FALL (The Senses)

by Paterson, Cindy

  Xamien turned away. Goodbye Kitten. He Traced home.

  Waleron was afraid to let go as he held Delara in his arms. Every inhale he breathed this woman, every heart beat was for her, and every day he had died a little more without her.

  He knew being with her was a risk. His Scar would rise at some point, but now that he had her in his arms…he’d never learn to live without her again. He wasn’t strong enough. His heart had barely beaten since he’d walked away from her the last time. To survive that…no, leaving the Talde would be his only option. He’d never be able to watch her walk into a room again and not have her. Everything inside him belonged to her, fed off her. The pills had numbed out so much of his emotions, but even if he took them again…he’d remember. He’d need her. It was too late to ever go back.

  Her fingers stroked the back of his neck. It was a gentle motion as if she wasn’t even aware she was doing it. But he knew. He felt all of her, every breath, every touch…god, he’d wanted this for so long.

  He closed his eyes, his lips lingering on her skin just below her ear. “I’m taking you home.” The stroking on the back of his neck faltered and his heart rate tripled as fear coursed through his veins. If she said no to him now…if all she’d said before was because of the duress of Tarek…

  She pulled back and his breath left his lungs. Oh Jesus. No. Don’t walk away from me now. Don’t leave me.

  She looked away from him and his stomach revolted.

  She bit her lower lip as he stared, watching as her tongue flicked out and wet the surface. He didn’t want to look at her eyes. He’d know exactly what she was thinking. He kept her thoughts from him mind, afraid to hear the words.

  When she ran one finger down his arm, a slow stroke, he jerked, his eyes having no choice but to meet hers. And then he breathed.

  “I’ll go anywhere with you, Waleron.”

  Waleron Traced with Delara clutched in his arms.

  ****

  Damien knew he’d never go back. There was too much hurt that lived inside him. Anger at himself. At Abby. She’d left him. There were no words to ever take away what she’d done to him—again.

  The love he felt for her was polluted now. He was so angry with her. Betrayed. And yes, there was hate.

  She’d left him. He’d grieved her death for eight months. The suffering he endured—the fear of living without her, the ache in his heart, the absolute destruction of his insides every single day.

  But then she was alive. The elation, the hope.

  The moment he’d seen her, it was like he’d found salvation. Abby was in his arms again. He didn’t give a shit if she drank blood, as long as she was with him. He’d held her, kissed her.

  How had he been so wrong about her? He’d trusted her. It was like she’d taken a knife a gutted him until he died inside.

  Abby did that to him.

  Christ he’d ask her to change him. Make him a vamp. Anything to keep her. But she’d lied. Promised to change him. She’d cried. She’d kissed him. Told him, she wasn’t strong enough to let him drink from her. So she drank from him first.

  Her fangs puncturing his neck had been erotic and painful at the same time. Her lips sucked his neck as she drew on his blood. He’d felt the weakness, knew she was taking too much, but he trusted her with everything he had.

  He loved her. He’d die for her.

  And she’d betrayed him. She’d drained him of his blood until he was so weak he’d passed out.

  Then she left him. Again.

  He smashed his fist into the handlebars of the Ducati. “Bitch.”

  No. He’d never go back. Never let himself feel again. Numbness seeped into his veins. A shield encased his heart. She’d done that.

  Jasper approached with two coffees in hand. He had this cocky yet knowing grin on his face. Damien had realized pretty quickly that Jasper was arrogant, deadly, and could handle a bike like he’d never seen before.

  “Never take it out on the bike, buddy.” Jasper passed him a coffee then casually threw a leg over his bike. “You going after her?”

  “Nope.”

  Jasper nodded, his lips pursed together as if thinking. He took a sip of the hot liquid. “Going back home anytime soon?”

  “Nope.”

  The corner of Jasper’s lip curved up. “Feel like kicking some ass? I could use a hand. Money is kickass. Women are even better.”

