Claire was confused and it showed. “It’s good news, right?”
Nick frowned. “Honestly, I don’t know. It sounded good, though, and I thought it would help her feelings to have some word of him. Either way, she was bound to run across the article and I figured it would be better for me to give it to her.”
Nick ushered her inside. With a last glance toward Maddie’s retreating form, she followed him in, settling at the kitchen table while he searched the refrigerator for something to eat. “I could fix you a sandwich,” she offered tentatively.
He threw a smile over his shoulder. “I can fix me a sandwich. I’m handy like that.”
Claire chuckled. “You are a handy man to have around.”
Nick set his sandwich makings on the table and pulled Claire to her feet, tugging her slowly into a loose, non-threatening embrace. “You think?” he murmured, nuzzling her neck.
She stiffened slightly but made herself relax. It was the first time in a very long time that Nick had made any overtures of intimacy of any kind. Maybe they both needed to know if there was still a spark between them? Something besides a mutual need to survive?
When she remained acquiescent to his embrace he pulled slightly away to study her expression. He must have seen her openness to his overtures because, after a moment, he stepped back, captured her hand and led her into her bedroom.
She didn’t try to stop him although she wasn’t sure until they reached her room and shut her door whether she wanted to allow him to go further or not.
He paused when he’d shut the door and then tugged at her knit blouse, slowly dragging it upward and over her head. She stared into his eyes for a long moment and then tugged his shirt up, exposing his hard, chiseled belly and chest.
His breathing had roughened by the time he’d discarded his shirt.
He reached for her, slipping the straps of her bra from her shoulders so that her breasts spilled from the cups. They were achingly sensitive with her pregnancy and she barely repressed a wince when he massaged them and lightly pinched the nipples.
Apparently, she wasn’t as good at hiding her discomfort as she’d thought. He paused, met her gaze for a moment, and then bent down and gently suckled first one and then the other nipple. Claire relaxed, feeling heat spear from her breasts downward to her belly, feeling the muscles there clench and unclench with building need. Her breath caught in her throat. Desire formed a vise around her chest as he switched from one breast to the other and back again and then wove a trail of kisses upwards over the slope of her breasts to her throat and neck and ear.
It felt good. She released a long, shaky sigh as he moved from her ear to her lips. “Nick,” she murmured, but she got no further in the half formed thought.
If it was a protest, Nick didn’t intend to give her time to voice it. He covered her lips with his mouth, sealed her inside her mind and flooded her senses with his essence.
She flooded his, short-circuited the wiring in his brain as if he’d just taken a straight shot of tequila. His brain instantly switched gears from seduction to the basics--fucking. His cock, which had leapt to attention the minute he touched her, swelled until it felt like it was peeling the skin off of his head. He had a raging hard on and he knew where he needed to put it to get relief!
It was hard to even fit his mind around the simple task of navigating the distance between them and the bed, but somehow they managed to land on the mattress.
They were still clothed from the waist down!
God damn it!
He caught pubic hair in the fucking zipper and tore it out by the roots while he was fighting to get the zipper down over his raging erection. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the pain and focused on the triumph of having opened his pants enough to shuck them. He worked on that for a little while and then on her pants.
He discovered he couldn’t wedge his cock in her because he’d pulled her pants down and they’d formed a vice around her thighs, holding them together.
Uttering a growl of frustration, he reared up, grabbed the waist of her pants and wrestled them off of her. They hung up when he’d gotten them to her ankles, caught on her shoes.
Deciding it just wasn’t worth wasting more time trying to figure out how to take them off, he dove over her, spearing into her cleft in the hope of finding nirvana.
The gate was apparently closed. He felt the heat and a satisfying wetness, but although he dragged his cock back and forth several times, he couldn’t seem to spear the hole. Backing up, he made a quick search with his hand—found the outlet and tried to plug his cord in.
She was wet. Damn she was wet! Why the hell couldn’t he get his fucking cock in?
He worked feverishly for several moments and finally managed to wedge the head in. He knew he was home free then!
It felt like she was peeling the skin off his cock with her pussy when he tried to shove it into her.
Pausing to catch his breath before he passed out, he tried to figure out his dilemma. “You tense babe?”
Claire sighed. “Your belt buckle is in my ass. It’s really hard to focus.”
“Shit! Sorry, baby!”
Leaping off the bed, Nick shed his pants, shoes and socks, grabbed hers and finished pulling them off and then dove into the bed again.
It was actually a fortune circumstance. It gave him a few moments to cool down and recover his wits–a little.
Foreplay! He’d been too anxious and had jumped too fast!
He settled to exploring her with his lips and hands, stroking and massaging her breasts and suckling them, then exploring her sensitive belly and the sensitive areas on her legs with his hands. She relaxed and then tensed with desire, her breath puffing from her chest nearly as fast as his was.
He moved over her once more, settled into the cradle of her thighs and found her opening wet, hot and welcoming.
