Keeping hold of her hand, he turned and they walked through the silent house together.
Chapter Eight
Pia didn’t know what to think of Dragos’s deliberate, sensual approach, or the way they journeyed upstairs hand in hand.
It should have felt like a sedate pace. It didn’t. It felt like a slow burn that crawled underneath her skin and set her on fire.
As they passed Peanut’s nursery, he glanced at the closed door, and the expression in his eyes turned moody. “I need to see him too,” he said. “But not yet. First, I need to be more settled in myself.”
After a pause to think it over, she replied, “That’s an excellent idea. The accident was only yesterday afternoon—it’s been barely over a day. Much as I miss him, he’s surrounded by people who love him, and I know they’re doing a wonderful job looking after him. It’s okay to take a few days, maybe even a week.” She looked up at him. “The most important thing right now is to make sure you get what you need.”
He opened the door to their suite, set a flattened hand at the small of her back and ushered her inside. Biting a nail, she watched him explore the rooms, discovering for himself where everything was. Silently, he disappeared into his walk-in closet for a few moments, then he strode into the bathroom. A moment later, she heard the sound of water running.
If the situation had been normal, he would never have let go of her hand. She would have gone with him and offered him comfort and sex. They would have shared healing intimacy in that shower. They had certainly done so several times before.
Now everything was so strange. He advanced on her and made no secret of his sensual interest, and yet he had barriers that remained in some deep, fundamental way. It confused her and made her question her own instincts.
He acted like Dragos, but he didn’t act like her Dragos.
Eyes filling with tears, she went to the balcony doors, opened them wide and stepped outside for some fresh air. He didn’t know about the healing, intimate times they had shared in the shower together, and she didn’t feel confident enough to go into the bathroom to join him, even though she wanted to. She didn’t know how to act, and she was afraid of doing something wrong, something that might send him away.
She didn’t hear him step out onto the balcony. Not only was he fast and light on his feet, but he was also extraordinarily quiet when he chose to be.
Something else alerted her, a huge, fierce Power brushing against her senses.
Wiping her face, she kept her gaze fixed firmly on the shadowed mountain range in the distance.
“You could leave, you know,” she said. “Be free, start a completely new life. You have an out like nobody has ever had in the history of Wyr mating.”
Also, just because they had mated, that didn’t mean they had to live together. Several different species of Wyr chose not to live with their mates. Solitary by nature, they kept their lives separate and came together only when they needed.
She didn’t want to live that way. She couldn’t imagine adapting to that after the wealth of what they had shared, but you never knew what you could live with once you didn’t have any choice. If that was what it took to keep him in her life, she would do it.
His hands clamped down on her shoulders, and he spun her around.
He was naked, his inky black hair and dark bronze skin still damp. His clean, male scent wafted over her. She got only a blurred impression of his muscled body before he jerked her toward him, bending over her upturned face.
His expression had turned murderous, and the gold in his eyes glowed bright and hot.
“Fuck that,” he hissed.
Aw, he said the sweetest things to her.
Patting his hair-sprinkled chest, she said unsteadily, “I didn’t say you should, or even that I wanted you to. I said you could. I only meant to point out this situation is really bizarre.”
He thrust that deadly face into hers, growling, “I keep what is mine. I don’t leave it. I don’t lose it, not ever, and I go after anyone who tries to take it from me.”
She knew that quite well, which was one of the major reasons she had chosen not to tell him that she had once stolen from him. That, in fact, him chasing after her had been how they had first met.
Being that it was another one of those complicated concepts and all, and best appreciated in context.
She should say something to lighten the mood. She should reach for the gentle, pragmatic way with which she had responded to his traumatized reaction at the site of the accident.
But her pragmatic side was worn out. It had gotten its ass kicked over the last two days. All of a sudden, she didn’t have any more coping ability left, and even though she tried to stop the tears from coming, her damn eyes sprang a leak.
Her voice wobbled, and her mouth shook. “That’s just it—you don’t have any of those memories anymore that make me yours.”
If anything, he looked even more furious. “What happened to ‘I’m in your bones’?”
“Well, I want it to be true, but I don’t know that it is, do I? And I’m t-tired.”
“Stop that,” he demanded. “Stop.”
He cupped her face. Despite the roughness of his tone, his hands were infinitely gentle as he wiped the paths of her tears with both thumbs.
Belatedly she realized he was ordering her to stop crying, and a hiccup of laughter broke out of her. It quickly twisted into something else.
“I thought you were dead,” she sobbed. “I stood in front of that horrible pile of rock and thought you were dead, and all I wanted to do was crawl under that pile to join you.”
His hard features turned stricken. The world tilted as he scooped her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
He laid her on the bed and came down over her, pinning her with his heavy body. She craved his weight. Gripping the back of his head, she dug her fingers through his silky black hair, holding on to him tightly.
His mouth came down on hers, stopping her uncontrolled flood of words.
Hardened lips slanted over hers, and his tongue plunged into her mouth. There was no finesse, no coaxing. This was a taking, and she reached for it with all of her greedy heart, kissing him back with everything she had inside of her. All the love, all the desire.
Bunching his fists in the bedspread on either side of her head, he thrust a heavy, muscled thigh between hers. The hard weight of his erection lay against her pelvis, and she reached for it, caressing the broad, velvet head with one shaking hand.
He hissed into her mouth, and his hips pushed against hers rhythmically.
She pushed back, matching his rhythm. Pulling his mouth from hers, he rose onto his knees and shredded the clothes from her body.
When she was completely naked, he froze. The quality of his stillness made her pause, and she searched his expression.
He was staring at her.
Their bedroom lay in shadows. The only illumination came from the moonlight shining in through the windows, and from her.
The pearly luminescence shone from every inch of her. It had been a part of her since birth. It served no purpose. Like the color of her hair, or her eyes, it simply was. Often she had been exasperated with it, and sometimes fearful for what it gave away about her nature.
It was the most dangerous fact of her existence, the most likely thing to betray her. She could never let down her guard or relax her cloaking spell, unless she was absolutely sure she was in a private, safe place.
All of that melted away in the face of the wonder in Dragos’s expression. With one hand, he touched the swelling curve of her breast, circling the pink jut of her nipple with the tips of his callused fingers.
With the other hand, he stroked the curve of her slender waist and the swell of her hip. The golden curls at the juncture of her thighs grew damp with the full, sharp ache of desire.