But he couldn’t, and that had nothing to do with the fact that the instant she hit the bed she reached for his belt buckle and started opening it, that by the time the thought had finished forming she had his zipper halfway down and her hand was just about to reach inside. Or, it had very little to do with it. He just couldn’t refuse the chance she was offering him, the chance to know how it felt to be with a woman he truly cared about—not just liked well enough to take home for the night but cared about. And to know that she was there because she cared about him. Just once in his life he wanted to feel that. Fuck the consequences and fuck the pain he knew he’d be in later; this was his chance, and he was fucking taking it.
And he was not wasting any more time. His efforts to unfasten her jeans were hampered by the fact that she’d found what she was looking for; her fingers closed around his cock and started moving, driving every bit of rational thought out of his head. The buttons, the zipper, were machines too complex for him to deal with when she was doing that, when her tongue danced with his and her body undulated beneath him and her hand, that skilled, delicate hand, drove gasps from his throat.
He couldn’t work the bra while she did that, either, but he pushed the cup out of the way so he could let his tongue play over her nipple, and then, when she gave a little sigh of approval, close his mouth over it. Another sigh, louder; her free hand played with his hair and her leg tried to wrap itself around him.
Which reminded him. Her jeans finally yielded to him, exposing more black lace. Nice—more than nice—but not what he wanted. One solid tug solved that problem, and one twist of his fingers finally took care of the bra, leaving her naked. For him. So he could look at every inch of her.
And he intended to do so. She reached for him again, probably to get his own jeans off, but he grabbed her wrist and planted it back on the mattress.
The beast muttered in his head. He ignored it and slammed the thickest mental wall he could down in front of it. It was getting its sin; he couldn’t change that. He couldn’t hide what was happening from it and he couldn’t keep it from feeding off it, but it was not getting Ardeth. It didn’t get to feel her skin beneath his hands, taste it beneath his lips as they traveled down her chest, down her stomach, down farther still as he urged her thighs apart.
Her entire body tensed when he slid his tongue between them. So did his, because that, too, was everything he’d imagined and more. She was so delicate, her hot, slick flesh so soft. He explored it slowly, wandering along each fold, finding the spots she seemed to like best but barely touching the one he knew would be most responsive. He wasn’t ready to end it, not yet. Instead he teased her, coming close and then dancing away, again and again, encouraged by her soft sighs. Losing himself in them, in her. Feeling her tremble and knowing he was the reason.
Just like she was the reason he was shaking, the reason his heart pounded, the reason he was dizzy.
The tenor of her cries changed; her thighs spread wider, her hips tilted up. Begging him now, begging without saying the words. He looked up to see her torso rising above him, her back slightly arched, her hands clutching the sheets, twisting them. Completely in his power as he finally let his tongue play over the firm little bundle of flesh at her center, circling it, sliding across it.
That was all it took. Her voice rose into the air, her back and hips rose off the mattress so high he had to grab hold of them to keep her from escaping him. No way was he letting her go yet. Not until she exploded again. And again, when he retreated and came back, and again, until he couldn’t wait any longer.
It only took him a second to finish getting his jeans off, to grab what he needed from his wallet and get it in place. Only a second, but it felt too long; he practically dove back onto the bed, into her eager arms. He wanted to lie there for a moment and enjoy the feel of her bare skin, every inch of it, against his. How warm she was, how soft she was.
He wanted to lie there for a moment and enjoy it, but he couldn’t. It was as if the meager vestiges of self-control he possessed had faded along with the sound of her last shaky moan, leaving him with nothing but the overwhelming, desperate need to bury himself inside her.
So he did. He braced himself on his left elbow, his palm resting on the top of her head while she kissed his throat, caressed his back, shifted her knee so he could position himself at her entrance and slide into her, agonizingly slowly, savoring every second, every inch.
Her grip on him tightened. “Speare,” she said, in a soft, high voice. A desperate voice, a breathless one. Her leg wrapped around him and urged him to go deeper, faster, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to ignore what she wanted. He changed his hold on her hip, bracing it, and slammed his hips forward.
The sound she made, the way her head tilted back into the pillow even further to expose the slim, graceful column of her throat, the way her fingers convulsively dug into his upper arm, his shoulder…the way she squeezed him, surrounded him with heat…the realization, again, that he’d just done something he’d never really done before and that she wasn’t some casual pickup whose name he would probably forget in a few days. It took everything he had, every bit of strength, not to explode right there and then. She felt amazing.
She was amazing. He pulled back, slammed in again, smoothly and deliberately. Her neck, her shoulders, beckoned him; he dipped his head to nibble them, kiss them, to suck on that spot he’d found earlier, the spot where her pulse hammered against her skin, and was rewarded with another, louder sound from her, another tightening of her hold on him.
He sped up his pace. Still steady, still deliberate, but faster, harder. His head spun. Somewhere in the back of it the beast was feeding, moving, but he didn’t have to think about it and he didn’t care; his wall was still up, and Ardeth was still his alone. Her hips started rising to meet him, pulling away when he did, encouraging him to go even faster.
