Light Beyond the Darkness

by Tami Lund

  She shook her head and shifted her gaze to the side. He scooped her up and pulled her into his lap. She curled up there, like a child, except his thoughts were not at all pure and heartwarming. Not when she clung to him like this, as if she needed to touch him just to take her next breath. While he appreciated that, especially because he often felt the same way about her, he did not think it was because she was horny and wanted to have sex right at that moment.

  “Tell me,” he commanded gruffly.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the crook of his shoulder. “Nothing, really,” she insisted. “I just like…being with you, that’s all. You make me feel good about myself.”

  He stroked her back. “You should feel good about yourself,” he responded. “You’re a very special person, Carley,” he murmured as he continued to stroke. “I want to tell you about how I got the scars,” he said, and his hold tightened when she stiffened. “It’s important to me that you know. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

  “You don’t have to,” she insisted. “I know it must be painful to talk about.”

  “Not as much as it used to be.” It was the truth. Since Carley had come into his life, the pain and humiliation he’d experienced at Quentin’s hand had been dulled, and didn’t seem nearly as important anymore. It happened; it shouldn’t have, but it no longer controlled his life. He controlled his life, and he wanted that life to involve Carley.

  He wanted to mate with her. But first, he needed to tell her, to make sure she was willing to accept him, mistakes and all.

  “There was a girl. The pack master’s fling. He wasn’t loyal to his mate. They had separate bedrooms, and his was a revolving door. Tanner probably has half a dozen half siblings running around out there somewhere.”

  She made a halfhearted attempt to get him to stop talking about it, and he appreciated her concern, but he wanted to do this. It was important to their future.

  “Usually, I hardly noticed the girls that came and went. Everybody knew they were strictly off-limits. If Quentin found out you were messing with one of his lays, well, I can tell you from firsthand experience what he’d do.” He grimaced as his back tingled with phantom pains.

  “You slept with the pack master’s girlfriend?” She asked the question, looked curious, despite her insistence that he didn’t need to tell the story.

  “I didn’t mean to, at first. Hell, she wasn’t even my type.”

  “What is your type?”

  He grinned. “You.”

  He liked the way her cheeks pinked and she rolled her eyes, looking pleased and flustered at the same time.

  “She came on to me. Said she was bored with Quentin. Wanted to hook up with someone younger. The problem with being Quentin’s girlfriend was, you couldn’t end it. You were stuck in the position until he decided he was done with you.

  “Anyway, I should have said no. I did, at first. But she kept pushing me, kept flirting…” He trailed off, deciding she didn’t need the long version of how Ginger had seduced him.

  “Quentin walked in on us. We had been so caught up in the moment that we didn’t hear him return to the house.” He shifted his gaze away, looked toward the nearest window, at the darkened sky outside. “He made me lie on his pool table, had two of his cronies hold me down, while he whipped me with my own belt.” He said the words in a rush, to get them out, and flinched when she gasped, when he felt her inner turmoil.

  “Oh, Reid…”

  “It’s been five years. Long enough. I’m ready to move on, to put it behind me. To look forward to the future.”

  Carley twisted in his lap, so that her legs were wrapped around his waist. Tears shimmered in her beautiful blue eyes and her lush bottom lip pouted. “I’m so sorry.”

  He trailed his hands up her thighs, over her waist, and curled his arms around her back. “I know. But I don’t want you to be sorry. I just want you to be mine, and not leave me because of what I did.”

  “What you did?” She sounded confused.

  “I slept with someone else’s girlfriend. Whether I deserved the punishment or—”

  “You didn’t,” she insisted.

  “That’s beside the point. I never should have hooked up with Ginger in the first place. I should have said no. I don’t want you to think less of me because I didn’t.”

  The tears spilled onto her cheeks, and her eyelashes fluttered down to hide her eyes. “I don’t,” she said quietly.

  He used his thumbs to brush away the tears. “Carley, I want to mate with you.”

