Instead of alarming him––as it probably should have––it turned him on more.
Worse, it made him almost desperate to take the collar off her.
But he wasn’t far enough gone to seriously contemplate that.
Instead, he forced himself to slow down.
Pinning her below him with his hands and legs, he leaned down to kiss her mouth.
That was almost awkward at first.
But not for very long.
She had a full mouth, softer than hell and he was kissing her harder a few seconds later, feeling his light slip out of his control yet again.
He kissed her for a long time.
Somewhere in that, he forgot himself, forgot what he was doing, all over again.
He fell into it.
He was already opening to her for real and he hadn’t even thought about it well enough to be calculated about how he was doing it. He opened without his consciously willing it and then he was pulling on her sensually, slowly, unrelentingly, asking her over and over and over.
He felt her try to turn that into something amusing at first.
Then he felt her fighting him, trying to fuck him without letting him into her light.
Then she wasn’t doing that, either.
She let out another gasping sound when he didn’t stop, and then she had her legs wrapped around his lower body, and he could feel her light opening.
Not all the way.
That fucking thing in her chest, choking off her heart––it wouldn’t let her open to him all the way. But he felt more of her. He felt more of her than he ever had, even in their sessions together. It was enough to close his eyes, to make his muscles clench and tense over her.
He had his hands inside her soft pants long enough to feel how wet she was, then he was yanking the pants down her hips, taking them off her roughly.
He’d stopped bothering to rationalize.
He’d stopped thinking about whether Jon might be watching this… or Maygar.
He’d stopped giving a damn, frankly.
When he finally got his cock in her, both of them cried out.
He still had her pulled away from the wall, pinned under him.
He knew she was all right with him, with the size of him, even before he did it again, harder, angling deeper when he felt the pain on her worsen.
She groaned aloud when he extended.
“‘Dori…” she gasped.
He froze when she said his name.
Then he arched into her again, violently that time.
So much pain was coming off her that he couldn’t think straight.
He couldn’t think about anything but getting her off, fucking her until she came around him, again and again. He wanted her to lose it. He wanted her to lose it totally… lose track of herself… of the room… of any of the crap they’d been talking about or looking at for weeks.
He wanted her goddamned heart to open.
He felt her hear him.
She flinched, right before that pain in her aleimi spiked, hitting him in the groin area intensely enough that he gasped.
“Fuck… ‘Dori…” she moaned. “Why are you doing this?”
She sounded almost young.
She sounded almost scared––but not like she had before.
He had his hand in her hair again, his fingers clenched.
He was watching her face now, feeling her light.
When she started to open to him again––to try anyway, as much as that thing Shadow put in her would let her––he let out a heavier groan, almost losing it right there.
She was trying.
She was actually trying to get past the block.
He pulled back even as he opened his own heart, hoping it might help her do the same for him. He opened as much as he could, gasping when he felt her light react, coiling into and around his as he offered himself to her.
He wanted her to meet him there.
He wanted it so badly.
Her eyes held what might have been confusion, but he saw the vulnerability there even as it spiked his own pain back into aggression, tightening his hands and fingers on her.
“I wanted you before,” he told her, blurting the words. “I wanted you in Seertown.”
She stared at him.
Then something in her expression softened.
“I know,” she said.
The words became a gasp when he arched into her again.
Her fingers caressed his face.
He watched pain flicker across her expression when he angled up into her harder, using light and pain in his cock so she’d feel it through the sharp part that had extended, what seers called the hirik. She let out a low moan when he did it again, arching her back.
Her eyes closed when he did it again, pain pluming off her light.
“’Dori––”
“I wanted to hurt that fucker,” he told her, gasping. “I wanted to hurt him. Baguen…”
“I know. I… I could feel it… even then. I felt you––”
“You just didn’t give a shit?”
His voice came out hard, even as his separation pain worsened. Irrationality hit him, a kind of confused tangle of emotion he realized he’d been repressing, that he’d locked somewhere in his own heart, where she wouldn’t feel it.
When he looked down, she was staring at him.
He saw wariness there, but more than anything, confusion.
He realized she couldn’t decide what was going on with him.
It was throwing her off-balance, confusing her.
His jaw hardened as he stared down at her eyes.
“Were you so uninterested, Cassandra?” he said, his voice equally hard. “Because you seemed… interested. Your light seemed interested. Even your actions did. At least before that walking hard-on captured your attention, you did.”
He saw her bite her tongue.
She stared up at him, and for a second he saw anger there.
That anger mixed with disbelief, then a kind of indecision.
He could tell himself she was thinking about his words.
He could tell himself she was trying to decide how honest to be with him.
He knew she might be toying with him. He knew she also wondered if he was toying with her, using his mind and light to try and elicit an emotional reaction from her.
