Sliding up his body, I lay next to him, massaging his chest, feeling his skin tighten under my fingers and palm. He was hard. I’d noticed that before, too, but for the first time, I let myself look at him, and let him feel me doing it. His body was warm. It didn’t feel like the confession had turned him on...more the cumulative effect of me touching his bare skin had brought on the confession in the first place, along with his physical reaction. If anything, the confession turned those currents in his light into conflicting streams, hardening that other feeling in his chest, what felt more and more like shame.
He felt me looking at his body.
“Gods,” he said. “Allie, don’t. Please...don’t...”
He choked on my name, and the words that came after.
I looked up, but I found myself clutching at him, even as his eyes filled with tears. I grabbed hold of the down comforter, pulling it tighter around his body before I curled myself around him. Sending light to his heart, I coiled mine deeper into his, fighting now to open him, to get him to open to me, even a little. I held his shoulder and neck, almost too tightly, pooling warmth in his chest as my fingers massaged the muscles there, too.
“Baby, it’s okay,” I told him, kissing his neck. “It’s okay...Revik, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
He gripped my arm in his fingers. “Allie...”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I repeated, firmly that time. I looked him in the face. “I promise you, Revik...you didn’t. Not even close. Not even a little.”
He barely seemed to hear me. “I didn’t know what to do.” He shook his head. “...how to be close to you. You were in pain. I was so fucking confused, Allie...”
I fought with my light again, then with words, but in the end, I only nodded.
Fighting to think, to decide what to do, I rested my head on his shoulder, still caressing his jaw before I reached back to grip his hair. I closed my eyes in that silence, fighting back my own pain, even as his arm snaked around me.
“I missed you,” he said.
He said it so low I barely heard him.
Even so, my throat closed for real, making it impossible to speak. Gripping him tighter, I raised my head. Looking down at him, I felt my skin flush when he met my gaze. He looked at me directly that time.
Looking him straight in the face, I gripped his hair in my fingers.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I repeated.
He clicked at me softly, averting his gaze.
Even so, something about it made me relax. It sounded like him that time, and I could feel his light more, too. Neither thing made me less emotional, but that emotion wound into a tentative relief that made my throat close again. I swallowed past it before I blurted out more words, my voice almost angry that time.
“Gods, Revik!” I managed. “I know what you did for me. I remember what you did. You took care of me. You gave up everything for me. You never wavered...not once. Even with everything they did to you, you never once let either one of us down...”
His eyes changed again at my words, but not as if he agreed with me. Instead, I saw another, harder emotion there, something I couldn’t read, right before they flickered away from mine.
“I wavered,” he said, his voice gruff. I heard that shame creep back into his words. “Ask Jon.” His expression darkened. “...Or Wreg.”
“I’m not going to ask Jon,” I said angrily. “I don’t need to ask them anything, Revik.”
Wiping my eyes with the back of my hands, I felt my jaw tighten.
“If this is some kind of apology,” I added. “You can just keep it, okay? I thought you were going to be furious with me, for putting you through all of that...for making your life hell for so many months. You should be mad at me.”
“Mad at you?” He stared up at me, confusion coloring his light eyes. “Why?”
I let out an involuntary laugh, wiping my face again.
“You’re impossible,” I said.
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t look away from my face. Instead, a kind of confusion touched his irises again, almost as if he still doubted it was me, or maybe doubted that I wouldn’t disappear, or turn into something else, if he stared long enough.
“Why would I be mad at you, Allie?” he said.
“Revik!” I said. “I don’t know. Because I left you...”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know that,” I said, frustrated. “But I love you. Gods...I adore you beyond words. And I feel terrible about what you went through. Of all people, you should not be feeling guilty right now, okay? I never would have found our daughter...I never would have gotten to Cass at all if it wasn’t for you. I didn’t rescue you. You defeated that construct, despite everything they put you through. You led them...our people...by yourself. For months, Revik. You came up with the shield, using me and Jon and Maygar...”
“That was Balidor’s idea,” he said.
“And you implemented it, Revik. That’s what being a fucking leader means. You trained Maygar in telekinesis. You cracked the damned construct, okay? Again. Why in the gods are you arguing with me about this? And why are you feeling guilty? What is it you think you could have done better, exactly?”
He swallowed, not answering me at first.
I watched him stare up at the ceiling, his gaze turned inward.
He seemed to be fighting to think through my words. He winced when I started touching him again, even as I saw a tauter expression start to creep over his face. Pain coiled off him then, a hard flush, even as his hands tightened on me.
That time, I let out a low gasp.
“Allie,” he said, his voice gruff. “You’d better stop.”
I nodded, but couldn’t bring myself to take my hands off him.
I did stop massaging him, though, although it hurt to stop, and I ended up having to curl my hands into fists on his chest, biting my lip. Still half-lying on him, I found myself watching his face instead. He still looked beat up to me, or maybe just tired and sore. He had part of a black eye, too, although that looked like it might be older.
When he looked at me that time, he must have seen something in my expression. Hesitantly, he reached up, caressing my hair out of my face, and I shivered, leaning into his fingers, and then his chest, maybe to avoid his eyes. I felt him hold his breath, even as another coil of pain left his light in a thick pulse.
