by J. R. Ward
Shit.
John put his palms to the front of his face and gave himself a good buffing.
Except no amount of rubbing was going to change the revelation that was creeping up on him, unwelcome and undeniable.
He saw Xhex in that meeting with the Brotherhood back in the spring, when she had offered to find Xcor’s lair: I can take care of that—especially if I hit them in the daytime.
She had been utterly hard eyed and clearheaded, sure of herself and her capabilities. You people need me to do what I can.
When it had been his best friend? He hadn’t liked it, but he’d stepped aside and let the male do what he had to for the greater good—even though there was mortal danger involved. If something had happened to the guy and he’d died? John would have been crushed… but that was the code of soldier, the code of Brotherhood.
The code of males.
Losing Xhex would be so much worse, of course, because he was a bonded male. But the reality was, in trying to save her from some violent fate, he’d lost her completely: They had nothing left, no passion, no conversation, no warmth… little contact. And it was all because his protective urge had taken over.
It was all his fault.
He had mated a fighter—and then freaked when the risk-of-injury thing had gone from the hypothetical into the actual. And Xhex was right—she didn’t want him dead or in the hands of the enemy, and yet she was allowing him to go out there every night.
She was letting him do what he could to help.
She wasn’t permitting her emotions to try to stop him from executing his job—and if she had? Well, then he would have explained patiently and with love that he was born to fight, and he was careful with himself, and…
Kettle, black, much?
Besides, how would he have felt if someone had viewed his being mute as a rate limiter for fighting? How would he have reacted if he’d been told, in spite of all his other qualifications and skills, in spite of his natural talent and instincts, that because he couldn’t speak, he wasn’t allowed on the field?
Being female was not a disability in any sense of the word. But he had treated it as such, hadn’t he. He had decided that because she was not male, in spite of all her qualifications and skills, she couldn’t go out into conflict.
As if breasts suddenly made shit more dangerous.
John restarted with the rubbing, his head beginning to thump with pressure. His bonded side was ruining his life. Strike that—it had ruined his life. Because he wasn’t sure, no matter what he did now, whether he could get Xhex back.
He was, however, certain about one thing.
Abruptly, he thought about Tohr and that oath.
And knew what he had to do.
As Tohrment walked toward her, No’One became breathless: His massive body was shifting from side to side to the rhythm of his gait, his burning eyes fixing on her as if he meant to consume her in some vital way.
He was ready to mate, she thought.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, he was coming to take her.
I want to fuck you.
Her hand went to the tie on her robe, and it was a shock to realize that she was prepared to open her clothing at this moment. Not here, she told her fingers. Somewhere else, though…
There were no thoughts of that symphath, no anxiety over whether it would hurt, no sense that she might regret this. There was just a resonant peace in the midst of her body’s pounding need that this male was what she wanted; this mating was what she had waited so patiently for.
They were both ready.
Tohrment stopped in front of her, his chest pumping up and down and his hands curling into fists. “I’m going to give you the chance to get away from me. Right now. Leave the training center and I’ll stay here.”
His voice was warped, so low and deep that his words were nearly unintelligible.
Hers, on the other hand, was very clear: “I shall not depart from you.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying? If you don’t go… I’m going to be inside you in another minute and a half.”
She kicked her chin up. “I want you in me.”
A great growl rose up from him, the sort of sound that, had she heard it in another context, might have terrified her. But face-to-face with this magnificent, aroused male? Her body responded with a marvelous loosening, further preparing to accept him.
He was not gentle as he scooped down and picked her up, swinging her legs high and catching them in the crook of his arm. And he was not slow as he went forth toward the pool—as if the idea of getting them to a proper bed in the big house was simply too much to bother with.
Whilst he strode off with her captured like a prize, she stared up at his face. His brows were down hard, his mouth parted to reveal his fangs, his coloring high with anticipation. He wanted this. Needed this.
And there was no going back.
Not that she would have chosen to. She loved the way he made her feel in this moment.
Although she supposed it was treacherous to take compliment in the desperation with which he took possession of her. He was still in love with his dead mate. Then again, he did want her—and that was enough. That was, mayhap, all she would ever have—and yet, as she had told him, so much more than she could ever have prayed for.
Upon his will, the glass door to the pool’s entry hall opened wide for them, and as it eased shut in their wake, she heard its lock slip into place. Then they were traveling fast through the anteroom, and rounding the corner into the pool proper, the warmth of that thick, humid air making her body even more languid—
In a coordinated sequence, the overhead lights dimmed and the blue-green glow of the pool gathered in intensity, casting an aquamarine illumination over everything.
“No going back,” Tohrment said, as if giving her one last chance to end this.
When she merely nodded at him, he growled again and then put her down on one of the wooden benches, laying her on her back. He was true to his word. He didn’t wait or hesitate; he arched over her and fused their mouths, bringing his chest to her own, positioning his legs in between hers.
