by Sue Wilder
“Christan,” she whispered, her hands no longer pressing against him but exploring on their own. A shiver of remembered excitement brought every nerve to the surface. She licked her lips, afraid at first, growing braver. “Christan, I’ve…”
“What?” he whispered.
“Missed you.”
Her groan echoed his as he took her mouth. His tongue spread liquid fire while his fingers slid beneath her hair and grasped her nape. He held her until she trembled, lifted her and walked toward their bed. When he put her down she held herself splayed for his taking, a pagan goddess at his command.
Beautiful. The word flashed in Lexi’s mind as he shed his jeans. He was so magnificently, violently masculine. There was an eternity of pain in his eyes and marked across his body, so clear she shuddered on a rush of tenderness. The wounds he had endured in that alley were nearly healed, and when he came to her she traced fingers across his face, then into the dark silk of his hair, finding him where he had been lost.
“Come home,” she whispered, drew her fingers downward. He hissed as her nails scored his skin and it was such a feral sound she arched beneath it. She found his shoulders, ran her fingers down his arms, then back to circle his dark, flat nipples. His chest was massive. She flattened her palms, pressed the solid muscle that tightened beneath her touch. Tattooed lines of black and bronze were alive beneath her palms. She applied pressure and he understood what she meant, sliding his heavy weight to the side and rolling over on his back.
“Mine,” she whispered, coming to her knees and straddling him. His skin was volcanic. She bent down to trace her tongue across his throat, feeling as pagan as he looked when she drew back enough to see his face.
Part of her understood the dark emotions driving him because she burned with the same savage need. Part of her understood the forgiveness he craved but would never request. She ached for it, too, for her sins were as grave as his, if not worse, and she was the addict rolling on the floor, desperate without redemption. But to demand forgiveness that could not be freely given was something neither one would ever do. They took each other as they were this night, raw and exposed and brutal. This fire that raged between them was not seduction, not a resurrection of something that had once been. This was two sinners colliding in the night, torn apart by passion and regret until they both lay bloody at the other’s feet.
Her fingers were kneading against him as he lifted one strand of pale-gold hair and tucked it over her shoulder, then cupped her breast and rubbed hard against her nipple. She arched beneath the pressure. Hissed in a breath. She was power. He was seduction. Her body shimmered with desire, the insides of her thighs gripping him.
He shifted her, and she could feel the length of his erection pressing hotly between her legs. But not yet. She had missed his hard body for so long, missed the taste and smell of him. She was lost in touching his skin, pressing her lips to his chest, finding his nipple and biting gently. Dragging in the wild, clean scent of sunshine and deserts painted ocher and rose. When she heard his soft moan she slid down, tracing his stomach with her tongue, searching for what she could have until he rolled them both, coming down on top of her heavy and hard and aroused.
His mouth was hot, unyielding as he slid wet kisses across her throat. Strong hands held her still as he moved from collarbone to breast, licking and biting across her nipple, down her ribs to the outside of her waist. His hands found her knees, circled them, his mouth plundering, working down until she was writhing in his hold. His thumbs pressed against the soft flesh and she cried out as he lifted her to his wicked mouth, her hands reaching for his wrists. She was so wet and ready, but he continued his assault with such furious greed she feared nothing would be left.
It was almost too much, too much and she told him so, but he wouldn’t listen. His tongue was stroking, licking, until he found the sensitive hard bud, working her until she was shaking. Higher, he pushed her higher until she broke apart in his arms. He slid one finger in, and then a second, built a steady thrusting rhythm until she was panting, her golden hair spread around her face. She pushed up on her elbows and begged him for relief.
“Come for me,” he whispered, the command so erotic she felt her body clench down to her very soul and she slid over the edge. She pulsed with a strength so catastrophic it didn’t leave her sated but demanding more. She reached desperately, wanting him inside. But he pressed his palm against her stomach and continued his assault, licking and sucking until her flesh became so sensitive she wanted out of her skin. His fingers moved inside her and she flew over the edge again, and it still wasn’t enough for him as his mouth consumed her.
“Please, Christan.”
Her back arched, grinding her hips into the bed, feeling so empty and open and needing the penetration he would not give. She was completely lost in the sensations, swept up in what he was doing, the way he touched with such deep male need. They were snared, a siren and the drowning sailor, desperate in a stormy sea. Her mouth opened, the scream in her throat soundless as the wave crushed her beneath a churning strength.
And then he was crawling up with that predatory strength, his muscles bunched and trembling. She held out her arms and welcomed him home.
Her fingers slid down, cupped his heavy sac and then scraped back up again, circling the blunt head and finding moisture there. She lifted her knees and guided him, her fingers possessive. Her eyes locked on his face. Her breath caught on the expression that flared in his eyes as he touched her, drove in all the way to the root. It was such an exquisite fullness, a stretching invasion extending to her senses. For so long she’d waited, died inside at her loneliness. Nails curled into his back and scored a path around his waist as she arched up, wanting more of this man she had once loved, everything he would give.
