Scattered Ashes

by Annie Anderson

  “Good,” I whispered as he picked me up and carried me out into the light.

  AURELIA

  It takes no time at all to get to our room. When did I start thinking of it as ‘our’ room? The bedclothes are still in shambles, so I turn to the linen closet in the bathroom for replacement sheets, dashing the tears from my cheeks on the way.

  Of course, I had to cry in front of him. Why not? I’ve already been a basket case and a bitch today. Why not add in an emotional fucking train wreck and round out the trifecta? I snap the sheets on the bed and search for a hamper to toss the old ones in. I’m finally rid of them when Rhys slams into the room.

  “Why do you blame yourself? Why can’t you put the blame on Iva where it belongs?” he asks me on a half shout.

  Why couldn’t he just leave it alone? Push. Push. Push. I take a deep breath and snap.

  “Because she didn’t stab him! You did!” I scream at him.

  “And where would we be if I didn’t? I didn’t go after him. He came after me. We were already bound. What would you have had me do?” he asks roughly on a parting shot as he looks down at the floor, then slams out of the room for the second time today.

  I sigh out a shaking breath, falling back the few inches until my back hits the frame of the bathroom door.

  Shit.

  The door opens again, and he’s back pissed as all hell. He whips the door closed behind him and plants his feet, his hands in fists at his sides.

  “Do you think I wanted to kill him? Do you think I wanted to watch you hate me for the last goddamn century? Do you think I asked for these fucking scars? Do you think I wanted to be tortured for days on end until I said yes to the binding? What makes scars like this on us, Ari? Huh? What makes these scars?” he asks me on a yell as he roughly tugs the collar of his shirt away to reveal thick white scars against his olive skin. They start at the middle of his thick, corded neck and disappear below the remaining fabric.

  The only thing that could make those scars permanent is a Morganite knife. It’s why I have two full sleeves, why I have so much ink covering the wounds of torture inflicted by Iva’s hands. The torture Rhys saved me from.

  But no one saved him.

  No one stopped his torture until Iva got what she wanted. The tears are flowing freely now, dripping from my chin, down to my chest, thinking of the agony he must have endured. I can’t open my mouth enough to answer him. If I open my mouth, the keening cry caged in my throat will come out and I can’t…

  I can’t.

  Oh, God. My poor Rhys. What did they do to you?

  “I did not ask to be bound to you. I did not ask to tie myself to someone else’s woman. I did not ask for this. And you piling guilt on me, blaming me for his death, is not right. Yes, I feel guilty. Yes. I’m sorry he’s dead. But I’d do it all over again if it meant I didn’t have to kill you. I’d live the last century mired in the guilt of killing him. I’d do it all again if it meant you were breathing.”

  “Why?” I whisper, amazed I can even ask the question. A dawning look of comprehension crosses his face and suddenly he’s not three feet away, he’s right there in front of me with my face in his hands.

  “Why what? Why save you? Because I’ve loved you since I was twelve years old, and you told your mother you’d rather eat a pinecone than wear a corset. I loved you when you didn’t love me. I loved you when you were married to someone else. I loved you when you were pregnant with another man’s child. And I loved you even when you hated me. I loved you before we were bound… and I love you still.”

  I nod my head. For once my head is empty of all the trash that brings me down every day. No guilty feelings, no recriminations. Nothing but him and the feeling of his rough, callused hands cupping my jaw and the tips of his fingers softly scraping my scalp. I close my eyes and touch my forehead to his.

  The relief makes me shudder. Letting it go, letting the deaths of Lucien and my unborn child go. Letting a century and a half of agony go.

  All of it.

  His lips brush mine, sliding back and forth against my mouth, and my lips part to breathe him in. I can taste his scent on my tongue. It is a faint mix of the scotch he’s been drowning himself in, spice and pine and something altogether Rhys. And that is something that could take days or weeks or lifetimes for me to describe.

  And then he’s kissing me for real. His lips are softer than I imagined. They cradle mine delicately, and then they turn harder, firmer, fiercer as his hands move from my cheeks to my hips to haul me to him.