Every time he moved a fresh wave of pleasure raced through his body. It was getting harder and harder to hold on. Her hands were everywhere, her fingertips brushing over the small of his back and sending a shiver directly up his spine that seemed to implant itself in the base of his skull, her legs removing themselves from his so she could brace her heels on the bed. He heard his own voice gasping along with hers, too, almost drowned out by the rushing of his blood in his ears and the pounding of his heart.
She looked up at him, and their eyes met. Hers were hazy and heavy-lidded, their depths dark and thick with the mysteries of her, the things that made her. All of her secrets, all of her honesties and kindnesses…all of it there, and above it was acceptance, and trust. For him.
“God, you’re beautiful.” The words popped out, unplanned, but he didn’t regret them. Especially not when he saw them reverberate in her eyes, when he saw that she felt them.
And then he couldn’t see anything, because a spark caught in his pelvis, at the base of his spine, a spark that started building into pressure. He gasped, hesitated, not wanting it to end but desperate for release. He could stop it, he could slow down, maybe give her a chance to come back one more time—
Her hand snaked down, over his ass, and squeezed, pulling him closer. Telling him what she wanted, what she wanted him to do. And once again, he was not going to argue.
He wrapped his hand around the back of her head and clutched it to his chest; his other hand pressed her hips into the bed, holding her in place as he rolled his pelvis, rolled his spine. Her cries grew louder and she stiffened against him, but he kept going, riding her harder while that pressure inside him built and spread. He was on it now, past the point of no return, letting it take him.
It did. Lightning exploded in his gut, lightning that tore through him and drove his hips forward as far as they would go. His entire body shook from the strength of it, the power of it, like nothing he’d ever felt before. It seemed to go on forever. A lifetime passed, an eternity, while he throbbed deep inside her and held her tight against his shaking chest, dimly, distantly aware that she held hi
m just as tightly in return. Like they were the only people in the world.
Finally it subsided. He detached himself—regretfully—and rolled to his left, bringing her along with him so her head rested on his chest and her body half-covered his. Several long, delirious minutes passed, drowsy minutes during which he wondered simultaneously if he’d ever recover from that and how long he thought it would take him to be ready to go again. Physically ready to go again, because mentally he was already there.
The beast growled and stretched, disrupting the peace in which he drifted. Right. That fucking thing. Well, he’d fed it, and it could shut the fuck up for a few more hours. It would be pissed that it hadn’t gotten to play along a little more, of course. He could already feel its annoyance, feel it trying to probe his mind for memories, images it could distort while he slept and insert into his dreams, sounds and sensations it could twist and use against him. It had wanted Ardeth, too. There would be hell to pay—figuratively and literally—for shutting it out, but he didn’t give a damn at that moment. Whatever price he paid was worth it.
Especially when she sighed and snuggled farther into him, planting a little kiss on his chest as she did. An affectionate kiss.
It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did, almost as much as the sharp stab of something almost like humiliation that followed it. Not because of her. Not because of anything they’d just done. But because…shit. Because that really hadn’t ever happened to him before, and it was embarrassing how grateful he suddenly felt for it. How that one tiny kiss, given without thinking, given because the giver wanted to give it, made something inside him howl and want to beg for more. How fucking new it was, how alien to pretty much every other sexual experience he’d had.
Sex had never been about affection or caring or any of those other complicated emotions that made life richer, not for him. It had never been an expression of those things. It had been about the hunt, about cheap thrills, about feeding the beast. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed it—he certainly had—and not that there’d been anything wrong with any of his partners. He’d liked most of them—the vast majority of them—just fine.
But sex with them had been sport, nothing more. A means to an end, just a couple of bodies interacting. Or, well, sometimes a couple of bodies with an additional body thrown in there. But still nothing more than bodies sharing an activity. And he’d thought that was all it was supposed to be, and all it ever would be.
Now he knew different, and it was embarrassing—pathetic—how grateful he was to know it.
“Hey.” Ardeth’s voice broke through his thoughts, which was probably a good thing; they were getting way too sappy. “You okay?”
He swallowed, gave it a second to make sure his voice wouldn’t waver. “Yeah.”
“Feeling better?”
Now that was a question. “I’m not sure,” he said, considering it. How did he feel, now that the feverish hyperalertness bestowed by his libido was gone—or lessened, anyway, satisfied for the moment? The oatmeal that had clogged his brain had disappeared, and he suspected he’d be able to handle having a light or two on, but his muscles still ached. Especially his shoulders and back, which was contributing to a low-level throb in his head that didn’t promise anything good for later. “I don’t feel like I’m about to die anymore, which is good, but…yeah, still not great. Not back to normal.”
“Jesus,” she said. “That was you at less-than-full power?”
Well, that made him feel like a fucking king. “Sweetheart, you have no idea.”
“Still.” Another kiss on his chest. Like it was no big deal. “If you’re tired, you know, you should just go to sleep. It won’t bother me or anything. Or…I could top up the hot water in the tub.”
