Shadowed

  “All right, sweetheart?” His silver eyes were half-lidded with lust, and his lips were already shiny with her juices. “Not hurting you, am I?”

  “N-no,” Nina stuttered breathlessly. “Feels…good. Right.” She didn’t want to admit it, but she couldn’t help it—it was the truth. He’d barely started, and already her body was calming down and opening up. She no longer felt quite so panicked—it was as though part of her knew on a very visceral level that she would be all right, now that he was here.

  “Good.” He held her eyes with his for a minute. “Because I’m about to lick you now. Gonna spread your sweet pussy wide open and lick you long and hard until you come. Because that’s what you need, Nina—you need to come with my tongue in you. Come all over my face while I eat your hot little cunt. You understand?”

  “I…yes,” she nearly moaned as her body jumped into overdrive again. God, she was going crazy. Just because she no longer felt like she was going into cardiac arrest didn’t mean the desire was any less—if anything it was more. But it was focused now—focused on the man between her thighs. “Please,” she begged brokenly. “Please, I need…need…”

  “It’s all right, sweetheart,” he growled softly. “Just relax and don’t worry. I’m going to give it to you. As much as you need and more.”

  Then he spread her outer pussy lips wide with his thumbs and bent down to give her a long, hot lick, dragging the flat of his tongue from the bottom of her entrance all the way up to the top of her slit.

  Nina cried out and clenched her hands into fists at her sides. But it wasn’t enough—she needed something to hold onto. Reaching down blindly, she found his head and curled her fingers into his long, blue-black hair. Reddix growled deep in his throat and licked her again, clearly enjoying the feel of her hands on him. Encouraged, Nina tugged harder, pressing her pelvis up to meet him, spreading her thighs even wider to give him better access.

  He responded by sucking her clit into his mouth and lashing it with his tongue. Suddenly, it was too much. Nina gasped and stiffened—the orgasm hitting her like an oncoming train. Her whole body trembled, and she actually saw stars exploding before her eyes for a moment.

  “Oh!” she cried as sparks of pleasure danced along her nerves. Her nipples tightened into painful little peaks at the tips of her breasts, and her whole body went rigid for a moment. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, Reddix lifted his head.

  “That’s right, sweetheart,” he growled hoarsely. “Come for me. Come all over my face.” Then he bent his head and began licking her again, licking and sucking and lashing the engorged button of her clit until Nina felt like her entire body was being electrocuted with pleasure.

  “Reddix,” she gasped, tugging at his hair and pressing her pussy up shamelessly to grind against his face. “Oh God please…please don’t stop! Don’t stop.”

  He growled in approval and licked even harder. Reaching under her ass, he scooped her up, tilting her pelvis as though it was a bowl of water, and he was dying for a drink. His tongue seemed to be everywhere, lapping, caressing, flickering over her most tender parts until Nina felt like she was going to go crazy.

  She kept her sanity, but she came again. And again and again. So many times she lost count. Finally, she had to push him away.

  “I can’t,” she gasped, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. “No more.”

  “All right, sweetheart. You feel better now?” He sat back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Yes…and no.” Nina sat up shakily and somehow managed to draw the black robe around her. “I can’t…I’m not…” She shook her head. “Not over it yet, but I need a break. I can’t keep going like this forever.”

  “I can.” His eyes flashed silver with lust. “I can eat your pussy all night if that’s what you need, sweetheart.”

  It wasn’t what Nina needed—not exactly—but she couldn’t admit that. Couldn’t admit or explain the deep emptiness inside her, the growing ache and need to be filled. I’ll be fine, she told herself sternly. I’ve already let him in enough. Not going to go any further.

  “Let’s talk,” she said, crossing her legs and wincing at how sensitive she was—he had nearly licked her raw. Not that she hadn’t begged for it. Nina pushed the embarrassing thought away. “You said you had something to tell me,” she said. “The reason why you acted like such a jerk.”