Wrapping her arms around the nape of his neck, she held him close as his lips moved against hers and his tongue entered her. The kissing was glorious and consuming, to the point where she didn’t notice he was undoing the tie of her robe.
And then his hands were upon her. Through the linen shift, his palms burned as they stroked her breasts and continued lower. Parting her thighs even farther for him, she pulled up the sheath and got what she wanted, his touch going to her core, massaging her, bringing her to that knife edge of release—but no farther.
“I want to kiss you,” he growled against her mouth. “But I can’t wait.”
She thought he was kissing her?
Before she could respond, he lifted his hips from her and worked with rough urgency at the front of his leathers.
And then something hot and blunt was bumping… nudging… slipping against her.
No’One arched up and called his name—and that was when he took her: As her voice echoed to the high ceiling, his body claimed hers, pushing inside, making its way, hard yet satin soft.
Tohrment’s head dropped down beside hers as they were joined, and then he stopped moving altogether—which was good: The sense of stretching and accommodating his size bordered on painful—not that she would have traded it for the world.
Groaning deep in his throat, his body started to move, slowly at first, then with greater speed, his hips swinging against hers as he gripped her outer thighs and squeezed. With the great wave of passion o’ertaking them both, every sensation was magnified, her mind at once fully present and totally blown away by the manner in which he dominated her without hurting her.
As the rhythm bordered on out of control, No’One held on to him for dear life, her physical form soaring even as it was pinned down under his, her heart shattering and being made whole in the same instant as the pleasure suddenly coalesced and th
en snapped. Indeed, her orgasm had her core gripping him and relenting in an alternating rhythm, the release entirely different from any of her previous ones—more intense, longer lasting. And it seemed to pitch him off the edge and into his own wild contractions, his pelvis shoving in and then jerking against her.
It all seemed to last forever, but as with any flight one took, they eventually eschewed the freedom of the sky and returned to earth.
Awareness was a gradual, unsettling burden.
He was still dressed, and so was she, the robe as yet draped upon her shoulders and arms. And the bench was cutting into her shoulder blades and the back of her head. And the air around her was not as warm as the passion had been.
How strange, she thought. Even though they had shared so much before, these moments just now had taken them up to and over a great divide.
She wondered how that would make him feel—
Tohrment lifted his head and stared down at her. There was no particular expression on his face, neither joy nor sorrow nor guilt.
He just looked at her.
“Are you okay?” he said.
As her voice appeared to have deserted her, she nodded, even though she wasn’t sure what she felt. Physically, her body was fine—in fact, it continued to welcome the presence inside of its recesses. But until she knew how he was, she couldn’t testify to anything else.
The last female he had been with had been his shellan.… And surely that was on his mind in this tense silence.
FORTY-SIX
Tohr stayed frozen right where he was, poised over No’One, erection still buried in her body, his sex twitching to keep going even as he put a lock on his lust.
He waited for his conscience to start screaming.
He prepared himself for an overwhelming desolation that he had been with another female.
He was… ready for something, anything to cough up out of his chest—despair, anger, frustration.
All he got was the sense that what had just happened was the beginning, not an end.
Shifting his eyes to No’One’s face, he searched her features, looking for any indication that he’d swapped her for his shellan, probing his internal wiring for signs of alarm… bracing himself for some great explosion.
All he felt was a sense of rightness.
Reaching up, he brushed back a strand of blond hair from her face. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Are you?”
“Yeah. I kind of am.… I mean, I truly am… okay. Guess I was prepared for anything but that, if it makes any sense?”
The smile that bloomed on her face was nothing short of the sun’s radiance, the expression transforming her features into a beauty so resplendent, she took his ever-loving breath away.
So kind. So compassionate. So accepting.
He wouldn’t have been able to do this with anyone else.
“Mind if we try that again?” he said in a soft voice.
Her cheeks flushed a deeper pink. “Please…”
The tone in her voice made his cock jump inside of her, her slick, tight heat stroking it on a oner, making him ready to roar and start pounding away again.
Except it wasn’t fair to ask her to lie on that hard bench.
Tunneling his arms around her, he held her close to his chest and let his heavy thighs do the work of picking them both up. When they were on his feet, he kissed her again, tilting his head and working his mouth over hers as he palmed her bottom and braced himself to start moving. Using his arms, he lifted her up and down on his arousal, kissing what he could of her throat and her collarbones as he penetrated her at a different, deeper angle.
She was incredible, enveloping him, holding him tightly, the friction making him want to bite her just for the taste of her.
Faster. Even faster.
The robe was swinging wildly, and No’One must have hated the flapping as much as he did, because she abruptly dumped the thing, scraping it free of her shoulders and letting it fall to the tile. As her arms returned around his neck, she tightened her hold—which was just fine with him.
