As another boom of thunder shook the windows in the house above, Xander pushed her back against the mattress, stared down, panting, at her. She stared back with that same hungry look, expectant now, her lips parted, cherry red against her white teeth. Her hair spread dark and curling wet over the pillow; her hands reached up to touch the hem of his shirt, to tug it free from the waist of his pants.
He tore it off. He couldn’t get everything off fast enough. She helped him, shaking, both of them shaking and panting and kissing all the while, touching and exploring while his clothes fell to the floor. He rolled on top of her, and she ran her hands over his back, stroking the scars there with something like reverence.
“My beautiful assassin,” she said against his mouth, her voice so tender it hurt.
“No,” he said, hoarse, his palm cupped around her face. “Tonight I’m not an assassin. Tonight it’s only Alexander and Morgan. Tonight it’s only me and you.” He kissed her, hard and delicious, and her legs lifted to wrap around his waist.
She writhed against him, ready, but he wasn’t ready. He wanted to taste and explore and take his sweet time, because he knew this was only a one-time pass; tomorrow it would be over. Tomorrow she would be back to hating him as she had from the beginning.
But tonight...
He tangled his hands in her hair, pulled her head back to expose her throat. He kissed from the soft spot below her ear all the way to her collarbone, skipping over the cold links of the damned collar, wanting to rip it from her neck, free her from it. He stroked his tongue over the hollow in her throat, over the pulse that pounded there, her skin hot silk against his lips. She made a little noise of impatience and rocked her hips against his, the heat and wetness of her sex pressed against his erection, but he ignored her demands, focused instead on the beautiful curve of her breast in his palm, the weight of it, the satin texture and color, caramel tipped in raspberry.
He took her nipple into his mouth, sucking with his lips, lapping with his tongue. She gasped and arched against him, slid her hands into his hair. He bit down gently and she moaned his name.
It made his heart pound even faster. He wanted to hear her do it again.
He drew his tongue between her breasts, cupping them together in his palms, teasing her nipples with his thumbs. He slid his hands to her slender waist, over her soft belly, down her curved hips, letting his gaze follow his hands, learning her secrets, learning all those hidden places he’d fantasized about since the day they met.
The first of the rain began, drumming on the roof three stories above, just as he spotted a small, dark mark on her right hip: a tattoo. A fresh tattoo, he could tell from the ink. He moved to it, kissing his way down her body, then paused when he was close enough to discern it in the dim room.
In perfect, cursive letters, it read: Live free or die.
His breath left his lungs in a rush. For a moment he felt sick; he felt light-headed. Reeling with guilt and sudden self-loathing, he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against her soft stomach.
And of course she knew. Beautiful Morgan, mysterious Morgan, rash, defiant, intuitive Morgan—she felt his pain and understood.
“Xander. Xander. Xander,” she murmured, as if to say, Stop that, stay with me, look at me. She stroked her hands over his hair, and he lifted his head to stare up into her eyes. Vivid and searching, they were full of some emotion that made his heart ache. Softly she said, “We both know how to live broken. But the past is just that. Past. And the future is out of our hands. Neither one has a place here with us now. Let it all go and be with me.”
She slid down the bed when he stayed frozen with guilt and cupped his face in her hands. She said his name again, whispered it against his mouth, kissed him so gently he was gripped by a sudden, terrible urge to possess her, all of her, not just her body but her heart and her soul and every thought she might ever think and every emotion she might ever feel, all of it just so he could keep her here with him like this—soft and vulnerable and, yes, loving—forever.
Drawn into the rightness of her lips, Xander kissed her back. Warm and soft and tentative, it opened a door inside him that had been locked for years.
“Love me,” she whispered into his ear, and the door blew wide open.
He was lost now; he knew it. Somewhere in the darkest corner of his heart he’d known it all along. So he no longer bothered to hold anything back.
He let himself fall.