  Damien watched Jasper carefully. Assassin? Always on the move. Never a place to call home. Everyone was your enemy. Killing for money and it didn’t matter what they were. Humans. CWOs, vamps. Everyone was fair game for an assassin. Highest bidder won.

  No laws. No rules.

  Yes, he’d kill. There was nothing left to stop him.

  She’d stolen his soul. Sucked it from his blood. And now he was going to take it from anyone who got in his path. There was nothing to save him now.

  “Sounds perfect,” Damien said.

  Chapter 24

  Delara felt her body come back into form, Waleron’s arms still around her. “Where are we?”

  “My house.” He let her go and stepped back.

  Cold shivers ran down her skin the moment he did. There was this hesitation between them. An uncertainty. Neither of them knew where they stood with one another. There had been so much pain and hurt, denial and even hatred. It still lay buried inside both of them and erasing it was impossible. All they could do was write over it and make new memories.

  They were in a massive foyer; a wide staircase was in front of her with barren walls. As she peered past his shoulder, she noticed that everywhere she looked was cold and sterile. Clean white walls and dark hardwood floors. A narrow, black table sat against the wall beside the front door. His car keys sat in a simple glass dish.

  She walked past him and looked into what could be considered a living room but all it had was one oversized black leather chair facing a massive stone fireplace. A few books lay scattered on the floor. There wasn’t even a carpet, just cold floors. He lived like this. Like he did his life. Alone. No reminders. No comforts. Nothing.

  She turned to him. He was waiting, watching her with what appeared to be concern and worry. Was he worried she’d reject him because of how he lived? Didn’t he realize that nothing mattered except him? It always had been just him.

  She slowly walked towards him. The muscles in his forearms flexed and then relaxed as she gave him a half-smile. “I can’t say I love it.” His scowl appeared and she quickly continued, “But I love you. I really don’t care where you live or what it looks like. Except…I do hope you at least have some sort of bed.” She raised her brows.

  Passion swirled in the depths of his blue eyes. His hand reached forward, linking his fingers into hers, a puzzle being put together— it fit. They fit.

  “Delara.” He didn’t need much to pull her up against him, she was more than willing. He took her other hand and interlocked it with his too. “Will you…will you be with me? Not just for tonight, but for every night. Will you take a chance on me?” His brows lowered. “But baby, once I take you, I won’t ever let you walk away. I won’t be able to.”

  She tried to catch the happy sob in her throat, but when his hands squeezed her own it escaped. Didn’t he already know her answer? She’d lived for him. Every night she’d been with him. Whoever she’d slept with, wherever she’d been, he’d been there. She’d taken a chance on him a long time ago. It destroyed her. It was also her survival.

  She answered him the only way she could. “I fit in you.”

  His face contorted as if he was in pain and he looked away. “And when you see my rage—”

  “It doesn’t matter. I won’t leave you.” No, she suspected she never would again. He’d control his rage with the pills and she’d accept that. If it was the only way to have him, then she’d take it. They’d driven one another away for too long.

  When his eyes met hers again, tainted grief lived. Like he was feeling what they’d suffered and the only way to get rid
of it was time. But they also held desire, the coldness melted away to the craving, the passion they’d both been denied.

  He crushed his lips to her and then drew back. “If you leave, it’ll erase me.”

  She leaned forward, placing her lips against his. The tingling. The warmth. God, just his touch brought everything to a standstill. “I won’t leave you,” she reiterated. It was like he needed constant reassurance from her. Xamien had been right, Waleron was afraid. Scared that she’d walk away. A man she barely recognized stood before her. Broken and open to her. But he was alive and that was all that mattered. “Bedroom?”

  He nodded and before she knew what was happening she found herself in his bedroom. If you could call it that, with merely an oversized bed wearing black sheets and two lonely pillows sitting in the middle of the room. She turned and…

  Her breath hitched as she stared at the large oil painting on his wall. It was her. A long time ago. She was standing beneath a tree, leaning up against it. A smile played at her lips—sexy, curious, and playful. And her eyes…the painter captured the desire inflamed in their depths as she stared up at something—or someone. Him. She stared at Waleron. The day they’d met.

