Fire's Touch (The Enlightened Species Book Three)

by Hales, Wendy S.

  Conlon understood. He used physical exertion to do the same thing. She hid in her room and tattooed herself. He disappeared for however long it took and beat his body to a pulp. Usually he’d go home to Persia, where he’d run flat out for days. When his legs would tire, he’d fly just as hard. That was after spending hours with weights, weapons, and punching bags. All the while, he’d refuse his body the basics for survival—specifically blood—until he felt the emotions wane down to a degree he could deal with. How would he feel if she intruded on that? Especially if she didn’t tell him she understood his motives, possibly made him feel judged or less than for his methods.

  He waited until she set the tattoo gun aside with a deep sigh of partial relief and sank into the boiling bathwater before he tried. “I’m not the best at personal conversations. They make me feel … uncomfortable and unsure. Sometimes I feel like the guardian of a crypt full of secrets. My family seems to seek me out whenever they have troubles. I’m the sounding board, I guess. It’s not that I want to be, I just never know what to say … so I just listen.”

  With her arms on the edges of the tub, she peered at him with her chin touching her shoulder. He could tell she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. Fates, they were two peas in a pod. Conlon continued despite his insecurities. “Right now, I wish I had some words of comfort for you. Hell, I wish I could comfort myself, for that matter. I’d give anything for a speed bag and bloody knuckles.” He gave a self-derogatory laugh. Her eyes widened in surprise. “I get the tattoo. I use a different means toward the same end.”

  Her beautiful eyes pinched closed. She swallowed and nodded. Encouraged that perhaps he might have a real shot to open the lines of communication with her, he scooted back to press his back against the bathroom door. The scent of her blood drove his lust. He needed some extra space. “Thing is, Stacey, I’ve always been fine with fucking and idle chit-chat. I’ve never wanted more from anyone.” Conlon cleared his throat of the lump developing. His chest constricted as the plunge of his life loomed before him. “I want more with you. I don’t want fucking and chit-chat … I want to make love and have real conversations … but I have no clue how to get there … or if you want that too.”

  The silence felt like it stretched out forever. She rose from the bath like an avenging angel. The tattoo, completely healed, stood in stark contrast to her creamy skin like her black waves of hair. Everything about Stacey was a contradiction—soft and vulnerable on the inside, tough and hostile on the outside. All her facets called to him on such a raw, primal level. Beyond his ability to control, his dentes erupted hard and throbbing into his mouth. She stepped from the tub and balled her fists, the water on her body turning to stream, evaporating before his eyes. Her image wavered under the heat like a mirage. Just as quickly it stopped, leaving her dry. Her eyes held the subtle glow he’d seen earlier.

  Conlon tried to rise too, only to find himself cemented to the floor, mesmerized by her beauty. She climbed into his lap. Her hands to his pounding heart, she peered deeply into his eyes. “Conlon, you make me feel … and I hate it. And I yearn for it, too. I’m just as clueless about how to handle you as you are me. I’m so terrified of harming you, yet I can’t stand to be away from you. Touch you.” Her lips a millimeter from his, Fates, she was torturing him. “You’re an enigma in my life that I don’t need or want. Yet I …” Finally her lips found his. She nibbled and sucked his bottom lip before planting them firmly against his.

  His arms came up to hold fire in them. With full abandon, she moaned when he buried his hand into her thick tresses and guided her to the tile, covering her with his body. He kissed his way over her cheek to her ear. She whispered a plea that rang against his soul. “The conversations can wait. Make love to me, my warrior … but please, don’t let me burn you. I might not survive losing you, too.”

  My warrior. The ownership in her seductive, sensual voice ratcheted his already out-of-this-world passion to new heights. Welcome curves wrapped around his body, heating his blood and skin. Home. She didn’t complain about the cold, hard tile at her back as Conlon captured the deep red peak of her nipple between his lips. Her body arced towards him, begging for more.

  “Hold my neck.” He growled his demand. Incredibly, she complied without a word. He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the massive bed, laid her down gently, and then stood staring at her in complete awe. She was beautiful, strong, independent, and challenging.