He moved, his arms holding his body poised above her as he plunged with hot, heavy strokes, claiming her, owning her body and soul. She wrapped her legs around him and it was a ferocious mating, a devastation of the physical senses as she met him stroke for stroke. The sounds of their movements, the choked breath and desperate touches were a cleansing. Their anger became ashes, this coming together a new beginning, and with a convulsive sound she joined him when he threw back his head with a feral scream.
She held him while he trembled. He held her, and then he moved again, pulling out and flipping her onto her stomach. One powerful arm wrenched beneath her hips and pulled her up onto her knees, and he was inside again. She welcomed it as he gripped her hips and lifted her higher. The change in angle allowed him to push deeper, harder. Words tumbled from her lips as she urged him on, heavy, hot words of carnal need. She didn’t recognize herself. She was being reborn. It was primal and so beautiful she thrust backward and matched his pace as he bent over her back and drove toward this final release, whispering words that never stopped. “Cara, anima mia, sei la mia vita…”
CHAPTER 29
It took a long time for her breathing to slow. Christan leaned against the headboard and held her, pushing back the weight of her hair, stroking down the length of her spine until he could ease her back against his chest. The fire had died down to embers, and with a quick flare he brought it back to life.
Lexi turned her head into the curve of his shoulder, was holding on to his arms where they crossed at her waist. She’d been trembling earlier, and he’d worried that he pushed her too far. But when she asked him to come home, he’d been lost to her husky demand. She burned him, rescued him, made him a better man, and she was the only one beside Gaia who had known most of what he was. In all the other lifetimes, he’d kept his secret from her. And like a poison seed in fertile ground that secret always destroyed. But not in this lifetime. Something was different. When he drove deep into her, it was as if a phantom limb had become flesh and bone, and he was whole again.
She moved restlessly and he soothed her. “Hush,” he whispered. “I’m sorry that I frightened you.”
“You didn’t.” She traced her finger across his che
st, following one of the amber memories. Christan felt something dark begin to vibrate, sucked in a deep breath as he moved her hand.
“What do you remember of your life as Gemma?”
“That you were right about Nico.” She was drawing little circles against the back of his arm. “I still think of him that way, even though I know he’s Kace. I was foolish in that life. I’m half embarrassed by myself, actually. I’m not that way now.”
He made a half laughing sound, and she swatted at his hand.
“Well, I’m not. I was careful enough around Kace when he was calling himself Wallace. I didn’t let him get close.” She stopped talking and dipped her head. He tightened his arms and settled her more firmly between his long legs. “I’m sorry, Christan. I’m to blame for what I did. I won’t excuse it away.”
“We’re all capable of great darkness. It’s embedded in the human soul.”
“That’s why we ask for redemption, I suppose. It’s hard, facing it, that I could go that deep.”
“Hate is a terrible thing.”
“And we hated.”
“I forced you there with my arrogance and the secrets I kept.”
“And I found just as much pleasure in pushing you back.” She remained quiet, and then she asked, “Did Nico kill her? I don’t remember who held the knife.”
“He didn’t kill her, but he watched as it was done. There are two unbreakable laws with the Agreement. One is that no immortal can kill a bonded mate without paying with his life. That doesn’t mean an immortal can’t have mortals do it for him. There were mercenaries there that night. Kace claims he tried to stop it before it went too far.”
“But you don’t believe him?”
“No. I would have killed him then, but it would have started a Calata war, and for that I owe you a blood debt.” When he spoke again, his voice was unyielding, with the total absence of humanity. “The blood debt will be paid.”
Christan felt the shiver that whipped across her shoulders, and he tightened his hold to bring her back.
“That night on the road,” she asked him, after a long, long moment. “You knew he was there to kill you. Why did you come?”
“I had to know the truth.”
Because only his death would have freed her. It was a stark answer, brutally honest in his self-awareness, and it crushed her. Lexi felt broken inside until he reached out and took her hand. That connection, that one connection above all others pulled them back together, and after everything—all the anger and the pain—it was nearly inconceivable they could have gotten to this place of honesty, stripping the past clean.
When she turned more fully to face him, he was sprawled against the headboard. Lexi grabbed the blanket, wrapped it around herself and scooted down near his feet. She settled herself against the bed post, leaning back to study his changing expressions. The sensual tangle of dark hair made him less intimidating, but she loved that hard angled face, the blade of a smile when he was amused. There was a fierceness in him she admired. He belonged to a world that she barely believed could exist, untamed and earthy and natural. He deserved to be free the way a wild animal was free to live easily within his own skin.