  Her gaze flew up to his, and her eyes widened, while her mouth formed a perfect O. For several long moments, nothing at all happened. Then she gave him a push, and he fell back against the bed. He knew his eyes were glowing, a sign of his excitement. She hadn’t said yes, but the way she leaned forward and kissed his lips, then his chin, covered with several days’ worth of stubble, told him she was turned on, caught up in the moment. He would need her assent, both verbal and physical, eventually, but for now, he was happy to let her take the lead.

  She kissed his ear, tugging gently with her teeth. He groaned and closed his eyes, savoring the feeling, the intensity of his reaction to her. She slowly began to shimmy down his body, kissing a path from his face down to his chest, where she tentatively licked one of his nipples. He sucked in a harsh breath, and his hands squeezed her backside, letting her know without words that he liked it. She did it again. And again.

  But she did not stop there. She shimmied farther, delivering kisses to the dark trail of hair that led down to his twitching erection. He held his breath when she hovered over his dick, eyeing it with trepidation.

  “You don’t have to,” he rasped, even though he wanted her to. Desperately.

  She looked up at him.

  “You don’t ever have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “Would it give you as much pleasure as it gives me when you—you know.” She blushed and dropped her gaze to his erection again.

  He barked out a laugh. “Oh yeah. But it’s okay. Trust me, any way I can have you, I’m happy. I swear.”

  She stroked his shaft, and he dropped his head back against the pillows and groaned.

  “I want to,” she whispered. Reid’s dick gave a happy little jerk. “Tell me if I’m doing it wrong,” she said hesitantly.

  “Just don’t use your teeth,” he said, his own clenched so tightly he was afraid he’d end up with lockjaw. She continued to stroke his erection. It felt so damn good. “Other than that, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and Reid wondered if she wasn’t about to crawl back up his body to have sex the old-fashioned way. Then she licked him, and he let out his breath on a hiss.

  “Is that okay?” she asked, sounding desperate for his approval.

  “Uh-huh.” His voice came out as a croak.

  She licked him again. And again. After a few more licks, she began to get into her own rhythm, first licking and then nibbling from the tip down to his balls. His hands were fists, twisted in the bedcovers, and he breathed through the need to thrust his hips, to explode with a powerful orgasm. He wanted to hold out for as long as he possibly could. Everything she did felt so damn good, he never wanted it to end.

  When she finally took him into her mouth, he bowed his body and his hands automatically reached down and cupped the back of her head. She pulled away and looked up at him. He dropped back against the bed, breathing heavily.

  “Sorry,” he said, gasping. “It just felt—fates be damned, it felt so damn good.”

  “Really?” She sounded surprised. He might have asked her why she was so surprised, except that she wrapped her lips around his erection again, and this time she began to suck at him, and he completely lost the ability to talk, think, or even breathe for long moments.

  When he felt his orgasm swell, he tried to push her away, but she grabbed his hips and dug her nails into his flesh and sucked e
ven harder. With a shout of pure, unadulterated pleasure, he came, exploded mindlessly with his climax.

  He lay there on his back, his heart galloping as it tried to charge out of his chest, his entire body sated and feeling better than it had in…ever. He knew he should open his eyes and look at Carley, deal with the fallout of what just happened. But he was having a hard time getting his eyelids to function at the moment, let alone any other part of his brain or body.

  A shadow fell across his face and he finally, reluctantly, forced his eyelids to lift. Carley hovered over him, kneeling next to his hip, as she sucked her finger into her mouth and gave him a contemplative look. His momentarily limp cock gave a little jump at the thoroughly erotic image of her with her finger in her mouth. He silently cursed himself because probably, he should feel guilty right now.

  “You—you okay?” he asked uncertainly.

  She canted her head and gave him a seductive smile. “I’m feeling rather pleased with myself at the moment, actually.”

  “You are?”

  She laughed. “I have never seen you quite so out of control before. And look—you’re glowing.”

