by Jane Godman
“Are you cold?” Nate looked down at her in concern. She was wearing only thin cotton pajamas.
“A little. Can we go into my room, where the bedding is intact so I can get into bed? You could even join me.”
He hesitated. “I’m not sure—”
“We shared a bed on the plane and you emerged unscathed.” Violet rose. “I only want to listen to your story without getting any colder.” That might not be strictly true, but Nate didn’t need to know that she had other plans for him. Not yet.
“I’ll come through when I’ve put some clothes on.”
A few minutes later, Nate, clad in a pair of sweatpants, followed Violet into her room and slid into the bed next to her, perching on the extreme edge as far away from her as he could get. Violet had switched on the bedside lamp, and she could see the strain on his face.
“Tell me about Stella,” she said.
A slight smile flickered across his features, then it was gone as though a painful memory wiped out a pleasant one. “I tried to resist the voice in my head. It was a man’s voice, but I knew he was a werewolf...a very powerful one. Over and over, he was telling me to kill her. I knew it wouldn’t go away until I did. Next time the moon was full, I tracked Stella down to her hiding place. But she was too strong for me.” He shook his head as though in surprise. “I can hardly remember the details now, but, even though I was in wolf form, she overpowered me. And she wasn’t alone. Stella had a protector.” He laughed. “This is where the story gets really incredible.”
“Because it’s not incredible enough already?”
“Believe me, there’s more to come. The man who was protecting Stella, the man who is now her husband, is the most powerful sorcerer the world has ever known. His name is Merlin Caledonius. He was known throughout the centuries as Merlin. These days he prefers to be called Cal.”
There it was again. The faintest flicker of recognition this time. Not at Merlin Caledonius or Merlin. But Cal? That name sparked a tiny response deep inside the recesses of her memory. Otherworld and Cal. They meant something to Violet. She just had no idea what.
“So there I was, writhing on the ground, an injured feral werewolf, and standing over me were the two most powerful sorcerers on the planet. That was when Stella took pity on me and came up with a plan.”
“It sounds like it would have to be something out of the ordinary,” Violet said.
Nate’s laughter was soft and not altogether pleasant. “Oh, it was. Cal stabbed me through the heart with a silver dagger and killed me.”
Violet gave a start of horror, slewing her whole body around to face him. “What?”
“It’s the only way to kill a werewolf.” He spread his arms wide, pointing to his chest. She could see the ragged white outline of scar over his heart. “And look at me. You said it yourself. I’m not a werewolf.”
“But you are alive...aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m alive. In every sense that counts, and none that matters.” She didn’t like the bitter, self-mocking note in his voice as he said the words. “In the instant after Cal stabbed me through the heart, Stella used her powers of necromancy to bring me back to life. While he drove out the wolf, she restored the human.”
Violet gazed at him in confusion. “Surely that’s a good thing? Yet the way you say it makes it sound like it’s bad.”
“That’s because I’ve never known which it is.” His voice was so tortured that her heart ached.
* * *
Violet wasn’t looking at him in disgust. She was looking at him with huge, dark blue eyes in which sympathetic tears swam. The delectable cushion of her lower lip trembled, and it was taking every ounce of Nate’s self-control not to close the distance between them and take her in his arms.
“When they did this, your friends couldn’t have known the impact it would have on you.”
“Oh no. They did it with the best of intentions. As far as I know, I’m a one-off.” He gave a bitter little laugh and saw her flinch slightly at the sound. “An experiment that went wrong.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t speak about yourself that way.” Her voice throbbed with an emotion that sent a thrill through his body. “Although I don’t understand why you kill werewolves when you used to be one.”
“I only kill feral werewolves, and I do that out of sympathy for their suffering. I understand the nightmare they are going through. I also know what they are capable of doing to the humans they attack. It’s my way of helping them, and of giving something back to Cal for the way he helped me. His job of policing the border between both worlds is hard enough.”
“It sounds like you went through a living hell.” Violet placed her hand on his arm.
Nate glanced down at her slender fingers, so pale and delicate against the tanned flesh of his forearm. Even that light touch was doing something primeval to his nerve endings, something that would frighten her if she ever became aware of its intensity.
“Since that day, I’ve existed rather than lived. Stella restored the living, breathing me, but I lost something vital that day. I lost the part of me that feels. She made me human again, but she couldn’t give me back my humanity.” He smiled at the bemused expression on her face. “I’m not making sense, am I?”
He couldn’t put into words the other things that had happened to him as a result of that day. The fears that he lived with daily. That maybe Cal had killed the werewolf that lived within him, but not the wolf instincts. That his wolf had died while his human lived, but his humanity had perished while his—he searched for a word: wolfness? lupinity?—survived. Nate didn’t know if that was true or even possible; he only knew how he felt. Driven to rid the world of the curse of feral werewolves, sworn to kill Nevan, he told himself he hated all werewolves. When he was being honest with himself, Nate knew it wasn’t true. Werewolves held a dark attraction for him, one that might just call to something deep within himself.
And could he honestly say he had lost the part of him that knew how to feel? He had truly believed it...until that night in a Vermont forest when he had met Violet.