  He reached for her when the need to touch what he viewed became too much. Stacey smacked his hand away, giving him a devious smile. Oh, shit. She rose to her knees at the edge of the bed, facing him, and reached for the snap of his jeans, then slowly drew down his zipper. Her warm hand reached beneath the waistband and the black denim pooled at his ankles. She kissed his neck, scraping her dente over his pulse the way he’d done hers earlier. Conlon growled silently. Yes! Take my blood, he silently pleaded.

  Stacey smiled and traveled down to lick over his flat nipples, her hand wrapped confidently around his erection. She peered up to gauge his reaction. “Are we bloodmates, Conlon?” she whispered as her tongue outlined the muscles of his chest. “If I took your blood right now, would I have access to every one of your memories? Your fears? Your fantasies?” Her words were emphasized with tiny nipped kisses.

  “Yes.” His voice trembled with passion.

  Just below his belly button, she paused her kisses again. “Wouldn’t that take all the fun out of getting to know each other?” Her breath brushed across his erection as she spoke. The bent position she gone down to was a feast for his eyes.

  Her tiny, pink tongue moistened her lips before circling the rim of where he needed her most. She drew him deep into her mouth. Conlon felt the heat of her mouth engulf him, his groan of pleasure bouncing off the walls as his hands found the dense mass of her hair. Her tentative licks betrayed her innocence in the art she’d so confidently taken to, yet it drove him higher and hotter than anything he’d ever felt. The sudden surge of his impending release hammered with the throb of his dentes in his mouth. Tightening his fist in her hair, he raised her mouth to his, plunging his tongue into the rapturous depths of the silken heat tinged with a coconut flavor. His hands touched her everywhere, floating over her creamy soft skin in an urgency to know her. Truly know her. This time her skin felt fevered rather than scorching. He could hear the bath water boiling in the other room. Jess had given her a tool and Stacey had taken to it like a fish to water.

  Her mouth had surrendered his thick length, but her hand remained on his shaft, driving him higher. The manic search of each other’s bodies by touch never disturbed her slow circling of his rim with her fingertip. Conlon kicked his jeans free of his legs and pushed gently against her chest till she lay before him, a gift beyond measure, beautiful beyond compare. Pure desire shone from the sapphire pools of her eyes. There was an openness in her expression he’d never seen from her. Vulnerable, needy, she was giving him more than her body and silently begging him not hurt her. Or maybe she was still afraid of hurting him.

  “Do you have any idea how incredibly beautiful you are?” His tongue followed the under-curve of her breast. Her nipple hardened to a peak in anticipation. He cupped it and lightly rubbed his thumb over the firm nipple, feeling Stacey shiver. He nipped the other nipple tenderly. Licking the sting away, he sucked it deeply into his mouth, memorizing the texture of the sensitive tissue with his tongue. Stacey’s fingers buried themselves in his hair as her back arched and she held him to her breast.

  “You make me feel beautiful.” She whispered the confession. “I’ve never put much value into how I look. I still don’t. It’s how I look to you that holds value.”

  Conlon rose and took her lips again. Were they breaking through? She’d just uttered something he knew was very personal to her. “Your beauty is more than your raven hair and stunning eyes. It comes from deep inside you. Your strength of character, the giving, compassionate nature that you hope no one will notice or ac
knowledge the look on your face when you hold your son or even mention his name. Beauty such as yours might not bear value per se, but the power can’t be denied either.”

  “How do you see that, Conlon?” Her question held genuine wonder. Did she really not see that about herself?

  “When you held that conference yesterday, you handled the business part with integrity and efficient knowledge. It was when you directed the company’s charity events and upcoming functions that your eyes lit up. I’ve never witnessed such beauty before. Then you held Johnny in your arms … I was struck fucking dumb.” He’d just shared the moment he knew he loved her.