  Reid lifted one hand and looked at it. She was right. He was glowing. He frowned. “That’s never happened before.”

  “You somehow used magic earlier, remember? I assume it’s my magic?” Her voice was teasing, but there was a note of…worry.

  He snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her down next to him, chuckling as he nuzzled her hair. “Unless just being in this coterie causes me to use lightbearer magic. Otherwise, yeah, it’s yours.” He rolled her onto her back and kneeled, his knees on either side of her thighs, his hands pressed into the blankets next to her head. “Yours is the only magic I ever want to feel.”

  The sudden jolt of fear he felt zap through her system concerned him. Why was she afraid? Finn and Cecilia seemed perfectly happy, despite their constant bickering, which Reid suspected was some sort of unique foreplay to them. Tanner and Olivia were without a doubt blissfully happy together. And now they all knew that shifters and lightbearers could procreate together, something he suspected Carley wanted.

  He personally had never given much thought to having pups. Well, truthfully, he had. He had figured he never would have them, back when he lived under Quentin Lyons’ rule. He had no desire to bring a pup into that world.

  But now…Now, the possibilities were endless. They could live in Chicago, she could move into his apartment, or they could move out to the burbs, buy a house, live like his sister and her mate. While they belonged to a pack, they lived in a regular neighborhood, among the humans. There was no reason he and Carley could not do the same. He’d be more than happy to bring a couple of pups into that world. As many as Carley wanted. And even if she wasn’t able to have children, he was okay with that too. So long as he could spend the rest of his life with her by his side, in his life, in his bed.

  He shifted his stance, lay down between her thighs, and cupped her breasts. “Don’t be afraid, Carley,” he whispered as he teased her nipples with the coarse hairs of his beard. “I won’t hurt you.” He sucked a nipple into his mouth, rolled it with his tongue. Her mouth opened on a silent O, and her back arched. She placed her hands on his shoulders, dug her fingernails into his skin.

  “I won’t let anything hurt you.” He switched his attention to the other breast. “Just stay with me.” He shimmied down her body, trailing kisses along her rib cage, over her quivering abdomen. “Don’t ever leave me.”

  Her stuttered response was odd.

  “I—I don’t want to.”

  *

  Friday morning arrived, and it was time to head back to Chicago. Carley had to report to work at the restaurant that evening, so they had to allow enough time to get back to the city before her shift began.

  She was surprised by the melancholy feeling she experienced. She liked her job at the restaurant, and she liked her human roommates. While she supposed she liked most of her fellow lightbearers as well, going back to Chicago had the added benefit of knowing that she would not have to look over her shoulder every few minutes, for fear of Miguel suddenly appearing out of the woodwork.

  Going back to Chicago also meant she would not be able to spend all of her time with Reid. She was shocked anew to discover that she’d thoroughly enjoyed spending nearly every single waking—and sleeping—moment with him over the last week. Once she went back to her grueling schedule at the restaurant, her time with him would be much more limited.

  Oh no.

  She shimmied out from under his arm, knocking over a glass perched on the edge of the bedside table. Luckily, Reid had drained the contents shortly before he fell asleep the night before, so it bounced harmlessly on the rug. She hurried into the bath chamber, her thoughts as erratic as her movements.

  She was falling for Reid Hennigan.

  Why she was surprised by this revelation was anyone’s guess. Reid was one of the few males in her life who treated her with any remote modicum of respect. He respected her opinion; he respected her body; he respected her mind. He cared about her cooking, which was her passion. He cared about her, she realized. He was genuinely interested in everything about her.

  How was it any wonder she’d fallen for him?

  Because you’ve never experienced love before, her inner voice chided. How would you even know to recognize it?

  The revelation was bittersweet, of course. After last night, she knew she had to tell him about Miguel. He’d asked her to mate with him. Just thinking the words made her feel tingly, as tingly as she’d felt when she took him into her mouth and had given him such intense pleasure that he’d started glowing like a lighthouse on a foggy evening.

