by Lisa Hughey
So he waited.
He manifested jeans for himself, then grabbed the austere wood chair, flipped it around so that the back was between him and her, and sat. He propped his elbows on the back and dropped his forehead to the hard wood slats. His posture similar to hers.
“Zach?” Her voice was rusty.
His head shot up, he surveyed her, concerned. “Yeah?” He reached out as if to touch her and then yanked his hand back.
Just like he’d done in centuries past.
“Where are we?”
A logical question. “The Angelic Realm.”
She looked around the very bare room. There wasn’t much for her to look at. Stone walls, Doric Greek columns, a queen size bed, and one spare bedside table were the only things in his austere room besides the chair he was sitting on.
“It doesn’t look like another realm.”
“We’re in my room.”
She studied the bare surroundings for another moment, clearly something was on her mind. “You really are him.”
“Who?”
“The man from my dreams.” Her face was a mixture of confusion and hurt. He hated that he’d wounded her but his rejection was necessary. For them both. “The actual man from my dreams.”
“Nightmares,” he said bitterly. They would be nightmares. She hadn’t remembered yet. But she would soon. He knew with the surety of his thousand years in existence that one day she would remember how she died.
He could see that his stark reply hurt her again. She remembered their initial times together, happy, joyful, embracing pleasure and each other.
“Did that really happen?”
“What do you remember?” Damn the Cosmos, he didn’t want her to remember the end. Remember his betrayal.
“Someplace tropical, the ocean, the sand…sex,” she finished softly.
“Jamaica,” he gutted out. Unable to deny himself a small touch, he leaned over the back of the chair, and traced his fingers over her features. His thoughts were tormented as he cupped her face in his palm, his rough touch unbearably gentle against her soft skin as he let the memories flow over him. Jamaica had been the most beautiful time in his long life. She’d brought him peace and joy and given him hope for the future. But that isolated moment in time could never be repeated, and to let her think it could would be the worst thing he could do. “Yes.”
He’d been her first lover. Her first love. He could see the blush of that memory was fresh.
“How do you remember?” he wondered. Zach tried to come up with any reason why she would have those memories of their time in Jamaica.
“So are we… reincarnated?” She was staring at him as if she could see into his soul.
“You are.” He left his status unsaid.
“What happened?”
“It ended,” he replied harshly.
“But—”
“Enough.” Zach cut her off. She needed to go before he did something that would damn them both.
“No.” She rose to her knees and jammed her fists on her hips. The move drew the flannel up until her legs were almost completely exposed. “I’ve been hiding my whole life. Don’t push me away. Tell me.”
Zach stared at her. Shoved his anguish away. “We were, and are, forbidden.”
Shasa raised one eyebrow, waiting for the rest of the story. She wasn’t going to back down from this.
Zach groaned. His forehead rested on the back of the chair, his labored breathing gave away the fact that he was far more affected by what had happened between them than his flat expression indicated.
Zach had said they were forbidden. But that left a lot of ground to be covered. Shasa waited for him to explain. But he wasn’t giving in to her silent pressure, so she switched gears. She was a modern woman. She owned her sexuality. She wanted him and she was tired of hiding. Fuck forbidden. “I haven’t come that hard in a really long time.”
Zach huffed out quiet laugh. “Neither have I,” he muttered so low that if she hadn’t been waiting for his response she would have missed it.
“Let me return the favor,” she begged.
“The pleasure was all mine,” he said huskily. A tiny smirk curved his reddened mouth, highlighted by whiskers that dusted his jaw. “And you cannot.”
“Why not?” He was starting to piss her off, and she was losing the lovely post orgasm fizz in her bloodstream.
“It is forbidden,” Zach said again. He placed more distance between their bodies. And being bare ass naked beneath the flannel became something to be embarrassed by rather than fortuitous. The urge to cross her arms over her breasts was almost impossible to ignore. A feeble protection from hurt.
“Forbidden how?”
“I would think the word is fairly self explanatory.” But there was no heat in his words just a wry expression on his face.
“Forbidden, why?”
“That is a little more difficult to explain.”
“Well apparently since you’re not about to get a blow job and I’m not about to have your cock in my mouth, I’ve got the time.” She waved her hand at him. “Explain.”
“It is against the law of the Realm.”
“Like an actual written down law?” She couldn’t help but be a little snarky. Sexual frustration would do that to a girl. “It explicitly says, no blow jobs shall be given.”
Zach snorted. “Not exactly.”
“What exactly?”
“The Nephilim are the product of mating between Angels and humans. Their evil plot years ago nearly destroyed the Earth and now they are at it again.”
“You can’t generalize about an entire race of people.” Shasa argued.
“I agree. But it’s not my call.”
“So…no blow jobs. Sex?”
“Humans and Angels from the Realm are not allowed.”
“Nothing?”
He confirmed with a nod. “No sex.”
“Love?” she asked softly.
He shook his head, his stare intense. No love. “It is forbidden.”
“In my dreams, we….” she trailed off as understanding blossomed. He had loved her. And now she knew it.
“It was forbidden.”