“I don’t—”
“I could come with you. My tub’s big enough.” This time she bit him, gently. “I mean, it would be a pretty tight fit, but…”
Her eyes sparkled at him; her smile promised things. Things he was definitely interested in, despite the reasons why he shouldn’t be that were starting to reassert themselves in his head.
Later. Later he would face all those reasons. Later they would talk about it again, after he knew for sure what the mirror would do and if it would work. “Well,” he said, “I guess I wouldn’t want you to waste all those Epsom salts on my account.”
Chapter 8
She was right. The bath actually did help. He should have tried that years ago.
Of course, part of the improvement was because she was also right about it being a tight fit. He was enjoying that. A lot. He was even managing to keep the more unpleasant thoughts at bay, which was admittedly pretty easy to do when she sat between his legs with her back against his chest, slowly scrubbing his hands and up his arms with a scrunchy thick with suds. The bubbles from the scrunchy, floating on the surface of the water, didn’t do anything to obscure her body from his view. Her skin glowed in the candlelight; her hair, pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, smelled like damp cinnamon and flowers.
It occurred to him that right there, right at that second, he was living probably the cheesiest moment of his entire life. It was right out of one of those made-for-TV movies his mother was always watching. Not as bad as he’d always thought it would be, though.
She shifted away from him so she could move the scrunchy farther up his arm. “Can I ask you something?”
Uh-oh. Whatever it was, it was probably not going to be fun to answer. The intensity with which she watched her progress up over his elbow told him that. Shit. Here it came, and here he deserved for it to come. “Sure.”
“Those lines on your chest.” Her gaze darted to his face, then ran away again before he could catch it. “Sins, right?”
That wasn’t what he’d been expecting her to ask. Which, of course, didn’t mean it was going to be any more fun to answer or discuss. “Yeah.”
“Why—”
“I don’t want to lose count.” He leaned his head back, partly in hopes it would take some of the pressure off his neck and thus ease the headache, but partly because now he was the one avoiding eye contact. “I don’t want to forget what I’ve done.”
“What it’s made you do,” she said.
“What I’ve still chosen to do.” What he’d chosen to do, and enjoyed doing, most of the time. Because he had, and he didn’t deserve to be let off the hook for it.
“But you have to—”
“Lots of people have good intentions,” he said. “Lots of people do the wrong things for what they think are the right reasons. It’s still wrong, though. They still have to answer for it one day, and so will I.”
“When you die.” She’d stopped scrubbing when the scrunchy reached his shoulder. Now she just sat there, still looking at it instead of him. Was that sadness—sorrow—in her voice, or pity? Sorrow he could take. Pity he couldn’t. “Right? That’s what you mean?”
“That’s what I mean.” He sighed, wishing he could be the one to look at her, to somehow make them both feel less awkward by doing so, but unable to pull his gaze away from the seam where the wall met the ceiling. “If there’s one thing you realize when you discover there’s a demon from hell living in your body, it’s that God exists. For real. And once you stop doubting that…you stop doubting a lot of other things, too.”
Pause. “So there is a hell.”
“Oh, yeah.” Before they’d gotten into the tub she’d filled his glass. She’d poured one for herself, too, but she wasn’t really touching it. He was. It wasn’t doing much for him, but even “not much” was something, especially if they were going to have this conversation—a conversation he’d never had with anyone, he realized. “There sure as fuck is.”
“It told you that?”
“Showed me.” The memory, as distant as it was now, still made his skin go cold; he shivered, there in the steaming hot water.
He could feel her wanting to ask. But he could also feel her observing the shiver, watching his face as he closed his eye
s. And he knew when she decided against it, because the faint tension that had started to curl in the air around them evaporated. Thank God. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to tell her—well, no, he didn’t, for several reasons—but he didn’t want to tell her right there and then. Not when he was still struggling to get all of his strength back and stop hurting, and not when he actually felt…cheerful. Or at least almost cheerful.
And she seemed cheerful, too. He didn’t want to ruin that for her with a description of a place so horrific he still couldn’t quite accept what he’d seen, any more than he wanted to ruin it for her by discussing how impossible the beast made relationships, how he couldn’t be what she wanted him to be for her—what she deserved to have him be—and he definitely couldn’t be what he wanted to be for her.
Damn it, there he was, letting the thought into his head. Letting it take root.
The beast gave a tiny, faint laugh. It was still being quiet, staying way in the back. Probably hoping he’d let his guard down, and the mental wall would weaken.
At some point he would have to—it would have to. He couldn’t keep it in place all the time. But it could fall later, when he was home. Not when she was there with him, leaning forward to kiss his neck, smiling at him in a way that let him know she was trying to distract him. Trying to get his mind off it.
Then her expression changed. Startled, and then almost immediately amused. Maybe a little embarrassment thrown in. She resumed her scrubbing, over his shoulder, across his chest, so the lather obscured the count. If only it was that easy.
“Can it see me?” Of course. Of course that would occur to her. “Right now. Naked. Could it see me before—was it watching?”
“No.” So nice to be able to answer that one truthfully. “I mean, obviously it has seen you, it knows who you are, what you look like—you knew that already. It probably knows other things about you, too, that it hasn’t figured out a way to attack me with yet.”