  He sighed and sat on the couch beside her. “Yeah, I do. I’ll tell you, but I want you in my lap while we talk.” He patted his legs. “Come here.”

  “What? No!” Nina exclaimed. “We’ve gone far enough. I don’t think…”

  “Fuck thinking,” he growled. “I want you in my lap so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you’re over the worst of it. You scared the hell out of me just now. If I hadn’t gone down on you when I did we might be in the med center instead of sitting on the couch talking. Now come here, Nina.”

  Reluctantly, she scooted over to sit beside him. Reddix promptly scooped her up and situated her so that she was sitting sideways on his lap with her legs on the couch.

  “That’s better,” he said, frowning. “Now I can see your face while we talk and touch you if you start having problems again.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she protested, shifting uncomfortably. She could feel the hard ridge of his cock under her ass, rubbing against her through his black flight trousers. She tried to cross her legs, but that only made it worse as the hard, hot shaft pressed against her sensitive pussy.

  “Yeah, you seem fine,” he said dryly. “Stop shifting around so much—this is hard enough as it is.”

  No pun intended, she thought, feeling a hysterical giggle rise in her throat. She swallowed it back down and forced herself to relax.

  “Okay, fine—so talk. What reason can you possibly give me for being such an ass back on Tarsia?”

  He sighed deeply. “First of all you need to know I’m not here to get back with you or try to start a life together.”

  “What? Then why even bother coming, you jerk!” She tried to get off his lap, but he held her down, his hands firmly around her waist until she stopped struggling.

  “Sit still, damn it! I’m here because I owe you an explanation.”

  “Fine.” Nina was fuming now, her arms crossed over her chest. “Explain.”

  “I’ll try…” He shook his head and ran a hand over his face. “Okay—to start with, I need you to know I wasn’t just using you to get my RTS fixed. I had the original agreement with the witch—the one I made with her before I came to kidnap you in the first place—but I had no other contact with her after that. I didn’t know she was going to lure you into the swamp. I wouldn’t have had any idea where you went at all if the lthss she put on my wrist hadn’t started shrinking.” He shook his head. “When I saw that, and I knew she had you…I can’t even describe how I felt. I was fucking crazy, Nina. So worried she would hurt you…kill you…” His deep voice grew hoarse, and he cleared his throat. “I didn’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. Especially when it was all my fault.”

  Nina nodded thoughtfully. Against her will, his words were making an impact on her. He didn’t seem to be trying to shift the blame for anything—he was taking it all on himself, admitting he was the cause of what had happened.

  “All right,” she said at last. “But that still doesn’t tell me why you let me leave thinking you just used me and threw me away like a broken toy you didn’t want anymore.”

  “Did I break you?” he murmured roughly, cupping her cheek. “Did I, sweetheart? Because it damn near broke me to watch you fly away. To see that ship disappear into the sky and know you were in it and you weren’t coming back…”

  “I wasn’t coming back because you sent me away,” she reminded him tartly.

  He sighed deeply. “Yeah, I sent you away—but for your own good.”

  “What?” Nina frowned at him. “How could breaking my heart be for my own good? How can you
possibly justify—”

  “I sent you away because I can’t give you what you need, okay?” A look of pure frustration crossed his face. “Because I don’t have a Touch Sense—or not one that works properly, anyway.”

  “What even is that?” Nina demanded. “The witch talked about it some, but I never really understood…”

  “It’s an extra sense all Touch Kindred have—or most of them, anyway.” He grimaced. “It gives a male of my kind the ability to touch his female with his mind. He can send whisper-fingers to stroke her, to pleasure her…to penetrate her, without ever physically touching her at all.”

  Nina frowned. “And…you can’t do that?”

  Reddix sighed. “No. I can’t.”

  She looked at him impatiently. “And that’s why you broke up with me? Because you can’t send creepy mind fingers through the air and touch me when you’re across the room or something? That’s it?”

