Kane reached up to touch her face, his pinky coming to trace over the high sculpture of her exquisite cheekbone. He took that peaceful moment, his first in so many days, to marvel over the contrast of his dark skin in comparison to hers. Oh, yes, in that part of himself which he had left behind in that room in Noah’s castle, his blood still raged for her. His body ached for her. But for that single sweet moment he could treasure this one gorgeous difference between them, and the spectacular way his darkness enhanced her crisp, clean beauty.
Her lashes were a brilliant red, as were her brows, perfect complements to her spiraling hair. Her skin was rich like peaches and cream, the way he remembered it from before she had become so ill and come so close to death.
“I think,” she whispered softly, close to his lips, “I read your mind before.”
The confession took him aback, almost completely shattering his control over the illusion they were dwelling in. It was things like this, easy distractions like this that marked him as a youth amongst Demons. But to be fair, he’d had no clue she’d walked in his thoughts, and the fact that she had was proof positive that they were becoming more and more bound together.
“It’s. . it’s a mark of the Imprinting,” he told her, “though I confess I had not expected it with you being so weakened.”
“They were. . very vehement thoughts. It wasn’t like when you speak into my mind. That’s much clearer. These were weaker, with almost an echo, and yet there was strong emotion attached. Yes—” she searched his eyes hard. “It was more like reading your emotions than your thoughts, although I heard the words. You said, ‘I just need to get through tonight. . I can give you the romance as well as the passion. I can give you everything!’”
“It’s true,” he swore to her on a soft breath. “I know I’m behaving like a beast, taking advantage of the chemistry the Imprinting has created between us, but I don’t want it to be all about chemistry, Corrine. I don’t want you to think that predestination is all this is; that I’ll take our connection or you for granted; that I’ll treat this as something easy or a foregone conclusion.”
If anything, Corrine thought, he had proven just the opposite. Every time she had been overwhelmed by the ferocious heat of the Hallowed moon, he had done something to negate her desire, to distract her from it or break it off. Even this very illusion had been a way of veering off and away from the need that had overwhelmed her. And she was new to it all. From what she was understanding, it was even worse for him, and he had been suffering it for ages.
“Kane,” she said, “take us back.”
“Back?” he questioned, his voice full of breath. He was a telepath. There was no need for him to doubt her intentions or what she said. It was just his way of dodging the onrush of emotion and excitement that was flooding him. “Don’t you. . wouldn’t you rather be here? Free from. . from the way I am back there?”
And the real point of the illusion he’d created became clear to her. If he was here, orchestrating this scenario with all his will and concentration, then he could not subject her to the beast lashed by her side. He was protecting her from him. Trying to buy himself some time from what she understood was inevitable torture. Even now, as she glanced upward into the night sky, she could see the stars vibrating, making white, unstable streaks in their bed of darkness. His focus was unraveling.
She reached up to cradle his face in both of her hands, brushing her fingers over clean shaven contours that were much handsomer when they were real and covered in a brusque sheet of whiskers.
“Take me back,” she breathed softly, her lips barely brushing his.
“Corrine. . I can’t control. .” He began to breathe hard, his hands coming to grip her by the back of her shoulders. The stars began to drop out of the sky, streaking down like burning cinders, the grass beneath her bare feet lost the texture of the individual blades, sliding like sand under her heels.
“Then don’t.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he swore harshly. “I don’t want to be what I am back there.”
“I’m going to take care of it. This time, I will provide the escape we need.”
And like a sudden deluge of water, the sky dropped in a sudden cloak of blackness all around her.
Chapter 5
Light resolved around her, the softness of the bed and the dampness of his skin jumped to life beneath her. In the span of a breath she was back in bed with him, back in that gaslit room. The moment she felt him for real beneath her, her body lit up as if it was on fire. The first difference she noticed between his illusion of himself and the reality was the rich, musky scent of his skin. It was like a personal sin, something created just for her, just to tempt her and fill her with heat. This time she welcomed the Samhain-driven need that filled her. Yes, she was throwing herself all in, having faith that everything she had learned was truth. Sometimes in order to reap the reward you wanted most, you had to take a risk. And somehow it didn’t feel like so much of a risk. The burn sliding throughout her body was no illusion, no lie. It was as natural as anything could be.
Kane took in a slow breath, trying to order his thoughts and maintain control when he could barely hear over the noisy thumping of his heart. When she threw her leg over him and settled herself astride him, her sex brushed soft and wet across the center of his belly, the heat burning and beautiful. His sharp senses fed her sweetly aroused aroma to him and he strangled out a groan that marked his tortured conscience and his having reached his physical limits.
“Corrine, you can’t. . make choices. .” He broke off when she laid herself flush with his chest, her hands braced beside his shoulders as she tempted him with the hovering nearness of her ripe mouth.
“You can’t make choices either. You said it yourself. There is no choice here. We are chemical. A reaction meant to be. It’s true, isn’t it?”
“You’re supposed to be—”
“Resting? Healing? You know this will revive me more than anything else.”
Corrine kissed him with a warmly teasing stroke of her mouth. She liked his mouth, with its too-pretty fullness and the distinctive carving of his upper lip set in relief by a few days’ worth of beard shadow. She remembered his taste from earlier and she began to seek it in slow, delighted brushes against his mouth. She was going to take the time to discover the perks of this hunger they shared.
Kane felt the brush of her breasts on his chest, her nipples drawing across pectoral muscles amped with sensitivity to the feel of her. There was nothing like it. Never had been, never would be. It was the sensation created by a complementary chemistry unique only to them. Kane exhaled into her mouth as she nibbled temptingly at him in brief, tasty little kisses.
That was when what she had said finally sank into his hormone-befuddled brain. With a jolt he drew back from her and stared up into her clear green eyes. She was clever and smart, but this was beyond all of that.
“You read my thoughts,” he whispered in stunned delight. “You read my thoughts!”
“Yes,” she agreed simply, as if it weren’t a profound sign of her mind and body awakening to her Druid genetics, as well as their special connection to each other. She shrugged as if she read minds all the time. “That’s how I knew you were telling me the truth about all of this. That’s how I knew why you were bound, Kane. And it’s how I know that you’re suffering terribly without me.”