He also knew he was sex-drunk.
He must be, to be stupid enough to tell her anything she could use against him so easily.
He didn’t care.
He arched into her harder, using more of his weight. Her eyes closed, pain once more tightening the delicate features of her face.
By then, he didn’t expect her to answer him.
Well, maybe by giving him shit. Maybe by mocking him for admitting his anger and jealousy towards Baguen, for admitting his crush, for admitting anything so childish, so irrelevant to who either of them were now.
But she did answer him.
“What does it matter now?” she said, staring up at him. “Why do you care?”
“Why him?” Balidor said.
Biting her lip, she rolled her eyes.
Even so, her indifference was cracking under his eyes, inside his light. He could feel her embarrassment now, and her avoidance.
“Why not him?” she said, exhaling in annoyance. “Why not for the reasons you said? He had a big cock. Bigger than yours, brother. No offense.”
He winced at the jab.
He still wasn’t willing to let it go.
“Why him?” he repeated, his voice harder, more infused with light. “Why, Cassandra? Just tell me. It wasn’t all his Wvercian cock.”
She stared up at him. Her jaw hardened more.
Then she shrugged, her coffee-colored eyes flattening.
“You know why,” she said.
He’d come to a stop over her. She held his gaze as he did, her jaw jutting defiantly. An angry kind of sadness infused her voice.
“Jesus, Balidor. Why the fuck wou
ld I leave Chan, who wanted me to fucking talk to her all the time… who was too smart to believe my bullshit… just to date someone smarter than her, who was even less likely to believe my bullshit? I couldn’t fucking deal with you. Not after Terian. I didn’t want to deal with you.”
Her jaw hardened more, enough that she winced.
“I’m still not sure I want to deal with you,” she added angrily, hitting out at his chest. “Not if you’re going to spoil a perfectly good fuck with your psychoanalytic bullshit.”
Glaring up at him, she met his gaze.
When he didn’t speak, didn’t move, her jaw hardened more.
“Are you stupid?” she snapped. “Do you really not get how it was for me back then? Or are you just trying to get me to admit it out loud? I had no one, Balidor. Allie and Revik were off doing their honeymoon shit. Jon was in his own fucking world, studying seer religion and whatever the hell else he and Vash did in their secret monk club or whatever…”
Trailing, she stared off to the side, remembering.
Exhaling, she added, “Even when I hung out with them, they were either too wrapped up in their own crap to notice me… or they wanted to talk just like Chandre did. No one would just let me work through it on my own. They wouldn’t just be with me… they had to try and fix me all the time. I needed someone like Baguen. I fucking needed him.”
Keeping his face still, Balidor nodded.
“I understand.”
“No,” she snapped. “You don’t. Clearly. You’ve got that fucking judging look back on your face––”
“I have nothing of the kind––”
“Bullshit,” she said. “Bullshit, Balidor.
His jaw hardened to match hers, but still he didn’t move, or look away from her face. He knew he should probably let it go, let her change the subject, but he couldn’t quite do that, either.
He also couldn’t help his answer.
“Of course I understand,” he said, his voice harder. “You needed someone stupid. Someone you could push around. Someone who was either too clueless, too indifferent, or too weak to push back… preferably all three. Someone you could shut up by giving him sex, who was happy as long as his cock was frequently wet.”
Her eyes shifted up, meeting his.
Briefly, he saw understanding reach her light, her expression.
He saw it occur to her, maybe for the first time, that she’d hurt him.
She’d hurt him when she chose Baguen over him.
Balidor found himself wondering if he’d ever even admitted that to himself.
Without waiting for her to speak, he slammed into her, angling up just to watch her eyes flinch, to see the pain ripple the softer lines of that expression.
He didn’t want to see softness from her. Not now.
Not even when that softness seemed to bother her as much as it did him.
It just made him want to believe it.
It made him want to believe it so fucking badly.
She let out a low moan when he arched into her again.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes… I needed something easy. I wanted someone who wouldn’t make demands on me. I wanted affection and sex without any goddamned therapy sessions.”
Looking at him, she winced at something she saw in his face.
Then her jaw jutted forward again.
“It’s not like it was a secret. Jon knew. Allie knew. Revik even seemed to think it was helping me.” She bit her lip, looking up at him. “So what?”
He nodded, but felt something in his chest start to hurt anyway, maybe just from the look on her face as she stared up at him.
He found himself slowing his body, despite the fact that other parts of him complained when he did. He felt his resistance to that more determined intensity in his light, but ignored it, slowing more, even as he drove into her deeper. That longing completely overpowered the part of him that just wanted to get off, to get this out of his system, to stop obsessing on her.
It made him want to draw things out instead.
It made him want to force her to see him.
He opened his light more.