“Allie,” he said. “Gods. What are you trying to do to me...”
He trailed. Releasing my hair, he looked up at the ceiling. I felt him take a breath, as if deliberately calming his light.
Guilt washed over my own light. I tried to keep that from him too, only wincing a little.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” I asked, my voice smaller that time.
“No.” A humorless smile touched his voice. “That’s not exactly what I was thinking, no...” He hesitated again, as if he wanted to say more, then just let the sentence trail.
Frowning, I raised my head. When he still wouldn’t look at me, I touched his face.
“If you were about to ask me...” I began.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t.”
I fell silent, swallowing. Fighting embarrassment out of my light, and reminding myself again not to be an asshole right now, whatever my light wanted, I looked away from his face. After a few more minutes of staring at nothing, controlling my light where it wanted to coil into his, I sighed, resting my chin on one of my balled up fists. Watching his eyes, I felt his skin warming again when I didn’t look away.
“Are you sure?” I said, after another pause.
He looked at me. Then, he surprised me, bursting into an involuntary laugh.
“Maybe I should be mad at you,” he said, his accent coming out stronger again.
“What for this time?” I said.
His eyes had hardened when I looked at him next, but I didn’t see any anger there. I felt pain slide off his light instead, in a stronger wave that time. Fighting back my reactio
n, I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, his face had changed. I saw the pain in his eyes that time, even as his skin flushed, his throat moving in a swallow. I was still looking at him, feeling his light start to coil into mine, especially in the places where my body still rested on his, when his arm wrapped around me, his hand gripping my shoulder from behind.
Before I could react, he rolled me over so that I was under him.
“All right,” he said, once he had me there.
I felt my cheeks flush as I looked up at him, even as my light reacted sharply, sliding abruptly out of my control. I fought to pull it back, even as I felt him suck in a breath, his eyes sliding out of focus where he stared down at my face. I felt him in other ways then, too. His skin had warmed. He was breathing harder, holding me down with stronger hands. He was hard, too. I felt him even as he slid his legs between mine, relaxing so that more of his weight rested on me. The combination made my skin warm all over, even as I clutched his arms.
“Are you sure?” I stammered. “Am I pressuring you?”
“Yes,” he said. The blunt word, startled me, but his gaze didn’t flinch. “You’re fucking pressuring me, Alyson...you’re seducing me outright. Or were you going to tell me that was an accident? That you hadn’t noticed?”
Looking up at him, I felt my face warm more. “Then stop...don’t do this.”
He shook his head, once.
“No,” he said. “I think I want to be pressured right now.”
Before I could think of how to answer that, he lowered his mouth.
Pain exploded in my light when he kissed me. It started pretty much the instant his mouth met mine, and worsened when he parted his lips. I leaned up towards him as soon as the kiss started, wrapping my arm tightly around his neck, meeting him halfway as I kissed him back. I let out a soft groan against his mouth when he didn’t stop, caressing his tongue with mine, feeling his chest hitch and grow tighter as his weight got heavier over me again.
His fingers clenched in my hair and I lost track of where we were, of anything but his lips and tongue as my hands and fingers started exploring his skin. I found myself gripping his back and arms, stopping to hold him, to pull at muscles, dig my fingers into him, feeling the differences in his body. He’d been fighting a lot...a lot. Fuck. Something about what I could feel on his body and woven into his light drove my light completely crazy. I could feel everything on him, everything he’d been doing, even apart from the bruises and cuts.
When he finally raised his hand, I was struggling to breathe.
“No wonder I kept seducing you...” I told him. “Gods, Revik...”
He didn’t answer, but I felt his body tense.
He kissed me again, pressing his weight into me, pinning me to the bed, and I wrapped my legs around his. When he came up for air, I started kissing his neck. He let out a gasp when I used light in my tongue, then my teeth. I felt my own muscles go liquid, even as I wrapped around him tighter, sliding my way deliberately into his light, fighting a near desperation in my own. I tried not to go too far, feeling that caution on him still, a near-wariness, even as I gradually worked my way under his defenses.
I felt his skin flush hotter as I worked my way down his throat, and then I was using one of the structures I developed under the Lao Hu, using it to unfurl his light, to open him up even as he gasped, leaning his face against my neck. When he let out a heavier sound, almost a groan, I looked up at him, still breathless, feeling the pain worsen as I stared at his bare chest, overly conscious of his erection again, feeling his pulse throbbing against the skin of my thigh. I could feel him fighting it still, the parts of him that were still fighting for control. I tried to decide if I should take off my clothes, or ask him to do it. I felt weirdly shy...nervous, even...maybe more so than I’d ever been with him, including our first time, at that cabin.
I wasn’t sure how much of the Lao Hu stuff I should use on him, either. I could feel him wanting it but not wanting it, even as my own nervousness worsened at the different currents I felt flickering through his light. Some of those might even have been memory, but memory too far removed for me to be able to understand or even read any of the specifics.