  “How did you…” She walked towards it, mesmerized and confused. He’d kept this in his bedroom all these years? When he was driving her away? When he was desperate to put a barrier between them? But yet he came back here to see her in his room every night?

  “I had a photo of you taken sixteen years ago. I hired a painter and flew him to the U.K. He painted this right in that spot.”

  Waleron came up behind her, his chest close but not touching. She could feel every ounce of him. There was a magnetic pull drawing her backwards to lean into him. And she did.

  His arms reached around her waist and he arranged her so she was snug against him. His breath tickled her neck and sent shivers across her skin. “A day without you was a day in hell. This is how I survived.”

  It was too much to bear. They’d self-destructed too long. He felt the urgency the same moment she did.

  Their lips met in frenzied wildness. His hands crushed her to him, captured into an embrace that fed off their starvation. Clothes were thrown aside and hunger was sated as they both let go of the pain.

  He ripped her bra from her chest and his lips found her nipples, first one then the other, his teeth grazing across the sensitive flesh with pleasure and pain. She tore his shirt from his back and stroked over his—

  “Christ Waleron!” His back was still raw from Tarek’s abuse. Why hadn’t Anstice finished healing him? He no longer bled, but he still had welts. Waleron had let Anstice heal him enough so he was able to Trace.

  She tried to pull back, but he picked her up and tossed her on the bed. “No, Delara. I won’t stop.” He stalked towards her. “I can’t.”

  “But your back.” She was horrified. His back had been ripped to shreds. He needed more healing. He’d scar.

  He crawled on top of her, his weight sinking them further into the mattress. “You’re feeding a hunger that has been starved for a thousand years. I can’t stop, baby.”

  “A thousand years?”

  “Hmm,” he said while running his tongue between her breasts. Delara groaned and her back arched off the bed.

  When she managed to find her voice she said, “We weren’t alive then.”

  He hovered on top of her, his finger tracing the line of her jaw. The gentle caress was unexpected from him. Even when they’d been together before he’d been rough in bed. It was different today. The urgency was still there, but also a gentleness…as if he was savoring every moment. “I loved you before we existed, Delara. It was preordained. It always was, Maitagarri.” He put his forehead against hers, their lips a breath away. Heat throbbed between them as he closed his eyes and just breathed. “That’s why it hurt so much. Why you cut. Why I became a man I hated. We’re unable to be apart. When we aren’t together it…it wrecks us.”

  Yes, it did. It does. But he’d done it to them. He refused to trust love. He was so wrapped up with his emotion-numbing drugs and his oaths that he forgot to trust what had always been between them.

  He gave up on them. But hadn’t she? She hadn’t trusted him either. Not after seeing him with Trinity and being driven into Xamien’s arms.

  Waleron caressed her cheek, each breath taking in hers as they lay silent together. His eyes were still closed, his heart racing beneath her, the warmth of desire meshing together. She hated to break this moment, but she needed to hear something from him. Their separation ruined her once. Surviving it again was…unbearable.

  “If we need her visions will you…” Oh god, even the words refused to emerge. But the insecurity raised its damaged head whenever Trinity was mentioned. Or thought of.

  Waleron’s eyes flew open and the caressing stopped. “Oh Jesus baby. No. Never again.” He cradled her face in his hands, the expression in his face so tortured.

  She had to ask. “Did you like being with her?”

