He looked away from me, anger rolling off of him.
“I’m not going to apologize for doing what I thought I had to do to keep you safe. You can hate me forever for that if you want to. I’m sorry it hurt you. I’m sorry I lied. I wish I’d handled it a different way.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. It had started to rain, and the sky was dark gray. Fat raindrops splattered against the windshield.
“As for that Brennan shit,” he started, and I looked back at him. “I’m not in competition with Brennan. I’m not some lovesick little boy who’s gonna follow you around begging you to look at me. You have enough to deal with right now without that shit. You know I love you. You know I’d do anything for you. You want him? You know where to find him. But we both know you have no interest in going back to him. I don’t need to try to convince you that we’re right together, because you already know it. You want it just as much as I do.”
I still didn’t answer. Nothing he said was wrong. I’d felt his pull on me since the moment I’d broken him out of the cell at the Wayne County Jail that first night I was back from my time in the Nether. I’d done everything in my power to fight it, because there’s just no way I could handle that particular brand of intense with everything else going on in my life. I looked over at him, and his eyes were on me. Being there with him, in the confines of his truck with the rain beating down after the kisses we’d just shared had my body on overdrive.
He leaned over again and lowered his lips to mine. This kiss was different; still demanding, still intense, but not as hard. This was more like him tasting me, loving me. This was the way he’d kissed me that morning in my kitchen, as if I was the best thing in the world and he’d never get tired of my lips on his.
He put his big hand on my waist, pulled me close to him, and deepened our kiss, and I was lost, kissing him back, my hands gripping his shoulders.
His mouth was on my throat, his hands roaming my body again, and I knew I would give him just about anything he wanted. I also knew I wasn’t ready, I pushed him away again, gently, and I felt how much it frustrated him, but he pulled back, let me go.
I glanced over at him. His jaw and fists were clenched, every muscle in his body tense. His eyes were glowing. I glanced down at his lap, clenched my thighs together, his need and frustration very evident from that quick glance. I looked up at his face, and he was watching me.
“Yeah. That’s nothing new. All you have to do is walk into a room and I’m ready to bend you over and make you forget about everything but me. And you know I can do it.”
“Stop it.”
“Make me.”
My face was burning, my body aching. I looked out the window, tried to calm myself down. “Calm down. You’re getting all demon on me.”
“Only for you. You’re the only one in my entire life I’ve ever let see all of me. And I know for damn sure I’m the only one who’s ever seen all of you. All that darkness you try to keep bottled up, all that rage you try to pretend you don’t feel. I know you inside and out. And I know there’s not another being alive who can say the same thing.”
“So, what? Do you want a gold star or something?” I huffed, still looking out the window.
“Nice that you didn’t bother denying it.”
I ignored him.
“What I really want to do is make you remember what it feels like. How fucking right it is when we’re together. You remember that night in your bed after we bonded for the first time? The way you came screaming for me? How hard we went at it until you were so exhausted that you couldn't even move?
His words, the memories he was evoking, had me on the verge of screaming with my own frustration. I looked back at him. His eyes were still glowing, his hunger rolling over me in waves.
“Nain.”
“What?”
“Yes. I remember. I still dream about that night. I want that. I want all of it. I want your mouth on me. I want to taste you again. I want to hear you growl when I bite you and feel how much you like it when I rake my fingernails down your back. I want you inside me so much it’s driving me insane. I want you holding me down, biting me, taking me so hard I feel it for days afterward even with my healing ability. But I need time, too,” I said, shaking my head a little, trying to get my body under control. Nearly impossible considering the way his hunger had ratcheted up as I’d been talking. “It’s so easy to lose myself in you. Just give me a little time to figure myself out so we don’t mess this up again. Can you give me that?”
He reached over and took my hand. I felt him trying to settle himself down. I met his eyes. He brought my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my wrist, my palm. “Yes. I can give you that.” Then his teeth scraped over the delicate skin of my wrist, and he nipped there, not exactly gently. “You are damn sexy when you do that.”
“When I do what?” I asked.
“When you tell me what you want. When you stand up to me like that. You’re a lot more confident than you used to be.”
I watched him as he ran his thumb over my wrist where he’d just bitten me. Soothing and ridiculously sexy, reminding me again of the intense sensations I felt when we were together. I smiled. “You just like fighting with me.”
“Only because when we start fighting, we usually end up fucking.”
I pulled my hand out of his and crossed my arms over my chest. “Not today, demon.”
He laughed and started the truck. “Not today, but soon. And I am going to enjoy making you beg, wife of mine.”
“In your dreams.”
He put his hand on my thigh, high, tips of his fingers very near where I was already aching for him. “You really don’t want to talk about my dreams right now, Molly. Not if you want me to stay in control.”
Nain and I drove through the city, back toward the loft. He kept his hand on my thigh, and I let him. We seemed to come to an understanding: I wanted and needed him, and he wanted and needed me, but we weren’t moving forward until I was ready.