  My hands move, too. They fist in his shirt at his waist, pulling, tugging to get him closer. I need him closer. His tongue strokes into my mouth and the taste, God, it’s as if I was made to kiss him. His kiss makes my belly dip and knot and my skin flush. His kiss makes my whole body ache with want for him. How did I fight the pull of the bond for so long?

  I can’t get close enough.

  His hands are burning hot on my back as they climb under my shirt, biting into my skin in the best possible way. I faintly hear a rip and feel a tug on my arms and then my shirt is gone. But there is still fabric in the way. The problem is quickly remedied when I rip open his button-up like it’s tissue paper at a birthday party. I pull my mouth from his, but just barely. Both of us are breathing hard, sharing the crackling air between our scarcely parted lips. I open my eyes and peer into the rich coffee color of his.

  I glance down, and I’m horrified at what I see. Not because Rhys is ugly, he could never be ugly. He could be missing limbs, his face could be half gone, and it wouldn’t matter. I’m horrified because of what was done to this beautiful man. How much pain he must have endured to keep from breaking my heart. How could I have blamed him for a century? How could I hate him?

  He endured his agony, too.

  His scars run the length of his torso, extending into his trousers. Five thick, white scars as wide as a pencil run from his neck down through his pectoral and down his ribs through the muscles of his eight-pack. What looks like three burns, as big as my hand, mar his Legion markings at his abdomen.

  And the last one. The one I inflicted. The three-inch scar sitting just above his belt is faint compared to the others he’s suffered.

  I gasp out a sob as my shaking hand covers the worst of the burns. My hand is pressing in as if to heal the ruined flesh. His skin is warm and alive as I rest my forehead on his heart.

  “I’m so sorry,” I sob out. “It’s my fault, all my fault. I’m so sorry,” I keen.

  “Shh, baby. Shh. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this to me. None of this is your fault,” his gruff voice insists on a whisper, his hands tilting my face to his. He slants his head, and his lips are once again on mine. I clutch him to me, my fingers digging into his shoulders. And then he pulls me up, his wide, strong hands at my ass, my legs wrapping around his back.

  My hands immediately go to his hair, pulling his head to the side so I can taste the skin at his neck, his shoulder, nibbling at the flesh softly. He growls at the feeling of my lips on his skin and walks backward towards the bed. Then he turns us, half dropping me, half laying me on the mattress, his hands going to my shoes, yanking them off with a careless tug, tossing them over his shoulder.

  I sit up, and my fingers are already working the buckle of his belt. Just as I pull the first button of his jeans, his hands cup my face, kissing me with a new heat. We fall back onto the mattress, and his mouth moves to my neck, kissing, licking, biting, and I can’t contain the low moan pulled from my throat.

  I reach into his jeans, bypassing the remaining buttons and his tight boxer briefs so I can wrap my hand around him. Before I can give him a good stroke, he grabs my hands, pulling my arms above my head, pressing them into the mattress. He leaves my hands there as he runs his callused finger down my arms, over my breasts, down my stomach to my jeans. His fingers quickly work the button and zipper, and he pulls the denim down my legs along with my panties.

  My patience runs out, and I move from my back to m
y knees, reaching for his jeans. They have to come off.

  Now.

  I get his pants pushed past his knees and before he can stop me, I wrap my hand around his impressive cock and bring it to my lips; sucking him in as far as I can take. His scent is stronger here, and the taste of him is better. The groan I get in response makes the wetness between my legs go from damp to flooded. I get maybe three tugs of my mouth in before I’m on my back again, his wide shoulders between my thighs. His rough hands are under my bottom, and he is devouring me, his tongue at my opening, his lips on my clit, gently sucking on that bundle of nerves. I’m about to come, and it’s too quick.

  It took me one hundred and sixty years to get over our shit; I’m not coming in the first ten minutes, dammit.

  “You,” I say, “I wanna come with you.” I’m tugging him up, kissing myself off his lips, loving the taste of my wetness on his tongue. His hands leave my ass and go to his cock, running it up and down my slit before notching it at my opening.