He was still close to passing out from pure bliss by the time he managed to work his aching flesh deeply inside of her. He paused for a handful of moments while he struggled with the urge to ejaculate immediately, feeling the throb in his cock transfer to his head. When it began to feel like the top of his head was going to explode, he began to move.
It helped, somewhat, to focus on listening to the tenor of her sighs of pleasure. As they escalated, however, and began to grow more high-pitched, it excited his libido to the breaking point.
His focus shifted from her pleasure to imminent release. He fought it for as long as he could and then his instincts overwhelmed all attempts at self control. He began to pound into her faster and faster as he felt his body gathering to explode.
Nick’s rising excitement fed her own and Claire found herself racing toward her peak as if her body was racing Nick’s to the finish line—or he was driving her toward her own climax by the friction he was generating with the stroke of his cock along her channel.
For a few moments after she reached the summit, she teetered on the brink—poised to either to take the leap or fall back to earth without reaching her goal. Then she felt the trembling inside her increase, felt her heart rate jacked to electrifying heights. A hard quake racked her and then another, drawing a hoarse cry of pleasurable repletion from her throat. She rode the wave of ecstasy to its limit and then beyond that to a sense of complete fulfillment when she felt Nick follow her into paradise. She tightened her arms around him as she felt the shudders of release wrack him and then they relaxed together in gusty satisfaction.
Nick stirred when they heard the back door open and close with Maddie’s return.
“Shit,” he murmured thickly. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll sneak out when she goes to her room.”
Amusement rose in Claire. She didn’t try to contain it. She uttered a snorting laugh. “God, Nick! It isn’t even dark! You think she won’t figure out what’s up?”
He seemed to consider it. “You pissed?”
“Do I sound pissed?”
“No.”
“Then I’m probably not.”
/>
He shifted off of her and studied her face in the deepening gloom of the room. “You know I’m crazy about you, don’t you?”
Discomfort wafted through Claire. “I’m pretty crazy about you, too,” she answered honestly after a brief hesitation to consider the wisdom of such a confession.
He seemed satisfied. After a moment, he dragged her close and rolled onto his back, leaving her draped across his chest. “I mean ….” He paused uncomfortably, stroking her back with one hand. “I love you.”
Uh oh.
“Before all this shit happened I was thinking about asking you to marry me.”
Claire couldn’t decide how to take that. It was sort of flattering, she supposed.
But then there was the little issue in her belly to consider!
“You’ve got nothing to say about that?”
Irritation flickered through her. “Uh … well, it was a sweet thought.”
He sat up with a jerk, dumping her on the bed. “God damn it that’s a hell of a way to take my proposal!”
Claire gaped at him and then sat up angrily. “Was that supposed to be a proposal? Well pardon me all to hell! It didn’t sound like a damned proposal! ‘I was thinking about it’?”
Nick flushed. “You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t!” Claire snapped, almost relieved he’d given her something she could argue about.
Nick scrambled out of the bed, looked around angrily for his pants and started jerking them on when he’d snatched them off the floor. “This is about him, isn’t it?”
Claire was oh so tempted to try playing dumb—him who? Instead, she got up and gathered up her own clothing. Stalking to the door, she snatched it open and went out, slamming the door behind her.
Nick jerked the door open when she was halfway down the hall. “This is your room, you know!”
“I know! I’m going to the bathroom.”
Nick stared at her. “I guess this is a no, then?”
Claire stopped dead in her tracks and turned to gape at him. “Really?” she said tightly.
He started down the hallway, half naked!
She closed the bathroom door and locked it.
“Babe?” he knocked on the door.
“What?”
“I didn’t mean it that way, ok? I’m not real good at this!”
“No!”
“No, what?”
“You aren’t good at it.”
Nick fumed for a few minutes. “God damn it! I love you! And you’re pregnant. I think we should get married.”
“OH! That is so much better! No!”
“What?”
“How about hell no?”
Nick hit the bathroom door with his fist. “Damn it, Claire!”
“Oh, that’ll convince her,” Madelyn, who’d left her room when things began to sound a little too heated to her mind, commented from her position in the doorway of her room.
Nick turned to glare at her uncomfortably. “Fine!” he growled and stalked to his own room, slamming the door.
Claire sighed with relief when she heard him slam into his room, but the urge to cry swamped her directly behind the relief.
It was hard to tell whether Nick wanted her for herself or from some noble but misguided sense that he had to ‘make her an honest woman’!
She didn’t even know if he’d thrown that ‘romantic’ proposal out because he thought it was his baby or not!
And, not that she was even going to consider a proposal like that, but what if he did believe she was pregnant with his baby? Would he still care about her if he found out it was Dante’s?
She was suddenly very sorry that she hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Dante that she was carrying his baby. She wouldn’t have wanted him to stay with her only for that reason—but she wanted him to know about the baby and it didn’t look like she would ever get the chance to tell him now.