I wasn’t jealous exactly, or even threatened exactly, but I found myself thinking about him, about all the months he’d spent alone, and that pain in my light worsened.
He’d mentioned Jon...and Wreg...but I wasn’t sure I was ready to handle probing those cryptic comments, either. Was he trying to tell me he’d been sleeping with other people while I’d been out? That Jon and Wreg gave him shit for it? If so, I really, really didn’t want to know. Not now, anyway. Maybe not ever.
He was still being quiet. Really damned quiet.
Quieter than I’d ever heard him in bed.
“...Are you sure you’re really okay with this?” I said, fighting to pull back my light. “It’s okay if you’re not, Revik. I mean it.”
He gripped my hair harder. I felt his pain worsen, resonating with and fighting with mine, but still he didn’t speak. I felt his reluctance to look at me again, too, and fought not to take it personally, to try and feel what lay behind it.
“Revik.” I touched his face, gripping his hair. “Talk to me...jesus. Tell me to stop, if that’s what you want. We have all the time in the world for this...it doesn’t have to be now.”
He shook his head. I didn’t know what that meant, either.
I was still trying to read the expression on his face when he lowered his mouth back to mine. That time, when I gripped him harder with my hands, he let out a half-cry, then started taking off my clothes...more like ripping them off me, yanking my shirt up to my shoulders, my pants down past my hips. His pain was blinding me now, turning his limbs and body liquid, sliding in and around my light, until I let out another pleading sound, wrapping my arm back around his neck as I kissed him back. He had his hand between my legs then, his fingers inside me, and I cried out, gripping his hair as I arched against him. He still hadn’t said anything, and I could feel that fear in my light, somehow only worsening as his pain grew more intense.
Jesus, had he really been fucking other people? Was that what this guilt was really about?
Before I could push it from my mind, he spoke, gripping my hair in his hand.
“Look at me, Allie,” he said.
I realized only then that I hadn’t been.
I’d looked away from his face, but now I returned my eyes there, reluctant that time.
I saw his gaze searching mine, my features, my eyes and mouth, even through the fog of pain and whatever else that nearly blinded me. He put light into his fingers and slid them deeper into me, holding my hair with his other hand so I would stare up at his face. After I let out another cry, losing control over my light, I saw his eyes close, longer than a blink. His whole body seemed to break out in a sweat then, right before he groaned, lowering his face to mine. He removed his hand then, wrapping it around my hip as he pressed his cheek to mine.
“I didn’t fuck anyone else,” he told me, soft.
I nodded, feeling my body start to relax.
“...I propositioned Jon,” he said then, his voice lower still.
I stared up at the ceiling, feeling my heart stop in my chest, my fingers tightening where I held him. He raised his head, looking down at me, studying my face. His eyes held what might have been a challenge, or might have been guilt, or nerves... or maybe all three.
“I wanted to feel you,” he said. He stripped his words of emotion, so that his voice came out empty, bordering on cold. “Jon was in pain. I wanted to give him head...”
I winced, and Revik felt it.
He stopped, looking down at me, and I saw his face grow more taut.
“I wanted him to open his light,” he explained, his voice still empty. “I wanted him to let me far into his light, so I could read his memories of you. Read the things I missed, any part of your life I missed... every fucking second of it, Allie. I was out of my head. I was so drunk I prob
ably couldn’t have done it anyway, even if he hadn’t said no.” Shaking his head, he avoided my eyes that time. “...But he said no, Allie. Not me.”
I swallowed, but I couldn’t bring myself to nod. My chest still hadn’t unclenched as I looked up at his face. I was still looking at him when his eyes hardened more, even as his fingers tightened in my hair.
“Do you still want me, Allie?” he said, blunt.
Looking up at him, I saw that challenge there again, and realized it was fear. Fear mixed with guilt, a deeper, older-feeling doubt and guilt and shame as he stared down at me. I could scarcely see past that fear, and the self-hate that went with it, even as my mind turned over his actual words. When I didn’t answer right away, I felt his light retreating from mine, slowly pulling away at the edges of my awareness.
“Yes,” I said, quiet. “I still want you.”
There was a silence. That fear I could feel on him didn’t dissipate.
“Are you going to forgive me for this?” he said finally.
I fought to think about his words, about what he’d told me. I couldn’t feel it, not even part of what he’d described with Jon. He wasn’t letting me anywhere near that memory, and while I couldn’t exactly blame him, it hurt, too, just from feeling pushed out. But I couldn’t say I didn’t understand. I got enough off his words to understand, even without the memory itself. I wasn’t even sure I needed to understand more than that.
“I will,” I said. “I do forgive you, Revik. You might need to give me a few days...”
He’d already started to pull away from me physically. Fighting a flush of anger, I grabbed his arm, wrapping my other arm around his back.
“Gods,” I said. “Are you really going to punish me for this?”
He stopped what he’d been doing, staring down at me. I saw his eyes study mine, even as he thought about my words. I felt him turn them over, right before he slowly shook his head.
“No,” he said. Hesitating, he looked down at my body. “Now?” he said, as if to clarify.
Allie's War Season Four Page 60