  The swirling scent of her arousal beckoned him lower. Her quick intake of breath when his tongue slid between her folds added to her rich taste and sent molten lava through his bloodstream. Colors bloomed behind his eyelids while she moaned and thrashed beneath his hungry mouth. Her core oozed with a need he couldn’t deny. He slipped his finger deep inside her, feeling her inner walls burn as they grasped it desperately while he lapped and suckled the tender bundle of nerves. Her reactions directing his movements, he aligned his mind to achieving her pleasure. Her back arched seductively; a long, kitten-like adorable roar announced her crest. He dove in with new purpose and she shattered. Long, elegant fingers held his head to her core. Her inner walls pulsed and pulled his finger deeper toward her womb. The look of ecstasy on her face was absolutely magnificent. He languished in every drop of her release.

  Rising above her, he placed his tip at her pulsing core. Stacey’s hand grasped his ass pulling him into her. Conlon cried out as he reached her heated core. She moved fluidly with his thrusts, matching his passion with hers. This female owned him body, heart and soul. He gave himself over to the pleasure of her body completely, surrendering to the waves of euphoria she created in him. The building of pressure in his groin made his muscles tense in anticipation. He caught himself about to strike into the hard, pounding pulse of her neck. The need to bloodmate, taste her blood, merge eternally with her rocked the self-control he’d always taken pride in. With her kitten-like roar, a sound he would love for all time, her inner wall gripped him with pleasure/pain, milking him, throbbing against him, searing his soul. His orgasm rolled through him with an intensity that stunned him; exploding out of him, his seed jetted into her.

  Boneless, his weight crushed her as he tried to catch his breath enough to roll over. Twitches of aftershocks rippled over his sweat-slicked muscles, and blood coated his lips. Had he taken her bond without permission? He realized the blood was from puncturing his own lip. He tried to remove his weight from her, but Stacey wrapped her arms around his waist, keeping him in place. “No. Don’t move yet.” Her body trembled beneath his. There was something in her voice …

  Conlon lifted to his elbows and peered into her face. Tears streamed from her eyes, soaking into her hair. “Talk to me, Liefde.”

  She shook her head. “I’m starting to need you. I was okay wanting you. I’ve wanted you since the night I saw you at my rescue.” Conlon couldn’t believe it; he hadn’t seen her. “I was in the breeding compound a few weeks before you rescued me. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

  He searched her eyes, knowing Stacey was giving him a great gift in sharing this. “Because of Shane and Jess’s sacrifice in that operation, I went to all four sites, but I don't remember seeing you. Which one were you in?” His voice sounded husky with emotion.

  “Mount Eccles, Australia. Honestly, I don’t remember much. I’d only been there a few hours when I started Becoming. I thought I was human. I was raised human. That was all I knew, and I was pretty traumatized from witnessing my parents’ murder. When they took me, I thought they were monsters … in a way that was true.” Had she felt the bloodmate connection that long ago? “I’ve dreamed of you hundreds of times since then.”

  He thought about the scale of her tattoo. Was that his image? “Is needing me such a terrible thing?” He needed her too. Every belief he’d held to had been wrong. A female did not make a male weak … she made him stronger. Loving Stacey was not a distraction to his focus. He had more focus than he’d known existed; it had just shifted to what really matters in the universe—her happiness, her protection, destroying any threats against her. “Because it was the honorable thing to do” didn’t hold a candle to having her as the reason his honor mattered.

  Conlon shifted, tucking Stacey’s warm, perfect curves to his side. She lifted her face from his shoulder to look into his face. “Needing anyone sucks. It’s hard to be mean to you, though. You called me Liefde … Why?”

  Conlon shrugged. Calling her “love” in Dutch fit. “I must admit that I’m glad I didn’t see you the night of your rescue. I’ve changed a lot since that time.”

  Stacey gave him a curious grin. “Were you charming back then?”

  Conlon snort-laughed at her sarcasm. Charm had never been a trait of his. He liked how she noted his brashness in a teasing way. “I’m still charming. Truth is, back then I didn’t really understand what Hulven went through. I did my duty without giving much thought to why. The people we saved that night …” Typical, he locked up after starting into something personal. Words evaporated under her blue gaze.