  “You don’t understand.” His deep voice was thick with frustration. “A male has to have a working Touch Sense in order to give his female the Deep Touch—that is, penetrating her body and her mind at the same time. And without the Deep Touch bonding cannot occur.”

  Nina shook her head. “I still think it’s a crappy excuse.”

  “That’s because you still don’t understand. Look…you’ve been around the other Kindred wives for a while now. Have you seen how they can communicate with their males mentally? How in sync the bonded couples are?”

  “Well…” Nina thought of all the times when Liv or Sophie or Kat or Lauren or Lissa had gotten a faraway look on their faces that meant they were talking mentally to their men. “I guess so,” she said at last.

  “That wouldn’t be possible for the two of us,” Reddix explained patiently. “Without a working Touch Sense, I can’t give you the Deep Touch or bond you to me. And without a bond, our relationship would be doomed to failure.”

  Nina put a hand on her hip and glared at him. “So it’s better just to not try at all? Is that it?” she demanded. “Better to break my heart and send me off thinking you’re a jerk who doesn’t give a damn about me because you’re afraid our relationship would crash and burn?”

  “I know it would crash and burn,” he growled. “I’m just trying to save you the pain.”

  “What if I don’t want to be saved?” Nina demanded. “What if I’d rather take my chances?”

  He groaned with obvious frustration. “See? This is why I shouldn’t have come. I told Saber you’d react like this.”

  “You’re damn right I am.” Nina was so angry she could hardly see straight. “You talk about saving me pain, but I think you’re trying to save yourself. You’re just every other guy—you’re afraid to commit.”

  “That’s not true,” he growled. “You don’t know how much I want to commit to you—to share a life with you—to make you mine permanently. But I can’t Nina—I’ll only hurt you. It’s exactly like what the witch showed me—I’d just make you miserable.”

  “The witch!” Nina shifted in his lap excitedly, making him groan. “I knew it had something to do with her. Was it that potion she gave you? What were the ‘side effects’ she talked about?”

  Reddix squeezed his eyes shut briefly and pinched the bridge of his nose, as though trying to drive back a headache.

  “She showed me what our life would be like without a bond. What would happen if I tried to make you mine and couldn’t. She…damn it, she showed you leaving me.”

  “And you believed her?” Nina felt like crying. “You believed a witch over me? You didn’t even trust me enough to give me the benefit of the doubt?”

  “It’s not like that,” he protested. “What she showed me—it had the ring of truth to it. She was right, we can’t make a life together if we can’t bond. If I can’t give you the Deep Touch, I’d be better off letting you go to find…” He gritted his teeth as though the words hurt to say. “To find somebody else.”

  “And that’s how you really feel?” Nina pushed off his lap, and this time he let her go. “You’re ready to give up on us just because you can’t touch me with your mind?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He looked miserable but determined. “I can’t ruin your life any more than I already have. I care about you too much, Nina—I have to let you go.”

  “What if…what if I don’t want to be let go?” she whispered. She put her arms around herself, hugging herself protectively. It felt like if she didn’t hold on to something she would fall apart. Was he really sitting there telling her it was over—all over between them—before they had even started? Was he really going to just get up and leave her there and never come back?

  Apparently so.

  “Nina…” He got off the couch and put out a hand to her, but Nina ducked him and stepped away.

  “No.” Her voice trembled, but her resolve was firm. “No, get away from me. If you’re too much of a coward to even try to make things work then just leave.” She nodded at the door. “Just…go.”

  “I don’t want to,” he said roughly, his voice harsh with emotion. “Goddess, Nina, you don’t know—”

  “I know enough,” she interrupted, squeezing herself even tighter. God, what was wrong with her? She felt so empty inside—like she was falling apart.

  “But the bonding fruit—”

  “I’m fine now. You helped me enough,” she lied. “I feel perfectly well—physically anyway. So just go.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “All right. If that’s the way you want it, I’ll leave.”

  “It is,” Nina said tightly. She jerked her head at the door. “Get out. Now.”

