by Olivia Gates
Spreading her legs wide, she begged him, “Inside me, Raiden. Come inside me.”
He looked down at her, sable hair cascading over his leonine forehead. “I want to be inside you all the time, Scarlett. And I couldn’t be for five years. Because you didn’t trust me to understand, didn’t give me the chance to help you, to protect you, to save you.”
Her body contorted under the onslaught of his impassioned upbraiding. “I’m sorry... I didn’t think...”
He captured her face in urgent hands. “You thought too much, and all wrong. And you should be sorry. When I think what you almost did to yourself, what you cost us when you kept me in the dark, thinking you were protecting me, my head almost explodes.”
“I did protect you,” she protested weakly.
“And I want your word you’ll never do anything like this again. Never hide anything from me again, Scarlett.”
“I won’t.” She was half lying, for she was still hiding things, but she had to protect him from further pain. Needing to distract him, needing him beyond endurance, she wrapped herself around him. “Don’t punish me anymore. Just take me.”
His body turned to granite in her arms. “You punished us both when you sacrificed yourself for me. Don’t you know I’d rather die than see you hurt? And for you to be hurt on my account... God, I don’t know how I’ll live with that knowledge.”
She stared into his pained eyes, distress expanding in her throat all over again. No, she hadn’t known that. She’d never dared dream of anything even far less.
Contrition suffocating her, she needed to take him away from the maddening what-ifs, bring him back to her in this moment. “You’re hurting me now, Raiden, making me wait.”
It was as if some switch was thrown inside him, the consternation on his face switching to voracity.
In full predator mode, he rose above her, rid himself of his pants and briefs. She felt the usual clench of intimidation at the sight of his girth and length, at his beauty and sleekness. She craved his invasion, not only for the ecstasy it forced from her flesh, but because it was the most intimacy she could have with him.
“Just take me, please....”
And he finally did. He rammed inside her, all his power and the accumulation of frustration and hunger behind the thrust. The head of his erection, nearly too wide for her, rubbed against all the right places, abrading nerves into an agony of response, pushing receptors over the limit of stimuli. Even after the releases he gave her, she was so inflamed that it took only a few unbridled thrusts for her to arch up in a deep bow and scream. In her ecstasy, she saw only his beloved face in focus, clenched in pleasure, his eyes vehement with his greed for her.
Every time with him it got better. Excruciatingly better.
“I can’t... Please... You...you... Now...”
He understood, gave her what she needed. The sight of his face seizing, his roars echoing her screams, the feel of him succumbing to the ecstasy she gave him, the hard jets of his climax inside her. They hit her at her peak, had her unable to endure the spike in pleasure, then everything dimmed, faded....
* * *
Heavy breathing and slow heartbeats echoed from the end of a long tunnel as the scents of satisfaction flooded her lungs. Awareness trickled into a body so sated it was numb.
She felt only one thing. Raiden. Still inside her, even harder, larger. She opened lids weighing half a ton each, saw him swim in and out of focus. He was still kneeling between her legs, her buttocks propped on his thighs, her legs around his. One of his palms was kneading her breasts, the other gliding over her shoulders, her arms, her belly.
“You are mine. Mine. As Scarlett. As Hannah. As Katya.”
She lurched at hearing her real name on his lips. She’d known he must know it now, but hearing him say it...
She moaned as he ground deeper inside her, reaching the point where the familiar expansion turned into almost pain. An edge of dominance that was glorious, addictive, overwhelming, even a little frightening. The idea of all that he was, melding with her, at her mercy as she was at his, filled volumes inside her, body, mind and soul.
“Say it. You’re mine. All of you. Every version of you.”
“There was only ever one version. The version born to love you.”
She truly didn’t know what happened after that.
Raiden devoured her, finished her, then did so again and again.
It was as though his passion had always been curbed, but now all his shackles had been broken. He showed her what it could be like with him fully unleashed.
It was beyond description.
After the nightlong conflagration, she lay in his arms in a stupor, every cell in her body overloaded with bliss. At least before the ticking timer inside her resumed the countdown.
Her ten weeks were almost up. No matter what he’d said now, how he felt, his plans were more important, couldn’t be changed. And she’d have to exit his life soon.
But she couldn’t even contemplate being cut off from him forever.
There was only one way she wouldn’t be.
Unsteadily, she struggled to prop herself over his endless chest. Looking down at him, she marveled again that all this beauty and power could be hers, even if temporarily.
Then she made the tentative bid for permanence.
“I want to amend our arrangement, Raiden. I want to remain your lover after you’re married.”
Eight
Raiden sat up slowly, not only because Scarlett’s offer had rocked him to his core, because he felt he’d drained his very life force inside her. Four times.
After that statement, that she’d been born to love him, he didn’t know what had happened to him. It was as if every iota of control he’d ever practiced had been building up an opposite wildness, and only a measure of that had been released in the past with her, probably because on some level he’d felt there had been something not quite right. Since they’d been together again, their whole situation had rationed his uninhibitedness. Then she’d made that declaration, and it had been as if the dam inside him had burst.
