I nodded and pushed another button through its hole.
He watched me for another second, then he was there again, kissing me, and my hands fell away from my shirt so his could take over.
My pulse rushed too fast and the room spun, a blur of dark wood and rich fabrics, shadowed on the edges by the fear I pushed aside with every breath I took. I threw myself into that kiss, letting the taste and the feel of him chase everything else away.
When the buttons were undone, his hands slid beneath the cotton and gently pushed the material down my arms. He kissed my shoulder and unhooked my bra, and I let it slide to the floor. Then I reached for the towel at his hips and pulled it loose.
His towel fell off and he moaned, his lips pressed to the unbroken side of my neck. His arms slid around me, guiding me as he walked us backward, and I felt the mattress against the backs of my thighs.
I sat, then lay back, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Darkness closed in on the edges of my vision, and with it came flashes of memory I couldn’t push back. Dead shadows trapping me. A weight on my chest. A cruel hand twisting, and pinching, and bruising, and invading.
Ian lay beside me, naked, reaching for me, and my throat tried to close.
“I can’t,” I whispered, and his hands fell away. I pulled the rumpled blanket over me, confused, and humiliated, and drowning in frustration. Pissed off by my own fear.
He propped himself up on one elbow and I made myself look at him. “It’s okay. There’s no rush,” he said, brushing hair from my cheek.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t fucking okay, and it never would be until I could push past the fear and anger devouring me from the inside out. Until I could touch and be touched and just live in the moment, without reliving other hands. Without feeling like the world was spiraling in on me, constricting around me, compressing me until I couldn’t move. Couldn’t fight. Couldn’t breathe.
Why now? Why did I have to meet him now, when I couldn’t tell from one minute to the next whether I wanted to touch or hit, kiss or bite?
This wasn’t okay. And it wasn’t going to be okay until I could do whatever the fuck I wanted with whoever the hell I wanted. Until I could take control back, not just of my body, but of my mind. If I gave up now—if I let fear chase me from what I wanted—the next time would only be harder.
Ian stroked my hair, spreading it over the rumpled comforter. Touching me without touching me. And suddenly I wanted to cry. He was so patient.
I looked up at him, and he was still watching me. Not smiling. Just watching.
“Make it dark,” I whispered, and he frowned for a second. Then he sat up and reached for the bedside lamp.
“No.” I laid one hand on his arm, and he turned back to me. “Make it dark. True dark.” The kind I knew. The kind I loved. The kind I could escape into whenever I needed to.
The kind Ian carried in his soul and could gather at will.
He smiled, and the darkness rose around us, faster than ever before. Cool and calm. Quiet. Soothing. Like it had been there all along. Waiting.
I couldn’t see a thing, but I’d never been more sure of where I was.
I reached for him and my hand found his stomach. I trailed my fingers up the hard lines of his chest and over his collarbone, then around to the back of his neck. I pulled him down, and his mouth found mine. He couldn’t see me, but he could feel me, and that was more than enough.
I kissed him. I couldn’t taste enough of him. His hand found my side and threatened to linger there in chaste caution until I arched into his touch, and his fingers wandered up slowly. Gingerly.
The dark settled around me, touching me everywhere he didn’t, and I reached for him, pulling him closer. His hand found my breast, his fingers brushing my nipple, and when I moaned into his mouth, his hand tightened, bolder now. I arched into him, fumbling with the button on my jeans, and his hand trailed down to brush mine aside. A second later, the button was free, my zipper down.
Ian sat up on his knees and his hands slid down from my waist, slipping beneath the material at my sides, sliding it over my hips so slowly I squirmed in anticipation, my eyes closed. He followed the material all the way to my feet, leaving a trail of kisses down my left leg. Then he kissed his way up the other leg, his hands blazing the same trail in advance.
When I couldn’t wait anymore, I pulled him up, opening for him, reaching for another kiss. He settled between my thighs, and I could feel him, hot and hard, and ready.
“Are you sure?” he asked again, whispering in my ear this time. “I need to know that you want this.”
I blinked in the dark, and hot tears trailed silently down both sides of my face. “Yes. I want you, Ian.”
He exhaled, and I felt the tension in him ease. He slid one hand over my hip and down to my knee, then lifted my leg, guiding my ankle around his waist. My heart thumped almost painfully as I tucked my other leg behind him and pulled him down for another kiss.
He entered me slowly, and I gasped, sucking air from his mouth. Rising to meet him. When he was all the way in, he stayed for a moment, and I sucked his lip into my mouth, holding my breath. Reluctant to move.
Then he withdrew and slid inside me again, and we found our rhythm.
I clung to him, arching with him, holding him close. He buried his face in my hair, holding me with one arm, supporting his weight with the other. And everything else faded away, swallowed by the darkness he wrapped around us.