He reared up on his knees and stared down at her, let his hands drift over her body, his gaze following every stroke and kneading pinch. She arched to meet his touch. She gave a little, soft sigh, and her eyes closed.
He stroked his hands down her parted thighs, bent to test the tender flesh there with his teeth, with his tongue. She moaned and her hands were in his hair again, trembling. He licked his way down to where he really wanted to put his mouth, taking his time, teasing her because he loved the little moans and the rocking motion her hips made. He stopped just inches away from the most sensitive, secret part of her, a low growl rising in the back of his throat.
Ambrosia. Sugar and spices and hothouse flowers...she smelled like heaven.
He spread her open with his thumbs and blew a breath over her wet lips, just to make her say his name again, which she did. He dipped his head and tasted her, and they both moaned at the same time.
Delicious. Perfect. Sweet and succulent and mine, mine, mine—
Heavy-handed instinct pounded through him. The beast in him took over.
He slid a finger inside her, abrupt, invasive. He sucked at her greedily, grazing her swollen nub with his teeth, licking her all over. He didn’t know if he was being gentle enough. He didn’t know how long he could hold himself back; she was moaning and rocking and gasping his name, her nails dug into his shoulders. With his free hand he cupped her breast, pinched the hard nipple, watched the effect it had on her, and reveled in it.
“Come for me,” he growled, and slid another finger inside her.
She cried out, her thighs trembling against his shoulders, her body taut as a bowstring beneath him. She froze for a moment and even seemed to stop breathing. Then it began, a little throbbing clench against the fingers he’d thrust inside her, and she shuddered.
“Xander, God, Xander,” she gasped, writhing.
With an animal snarl, he drew himself up her body and plunged himself deep inside her.
She cried out again, so did he. Fire and satin and tight wetness, she was like nothing he’d ever felt, and her orgasm was still coming, gripping the length of him buried inside her, a delicious friction that threatened to send him over the edge too soon—too soon—
Panting, he bent and kissed her lips. “I’m too close—I have to slow—stop—”
“No!” she groaned. “Don’t stop! We’ll do it again—and again—just don’t stop yet—”
“Morgan—”
“Xander.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his shoulders. She looked up into his eyes and took him deep with a feminine, fluid motion of her pelvis. “Don’t stop.”
She kissed him and rocked beneath him and with her hips coaxed his body to where it wanted to go. He began to thrust, a primal motion disconnected from his will, which wanted him to slow, to be gentle—
Morgan moaned her approval beneath him. His hips took over and he thrust harder.
He heard thunder, he heard rain, he heard the metal headboard smacking against the wall, sending repetitive, hollow clanging through the room. He braced a hand against it, gripped Morgan’s hip in his other hand, and lifted her up so only her shoulders were on the bed. So deep, so deep, he didn’t think he could go any deeper—
“I’m going to come again,” she breathed. She gripped his arms, meeting every thrust of his hips with one of her own, staring up at him with those searching eyes that carved a hole into his heart. “Come with me. Come with me, Xander.”
Breathing hard, sweat blooming over his entire body, he let go of the headb
oard and clasped her hips hard in both hands. He plunged into her again and again, wilder and harder, with every thrust losing himself to her and the storm and the magic they made together, here in the succoring dark.
“Amada mio,” he hissed through clenched teeth, teetering on the edge as a wave of heat surged up his spine. Every muscle in his body flexed. “Eu me comprometo a vocß.”
She stiffened and cried out, her head tipped back into the pillows. His eyes slid closed and he heard a roar, only dimly aware it had come from him. Pleasure, searing white, rocketed through him and he jerked, emptying himself inside her, surging again and again as his orgasm tore his breath and every coherent thought away. For a blinding moment there was nothing but the two of them, joined as one. It spun on and on, dreamlike, and then—
He collapsed on top of her. Shaking. Panting. Wordless. He buried his face into her neck.
