Fiona’s laughter. She was shadowing.
He removed his daggers and then grinned and ripped his shirt off over his head, not bothering with the buttons. “I’m happy to play, Princess.”
She laughed again and smacked his ass. He jumped a little. Hadn’t been expecting that.
“You know turnabout is fair play, right? Just warning you that now I get to spank that luscious ass of yours,” he growled, unfastening his pants and sliding them down. He stepped out and, totally nude, turned around. He couldn’t find her at first, though. That unique pattern of swirling light and shadow he’d learned was Fiona didn’t appear.
“I’m learning to mask any trace of myself, even from you,” she said, from the opposite corner of the room. “Did you know you have a lovely body?”
Seemingly from thin air, her shirt flew through the air and hit him in the chest, followed shortly thereafter by the wisp of lace that was her bra. His breathing sped up, and his cock, already hard, swelled even more.
“You want to put your hands on my lovely body?” he asked, stalking toward her. Or where he’d thought she was. He realized he was wrong when another scrap of lace hit him in the back. He whirled around and caught her underwear before it fell.
“A trophy?” He held it up and grinned. “A keepsake?”
“If you like spanking,” she purred, this time from near the bathroom door, “that can be arranged.”
He caught his breath. His prim, proper Fiona was turning a little kinky for him. He liked it. His entire body tightened, and he thought he might go insane if he didn’t get her under him in the next few seconds.
“Go lie on the bed,” she commanded. “On your back, arms out.”
“If you—”
“Now,” she said sternly. “Don’t make me punish you.”
“Oh, by all the gods, I’m going to make you pay for this,” he warned. “I’m going to make you come so hard and so long that you’re screaming for a week.”
He heard her quick, indrawn breath, but she quickly masked it.
“Big talk, big man,” she taunted from near the bed. “Are you afraid of little old me?”
A silk scarlet ribbon waved in the air and then floated to the bed. Another quickly followed it.
“Tie your left hand to the bedpost, then lie back and I’ll tie your right hand,” she ordered. “If you move, you lose points. If you touch me first, you lose points.”
“And what do these points gain me?”
She laughed a sultry, sexy laugh that shivered its way from his head to his toes by way of his cock. “Silly man. They gain you me.”
He flew to the bed and did what she’d asked, although it took every ounce of determination to lie still when he felt her delicate fingers tying his wrist with the ribbon and tightening it.
“Can you be good or do I need to tie your feet, too?” she teased.
“I’ll be good,” he gritted out the words through clenched teeth, hoping that he wouldn’t spurt out of control and come all over himself at her first touch. He’d never been as aroused as he was with this woman. Never, in all the centuries of his existence.
“Have your wicked way with me,” he invited. “Please.”
Silence. For a moment, the thought crossed his mind that it had been an elaborate trick and now she’d gone off to shower and laugh at his foolishness. But then her mouth closed around the head of his cock and his entire body arched off the bed.
“How’s that?” She gave him a long, slow lick.
He moaned and his hips bucked involuntarily. He still couldn’t see her, though now he could once again distinguish the shadows that bent to hide her. It was like making love in a dream, almost unbearably erotic but still not enough.
“I need to see you. I need to know it’s you touching me,” he said roughly. “Nobody else but you, ever again. Let me see you.”
Slowly she appeared before him, curled around his hips. First she released the shadows, so she seemed to be made of pure light. Then she released the light and she was back. Fiona. Just Fiona. A miracle made into a woman, created especially for him.
“I need you. Now. Please.”
Fiona’s teasing response faded on her lips, as the intensity in Christophe’s face and voice captured her. She nodded.
“Yes. I need you, too.” She rose above him and lowered herself on his erection, then slowly slid down its length until she rested against his body. “I need you now.”
She leaned forward and released the silk ties so he could hold her. He pulled her down into a desperate kiss, devouring her mouth as if kissing her was the only thing keeping him sane. Her hands were trapped between them, resting on his powerful chest, and then he flipped her over and yanked her legs up.
“Need you now,” he said roughly, thrusting into her over and over and over. “Now. Always.”
She couldn’t talk, speech was impossible, nothing was left to her but pure sensation. She was the flame to his candle, and together they were incandescent. She climbed so high she knew the fall might kill her, but she didn’t care, she only knew she wanted him. Now and forever. Just like this, inside her body and inside her heart.
He cried out and she came apart around him, and together they fell off the side of the world and into each other’s soul.
Christophe knew exactly what was happening to him, and the terror he’d expected was nowhere to be found. It was the soul-meld, and he’d told himself he’d never, ever allow it to happen to him.
Now he welcomed it.
Her soul was warmth and light and color, it was a landscape painted by a true master. He saw her childhood and the dark grays and shades of black for the terror and sadness she’d experienced with her grandfather and father. He swam through the blues and greens as she grew older, began to move on, cared for and loved her brother, was cared for and loved in return by both Declan and Hopkins. He saw the scarlet of excitement and adventure as she took on the persona of the Scarlet Ninja. Watched her go on her first heist.
Cried with her when she was finally able to help people the vampires had harmed.
Her soul was as beautiful as she was and the same glorious contradiction; neat, orderly, and organized in certain parts, and wild, flowing, and free in others. She was a woman made up of so many different and contrasting colors that she absolutely took his breath away, and the realization smashed into him as he reveled in the fire of her stubborn and courageous heart: he was hopelessly, irrevocably in love with her.
Fiona clutched Christophe’s shoulders, almost feeling as if she actually were falling off the edge of an impossibly high cliff into a terrifying abyss below. Somehow, she didn’t understand how or why or if it were even real, but she was falling into Christophe’s memories.
Darkness surrounded her, and fear and pain swallowed her up until she screamed. She was so young, no, he was, it was Christophe who was the child, this was his memory, and his poor, broken and battered body lay curled up in the corner of a rough wooden box. The darkness stank of urine and terror, and Fiona wanted to kill the woman who had done this to him. Even the rational realization that the woman was long dead, that all the townspeople who’d turned his parents over to the Fae were long dead, did nothing to reduce her need for vengeance.
They deserved to hurt and suffer for what they’d done to him. They deserved—but then she fell again. Fell into warmth and confusion. His grandparents had loved him, but he’d been closed off, terrified, angry.
Why hadn’t anyone saved him? Why hadn’t they saved his parents? Why were they lying to him? His young mind couldn’t understand it, couldn’t find a way to ask, so he reached the only decision he could. He quit trusting. Anyone, ever.
She fell again. Warrior training. Finally the belief that what he was doing was right. He could avenge his parents. Only to learn that his duty was to protect the very humanity who had caused his family’s murder. Doing his duty, year after year, while the anger, pain, and futility ate at him.