Digging in with his fingers, he got closer and closer to the end point—and it was the same with No’One. The sounds she was making, the incredible moans, her gorgeous scent rising up, her braid slapping—
Abruptly, he slowed down and snagged the tie that secured the plait of her hair, ripping it off and freeing the lengths. Shaking the thick waves out of their confines, he drew them over her shoulder and his own, blanketing them both.
Something about that undoing led to his own undoing: Two pumps later and his body pitched off its ledge, the release taking over everything until he cursed on an explosive breath.
Careening through the pleasure, he squeezed her hard and put his face into all that blond, breathing in, smelling the delicate shampoo that she used. Shit, the scent of her cranked him even higher, until his orgasm abruptly became the rough-and-tumble kind, racking his body, throwing his balance out of whack, rendering him temporarily blind.
It must have been the same for her—from a distance, he heard her call out his name as she locked her legs around his hips, melding them together.
Incredible. Absolutely incredible. And he rode out the pleasure for as long as it lasted—on both sides. When he finally stilled, No’One’s head flopped onto his shoulder, her body collapsing against his chest, her lovely flesh going loose as her lovely hair.
Unbidden, one of his hands found her spine and followed it upward to the base of her neck. As his breathing eased, he just… held her.
Before he knew it, he was rocking them both from side to side. She weighed next to nothing in his powerful arms, and he had the sense that he could have kept them linked and against each other… forever.
Eventually, she whispered, “I must be getting heavy.”
“Not at all.”
“You’re very strong.”
Man, that did his ego good. Matter of fact, she hit him with anything like that again, he was going to feel like he could bench-press a city bus. With a jet plane parked on its roof.
“I should get you cleaned up,” he said.
“What ever for?”
Okay, that was sexy. And it made him want to do… other things to her. All kinds of things.
Over her shoulder, he eyed the pool, and thought efficiency was actually the mother of invention.
“How about we take a dip?”
No’One lifted her head. “I could stay like this…”
“Forever?”
“Yes.” Her eyes were low-lidded and glowing in the blue-green light. “Forever.”
As he stared at her, he thought… she was so alive. Her cheeks flushed, her lips swollen from his being all over her, her hair lush and a little wild. She was vital and hot and—
He started to laugh.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, he had no idea why—there was nothing funny about anything, but suddenly he was laughing like a lunatic.
“Sorry,” he managed. “I don’t know what the problem is.”
“I don’t care.” She beamed at him, showing her delicate fangs and her even, white teeth. “It’s the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.”
Caught up in an impulse he didn’t understand, he let out a whoop and took a lunge in the direction of the pool, throwing out a long stride, then another, then a third. With a mighty leap, he sent them both flying into the still, aquamarine light source.
They landed in the warm water as one, soft, invisible arms gathering them into a temperate cushion, and insulating them from gravity’s heavy-handed pull, sparing them both any kind of hard landing.
As his head went under, he found her mouth and claimed it, kissing her under the surface as he planted his feet and pushed up so that they found the air.…
In the process, his cock found her core again.
She was right there with him, linking those legs of hers around his hips once more, echoing his rhythm, kissing him back. And it was good. It was… right.
Sometime
later, No’One found herself naked, wet, and stretched out on the side of the pool on a bed of towels Tohrment had arranged for her.
He was kneeling next to her, his wet clothes clinging to his muscles, his hair glistening, his eyes intense as he stared at her body.
A sudden insecurity struck, chilling her.
Sitting up, she covered herself—
Tohrment captured her hands and gently put them at her sides. “You’re spoiling my view.”
“You like…?”
“Oh, yeah. I like.” He leaned over and kissed her deeply, slipping his tongue inside of her, easing her back down so that she was prone once more. “Mmmm, that’s what I’m talking about.”
When he eased back a little, No’One smiled up at him. “You make me feel…”
“What.” He dipped his head and brushed his lips over her throat, her collarbone… the tip of her breast. “Beautiful?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what you are.” He kissed her other nipple and sucked it into his mouth. “Beautiful. And I think you should ditch that damn robe for good.”
“What will I wear?”
“I’ll get you clothes. All the clothes you want. Or you could just go naked.”
“In front of the others—” The hiss that curled out of him was pretty much the best compliment she had ever been given. “No?”
“No.”
“Then mayhap in your room.”
“Now, that I can get behind.”
His lips drifted downward and to the side, until he ran a fang over her ribs. Then he was going across her belly, the kisses soft and lazy. It wasn’t until he went even farther, lingering on her hip and then brushing very close to her sex, that she realized he had a purpose.
“Spread your legs for me,” he urged in a deep voice. “Let me see the most beautiful part of you. Let me kiss you where I want to be.”