She moved closer now, seriously endangering his equilibrium, and placed her head on his shoulder. “Is that why you don’t behave the way the others do? Why you don’t go with groupies and share girls?” He couldn’t see her face, but her voice was shy. “Why you don’t want me?”
Nate groaned. Turning his body so he could slide a finger under her chin and tilt her head up to look at him, he gazed at her face. “You don’t understand.”
“I want to. Explain it to me.” Her voice was husky. Nothing in his life had ever tempted him as much as her parted lips.
“That night changed my life. I was twenty-two. Before that, I’d been a normal guy, doing what students do. Going out, drinking, dating—” he shook his head “—but I’d never had sex with anyone.”
Her eyes widened. “Never?”
He shook his head. “I’ve always believed there should be an emotional connection as well as a physical one. I’m not pretending I never had any encounters, but at the time of the werewolf attack, I’d never had a serious girlfriend and I hadn’t lost my virginity.”
“So you still haven’t...?” Violet’s eyes were growing rounder.
His smile was self-mocking. “No, I never have.”
“I see.” She drew in a deep breath. “No wonder you didn’t want to do the groupie thing.”
“If that’s what the others want, then that’s their choice and I’m not criticizing them for it. It’s just not my choice.”
“And I understand now why you don’t want to get involved with me.” Her voice was quiet.
“No, you don’t.” He dragged a hand through his hair in frustration. “You don’t understand that at all.”
Her small white teeth tugged at her lower lip. “Explain it to me, Nate.”
He gripped her shoul
ders. “Violet, I want you so much it’s killing me. I never knew it was possible to feel like this, but can’t you see how wrong it would be?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. How can it be wrong when I want you every bit as much?”
Her words, her nearness, her scent...none of it was helping. “Because we don’t know who you are.” He ground the words out. “You have no memory. You could be married, engaged, in a long-term relationship. You could have kids, for God’s sake. You are vulnerable, and I would have to be the world’s biggest louse to take advantage of that.”
Her eyes flashed. “I’m not vulnerable if this is what I want.”
“Yes, you are.” He had to make her see before he forgot everything but the intoxicating longing in her eyes as she gazed at him. Before he drowned in wanting her. “You are saying this with no knowledge of what the real you wants.”
She moved closer. Close enough so that even through the thin cotton of her pajamas her hardened nipples brushed his chest. Her breath was a whisper across his cheek. “This is the real me, Nate. Don’t ask me how I know that. I just do. In the same way I know that if we don’t follow our instincts, we will regret it forever.”
“This is wrong.” Even as he said the words, his gaze was fixed on her lips. How could anything so perfect be wrong? “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
She gave a soft laugh. “You are a virgin. I may be the one who does know what she’s doing. I may even do this for a living.”
With a shuddering sigh of surrender, Nate brought his hands up to grasp her waist. “Is that what you think? That you are an experienced seductress?”
She shook her head, her dark hair tumbling about her shoulders. “I may have no memory, but I know I have never felt like this before. This is the first time for both of us, Nate.” She reached up a hand to stroke his cheek, her breath quickening. “How exciting.”
Chapter 8
Violet wrapped her arms around Nate’s neck, twisting her fingers in the hair that grew long over his nape to draw him closer. His tongue licked hungrily over the seam of her lips, and her mouth parted eagerly for him. He slanted his lips over hers, holding the back of her head and tilting her into a kiss that became hard and deep. Need surged through her, wild and wanton. She might never have felt it before, but she welcomed it, her need for him escalating, spiraling out of control until she was shaking with the intensity of it.
Nate jerked his head back and stared at her. “Are you sure about this?” His eyes gleamed with a hunger that scared and delighted her.
“More than I have ever been about anything in my life.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Believe me... I can. I do.”
She drew his head back down to hers, brushing her lips against his, triggering a return to the hungry kisses of moments earlier. She couldn’t get enough of him. Couldn’t get close enough to him. She needed his tongue in her mouth, the hard muscle of his chest against the softness of her too-sensitive breasts, his hands exploring her body. She needed everything he could give her. Measured and gentle wouldn’t do. Self-control wasn’t good enough. What Violet wanted was raw and out of control. Something in her was wild, ready and aching for him.
Nate eased her down so that they were lying side by side. Violet pressed her hips tight to his, feeling the heavy ridge of his erection pressing firmly against the intimate mound between her thighs. Her hands slid to his chest, her fingers trembling as they slid through the crisp hair. Hunger raged out of control throughout her body. She was intoxicated by the sensual storm gripping her.
Nate tugged her pajama top up, and she raised her arms so he could pull it over her head and cast it aside. His lips were an impatient heat against her nipple as he drew first one delicate tip then the other into his mouth. Violet arched her back and cried out, as a whole new spectrum of sensation swept over her. She was sinking, falling, spinning out of control, giving herself up to the rapture provoked by Nate’s lips as they sucked and licked her hardened nipples.
“I thought you said you didn’t know what to do?” She managed to gasp out the words as she clung to his shoulders as though her life depended on it.
“I’m working on instinct here.” His eyes glittered in the half-light as he raised his head. “I know I want to taste you. I don’t need a manual to tell me how.”
