolish can you get?”

The dark room reverberated with the lash of his anger. She stood quite still. He grabbed her by the shoulders, and only then did she move.

She lunged forward, knocking clumsily into his chest as she threw her arms around his neck and clenched him tight. “It’s okay,” she said. She sounded quiet and strong, and very sure of herself. “I’m okay. You are going to be okay.”

Astonished, he let her hold him. “You don’t know that.”

She stroked his hair. “I know that I didn’t give you permission to look out for me,” she said. “I can and will look out for myself, and I will be okay because I say so.”

He moved his hands compulsively down her back. She was exquisitely shaped, nature’s violin, playing that invisible, ineffable thing that was her spirit. He did not know that he could feel such anguish at her beauty, or such…exultation.

“You’re pulling me out of my body,” he muttered.

“Shhh,” she whispered. She cupped the back of his head and drew him down to her, and when she kissed him, their lips nestled together again just as they had that morning. He experienced a weird, sensual sort of synesthesia. Their kiss was like a hug, and as he slipped his hands underneath her sweater, the touch of his fingers was like a kiss on her warm skin.

Their bodies shifting together made a delicate, intimate sound. He drew her sweater up, and she helped him by raising her arms over her head. As he reached for her again, he discovered that her soft, round br**sts were already bared for his touch. He cupped them, exploring their weight and shape. The velvet jut of her ni**les pushed into his palms.

When he flicked the sensitive, delicate flesh with his thumbs, she let her head fall back as she made a muffled sound, gripped at his wrists and shuddered.