“Did you get in trouble?”
“Not exactly.”
But when she stared into his eyes he couldn’t hide his desolation. As if he’d had his heart ripped out and crushed by sorrow. There was more there. A regret that she could almost physically touch but she knew instinctively he wouldn’t tell her.
He didn’t look at her again. Instead he stared at his stark bedroom.
“And now?” She knew something bad had happened.
“I would never put you in danger,” Zach said fiercely. “Never.”
“So it’s still forbidden.” She clutched the shirt to her breasts. “But if nothing happened the last time—“
“No.”
Shasa pursed her mouth in a stubborn moue. “But—”
“I can’t.” Zach’s anguish seemed to finally penetrate her insistence.
“Okay. Okay,” she said quietly.
Zach could see her determination in the way she held her body and in the set lines of her face. She was saying one thing but she meant another.
He had to get her out of here. Out of his bedroom. Out of his bed. She wouldn’t back down. As if the near death experience had unleashed her inner aggression, she was going to be the death of him.
“So I guess we’re done?” The combination of hope and resignation in her voice slayed him.
As much as he wanted to send her back to Earth to live out her life in solitude, he couldn’t. Because the Realm still needed her gifts. Since Uri didn’t remember anything he couldn’t help them find the Grigori.
“Not yet.” Every hour they delayed brought the Earth one step closer to a huge, devastating attack. But in order for her to help, she needed to relinquish her fear of large bodies of water. Her strength was uncommon. And she had to be ready to help.
So they needed to discuss
her fear. She had to overcome her irrational terror of the water. “You need to get over your fear of bodies of water,” he said evenly.
“Sure. I’ll get right on that,” she replied sarcastically. “No problem.”
Zach ran his fingers through his damp curls. She needed to take him seriously. “You must be ready.”
“Yeah. Do you get that I have had this fear since I was five years old and saw the ocean for the first time?” Shasa snarled, “You saw what happened in the pool.”
Yes. He’d seen and felt her terror. But he couldn’t afford to indulge her fears. “The fact remains that you need to get over it.”
She jumped up from the bed. Legs spread in a combative stance, fists clenched, chin up, violet eyes flashing with a fire that replaced the fear from earlier. He liked seeing her feisty rather than defeated.
“Get over it?” she hissed. “You think I want to be afraid?”
“How do you feel?” he asked brusquely.
She opened her mouth to bark at him.
“Stop.”
Her mouth snapped closed.
“Examine your body, your senses, and tell me how you feel.”
She narrowed her gaze but did as he requested. “Good.” She crossed her arms over her waist, the flannel shirt gaped open giving him a peek at the curve of her breast. “Great actually.”
“You need water.” There was no give in him for this. She needed water to thrive and he needed her healthy.
She closed her mouth mutinously. She was thinking about arguing with him.
“This war is not over,” Zach said impatiently. “It’s just beginning. And I still need you.”
Shit. He could see the hope in her gaze and the lightness in her heart. He had not said that correctly. “The Realm needs you,” he corrected and watched her happiness dry up.
Shasa was backing away, shaking her head violently, the sheer terror on her face clenched around his heart and squeezed.
“You must.” Her fear would be her downfall. Unless he could help her get over it. Zach knew he couldn’t afford to be kind, he needed her to understand. “Our next mission is to stop the tsunamis.”
She snorted. “You think I’m going to stop a tsunami?”
“You are extraordinarily strong.”
“You are crazy.” She’d begun to start trembling.
“What do you remember from Jamaica?” Suddenly he wondered if her fear of water came from her death in a former life.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. In my dreams I love the water.” She said with contempt, “You think the irony of that, based on how much I fear water now, doesn’t haunt me constantly?”
Fuck. He’d done this to her.
Part of him was thrilled that she didn’t remember. That she couldn’t blame him for the fear of something she once loved. She might not consciously remember, but the fact that she dreamed of their good times likely meant that she also had the reason for her fear buried deep in her subconscious.
He had done this to her. And it was up to him to help erase her fear of water and bring back the pleasure.
“I dream of the water. My life’s work is paintings of the water.”
Finally he knew how to motivate her. “I thought you weren’t going to hide anymore.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he was done.
While Shasa had the soul of his Shasa from Jamaica, this Shasa was far more irreverent and far stronger than the sweet girl he’d loved all those years ago. He couldn’t have pushed that Shasa. She’d been too fragile, too innocent, too soft. But this Shasa had survived years of denial of her basic nature. No more.
Zach dragged her back to the pool. Literally. He curved his arm around her shoulders in a manner that was less than loverly. Unlike the tender almost reverent way he’d touched her just a little while ago, his arm was a hard, uncompromising band, with no give and no way to escape.
Stone floors, marble columns, sumptuous rugs and extravagant paintings lined the floors and walls. But Shasa was too busy trying to stop Zach to appreciate the beauty of this place.
Fuck.
The pool wasn’t even that big. Maybe slightly wider than an Olympic pool except it was an oval. At one end, water cascaded down a rock wall and splashed gently into the lightly steaming water. Herbs scented the air, the smell was soothing almost hypnotic. And she still had no desire to submerge in it.