More than he had with Yarli, especially the last few months they’d been together. More than he had with anyone in the past few years.
More than with anyone since Allie––
Cass flinched.
He looked down.
He’d shifted most of his weight on top of her as he slid his light into hers, coiling it into her aleimi as he pressed down with his abdomen and chest.
“Fuck you,” she said, her voice openly angry.
It didn’t sound like posturing that time.
It didn’t feel like posturing, either.
He knew why she said it.
He’d been thinking about Allie.
Maybe worse, or maybe irrelevant, he’d been thinking about fucking Allie.
Either way, he acknowledged her words with a nod.
“I won’t do it again,” he said.
He meant it, but he could tell she didn’t believe him.
Or maybe she just didn’t care. Maybe him having done it the one time was enough to infuriate her. She glared up at him… at least until he ground into her harder, using most of his light along with his body. He was so open now, he felt light-headed. A kind of dizziness tilted his light, making him groan when he realized she was pulling on him to open even more.
He fought not to come… fought it…
Eventually the training won out.
He pulled his body back under control.
“Cass…” he gasped then. “Cassandra…?” He didn’t know what he wanted to ask until he said it. “Did you ever want me?” Clenching his jaw, he forced himself to go on. “Not just in here. Not just when you’re bored and I’m the only one you see, the only other light you feel. Did you ever really want me?”
Her pain worsened.
He felt her frustration at the chains, even as she glared up at him, arching her body up against his.
“What do you care?” she said.
She was still angry about his fleeting thought of Allie.
Briefly, he felt the child there, from their shared dreams.
He felt that sheen of toughness, her “I don’t care” and all the times he’d heard her say it, past and present. He felt the bullshit she fed the boys who used her for sex, coaxing blowjobs off her in parked cars when she desperately needed some kind of affection from them instead.
He saw them through her eyes, even now.
He saw himself in them from that tilted lens––lying to her and fucking her and then telling all of their friends what an easy mark she was. He felt that cynicism and anger waver, grow porous as she stared up at him from behind it.
His heart opened more.
“I love you,” he told her, gruff.
She winced… violently that time. Then her eyes widened in fear.
He clicked at her softly. “But you know that, too.”
He didn’t think she’d answer him.
That time, she didn’t.
He didn’t wait for very long. Instead he closed his eyes, putting every ounce of his mind and concentration into his light––into what his light could do to hers. It was one thing he had. It was one thing he could do, having as much control over his light as he did.
He could do this.
When he finally let her come, some forty or so minutes later, she let out a drawn-out cry that brought a heated plume of satisfaction somewhere deep in his belly.
He didn’t stop but drew it out of her longer… then again… listening to her beg him even as he used his light to control hers. He stayed open through all of it, even as he tried to keep it off his face, out of his expression.
He knew she probably saw it anyway.
He knew she could see past him, past the collar. She could do it maybe more effectively than he could do it to her, despite all the years he had over her, his Adhipan training, all of the hours and days and weeks culminating in decades
––even centuries––he’d spent honing his skills.
He didn’t let himself think very much about what he was doing.
He didn’t let himself think very much about why.
He didn’t want to, so he just… didn’t.
Ten
Not Exactly Subtle
He woke on a cold metal floor… jerking in panic when his mind and light told him he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.
He wasn’t alone.
Somehow, his mind registered that first.
His naked side and leg pressed into organic metal.
Before he noticed that, he felt her. A smaller body curled up against his chest, heating him from the center out to the ends of his limbs. Her cuffed hands folded in front of her in a soft position, making her look even smaller next to him than she already was.
He found himself relaxing even as he frowned, watching her face smoothed in sleep.
How had he let himself fall asleep in here?
That was beyond just taking a calculated risk.
That had been out and out stupid.
His eyes shifted, focusing on where he knew the camera lived in the organic-paned wall. He had to assume more than just Maygar had gotten an eyeful by now. Balidor’s mental and physical clocks told him he’d closed his eyes for at least a few hours.
When he slid into the higher parts of his aleimi, his living light confirmed the same thing.
It was morning now.
He could only guess at the exact time, but outside of this tank, the sun was up. He could almost feel the star’s aleimi above him through the ship’s bulkheads.
It was Christmas, he remembered.
Exhaling, he combed a hand through his hair.
Well, if they had seen, it didn’t matter now.
Truthfully, it might not have mattered regardless. There was a good chance Jon thought over their conversation earlier and decided he was obligated to tell Allie and Revik what Balidor had been up to, anyway.
Wincing, he started to extricate himself from Cass without waking her.
He’d only just taken his arm out from around her when the door alarm started bleeping at him, letting him know someone was about to enter.
He froze, staring at that blinking light.
It hit him that they had two minutes, tops, before whoever was out there made it through the security protocols.
A Glint of Light Page 11