  “Please, honey. Please,” I plead with him, and he gives me what I want when he presses his thick flesh into me all the way to the hilt. My moan is drowned out by his growl and there is a slight pause before he’s moving, thrusting into me hard enough to steal my breath, but slow enough to make it sweet. And it’s good. So good.

  I wrap my legs around his thighs and move my hips in time with his thrusts, meeting him stroke for stroke. One of his hands burrows under my back, and the other finds my hair. And then we’re sitting up, my body on top of his, taking his cock deeper, but even sweeter, our mouths barely touching. Our breath mingling in the moans and growls of our hunger.

  He turns us, so I am again on my back, and I feel it. He must feel it too because his thrusts become faster, rougher, less controlled, and there it is. I look right into his eyes and come on a gasped moan, my insides clamping down hard enough to ache, but in the best way. His coffee-colored eyes narrow to slits and he grits his teeth and comes on a strangled groan, his fingertips digging into my thigh hard enough to bruise, but I don’t care. The bite of pain at the end is enough to make my pussy flutter around his cock in aftershocks.

  He kisses me then. Hard and passionate, but sweet too. He gently pulls out of me and rests his head on my chest, his breath tickling the skin of my breast.

  “I love you too, you know,” I say. Because it’s true. I love him, and I’m just now figuring out, I’ve loved him for a long time. Before Lucien. Before he saved me. Before it all went to shit.

  “I know. I was just waiting for you to come around. I knew you’d get it eventually,” he says with a relieved smile. He questioned it, and my declaration moved a weight off his chest.

  “Good you know me so well.”

  “I’m sure there’s more to know. It might take me a while. Mind me sticking around?”

  I pull his head up and look him dead in the eye. “You’d better,” I whisper my demand, and he nods at me with a grin.

  He’d damn well better.

  10

  Something New Every Day

  RHYS

  I wake up to the best thing I’ve felt in my lifetime: Aurelia’s soft, warm, naked body half on top of mine. Her head is resting on my chest; one hand pressing into the scars on my stomach, and one leg curled around mine. Even in sleep, she keeps trying to heal the wounds I suffered. I have one arm banded around her back, and the other hand is buried in her black hair, massaging her scalp.

  My mind is drifting, and for once in my life, I’m not focused on anything but the girl in my arms and the next time I can get her to moan for me. God, her sexy, sweet moan. I want to bottle it. I want to brand it into my brain. I want to get her to make it a thousand, no, a million more times. I want to watch her come apart forever. I feel the smile pull at my lips and on that thought, I tug on the sheet that’s covering her luscious ass.

  Her body is corded in muscle, but she’s soft in all the right places, her ass being one of them. I carefully roll us, getting her on her back without rousing her and then begin my wake-up call with a soft nip at her throat. That earns me a sleepy snuffle, so I move lower and cup her breast with my palm, and give her nipple a gentle tug with my teeth before sucking it into my mouth. That wins me a squirm. I smile around her breast and move lower.

  When I kiss and nip at her ribs and stomach, she gasps awake on a moan. I never knew that was an erogenous zone. Guess you learn something new every day.

  “Morning,” she grumbles on a rough sigh. Her lips are puffy from kissing me all night, and she has the epitome of ‘had sex all night’ hair, but she’s never looked more beautiful. Her eyes are half-closed, and that makes me want to do naughty things to get her to wake up. Maybe when she’s slippery and soapy. Mmm.

  “Oh, good. You’re awake,” I say brightly as if I didn’t just rouse her from a dead sleep. “Wanna take a shower? You’re awfully sticky.” One lone eyebrow rises. I have a feeling I’m not going to get much farther without some incentive.

  “If you get out of bed right now and let me do naughty things to you in the shower, I’ll make you an entire pot of coffee.”

  Her eyes narrow.

  “And I’ll make you breakfast.”

  Her eyes narrow into slits.

  “That includes bacon.”

  “Deal,” she says as she pops out of bed like a cork.

  I’ve been had. This sexy little minx just played me. And I have zero problems with that.