I put my hand on his, and he twined his fingers with mine. We drove in silence, and I would have been fairly content (even with all the insanity with my house) if it hadn’t been for Nether fighting against me again. I closed my eyes and started focusing on calming my emotions. Too much. For someone who was supposed to not be feeling anything I was feeling way, way too much of late. The anger and sadness over my house, the panic when I thought we wouldn’t get Shanti to a safe place in time. Nain.
I took deep breaths and tried to settle down. When I’d first started trying to close myself off from my emotions, a few years after my powers manifested, I’d always pictured smooth white marble. I wanted to make myself like that: cold, hard, and pure. I found myself going back to that at times like this. The only problem was that back when I’d done that, I’d had nothing in my life that mattered. It was just me, living in my car and then my house. I had no friends. No family. No interaction with people in general, other than what my job required.
Life was way more complicated when it had other people in it.
My life before had been simpler, sure. The only life I really had to worry about was my own, and I honestly didn’t care all that much. It had taken dying, over and over again, to realize that I’d spent the early part of my career with some kind of death wish.
And now, I couldn’t die even if I wanted to. My life wasn’t the important thing. But now, I had people in my life I cared about. People I loved like family, which is something I’d never thought I’d have. And I wanted to keep them safe. When you have stuff like that on your mind, it’s hard to get to that cold, calm place.
Really, I needed some alone time. As much as I loved my friends and team mates, the fact that I was never alone was making me feel like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I liked solitude. I could recharge when I was alone. It seemed like my life was one extreme or the other; I’d spent the first twenty-four years of my life totally alone, and now it seemed like there was no such thing as being alone.
I would make some time to be alone for a bit somehow, I promised myself as I continued to try to fight Nether back.
Why do you fight me so hard? The demon is right about that, Mollis Eth-Hades. You are a frustrating woman. Nether’s sinuous voice in my mind. I was surprised. She hadn’t talked to me since that night I’d killed Terror.
I didn’t answer her.
Your line has always believed I’m a monster. That I’m something to fear. Do you even know why I was punished by Nyx?
I focused on staying calm.
“You okay, Molls?” Nain asked, and I nodded, kept my eyes closed.
I was punished because I made the mistake of falling in love. My duty, my life itself was owed to Nyx. But I fell in love with Aether, and he and I became consumed with one another.
I could barely breathe.
We were not supposed to love. We, the Creators, were born of chaos yet our duty was to bring order to the universe. We created everything. The immortals, the very land beneath your feet. There is no place in that for things like love. Devotion. Happiness or sadness.
Yet Aether and I felt it anyway. And we loved, and we kept it a secret.
We fought, as lovers do. Our fights were intense. At one point, Nyx decided we had gone too far. That we’d lost our focus. And she needed places to house her next creations. The immortals came only after Aether and I had been captured and transformed into the realms they call home.
Think about it, little Fury. I have spent millennia serving as a realm, as a prison. My prison all the worse because I watch beings live who are no better than I am. When you needed saving, remember who it was that saved you.
You keep hurting me. I couldn’t even believes I was talking to the thing in my head. Time to be fitted for a straightjacket.
It hurts me when you use your powers You are only feeling what I am forced to feel.
Why?
You use a lot of power. It is agonizing, and you feel what I feel. I am not doing it on purpose, I swear to you.
I wanted to believe her. She was good. I felt sorry for her, and she already knew me well enough to know that I believed in second chances.
And the fact that she knew me made it harder for me to believe her, because I was almost sure she was playing me. I mean, everyone who’d talked about her had talked about how insane she was. And I’d seen it, the night she’d taken control of me. This wasn’t some poor, helpless, innocent being. She’d purposely caused destruction and used my body to do it.
I can prove to you that I can be trusted. I can help you find the one you seek.
Strife?
I know her as Eris, but yes. I can lead you to her.
Now?
Silence for several moments. No. Not now. We will need to rid ourselves of the demon first. He interferes with me.
And that did it. She knew what Nain did for me, the way his presence strengthened me and made it easier for me to fight her.
Not a chance, Nether.
And that was when she started raging, calling me every foul name I’d ever heard and some I hadn’t. Her anger, her frustration that she’d believed she’d been close to pulling one over on me and failed, was overwhelming.
I will destroy everything you hold dear.
I will take your life the way mine has been taken from me.
Believe it, little Fury. I will get my chance.
I focused harder, pictured that white slab of marble. Nain squeezed my hand, seeming to know that I needed a little extra something just then, and, eventually, her raging was nothing more than a dull roar at the back of my mind, muted but still very much there. I knew my breathing was elevated.
She was getting harder to fight.
I opened up my eyes and looked at Nain. We were in the parking garage. I had no idea how long we’d been there, but he was still holding my hand, watching me.