The way he’d taken her, in a sustained eruption of raging hunger, the way she’d surrendered unconditionally, and the explosive pleasure they’d wrung from each other... It had been transfiguring, transcendent.
After that last time he’d taken her in the shower, he’d taken her back to bed and had been feeling another cataclysm building. Then she’d staggered up and made that out-of-the-blue offer and everything had dissipated with shock.
She was now looking at him avidly, her hair hanging around her gleaming shoulders in thick, wet locks, her lips and body showing the effects of his fierce possession.
He’d never seen anything more beautiful, known anything more overpowering.
The seductive smile playing on her kiss-swollen lips didn’t reach her eyes. Those were faltering as she painted his chest in caresses. “Powerful men in Japan almost always have mistresses, and it’s accepted as long as they’re discreet and don’t disgrace their wives and families. I will abide by any precautions you need to maintain our secret.” She pouted in a rickety attempt at reprimand. “You’ll certainly have to curb the impulses you’ve been having of late, popping up wherever I am, taking me out or home for all to see.”
He suddenly wanted to get up, get away and stop this.
But before he could move, she hugged him fiercely around the waist, laid her hot face over his thudding heart. Her lips trembled against his skin as she spelled out her offer. “If you can’t have enough of me, as I can’t have enough of you, this doesn’t have to end. I don’t want to lose you, and I’ll do anything, stay anywhere, as long as I can have you like this. I know once you get married your situation will change, but you don’t have to leave me behind to have the family, the heritage and the heirs yo
u’ve planned to have for so long. You can have me indefinitely if you want, and also have everything else you ever craved and deserve.”
Raiden’s head filled with cacophony, every response that screamed in his mind jumbling together, paralyzing him, muting him.
She was giving him a carte blanche to her life.
It was again the last thing he’d expected. Not that he’d expected anything, being tossed about in last night’s tumult.
But if he’d been able to think, he would have come to one conclusion. That it was no longer a possibility he’d give her up on their agreed-on date, or at all. He couldn’t even think of a life without her now. Couldn’t think of another reason to live but being with her, being hers. He was finally free to face that he’d loved her from the first moment and had never stopped loving her. But he now loved her with a profundity he hadn’t thought himself capable of. And he now knew she reciprocated his emotions in full. If he’d thought at all, he would have thought he’d be the one to plead with her not to leave his side.
But she’d preempted him, offering herself without reservations, relegating herself to a permanent position in the shadows in his life.
What hurt most was that she believed it was her natural place, that it was all she was worth, to be hidden as if she was a shameful secret. She believed she was, saw herself as tainted with a stain that would never be cleansed.
Before he voiced one of a million vehement arguments to the opposite, the color suddenly drained from her face.
“You—you don’t want any more time with me, let alone indefinitely, do you?” Her bloodless lips contorted. “It—it’s just when you said... I thought you... Oh, God, I’m sorry I—”
Her stumbling apology came to an abrupt end as her eyes rolled back in her head and she sagged back on the bed in a dead faint.
The detonation of terror almost made him follow suit.
He didn’t, only because he’d turned to stone with fright.
Then shock splintered and he pounced on her, his heart rupturing. “Scarlett... God, Scarlett, darling...”
She didn’t move when he shook her. His hands were shaking so hard, he couldn’t detect her pulse....
Stop it. Get yourself under control.
He heard himself barking the self-admonition, tried to force himself to think, but could only think she was lying there, ashen, unmoving. And he couldn’t rouse her, couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
Yet even panicking, his mechanisms of performing under maximum duress kicked in, making him go through emergency procedures.
Then he did the one thing he’d always done when he or any of his brothers was injured or unwell. He called Antonio.
As soon as the line clicked open, Raiden choked, “Scarlett fainted. I can’t wake her up.”
Without preamble, Antonio went into doctor mode. “Place her on her back, remove any constricting clothing, raise her legs above heart level about twelve inches, then check her airway for anything blocking it. Watch for vomiting. If she vomits, immediately place her on her side.”
“I did all that, and she still won’t wake up.” His voice barely came out, futile tears starting to run down his cheeks.
“Give me her vitals.”
He gritted out her breath and heartbeat count.
“Slow, but not dangerously so. Neurologic status?”
“Reflexes are normal. But she won’t wake up!”
“That on its own means nothing. Whatever the reason she’s unconscious, she isn’t in any immediate danger.”
“You can’t know that!”
“Given your report, I can. Did you call an ambulance?”
“I called you. You’re the best there is. Get your ass over here now.”
“I assume ‘here’ is your new residence?” Raiden’s apoplectic expletive made Antonio sigh. “Calm down before you give yourself a stroke. I’d rather have only one patient on my hands when I arrive.” Before Raiden yelled the building down, he heard slamming doors on the other end of the phone, then before the line went dead, Antonio said, “I’m already on my way.”