  She saunters into the bathroom naked like she just won a prize, and if my shitty ass cooking can be called a trophy, I’m not going to dissuade her. She’s brushing her teeth at her vanity, which might be a good idea if I plan on tasting her mouth in the shower. I flip on the taps on my side as she’s spitting into the sink, but she has her hand blocking her mouth so I can’t see her spit. It’s so cute I have to give her shit for it.

  “You’re such a girl!” I laugh around my toothbrush, foam coating my lips.

  “I am a girl. And excuse me, but I’ve never brushed my teeth in front of anyone before, I was trying to be polite. I could be totally gross and hawk a huge loogie in front of you, would you like that better?”

  Gross.

  “No. You go right on ahead being girly. I’ll be over here not giving you an ounce of shit for it.”

  She nods her head and flounces to the shower like she doesn’t have a care in the world. The change in her is remarkable. Yesterday, if someone told me I would see Aurelia flounce anywhere, I’d call them a fucking liar.

  She warms up the shower as I finish up, and I can see the silhouette of her curves in the fogged glass. I turn to watch as she puts on a little show for me. Meeting my eyes through the shower door, she squeezes soap into her palm and then rubs the suds down her ample chest, over her taut, flat stomach and down her smooth thighs. I have to reach behind me to grip the counter, or I’m going to Hulk out and break something. My dick is already standing at full attention. I’m quickly granted a reprieve because she crooks her finger, and I’m in the shower before she can blink.

  I step in and turn her body, so her back is to me, her smooth, colorful skin against mine. My hands take over for hers, and I run my fingers over the dips and curves of her flesh. I start at her slim neck running my hands down her shoulders, over the swell of her breasts, watching over her shoulder as her nipples tighten into sharp points. I circle her ribs in my hands, watching her shudder as I move my hands down her stomach and in between her legs.

  She moans when my fingers find her clit, and she gets louder when they tease her opening. She’s squirming now, having the hardest time waiting for me, and her ass rubs teasingly against my cock. At that, my control breaks, and I spin her, pulling her up by her ass cheeks and slam us against the rough tile wall. Her lips are on mine, her fingers in my hair, and she’s wriggling. I’m having the hardest time holding onto her, trying to line my dick up to her wet heat. The soap that only seconds ago was so sexy slipping over her skin is now a serious hindrance.

  Finally, I think fuc
k it, and we tumble out of the shower onto the plush bath rug clawing and tugging at each other in the best kind of frenzy. I sit her slippery, squirmy ass on the cold granite vanity, grab my cock, and thrust into her searing wet heat.

  The half-growl, half-moan I get in response goes straight down my spine to my dick. I band my arm around her back and grasp her hip with my other hand and start thrusting hard and fast. Her legs wrap around me tight, her heels digging into my ass, her fingers pulling at my hair, her lips sucking at my tongue. I’m not going to last, and dammit she’s going to come before me. I move my hand in between us and find her clit with the pad of my thumb. I rub once, twice and then…

  “Rhys!” she gasps out, and her pussy clamps like a vice around my cock as she comes.

  Thank God.

  I pick her up off the vanity and then we’re down on the bath rug, and I’m driving into her, listening to her moan, feeling her pussy trembling in aftershocks.

  “Oh my God, baby,” she moans, and I feel it.

  She’s going to come on my cock again. I slam into her once, twice, and as her whole body convulses in another orgasm, I lose myself. Thrusting in once more, I plant my cock, growling into the skin of her neck.

  It takes a while to come down, and I struggle to catch my breath, feeling somewhat smug as she tries to do the same.

  “Does that still count as naughty things in the shower? ‘Cause I’m hungry, and you promised breakfast.”

  “Maybe.” And then we get to the hard part. The part I wanted to put off, but I don’t think I can anymore. This is the make or break part, and I really hope she’s not going to break me.

  “You gonna let me kiss you where people can see?” I ask.

  “Probably. If you’re good and don’t piss me off,” she says with a sardonic smile, but I know she means it. Always with the joke, my girl.

  “You gonna stick with me? Be with me for real?” I ask as I look in her mint green eyes, gauging her expression.