“Xandra.”
My eyes spring open at the dark command in Declan’s voice and once again lock onto his. It’s what he wanted, what he needed. And—I’m not surprised at all to realize—that it’s what I so desperately needed from him as well. Proof that there’s a connection between us.
Declan chooses that moment to slide his hand up from my breast to my collarbone, his long fingers circling my neck in a moment of utter domination, utter possession that might have felt threatening if it was anyone but him holding me like that. But it is Declan, and his touch feels both as hot as hell and as natural as breathing to me.
His thumb comes up, rubs over my lips again. This time I bite him, hard, and that’s all it takes. His hips slam into mine and I shatter. He’s right there with me, and as his body pulses against mine—as he empties himself into me—the pleasure swamps me, takes me over.
For long, endless seconds there is nothing but Declan and me and the soul-searing ecstasy we bring each other. And though I know better, though life has taught me better, I can’t help thinking that I want it to be like this between us forever.
Six
For long moments, I just lie there on top of Declan, too drained to move. Usually when we make love it energizes me, makes me feel like I can take on the world. But tonight I don’t want to move, don’t want to think, don’t want to do anything but lie here and pretend the whole world away. I want, just for a little while, for it to be only Declan and me.
No ACW. No Shelby. No worries about being soulbound. Just two people who like and respect each other—two people who just happen to catch fire the moment they touch.
Yet even as the wish flits through my head, I know it’s not to be. It’s been seven years since our first kiss, but only two weeks since we met again, even less than that since we’ve become an actual couple, and there is so much I don’t know about him. So much I don’t want to know. So many questions I’m afraid to ask.
But that’s on me, not on him. As are these overwhelming, all-encompassing feelings for him that well up inside me when I least expect them to. I can’t help the way I feel, though. I can’t help the hold he has over me any more than he can help the one I have over him. And it’s not just the soulbound thing. It’s the way he looks at me. The way he touches me, as if I’m fragile, important, precious. It’s the way he respects my strength and my right to do things on my own, but is always there to pick up the pieces when I hit the wall. And I’ve hit that wall a lot since my powers have kicked in. I can’t forget that Declan’s been there, every time, to put me back together.
Part of me knows it’s dangerous to feel so much for him, especially when things are so uncertain between us, when it would be easier for him to kill me than to live with this tie between us. Oh, deep inside, where logic has no place, I know he’ll never hurt me. I know he would rather die than let anything bad happen to me. After all, he’s saved me from death twice in the last two weeks. If he’d wanted me dead, it would have been easy enough to just walk away when I needed him most.
He didn’t do that, though.
And still, I’m afraid. Not of him so much as the forces that surround us and make my feelings for him so improbable, so impossible. There’s a darkness in him that I can’t touch, and though he keeps it under wraps, I know it’s there. I can feel it in him as surely as I can feel his skin hot and slick against mine.
And still I cling to these moments of peace with bloody, battered fingertips. Declan’s right about one thing—I do feel fragile right now, as if I’ll crack if one more rug is pulled out from under me.
Declan sighs, his hand tangling in my short, razor-cut hair. I can feel his need to speak just as I can feel his hesitation. Maybe, like me, he is unwilling to shatter the quiet between us. Maybe, like me, he knows just how much we need it.
The minutes tick away as I listen to the steady thump of his heart beneath my ear. I should get up, take a shower, let him breathe. But he’s still inside me, still hard, and I find myself unable to break this most tangible connection between us.
Eventually, though, he says, “Tell me about Shelby.”
I don’t ask how he knows her name—sometimes I think he knows everything. Or at least is powerful enough to get whatever information he wants or needs with a flick of his metaphorical magic wand.
“I don’t know much,” I answer, lifting my head to look at him.
“Tell me what you do know.” He presses my head back to his chest and wraps his other arm around my waist so that I’m anchored to him. So that I can’t move away. Not that I have any plans to try.
I tell him what Nate told me and what Lily’s tarot cards said. He listens in silence, interrupting only to ask pertinent questions—many of which I don’t know the answers to. When I’ve finished relating what I know, he doesn’t speak for the longest time.
I do squirm away now, the anxious feeling building inside me again as I think about Shelby, scared and alone. I can feel my mind drifting, can feel it trying to connect back to her again. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a conscious awareness of my magic taking control—usually it just grabs me by the throat and drags me wherever it wants me to go—and I wonder if I’m finally getting a grip on it. Or if the control is simply because I’m so close to Declan, whose command of Heka is no less than terrifying.
Whatever it is, I’m grateful. I know that I can’t leave Shelby there alone, suffering, if there’s any way that I can help her.
Declan doesn’t protest when I scramble off him, just follows my progress across the room with watchful eyes. I grab my sleep shirt and tug it over my head, then go into the bathroom to clean up. If I’m going to try to connect with Shelby, or whatever the hell I did earlier, I’m not going to do it all sex-mussed and naked.
When I come back into the bedroom a couple of minutes later, Declan is sitting, cross-legged and nude, in the middle of my bed. For a second I can’t do anything but stare. He’s so damn gorgeous that it freezes me in place, and even though I’m completely satiated, I feel a familiar heat start low in my abdomen.
He smiles at me and raises an eyebrow in a wicked invitation I have absolutely no intention of accepting. And just to make that clear—to Declan and myself—I grab a pair of old and very unattractive sweatpants out of my oh-so-comfortable-but-never-to-be-worn-in-public drawer. Only after I’ve yanked them up my legs and into place do I dare to settle myself on the bed.
Amusement flashes into Declan’s eyes—making him look a million times younger—but it disappears so quickly that I barely have a chance to process it. Unfortunately, it’s not the only thing to disappear. Seconds later, I watch in astonishment as my pants melt right off my legs and into nothingness.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I yelp.
He just shrugs. “I like your legs.” Then he leans over, trails a finger up my calf, over my knee and around to my upper thigh. He plays with me for a second, rubbing up and down my sex before circling my clit a few times.
I press into his hand despite my best intentions, let my knees fall wide. He smiles in delight and now that he’s proven his point—that he can make me want him with almost no effort at all—I think he’ll take his hand away. But he doesn’t. Instead he increases the pressure until I’m gasping, stroking and circling until he sends me straight over the edge into another orgasm.
I’m still trembling when he pulls me into his arms, brushes soft kisses over my hair and forehead. “Was that strictly necessary?” I ask when I can find my voice again.