  She smiled at the memory. Oral sex. Another first for her. It had been fun. She’d enjoyed the sense of power, as well as the feeling of giving him pleasure. The combination had been heady, and made her dizzy with desire. For him.

  It was time to be honest with him. In both the lightbearer community and the shifter community, mating was serious business. It was a lifetime commitment, and it was between two beings, and two beings only. She could not be mated to Miguel and also mate with Reid. And she had a terrible feeling that when Reid found out, he would no longer want to be with her—at all. The idea made her feel sick to her stomach.

  When she left the bathroom, Reid was still asleep, sprawled on his stomach. She still hadn’t mentioned to either Finn or Tanner that she’d seen Miguel, that he was both alive and inside the coterie. But she rarely had a moment when Reid was not by her side. Maybe now she would have that opportunity.

  She was careful to keep from looking at the scars marring his back, knowing the tumultuous feelings they caused in her would wake him from his peaceful slumber. She had the impression he consciously forced himself to sleep on his back, even though he clearly preferred to sleep on his stomach. No doubt as a result of the scars and his wish not to speak of them or evoke anyone’s sympathy. But he deserved sympathy. He deserved sympathy and so much more.

  She quickly dressed in a pair of leggings and a tunic shirt and left the bedroom, heading downstairs to see if either Finn or Tanner was up and about, so she could tell one of them about Miguel. She hoped it was Tanner, as there would be less chance he would mention to Reid that Miguel was her mate.

  “Carley.”

  She turned at the sound of her name, and saw Mica standing in the hall leading to the kitchen suites. She held a notepad in her hand and fidgeted, looking nervous and flustered.

  “What’s wrong?” Carley asked, immediately wondering if Miguel had slipped into the beach house again.

  Mica waved the small packet of paper. “We do not have enough supplies to make breakfast for the number of people in the beach house right now. Nona’s the one who always keeps track of our stock, and with her hip and all…” She glanced over her shoulder. “I have to run to the market.”

  Before she left, Carley had been the one in charge of managing the stores in the royal
kitchen. She felt guilty for leaving the responsibility to Nona, who had a terrible memory, and the other cooks, who were all too new to the task to do it very well.

  “Would you help me?” the younger lightbearer asked, her nervousness morphing to hopefulness.

  Carley hesitated. She felt guilty saying no, especially given she’d left the kitchen staff in a lurch five months ago when she left. Everyone had welcomed her back with open arms and no resentment. It really wasn’t fair of her to do it yet again. She looked at the nearest window and judged the time by the position of the sun in the sky. She and Reid had a few hours before they had to leave to go back to Chicago.

  “I would love to.”

  Mica clapped her hands, and the two women hurried to the kitchen. While Carley sorted through the cupboards, the pantry closets, and the basement storage area that was the equivalent to a human refrigerator, Mica wrote down everything she instructed her to on the notepad in her hand.

  “Okay,” she said a short time later. “I think that’s everything. This should get you through two weeks, at least, unless the queen is planning another party soon.”

  “Now that the babe’s going to be fine, I’m sure she’ll want to throw a party,” Mica commented.

  “Good point,” Carley said with a smile. Maybe she’d give Cecilia Vivian’s cell phone number and tell her to call when the queen decided to throw her next soiree. It would be a nice excuse to come back to visit. She wondered if Mica and the other cooks would be willing to let her help prepare the food for the party.

  “Are you coming with me?” Mica asked.

  Carley hesitated. She wanted to. Going to market had been one of her favorite aspects of the head chef job. It used to be such fun, choosing the perfect vegetables and the best cut of beef. Smelling the freshly baked bread and the just-made pies. Now that she worked at a human-run restaurant in Chicago, she was no longer required to make weekly runs to market to replenish supplies. She simply created a list and a truck brought them to the back door each week, or even daily, if need be.