Oh. Maybe she should do that. Follow her own instincts. Tentatively, she ran her hand down the front of his body, smoothing over the hard muscles of his chest and down over the ridges of his abdomen. Nate sucked in a breath as her fingertips lightly brushed his straining erection.
“Can I touch you here?”
He gave a shaky laugh, taking hold of her hand and guiding it so she could wrap her fingers around his shaft. He was raw, pulsing heat beneath her touch. “You can—and it feels like heaven—but it may test my self-control to the limit.”
As she caressed his warm flesh, Nate’s hand moved inside the elastic of her pajama pants, one finger parting her swollen folds. Violet gave a gasp and he paused. “Is this okay?”
She nodded vigorously. “It’s wonderful.”
“Then let’s get rid of these.” She raised her hips so that he could pull her pajama pants down over her hips and legs. Nate pressed a kiss onto her lips. “I have to go and get a condom from my bedroom.”
“A virgin with condoms?” She quirked a brow at him as he slid from beneath the bedclothes.
His expression was somewhere between a grin and a grimace. “It’s a Ged thing. He insists on keeping us supplied. He calls it our ‘emergency kit.’ Can you imagine what would happen if I said I didn’t need them? The virgin rock star? Ged would have me in therapy or find me a hooker faster than I could blink.”
Violet was still giggling when Nate returned. She let her eyes wander down his body. He was so big and hard, his erection heavy and straining toward her. His silken flesh was made to be stroked. She knelt on the bed, moving toward him on her knees.
If this was about acting on instinct...
“I want to taste you.”
She wrapped her fingers around the base of his cock and lowered her head, swiping her tongue over the engorged tip. Nate’s whole body jerked, and he hissed in a breath. Violet gave a little hum of pleasure. He liked that. She had taken the initiative and pleased him. Repeating the action, she flicked her tongue back and forth over the throbbing crest. His flesh tasted clean and salty, yet darkly erotic. As she became more adventurous and closed her mouth over his head, Nate moaned, thrusting in small movements against her lips. It seemed natural to suck, and he fisted a hand in her hair in response. Violet looked up at his face, watching his response. His eyes were half closed, the cords of muscle in his neck standing out.
“So good,” he crooned. “Too good.” Gently he eased away from her. “I don’t want to come before we’ve even started.”
Placing his knee on the bed, he tipped her onto her back. Pressing her onto the bed, he lowered his head between her thighs, and her senses went wild. His tongue rasped over her most tender flesh with the lightest, softest strokes, licking at her, and she writhed in ecstasy, burning to lift herself closer.
“Nate...” She needed more. But she didn’t know what “more” there could be or how to ask him for it.
Luckily, Nate seemed to know what her wail of need meant. His tongue found the tiny bundle of sensitized nerve endings and flickered over it, sending fire pulsing through her. Violet dug her hands into his hair in an attempt to draw him even closer. His hands hooked under her knees, pushing them back and wider apart as his tongue stroked her entrance. She felt a pressure, then he was probing just inside her. Color flamed in her cheeks. It was so sweetly, deliciously erotic.
An aching need was building inside her, hunger driving her toward an unknown, longed-for release. His lips covered her, his tongue returning to torment that tiny nub, and Violet’s who
le body exploded. It propelled her into a cataclysmic ecstasy, tightening her muscles and sending shooting stars of rapture through to every cell in her body. Nate held her down as she writhed and convulsed, calling out his name deliriously.
She became vaguely aware of Nate tearing open the condom wrapper before moving in place between her thighs. His lips were gentle on hers as she felt the heavy pressure of him pushing against her still-throbbing entrance.
“We’ll go slow.” His voice was thick with desire.
“I don’t want slow.” She lifted her hips to accommodate him, gasping as her muscles began to stretch, easing the way for his steel-hard erection. “I want you...all of you.”
A powerful thrust of his hips pushed him deeper into her, the tight friction causing Violet to arch up to him. She twisted mindlessly beneath him, demanding more, and Nate pulled back before driving into her again, seating himself fully inside her this time. A brief flare of pain—sharp and pinching—gone as quickly as it appeared, flashed through her, to be replaced by a feeling of elation. She felt as full as she could be. Full of Nate. It was glorious. Now she needed him to move. To pound in and out of her. Until she screamed.
“Are you okay?” His eyes scanned her face.
Violet nodded. He didn’t know what she was feeling. He thought she was some fragile little thing to be treated with care. She was going to have to tell him. “Please. Do it now. Hard and fast.”
“This is your first time...”
She wrapped her legs around his hips, urging him on, and heard his groan of surrender. He drew back, then filled her again, impaling her on his thick length. Mindless pleasure washed over her. I would know if this had happened to me before. It was her last coherent thought. She gave herself up to sensation. Reality was lost as Nate drove into her hard and fast, exactly as she had begged.
His erection was a hot length of iron powering into her, rubbing over tender tissue, building the friction, stoking the pleasure, until Violet thought she might go crazy. Her breath was suspended, meaning she couldn’t even scream as he increased the tempo, his rapid-fire thrusts driving her ever closer to the edge.