I remembered nothing but Ian. I felt nothing but him. I wanted nothing but him. And I never wanted that moment to end.
Then the rhythm changed, and I rode the waves, coasting toward an edge I could feel building, tighter and tighter. He moved inside me and I rose to meet him over and over, faster and faster, and the fire burning between us consumed all conscious thought for one precious moment. Then that fire crested to spill over the rest of me in a hot, desperate wave of pleasure and I clung to him again, riding it out to the finish.
Ian collapsed on the bed next to me and I rolled over to face him, unable to quell the languid smile I could feel forming. He leaned forward to kiss me, then I rolled onto my back again and put one hand on his chest, because I wasn’t done touching him. I never wanted to be done.
Slowly he let the darkness fade, and as the light rose to replace it, I found him watching me. And for the first time in months, maybe even in years, I felt safe.
Twenty-Four
Ian
I couldn’t stop watching her during dinner, after we’d heated up the meal that had almost gotten us killed. I loved the way she cut her steak into bites, then ate them two at a time and refused any sauce. The way she picked every single tiny sliver of carrot from her salad, then offered to trade them for my cucumber. I loved the way she laughed when I dribbled wine from the lip of the bottle because I was too busy watching her to pour with anything resembling competence.
She made a face over the red wine, but she liked the white enough to have a second glass after dinner. She was different now. More comfortable. More confident. Still brash, but less angry. She was funny and quick-witted, and on the rare occasions that night when her smile slipped, I suffered a renewed, intensified hatred for everyone who’d ever so much as bruised her, body or soul.
After dinner, I asked her if she wanted to stay the night—Tower’s order wasn’t good enough for me—careful to phrase my question so that she had an out, just in case.
She stayed, and we made love again, and afterward, with her head on my shoulder, my dark hand splayed against her pale stomach, I saw a snapshot of our life and what it could have been, if not for Tower. What it might still be, if I pulled off the impossible and freed us both, after I freed Steven.
After I freed all three of us, because she wouldn’t leave without her sister.
Kori fell asleep in my arms, in the dark, but rolled away from me in her sleep, so I curled around her, treasuring her warmth, wondering how so much woman could possibly fit into such a small, beautiful body.
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* * *
Something woke me in the middle of the night, and I lay still, trying to figure out what I’d heard. Then I heard it again. Kori. I rolled over to find her mumbling in her sleep, half word, half moan of pain.
She was dreaming.
“No,” she murmured, and when she started twisting, the covers tangled around her legs, which seemed to upset her even more. “No, please…” Her eyes were closed, but her head rolled back and forth, a vague outline in the dark room.
“Please,” she begged in her sleep, and a tear rolled down her face, glittering in the moonlight shining between the cracks in the blinds. And that was all I could stand.
“Kori.” I touched her arm, and she froze. Her eyes flew open and her hand slid beneath her pillow. “Are you—” Before I could finish the question, she’d shoved me down on my back and I felt the cold steel of a knife at my throat. My pulse roared in my ears, my heart thumping painfully.
She was awake, but unaware, still caught in the nightmare. Still trapped in the basement. Only this time she was armed with a knife from the room service tray.
“Kori, it’s me,” I whispered, afraid to move my throat much because there was actual pressure behind the blade. It was a miracle she hadn’t yet broken skin. “It’s Ian. Remember? We’re in my hotel room.”
She blinked, and some of the confusion cleared.
“See the window? Can you see the moonlight? Do you know where you are?”
Kori gasped and let go of my shoulder, then retreated across the bed with the knife still in hand. “I’m sorry. Fuck! I’m so sorry. I could have killed you.”
“It’s okay. We’re both fine.” I probably could have subdued her, but not without making her nightmare worse. “But maybe you could put the knife down?”
She lifted her hand and seemed surprised to see the knife still in it, the serrated edge shining in a thin beam of moonlight. “Shit.” She dropped it onto the marble-topped nightstand, where it bounced and clattered, then went still. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Do you mind if I put the knife away?”
“Get rid of it, please. I don’t even remember bringing it in here.”
“Do you sleep with one at home?” I stepped into my underwear, then rounded the bed toward the nightstand on her side.
“Yeah. Sorry. I guess I should have warned you.”
I took the knife into the front room, and when I got back into bed, she was in the bathroom. A minute later, the toilet flushed, then water ran in the sink. When she came out, she left the door open and the light on, without even seeming to notice. And that’s when I realized she was afraid of the dark. Or at least afraid of sleeping in it—surely a complicated problem for a shadow-walker.
She climbed back into bed next to me, wearing only plain black cotton underwear, and sat with her legs crossed beneath the covers, her hands over her face, visibly trying to collect herself. I reached out, aching to comfort her but hesitant to touch. Finally I laid my hand between her shoulder blades, and when she didn’t flinch, I started to rub her back.