She didn’t know what to do. She certainly couldn’t consider marrying Nick without telling him, and it would almost be as bad if he turned away from her because of that as it would if he married her anyway.
“Poor little baby,” she murmured, settling a palm lightly on her belly. “Mama’s made a horrible mess of things!”
Chapter Ten
Dante wasn’t even fully lucid when they began the questioning. He wasn’t certain if that was because they expected him to die or if it was because they wanted to take advantage of his mental state.
He was cautious, however.
His prior experiences with humans had taught him that it always paid to be careful around them. They were clever and they were very good at discerning the truth from fiction.
Not that he had any reason to lie, but he also had no reason to trust them with all that he knew. Until they agreed to ally with his people, it would not be in their best interests to tell the humans all that they knew.
He wondered if this was the sort of thing that Claire had been subjected to. It made him angry to know that it had probably been much the same for her, and glad that he had removed her from their clutches even if he had had to place her in Nick’s hands for protection.
He preferred not to think about that particular aspect of the rescue, however.
He lost track of time. After a while, however, he realized that there was nothing accidental about that and that it was not likely that it had anything to do with his injuries, even though he also knew he had sustained some near fatal injuries. The humans were deliberately keeping him drugged to control him.
He was not sure he would even have been able to figure out that much, however, except that they finally reduced the dosage enough that he was able to gather his wits. He was allowed to dress for the first time since the crash in something besides the sheets—an ugly orange thing that scarcely touched him that had been slashed down the back to accommodate his wings. When he had finally managed to maneuver himself into the thing they brought him to wear, two guards had appeared and one had pointed a gun at his head while the other cuffed his wrists and ankles to a chain that ran through a belt secured at his waist. He was told then to follow them and was forced to shuffle between them since he could not walk normally with the cuffs even if he had not still been weak and in pain from his injuries.
He discovered when he reached a small room that had one wall made entirely of thick glass that Galen had also survived the injuries sustained in the crash. He had not been certain because he had not been free of pain or drugs since they had been captured. When it had occurred to him to wonder if Galen had survived, he had tried to communicate with him telepathically, but he had not responded.
I fear they are in collusion with the gods, Galen responded.
Shock traveled through Dante. They would not! They have been enemies for centuries! Why would you believe that? We are done for if it is true—all of us!
Galen shook his head. I could not communicate. It could have been the drugs blocking my ability or something of a mechanical nature, but it seemed … deliberate … and I do not believe the humans could do this—could prevent our communicating with one another—without the help of the gods. How would they develop the means to prevent us from communicating with one another if they had not colluded with the gods? They should not even know we have the capability.
Dante was not so certain they were not capable of it. They raided the library of Alexandria. There is no way to determine what they are capable of—now.
It seemed inescapable, though, after many minutes of effort, that the humans were capable of blocking the telepathic abilities of the angels. For even without the drugs to dull their brain functions neither of them could reach anyone beyond the facility where they were being held.
Mayhap we are just too far underground, Galen suggested?
It did not seem possible that that could be all that it was. Truthfully, Dante could not think of any time when they had tried to use telepathy with this particular handicap, but it was of little consequence, at the moment, either way. The
important thing was that they could not, which meant they could not summon help.
They studied one another uneasily for several moments as one possibility occurred to both almost simultaneously.
Male angels, to their knowledge, had never attempted a binding—certainly not males who only mated with females and had no blood ties at all—and neither knew if it would even work. In the case where they had been joined before birth and developed in the same womb, it was believed joining was not only possible but likely. Occasionally, two males would join with the same female and they were bound together through their mutual binding with the woman.
But not otherwise.
Galen discovered, however, that he had had quite enough of the prison he had been kept in so long. I am willing to try if you are.
Dante was not. We will be bound, you and I! I will admit you are a good angel to have at my back in a fight, but I have no desire to mate with you!
Irritation and uneasiness slithered through Galen. That is a myth! There has been no data to suggest such a thing is true and I damned well cannot envision developing an overwhelming desire to have sex with you only because we united our telepathic abilities.
It is more than that and you know it! If it was only a matter of broadcasting in sync I would be more than willing!
You are thinking of the human woman, Claire. You will not see her again in this life time if we do not escape this place. You may be sure dissection will follow once they are certain they have learned what they can from us! Galen pointed out angrily. And I, for one, have no desire to stay for that! I am no more anxious to experiment with this than you, but I cannot think of anything else that even might work!
Dante wrestled with his superstitions. He knew that Galen was right and that was probably all there was to it, but it was difficult to ignore that particular fear. Bindings could not be undone easily.
He was galvanized to take the plunge when he heard sounds coming from the room beyond the one where they were being held. Sucking in a bracing breath, he tilted his head toward Galen. Galen, for all that it was his suggestion to start with, hesitated. It was not until Dante began to withdraw the offer that he managed to convince himself to complete the physical connection.
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