He reached into the glove box and pulled out a tissue. He brought it to my nose, and when he pulled it away, there was blood on it. I hadn’t even realized it. He brought it back, held it there, and put his other hand on the back of my neck. His fingers rubbed along the back of my neck as he held the tissue to my nose, and his eyes stayed on mine.
Nether’s pretty pissed at me.
You are white as a sheet right now, baby. I could feel how much power it was taking to control her. Nearly made me puke you were using so much of it.
I think she’s getting stronger.
His eyes were still on mine. I hate this. How the fuck am I supposed to destroy something that’s living inside of you?
You can’t. No one can. I just have to be stronger.
He pulled the tissue away from my nose, and I took it and shoved it in my pocket. I’d throw it away later. He kept his other hand on the back of my neck, still soothing, still trying to calm me down and lend me his strength all at the same time.
“She tried to tell me she could help us find Strife. She tried to get me to trust her. She was pissed when I didn’t bite.”
“She knows how bad you want it.”
“She told me why Nyx imprisoned her. I think she was trying to make me feel sorry for her,” I said.
Nain was watching me. “Did it work?”
“Kind of. Doesn’t mean I’m going to give in though.”
“I love it when you’re all badass like that,” he said, and I rolled my eyes and opened my door.
We got into the loft and went our separate ways. I spent the rest of the day with E, scouring the city for Strife, and he went out on patrol with Stone. By the time E and I got home, it was very late but I was still full of energy. I took advantage of it and went up to the roof, pounded on the punching bag for a while. I sat and thought, and enjoyed being alone for a little while. I wasn’t ready to climb into bed with Nain again just then, so it’s a good thing I didn’t need much sleep. Not because I didn’t want to be near him, because I very much did. More because if I climbed into bed with him I’d probably end up doing a lot more and that wasn’t a step I was ready to take.
A little after dawn, my phone went off and I glanced at it. Text from Nain.
“Good morning.”
I texted him “good morning” back.
“Feel like going out for coffee w me?”
I smiled. “Are you asking me out on an actual date?”
“We never went on one of those before. Yeah.”
“OK. Give me a few minutes.”
“K.”
I shook my head and smiled again and headed back into the loft. When I got down there, I could feel that he was in his office. I went to his/our room to shower and dress.
A date with my ex-husband. I must be insane.
Chapter Thirteen
I showered and dressed, tossing on my favorite pair of jeans and a red top I hadn’t worn yet. Shanti and Ada were still trying to get me to dress like a girl and every once in a while a new shirt or something would show up in my laundry. Ada had already enjoyed replenishing my clothing stock after the fire. I put on make up and brushed my hair out, left it down. I made sure my enchantment was in place, my wings hidden, my eyes not glowing.
When I went out into the loft, Nain was standing at the kitchen counter. He was on the phone. He watched me hungrily as I headed across the loft and grabbed my shoes from the entry hall.
“Damn,” he said after he hung up. He walked over to me, still staring at me. “The only thing that would be better was if you didn’t have to hide your eyes and wings.”
“They make me look freaky,” I said, shaking my head.
“Not a chance.” You’re goddamn beautiful, woman. You can feel what you do to me.
I blushed.
“Are you ready to go?”
He nodded and pulled the door open, gestured for me to go through. We drove a few miles, ending up at the Fisher Building.
“There’s a good place in here. Really I just like this building. The coffee could be shit and it wouldn’t even matter,” Nain said. “Is this okay?”
�
�Yes.”
We parked and walked down the street. Walking into the Fisher Building always kind of took my breath away. Majestic was the only word for it. The tile mosaics, the gleaming floors, the soaring ceilings and amazing Art Deco chandeliers. It was almost impossible to believe that there could be that much beauty put into one building.
We walked through the lobby until we found the little cafe Nain was thinking of, which was the same one I’d come to with Ada once or twice. My hand was in his, and I was caught between wanting to stare at the magnificent surroundings or ogle him.
For the most part, I looked at the building. I’d have time to ogle Nain later.
We walked into the cafe and ordered coffees and croissants and found a table just outside of the cafe, in the lobby. We sat down and I sipped my coffee while I looked around. We chatted about the team, Shanti. How I was feeling regarding Nether. When I glanced back at Nain, he was watching me.
“Of all the things to be looking at in here, why do you keep looking at me?” I asked him.
“Because you’re the best thing here,” he said, and I shook my head.
“This building is amazing. Ada brought me here a few times for lunch. Every time I’ve been in here I find more to look at.”
“I remember when they built this,” he said. “I was on the construction crew.”
I stared at him. “No way.”
He nodded. “I worked on the exterior facade. I still remember the way the stonemasons obsessed over cutting every slab just right. They were like artists. I was just brute force, helping get the slabs up.”
“Wow. So you worked construction and you worked in the factories, right?”
Strife: Hidden Book Four Page 15