But my hand froze after a couple of inches, when my fingers skimmed over a smooth, thick line of skin. A scar.
An inch later, I found another.
I scooted toward the headboard for a better view of her back, and in the light from the bathroom, I saw more than I wanted to see. I saw it all.
Bruises, still healing two weeks after she was let out. Burn scars, small and round, like the tip of a cigarette. Long thin strips of scar tissue I couldn’t identify. Teeth marks—an entire set of them—in three different places.
I don’t know what I’d expected, but this wasn’t it. She hadn’t been punished. She’d been tortured.
Rage burned so hot in my gut I felt like I was roasting alive. I wanted to kill something. Someone. Everyone who’d had a hand in what happened to her. But I swallowed that rage. I held it inside, because my anger could trigger hers, and justice for Kori couldn’t be had in that moment, in the middle of the night, with her still shaking from the latest bad dream.
But she would have justice. I would make sure of that.
“Do you have a lot of nightmares?”
She shrugged. “Sleep is overrated.”
“You can tell me about it,” I said, and her hands fell away from her face. She shook her head without looking at me. “It’s not going to scare me or make me want you any less.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Ian. That’ll make me want me less.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.” She sounded so alone. So convinced that she had to be.
“I don’t understand, but I want to. If you want to tell me, I want to hear.”
For a long time, she didn’t say anything. She didn’t lie down. She didn’t even move. She just wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the end of the bed, breathing slowly. Deeply. Then she took one more deep breath, and her mouth opened.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Can you tell me who did this?” I rubbed her back again, and I felt kind of guilty for my own ulterior motive in asking that question. I wanted to know who had done it so I could kill him. Even if killing the bastard who had hurt her didn’t make her feel better, it would make me feel better.
“Doesn’t matter who it was. Jake gave the orders. Jake told him he could do whatever he wanted with me, so long as I survived intact. Then he told me not to fight back.”
“What?” My blood ran cold.
“That was my sentence. Before he left the day they locked me up, Jake looked right into my eyes and said, ‘You like to fight, don’t you, Kori? Then let’s let the sentence fit the criminal. Don’t fight back.’” She sucked in a choked breath and swallowed thickly. “Then he just left. I spent nearly every day at his side for the past six years, and he looked at me like I was worth less to him than the lint in his pocket. He just left me there, alone with—”
“With who?” She obviously didn’t want to say the name. She probably didn’t even want to think it. But she was seeing him in her head. I could tell that much. “Who did he tell you not to fight?” The very idea of which horrified me to no end.
“His brother. He told me not to fight Jonah. Six weeks, and I never lifted a fist, because the first time I tried, the resistance pain nearly killed me, and if I’d died, there’d be no one to protect Kenley. That, on top of the rest of it…it was just too much.”
“Sadistic bastard,” I hissed. Just thinking about it made me feel sick and useless. The fierce ache in my chest rivaled the vicious twisting in my gut, and if hearing about it was that painful, I couldn’t imagine how she’d held it together. How she’d come out of that cell traumatized, but mentally intact.
“I hate myself,” she whispered, and I blinked, sure I’d heard her wrong. I wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but I didn’t know how she’d react to being touched in the middle of remembered trauma.
“No, you don’t. You don’t hate yourself.” How could she? None of it was her fault.
“Don’t fucking tell me what I feel!” she snapped, her pale hair practically glowing in the light from the bathroom. “Do you want to hear this or not?”
“I want to hear whatever you want to say.”
“I hate myself,” she repeated, and if anything, she seemed to believe it more this time.
“You hate him,” I insisted, because I couldn’t help it. I hated hearing her say that.
“Yeah. I hate him more than anything else in the world. Except Jake. I hate Jake more. But that’s normal.”
“Normal?” How could any of this be normal?
Kori shook her head, confused, like she could feel what she was trying to say, but the words wouldn’t come out right. “They’re heartless. Cruel. Jake and Jonah are sadistic, and I knew that from the beginning. Sadistic people do sadistic things, so they were just being who and what they are.”
My jaws ached from being clenched in anger. “That doesn’t excuse anything
they—”
“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed. “Nothing can excuse what they did to me, or to anyone else, and I’ll hate them until the day I blow their heads into a million shards of bone and splashes of gray matter. And that day will come. But they aren’t the ones who betrayed me. I betrayed myself.”
“You didn’t—”
“Yes, I did.” She stared straight into my eyes, trying to make me understand. “Bad men do bad things. That’s what they do and who they are. I fight. That’s what I do, and who I am. But in the basement, I didn’t fight. I couldn’t.”
“That’s not your fault, Kori.” She was killing me. She was carving out a piece of my soul with every word she spoke, and pain flowed in to fill the void.