  His mouth crushed over hers in a violent assault, pushing past the barriers of her teeth as his tongue drove into her, sucking, tasting, discovering once again the rapture of what lay between them. He was crazed for a few minutes, almost like he was afraid to stop kissing her lest she leave. “Baby. Maitagarri. Don’t you know…?” He fell back on the pillow his arm over his eyes. “I was so drugged up I can’t even remember being with her. I popped so many damn pills to try and numb out what I had to do. I hated it. I cringed at her touch.” He sat up grabbed her, pulling her down on top of him, so her head rested on his chest. “After Jasmine.” He paused and she could hear his heart beat faster. “She touched me…Jasmine’s hands touched me intimately all the time. She wanted me to feel. To react to her. And Christ sometimes my body did. Not me. But my body. I hated it so much. My body for reacting. Myself for being weak. Most of all I began to hate any woman’s touch.” He tightened his hold. “Except yours. I was scared when you touched me that night. Of how I’d react, but then I craved it. God, I needed it. But the drugs helped numb that too after a while.”

  Delara was crying now. For him. For what Jasmine had done. For what she’d done. For everything that had tried to keep them apart.

  But a burned city could be rebuilt as long as the land remained. There love was the foundation, it couldn’t be dug up. It couldn’t be destroyed because it was part of the land. It was for eternity.

  She was done waiting. “I need you. I’ve always needed you.” It was more than desire between them, it was an emotional connection. Always had been from the moment their eyes met in a different time when they were even different people. But their love had remained as they changed over time. Both of them suffering beyond immeasurable circumstances.

  Their love remained even when she’d thought he didn’t believe in love. But it had been the drugs making him so cold to what was beating inside him, to the love that refused to be doused.

  “Baby.” Waleron nuzzled her neck, the slight roughness of his scruff tickling her skin. “I’m going to make love to you now. And for the next several hours. Maybe months if you let me.”

  Wetness clung to the warm flesh between her legs. The swarm of butterflies in her stomach took flight. And her breath became short gasps. Her heart…her heart had taken off in a mad gallop the moment she woke on the grass and saw him. It had yet to slow down.

  “Okay.”

  That was all he needed. One word. Waleron rolled so he was on top of her, palms sinking into the mattress on either side of her head.

  The weight of his body sunk down. “Spread your legs, baby.” A sound escaped the back of his throat. His body felt every inch of hers. It felt so good to groan. To not think about having to leave her—to feel. Even when his Scar chose to awaken again, he’d stay. He was never leaving this woman.

  Her hand was up behind his neck trying to pull his head down to kiss him, but he needed a moment. Christ he needed a thousand moments. This woman he’d wanted for so long, ached
and anguished for, she was beneath him. Finally.

  His emotions were all over the place. Desire. Love. Fear. That’d been so diluted and now they were shooting off in sparks. So much buried beneath a blanket of drugs—except anger. That had always been there. Calmer. More controlled, but still alive. Maybe because of his Scar? Or maybe because Waleron couldn’t have what everything inside him wanted? Even his Scar wanted her.

  But now—Jesus. She was here with him. Fuck, he’d been so alone without her. She’d never know how much. She’d never realize that he never touched another woman. She would feel guilty and had no reason to be. It didn’t matter anymore. This woman was his and he was hers.

  “Waleron?”

  How long had he been staring down into her coffee eyes? Never long enough. “I’m here, baby. I’ll always be here.” He lowered his head and tasted what he swore was born to be his. Their mouths interlocked with a slow languish, moving across warm, plush lips; their tongues swept inside trying to ease the urgency that threatened to unleash.

  It was like the first time again. A slow, teasing exploration of one another’s bodies. He watched her every second as he tasted every inch of her skin. He watched how her head sunk further into the pillow and heard how she made this soft, aching noise that made his groin twitch. He watched how her lips parted when she gasped then sighed.

  They finished undressing one another silently, every touch of her skin to his bare flesh renewing their fever. Their eyes rarely left one another, never wanting to let the other go... Disbelief that this was happening and needing the constant reminder that it was real.

  When his fingers slid through her wetness, he swore beneath his breath and the corners of her lips hinted upward. Yes, he was different now, but they were the same—this was the same and yet…better.