“I want to know all there is to know about you,” she said. “I want to know how they created you if you know. I want to know how you can talk to Arsen with just your mind and what the Calata thought they were doing with this reincarnation scheme. All of it.” He was laughing at her with those dark eyes and she pointed a slender finger toward his chest. “So spill.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave a gentle tug on the corner of her blanket. Her grip tightened and she glared at him.
“I like cooking with you,” he said.
“What did we cook?”
“Whatever you shot with your little arrows.” He reached out to stroke her foot. “I don’t know how they created us, just one day we woke up and it felt like any other morning since then. We communicate with one another telepathically. We can summon a telekinetic power to move things around.”
“And face plant people on the ground when you lose arguments?”
“It’s how you learn never to argue with me.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Arsen’s teaching me how to guard against that little trick.”
“I’m sure he’s trying.”
“You don’t have faith in his abilities?”
Christan’s smile was wicked. “What else do you want to know?”
“What do you do as an Enforcer?”
“You don’t need those images.”
“What is it like when they compel you?”
“You saw the way the warrior disappeared in the surveillance footage? It’s like that. One minute you’re here, the next minute, you’re where they want you to be. You’re pulled apart and then you snap together again.”
“So, if the Calata wanted to mess with you, they could?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you get advanced warning?”
“Not always.”
“Can you resist them?”
“Not easily.”
She paused. “Why did you leave Gaia and not come back?”
“Because I am a selfish bastard.”
He was leaning back, watching with lazy eyes, but she sensed his tension. She looked steadily at him.
“You accepted the Agreement without telling her, didn’t you?”
“I made a decision I had no right to make.” His voice was lower and thicker than before. “But I would not risk the possibility you would say no.”
And suddenly she understood what the Agreement had cost him, what he couldn’t explain. He’d bound himself into compliance in exchange for her safety, knowing she would resent him if she ever learned the truth. So complex, the emotions that drove this man, an immortal code of honor that fought against his human needs. Her eyes drifted over him, seeing with new understanding the scars that marked his body in ways the bronzed lines never could, telling of centuries of unwilling service to keep her from harm.
Her voice was barely above a whisper. “If you had asked me, the answer would have been yes, although I, too, now carry the guilt over what it did to you.”
Christan reached out and touched her face. His fingertips traced the moisture leaking from her eyes before his hand dropped to his lap. Lexi wanted to crawl to him but didn’t. His eyes were closed and she wondered if he was reliving the memories of loving and then leaving her. To distract him, she continued their conversation.
“Marge told me there’s a blood bond.”
“Marge is a wealth of information.”
“Will you tell me?”
His eyes remained closed. “In the original alchemy, signing a pact in blood creates a uniting of opposites, of souls. The lover receives immortality, while the warrior becomes more than what he was. But the bond might cause a loss of free will, or it might mean death. Nobody knows.”
“Is the magic always so unpredictable?”
“It would seem so.”
“And when you gave me that one word, did you think I could use it?”
“No. I thought if you tried I would know, but I didn’t think you had the strength.”
“So, you thought you were safe?”
“Not safe enough.” His lips twitched. He was laughing and trying not to let it show. It made her feel less guilty about putting him on the floor.
“You know I didn’t mean to do it.”
“I know.”
“Were you always named Christan?”
“No.”
“Will you tell me who you were?”
“My name was Charmion.”
“Who named you Christan?”
His eyes pinned her. “You did.”
“I did?”
He looked amused. “Right down there in that garden. You were five.”
“Five?” She was enthralled, watching the memory soften the guarded expression on his face.
“Your family owned this villa,” Christan said. “Your paren
ts died the year before, and you and your older sister were living here. I was meeting your uncle on business.”
“I was Gemma? Did you know who I was?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I was curious. You were wearing a white dress. You had a ring of daisies in your hair and you were stomping all over your aunt’s delphiniums. You were quite the little terror.”
“I was?” A smile kicked up the corner of her mouth. He looked so relaxed, without the weight of the world crushing him down. Lexi wanted this moment for him with such fierceness it was impossible to ignore.
She realized what it was, of course—that she was surrendering to the idea of loving him. But she had to tread carefully. This thing between them was both too new and too old, embodying everything she both feared and craved. She found it was easier to watch the expressions that relaxed his face.
“Yes,” Christan said. “An absolute terror.” He slipped back into a past she could not remember. “I watched you for a moment, and then squatted down and asked what was upsetting you. You had been chasing butterflies but couldn’t catch any, and you were furious. I reached out and caught one in my hand. I remember you held out your finger. I opened my hand, and the butterfly walked from my palm over to yours and sat there, drying its wings in the sun. You had the strangest expression on your face. Like you were in awe and maybe afraid it might bite you.” His fingers nipped at her foot, and Lexi jumped. The warm sound of his laughter filled the quiet room. She had never heard him laugh. She reached out and touched the back of his bronzed hand.
“What then?”