Her arms came around his shoulders. She cradled him, murmured soft things into his hair that he could not comprehend, so great were his agony and his bliss. He drifted on a current of gratitude so pure it was almost sweet.
She had let a monster into the most precious part of her, had reminded him of what it was to feel passion and pleasure and tenderness, had given him a glimpse of things he didn’t deserve.
Happiness.
Hope.
He wanted to tell her that, wanted to say, You have shown me the way back from hell. But there was a terrible pressure in his chest and a stinging in his eyes and a tightness in his throat that threatened to choke him if he opened his mouth.
“It’s all right,” she murmured, knowing him already too well. “We’re safe from the world now, for a little while. We can have this. It doesn’t have to change anything. We can have our night and go back to who we were tomorrow. Just for tonight, we can have that different life we always wanted.”
He stayed silent, while inside he wept.
Eliana watched in horror as a wet and bloodied D staggered into the cool, candlelit opulence of her father’s private library.
“Demetrius!” She leapt from her chair, scattering the newspaper she’d been reading in a flurry across the floor.
He was bare-chested and panting, his face was bruised, gashes on his neck oozed blood in dark rivulets that coated his tattooed chest in a sheen of red. On his left bicep just below the Eye of Horus a deep, ragged wound exposed muscle and a sliver of bloodied white: bone.
“What happened?” demanded Dominus, rising from his desk.
“There were three new males—like the one we saw at the Vatican—three of them were at Alien—”
“Three more!” said Dominus, astonished.
“You were in a fight!” cried Eliana. She rushed to his side. “My God, your arm—”
“You never said anything about three other males,” Dominus interjected, stepping around the desk, his tone menacing. “You told me you only dreamt of the female and the orange-eyed male—”
“Father! He’s hurt!” Eliana protested, hearing the threat in his voice. How could he be so insensitive?
“Where are Constantine and Felix?” His gaze flickered over the warrior, assessing.
Wincing as he stood straighter, D said, “Here. In the infirmary. Lix got it pretty bad—”
“So what you are telling me,” Dominus interrupted, “is that all my Bellatorum were bested by these interlopers?” A frigid breeze swept through the room. With a sneer, he said, “I’d no idea you were all so weak.”
D stiffened and so did Eliana. Calling a warrior weak was the worst possible insult. Had it been anyone but the King, the offender would have been dead by now. She couldn’t understand why he was treating D this way. What was wrong with him?
With a clenched jaw D replied, “They got it just as bad as we did.” His voice turned scornful. “Sire.”
Their mutual enmity crackled in the air, raising the hair on her arms. As her father stepped forward with a snarl, Eliana made a split-second decision and stepped between the two bristling males.
“I’m sure the particulars of who injured whom can be sorted out later,” she said quietly, gazing calmly at her father. For her own selfish reasons she didn’t want to see done to D what had been done to Celian, and she knew his only chance was if she intervened. “The good news is the Bellatorum are alive, and the sooner they get to healing, the sooner they can go back out and take care of the problem. So perhaps since Demetrius was kind enough to come straight here to inform you of the problem, he might now be allowed to go to the infirmary and have his injuries tended?”
A beat of silence. Her father’s wolf-eyed examination of her face.
For the millionth time, she was thankful he couldn’t read her mind. The impenetrable veil that surrounded her thoughts was another of her Gifts, one she secretly referred to as The Blessing because she had far too many dangerous secrets, secrets that other members of her colony couldn’t afford to keep.
Not the least of which was her forbidden fascination with D.
Finally Dominus smiled, then sent a flinty gaze to the bloodied warrior in the doorway. “Is there any imminent danger?”
D shook his head. “No. They don’t know where we are. They couldn’t follow us after the polizia arrived—”
“Polizia?” Eliana gasped. He might as well have said butcher. Over the past few years alone, six of her kin had been killed by the local police. It had been all over the newspapers; the outside world assumed some deranged exotic animal enthusiast was releasing captive panthers into the suburbs.