At twenty feet away her heart started a frenetic rhythm in her chest. Even though in theory, she agreed with him, she wasn’t ready to take the plunge. “Please don’t make me do this,” she whimpered. She tried to slow him down, dragged her feet against the rough limestone floor. Plants and flowers surrounded a bench at the other end. But Zach was determinedly leading her straight to the water’s edge.
“I can’t,” she cried. “I can’t do this.”
“You can do this.” Zach rebutted. “Heroism is being terrified and doing it anyway.”
She hated her visceral fear. But being done hiding and throwing herself into her greatest fear were two entirely different things.
Zach curled his fingers over her shoulder. “Why were you in Oregon?”
She shrugged, shifted her gaze to the waterfall refusing to look at the pool. “My mother needed me.”
“The Earth needs you.”
She knew he was right. She had to get over this crippling fear.
“The pool is shallow on this end.” His voice was calm, commanding, and implacable.
But the fear that had haunted her since she was five was a powerfully terrifying inhibitor. The habit to avoid bodies of water was deeply ingrained.
“Come,” he demanded.
She whispered, “I can’t.”
He sat on the edge and pulled her down beside him. “You must find it within yourself to overcome this phobia. I won’t let anything harm you.” His words were fierce and held an underlying edge that confused her.
She fell against him with one hard tug. His body was hard and warm along her side. His bulk was a firm presence. “Come on. Dip your toes in.”
Zach sat so his calves hung over the lip of the pool, and his feet submerged beneath the mesmerizing cerulean water.
Hesitantly, she lowered one foot toward the liquid. The large expanse of the pool lay out before her. Sweat beaded on her forehead and her limbs trembled with an unrelenting dread.
“I know it’s crazy. I know it.” But she’d lived with this phobia for twenty-three years. She couldn’t believe he thought he could get rid of it this easily.
That’s when Shasa felt his fingers. They stroked the sensitive skin at the base of her skull and threaded through the cap of curls on her head. The light touch diverted her senses as everything tingled. Goosebumps skittered along her spine, over her skin.
Her nipples tightened, but she couldn’t tell if it was from desire or fear anymore. Her sex softened as he gently eased her face toward his.
His deep, dark rum gaze held hers while he pressed his palm on her knee. Slowly he forced her foot into the soft water.
The wet closed around her toes but she was mesmerized by his heavy-lidded stare. He wanted to kiss her. She could feel the desire pouring from him in thick sexual waves. His gaze didn’t falter only seemed to grow hotter as her tongue peeked out to wet her lips.
For such a humid room, the air was suddenly dry as if it had all been sucked from the atmosphere. Her lungs tightened. Breath was necessary, but all she could focus on was how close his mouth was to hers. She leaned nearer until finally their lips met in a soft, gentle kiss.
He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth and nipped at the tender flesh with his teeth. Just hard enough to send a twinge to her girl parts. With that distraction, he pushed her other foot into the water.
“Look. You’re already there,” he murmured against her lips.
Both her feet dangled in the water. Warmth, and a sexual buzz, surrounded her. Her heart thudded in her chest, but at that precise moment she couldn’t say if it was from the water or his ki
ss.
How could one simple caress muddle her brain and turn her stupid?
Especially since he’d just told her that this thing between them could go nowhere.
“There’s a shelf, right beneath your toes.” Zach said, “Put your feet flat on the shelf and get used to the water.”
She was more focused on the tender, coaxing look on his face as he stroked his palm over her thigh. His hand was going the wrong way, sliding toward her knee. She wanted his fingers in another more intimate place.
But she knew better than to ask.
With every trailing caress of his hand, the mark on her belly tingled and tightened as if he’d touched her there.
A soft whimper escaped before she could sensor the sound. And it wasn’t from fear.
Zach slid into the water and sat on the small shelf. He cupped his palm with water from the pool and poured it over her knee. His fingers continued their sensual assault, replacing her terror of water with another more pleasant association.
And still her heart thundered in her chest.
“I’ll be right here,” Zach murmured. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
He’d said that enough times, and with enough conviction, that she was just beginning to believe him. Which was a complete rarity for her. She didn’t trust people. She lived a hermetic life, alone in the desert, with few friends and no companions. She’d isolated herself from everyone because of her debilitating phobia and strange dreams.
Slowly, as if the water had teeth and breathed fire, she eased her leg further into the beast of her fear.
Zach’s hands were firm, commanding on Shasa’s body as he helped her slide into her nemesis and confront the fear that she’d survived with for so long.
“You can do this.” His voice had lost that commanding tone, he was more cajoling now.
And with his belief in her, Shasa slid all the way down until the water bobbed gently against her breasts. Her nipples tightened in remembrance of the dream. Of the sheer joy she’d felt during her fantasy.
The water had been her comfort, not something to fear but something to revel in. She wanted that damn feeling back. She wanted that more than she could say. She wanted to stop hiding.
Zach’s arm was still solid around her, his hold keeping Shasa from the fear that hovered at the edge of consciousness.