  “I’m going.” He walked to the door and turned to face her. “I’m sorry, Nina. For everything.”

  “It’s too late for ‘sorry.’” She felt like she was going to cry, and she didn’t want him to see her do it.

  Worse than that, she felt wrong inside—strange—empty. She told herself it was because he was walking out of her life and never coming back, but the feeling of wrongness grew and grew. Her nipples were getting tight and irritated again, and her pussy felt swollen and hot, as though he hadn’t just made her come multiple times. Nina crossed her legs grimly, determined to wait the weird feelings out. There was no way in hell she was asking him for help again.

  Reddix had his hand on the door, about to leave, but then she saw his nose twitch. He inhaled deeply, as though smelling something and turned to look at her.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m not all right,” she snapped, pressing her thighs tightly together. “You’re leaving. And since you’re determined to leave, could you please just go?”

  “Fine. But—”

  “Go!” She opened the door for him and pointed out into the hallway. Damn it, he had to leave soon. She was feeling weirder by the second. It wasn’t a feeling of her heart beating too hard and fast this time—it was different. A weird emptiness that made her feel faint—a hunger that seemed to devour her from the inside out.

  “Goodbye,” Reddix muttered at last. He stepped out the door, and Nina closed it behind him—not a moment too soon. She could feel the emptiness inside consuming her. She opened her robe and looked down at herself, halfway expecting to see a black hole in the middle of her chest. It felt like something was eating her up from within. Like she was…was…

  “Falling,” Nina whispered to herself.

  She crumpled to the floor in a heap, her head spinning. I think I am having an allergic reaction to the bonding fruit after all, she thought numbly. It shouldn’t be like this, should it? I shouldn’t be feeling this way—it’s too extreme. Too much. Vaguely she knew she needed to get help, needed to call someone to take her to the med center Reddix had talked about. But she couldn’t summon the strength to get off the floor.

  Slowly her eyes closed…

  * * * * *

  Reddix heard her hit the floor from the other side of the sliding metal door.

  “Nin
a?” he said, panic mounting in his chest. “Nina?” He pounded on the metal door panel urgently. Damn it, he should have known the bonding fruit she’d ingested hadn’t run its course, that the small help he’d provided wasn’t enough to get it out of her system.

  Turning, he put his shoulder to the door and pressed against it. The door wasn’t set to recognize him and wasn’t meant to open from the outside when it was shut. But though it was shut, it wasn’t locked. Reddix was able to put enough pressure on it to force it open a crack. And once he had a crack he could work his fingers into, he was able to pry the metal panel the rest of the way open.

  His worst fears were realized the moment the door finally slid aside. Nina was lying there in a heap, her long dark hair like a shroud across her face. Reddix wasn’t sure if she was breathing or not.

  Leaning down, he scooped her off the floor. He was about to carry her straight to the med center when she stirred in his arms and moaned. Thank the Goddess! He carried her into the bedroom instead. Laying her on the bed, he looked around for a Think-me—all of the guest suites on the Mother Ship were equipped with one, and this was no exception. He found it lying on a low table beside the bed and quickly fitted the thin silver wire over his head.

  “Saber,” he sent fiercely. “I’m sorry to bother you, Brother, but I need help!”

  “What is it?” Saber’s mental voice was unusually abrupt. “I can talk but not for long. I’m in…the middle of something.”

  “I understand, I’ll be brief. I went to see Nina, but she’s having a problem. She says she ate some cake at the joining ceremony that had bonding fruit in it. I helped her, uh, take the edge off once, but now she’s worse than ever. In fact, she’s fainted, and she’s barely fucking breathing. Where’s the nearest med center on this end of the ship?

  Saber’s response was immediate. “Don’t take her to the med center—they can’t help her there. Several females who ate the cake are having similar problems, including Lissa and Olivia. We’ve already spoken to Sylvan about it, and he says the fruit was dangerously concentrated.”