D nodded, his gaze averted from hers. “Shots were fired. We got out unscathed, but one of them may have been hit—”
“You’re hardly unscathed!” she protested.
Dominus said, “Unscathed or not, you and the rest of the Bellatorum will find yourselves well enough to attend the Purgare, Demetrius. Do I make myself clear?”
D inhaled sharply and grimaced, a look she had seen on a hundred different faces when her father was displeased. No one ever spoke of it—no one dared—but Eliana had a dark suspicion that her father’s mind reading wasn’t his most potent Gift.
“Perfectly,” said D between clenched teeth. He gave a stiff, pained bow.
“Eliana.” Her father turned to her with a small smile, some unknown intent burning bright in his eyes. “Would you be so kind as to accompany Demetrius to the infirmary? He looks like he could use some assistance.”
D blanched. “I’m completely capable of—”
“Of course,” Eliana said, cutting off D’s growled retort. She was anxious to make sure the warrior was all right, even more anxious to have a few moments alone with him, though of course he would practically ignore her, as usual.
With a clenched jaw, D bowed again, turned, and limped from the room. Her father drew her nearer, and they watched D’s muscled legs take him, haltingly, down the shadowed corridor.
“And see if you can get any more information from him,” her father murmured, eyes narrowed.
She sighed, suddenly mournful. “I don’t know why you think I’d be able to. He can’t stand me. Haven’t you noticed? He can barely even look at me.”
Her father looked pleased by that and also inexplicably amused. She understood the pleasure; it was, after all, forbidden for the two of them to be together. He was not of her caste and so there was no chance for them, and that’s how it had always been, forever. She’d resigned herself to it. But the amusement? What could it mean?
Still smiling, her father said, “Yes. There’s really nothing worse than wanting something and knowing you can never have it.”
And everything inside of her ground to a halt.
D wanted her?
A million memories flashed through her mind, a million looks he’d sent her, hot and fleeting, his jaw as hard as the flat line of his mouth. The way he recoiled whenever she came near, the way he sometimes flushed. She’d always thought he despised her, she’d felt certain that jagged ache in her belly when he was near was only one-sided, but...co
uld it be?
She stood breathless with the possibility. But what was she willing—if anything—to do about it?
“Don’t look so surprised, my dear,” said Dominus, drolly. “It’s rather obvious to everyone but you.” His face darkened. “But there’s something else going on with him lately. I think he’s hiding something.” He glanced at her. His dark brows cast his eyes in shadow, but they glinted with a new cunning. “This requires a more delicate touch than I have patience for today. Go along and see if he’ll tell you anything interesting, Ana. See if he’ll tell you anything he won’t tell me.”
He gave her a gentle push when she stood frozen like a stalagmite to the floor.
“Yes, yes,” she murmured, elated, trying very hard not to show it. “I’ll...go...talk to him. Now.”
Then she remembered how to move her feet and used them to walk slowly away, her step casual and slow because she felt the weight of her father’s gaze on her back like two heavy, cold hands.
Lix and Constantine were already laid out on two cots in the infirmary when D limped in, muttering curses.
“Quomodo ire?” said Constantine, lifting his head from the pillow to watch D stumble toward another empty cot at the end of the long, brightly lit room. It was one of the only bright places in the catacombs, awash in harsh fluorescent lights run by generator. The Bellatorum were too few and too valuable to Dominus to be subjected to surgery by candlelight.
Celian lay on his stomach on a cot near the door, loudly snoring into his pillow.
“It went just wonderfully,” spat D, and dropped to the bed. The metal frame squealed and nearly buckled under his full weight. It went exactly as it always does, he thought, furious. The King was so understanding and supportive and thankful and even gave me a big hug at the end. He stared up at the curved ceiling and did not look over when Eliana’s soft step echoed through the room.
“Principessa,” said Constantine and Lix in unison, surprised.
Edge of Oblivion: A Night Prowler Novel, Book 2 Page 20