Shaking out of control, Raiden threw the phone down and pounced on Scarlett. He checked her pulse and breathing over and over, caressed and crooned to her to please wake up.
She didn’t. She remained unconscious until Antonio arrived, what felt like an eternity later. It had actually been only ten minutes, which he’d counted second for second. From his perspiring condition, it was clear Antonio had run the whole way from his hotel a few blocks away.
In those endless minutes, Raiden had dressed Scarlett in her underwear, then wrapped her freezing body in the comforter. He’d been wrapped around her to transfer his body heat to her when Steve had let in Antonio. He could now barely relinquish her still form and stand aside to let Antonio start his exam.
Antonio had come prepared, with his magical medical bag as they called it, with supplies and instruments inside ready to handle anything from simple cuts to major field surgery.
He examined Scarlett with all-knowing hands and all-seeing eyes, took her pressure, drew blood, performed neurologic tests, used a few instruments Raiden didn’t recognize. Then he finally put everything back into his bag.
Out of his mind by now, Raiden growled like a cornered beast. “Why didn’t you wake her up?”
Antonio looked up at him serenely. “Because I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?”
Antonio looked at him with those imperturbable green eyes. “I might be capable of almost anything medically, but contrary to common belief, I can’t perform miracles.”
“It would take a miracle to wake her up now?” He nearly choked on the words.
“Stop making the worst assumptions, Raiden, for your own health. What you see in movies with instant injections and slaps and smelling salts are just for drama’s sake. In the real world you should leave an unconscious person to wake up on her own, as long as we’ve made sure nothing else is wrong with her.”
“But there has to be something wrong with her. She just turned off and won’t turn back on!”
“I have a diagnosis for that.” Antonio stood up, looked him in the eyes like someone about to impart something that would change his life. Then he did. “She’s totally exhausted. And seriously upset. And certainly pregnant.”
* * *
Scarlett surfaced from what felt like an abyss.
It had been dark and oppressive down there. But she’d been unwilling to escape it. It had at least been safe, and better than the alternative. That of coming out only to face a far worse bleakness. That of Raiden’s rejection.
She’d offered him herself, no strings attached, forever if he’d take her that long. The dismay on his face had hurt so much, she hadn’t been able to handle it. She had wished she’d just stop feeling anything so it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
She realized she’d fainted. Which was weird. That was the first time her consciousness had given out, yielded to the refuge of oblivion. Not even in her worst of times, and she’d had some nightmarish ones, had it come to her rescue like that. But then, none of those times had been as brutal as knowing it was over with Raiden. Now she was reluctant to exit its protection, wanted to remain in its cold cloak forever.
But there was no use. She was already awake. Even before she opened her eyes, she knew what she’d see. Raiden.
He was standing beside the bed, looking down at her. She could feel his gaze on her, emitting impatience, no doubt for her to come around. There was something else, too. Agitation.
Was that on account of her fainting, or of the offer she’d made before she had? Or both? Did he think he’d have a hysterical female on his hands once she woke up? One who’d start clinging and causing him problems he couldn’t afford?
Might as well open her eyes and
reassure him that he had nothing to fear from her. She’d made a desperate bid for more time with him, and she’d lost. As she’d known she would. But she’d had to try. Now it was over, and she’d go in silence as she’d intended. But he didn’t know that. It was time to let him know.
She opened her eyes, and his image filled her aching gaze. He’d put on pants, was standing over her like a monolith, every muscle in his majestic body bunched, making him look even more perfect, more intimidating. That body that had owned and pleasured hers in magical ways would soon be only a memory. Just like everything else with him. Even his confession that he’d been with no other woman. No matter how he desired her, his plans were what mattered to him. As they should.
Struggling to prop herself up, she pushed hair out of her eyes. “Sorry for passing out on you like that.”
“How can you apologize? It isn’t as if you could have done something about it.”
He sounded hoarse. She did, too, her voice abused with too many cries of pleasure. It felt so strange, made her feel so cold, after that indescribable interlude of intimacy, for him to be standing there, separate from her. But she’d known all along that this was coming. Maybe this fainting spell had been timely, ending the scene she would have so impulsively caused. Now discussing it would be without the flagrant emotions of the moment, would be distant and detached.
She sat up. “I guess not. But I do apologize for what I said before I fainted. It must have been the euphoric high after the incredible sex. But I’m taking back everything I said and we’re returning to our scheduled separation. In fact, I think I just pushed the date forward. We had the revelations and confessions and got everything out in the open and off our chests, and had an unprecedented session worthy of a last hurrah. Anything after that would be redundant, so it’s time to say our goodbyes.”
She flung the comforter off as if it burned her, even if it acutely dismayed her to be seminaked in front of him now. Now that their intimacies were over, she felt as she had all her life, stripped of her every dignity and hiding place. She felt far worse than she ever had. With any other, she hadn’t cared about feeling like a sullied, expendable object.