  “What? The people you saved what?” Stacey prompted, and just like that his voice returned.

  “Since the raids, I’ve been visiting the nests where the females have taken residence during my off time. After a while, some of them became less uncomfortable around me. I try to spend time with the children. Let them know that males aren’t bad. The kids pick up on their mother’s feelings, so sometimes it’s been difficult, but I think it’s important.” He sighed. No one knew how he spent his “alone” time. “The first time one of the females reached out to me, I couldn’t believe it, and then she told me why. Her son had started Becoming and she was terrified. I went to support them. It was the first Becoming I’d ever really witnessed. I couldn’t believe what he endured to gain his Volaticus traits. Granted, I have heard of it … but that wasn’t the same as seeing it. Before that, I’d always thought ‘how hard could it be?’” Conlon hoped she didn’t think him an asshole for his lack of sympathy. Most Elven had no clue.

  Stacey curved her lip and nodded. He let out a sigh of relief. “After that, many of the females have called on me to aid their young during Becoming. Every time, I am again left mortified and amazed by the process.”

  Stacey gave him an understanding smile. “I can’t lose another person I care for, Conlon. I just try not to care. Ever. When that doesn’t work, I try to ensure people don’t care for me. If you knew how many fires I’ve started … you probably wouldn’t want me in your house.”

  Conlon felt her words echo in his soul. “I’ve been a warrior a long time. I’ve lost many people I cared for. We both protect against getting hurt in different ways. Where you strike out, I withdraw. I’ll try to open up if you … sweeten up. You can learn to control your gift, Stacey, but you have to be willing to let people help you.” She smiled against his chest. Conlon rubbed his fingers along her back and thought long into the night while she slept in his arms.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Cassie stated, while everything in her cried “yes.” She broke from Hans. He’d been holding her on the couch for hours as grief coursed through her. The pain of Jack and Mark’s families echoed through her mind. How did her mother do this? Whenever there was a death in battle, tradition dictated that the families receive the news from the queen and/or king of the colony. Her mother had delivered this kind of news hundreds if not thousands of times. Cassie had tried to emulate the manner her mother used. It still felt horrible.

  Especially Jack’s paired sibling. The female had already been devastated before Cassie’s call. She knew he was dead from the unique bond of paired sibling, just not the why of it. Until that call Cassie had thought Jack had only one paired sibling; turned out he was a triplet and had two paired sisters. At least the female
s could find comfort in each other … like she had with Hans.

  “You should go,” she told Hans. Before I do something stupid, she silently added and climbed the stairs toward the room she’d been given. Her shoulder still felt warm from where it leaned against his chest. She could still feel the sensation of his arms wrapped around her. His gentle kisses to her hair, the rumble of his voice when he spoke in low, compassionate tones.

  She hadn’t heard him follow her. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder just as she reached out for the doorknob. “Cassie, I promise I’ll just hold you. Nothing more. Come with me. I’ll never disrespect you,” he whispered.

  Cassie turned to meet his gaze. It wasn’t him she worried about. He’d always displayed honor, integrity, and duty. It was she who’d been going to seduce him that night. She’d behaved dishonorably. She’d attempted to disrespect him, their colonies, everything, yet every time she looked at him the fear of consequences went out the window in light of her love for him, desire for him. She shook her head and opened the door. “I have to be here in case Johnny or Stacey need me,” she whispered back. Denying him ripped a hole through her heart.

  Meg’s sleeping form was visible on one of the two beds. Incredibly, Hans pushed past her and sat at the edge of the second, empty twin-sized bed. “Then I’m staying.” His determined gaze flitted to Meg and then back. Cassie grinned for the first time since news of the crash as Hans leaned over and started untying his boots. He wasn’t kidding.

  Filled with such joy it felt nearly foreign to her, she knelt in the narrow space of floor dividing the beds and looked up into Hans’s handsome face. “Hans, it’s not your intentions I don’t trust.” She tried to keep her voice low and not disturb her roommate. “It just wouldn’t be right.”