Cassandra's Dilemma (25 page)

The air in front of her warmed even as the air to her right blew cooler against the nape of her neck. Water tumbled over rocks to her left and behind. All she could sense was Jacob himself. The air shimmered, heat waves rising up from the ground like a road on a hot summer day. Cassie fought the urge to shift her footing. Trusting Jacob came naturally. She couldn’t explain it. She didn’t want to look at it too closely.

The cooler air warmed until the breeze blew a steady, hot air against her flesh, turning up goose bumps wherever it touched her. Hot acid churned in her stomach, and for a brief moment, she tasted hot bile in the back of her throat.

There it was, a tendril no wider than her pinky, stretching off into the distance. When she swayed, it undulated like a sick serpent. The line of it drove right into her chest. Cassie cast her gaze down at her chest, where it seemed to be burrowing into her flesh.

Cold sweat soaked her brow and began to drip down her face. Her heart thrummed a stiff and painful cadence. “Jacob,” she whispered.

“I see it. He’s a real sonovabitch, too.” Jacob’s voice was grim. “Cassie—this may hurt. I need you to tell me what you feel, okay?”

Timidity reared its ugly head.

Cassie was reminded of the dentist she saw when she was nine. She’d been having a toothache for more than a month. Her mother finally scheduled an appointment. They walked back into the big scary office that smelled funny with sickly sweet odors. The dentist, a big man with a hairy mole on his cheek, told her to keep her mouth open and that she might feel a bit of pain. He was tapping on her teeth. When he hit the source of the toothache, a cavity, pain exploded through her, causing her vision to spark and her eyes to water.

Jacob’s words reminded her of the dentist who tried to convey a false sense of comfort even as he inflicted the agony.

“Okay.” She was proud of her voice. It didn’t betray a single quaver.

Jacob’s body shifted behind her. He flattened his left hand against her belly while the right hand rested above her breast on her chest, just a few centimeters away from the phantom serpent burrowing into her heart. The pangs of sexual charge she might have gotten from the experience evaporated under the fear.

How long had it burrowed into her like that? An evil cable to hell that brought the Feth Felen right to her—she could picture it in the kitchen of her home in San Diego as it filled all the available space, hungrily striking for her.

For her heart.

Cassie squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to watch. The pounding of her heart on her ribcage was starting to feel like something hammering to get out. Images of the films
Alien
and
Aliens
caused the bile to rise back up in her throat. The acrid, burning flavor sickened her. She swallowed convulsively, determined to not vomit all over his pretty cross-stitch.

Jacob murmured a cadence of words against her hair that she couldn’t follow. The air in front of her blew hotter, stinging her cheeks. His left hand began to slide upward as his right hand slid down. Pain, jagged and tooth-like, ripped through her.

She gasped for air as her lungs seemed to collapse. Sparks of fire exploded in front of her eyes, and Cassie began to fight. She was drowning on dry land. She beat on Jacob’s arms, pounding them with her fists. Her feet stamped down on his, and her head jerked back, slamming against his collarbone.

Air.

She needed air.

Gasping, choking, and clawing for oxygen, she couldn’t even scream as Jacob ripped the thorny appendage from her chest. The hot air whooshed up like a starved fire exposed to oxygen for the first time. The hot flames consumed the tie that Jacob held in one fist. Cassie sagged against him as the fire extinguished as quickly as it flared up.

She stared numbly at the empty hotel room, blank spots taking over for the sparks in her vision. She would have sagged to the floor if he’d not jerked her around and pressed his mouth to hers. Air, sweet, blessed air filled her lungs. She inhaled greedily and whimpered when he pulled away.

His mouth returned to hers and filled her lungs with oxygen again. He repeated the motion, pulling away and pressing air back into her. The fifth time his mouth touched hers, her lungs seemed to expand and inflate once more. She exhaled as he pulled away and studied her.

Cassie swayed on her feet, sweat soaking through her clothes, chest and throat hurting and raw. Even her heartbeat hurt.

“You’re a real son of a bitch,” she whispered in a raw, aching voice.

Jacob chuckled and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’re welcome.”

Cassie rubbed a hand at her chest, half expecting blood to be leaking, but tugging the T-shirt down revealed smooth, unmarked skin. Jacob’s hand came up to cover hers, pressing it against the warm flesh. Shudders rippled through her. Fear. Relief. Desire. They mingled in that simple touch.

“You’ll feel better in a few moments. I promise.” Jacob’s mouth twitched up into another smile. This smile reached all the way to his eyes, gentling them. He had a beautiful smile. It dimpled his cheeks and enhanced the small cleft in his chin. He was a work of art, all chiseled features and muscle.

Her stomach rippled in response. Cassie arched up onto her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. It was a tentative gesture, questioning, seeking, and when his mouth opened and his head closed in, she was glad she did.

His kiss wasn’t tentative or questioning. It was hard and hot and possessive. He urged her back several steps until her legs encountered the second bed.

Cassie sat down hard, breaking the kiss and looking up at him. The wildness was back in his face, and the shadows were gone. The exhaustion that left him pale and gaunt earlier fled in the face of raw hunger illuminating his features. He stroked his knuckles down the side of her cheek, and she turned to press a kiss to his fingers. Her gaze dropped to the hard muscles contracting on his bare abdomen.

She didn’t want to play games, she didn’t want to make excuses, and she didn’t want to talk herself out of it. Her body hummed with need, and it needed Jacob. It wanted Jacob. She pressed forward, kissing his belly and inhaling the rich scent of him.

“I want you,” she murmured against his skin, tongue darting out to trace a circle around his belly button.

She thought he might have said something, but it was with a growl that his body descended on hers. His hands stroked down her arms to the hem of her shirt, and in a single, smooth move he tugged it over her head. She barely noticed its absence when he returned, kneeling on the bed, cupping her breasts, thumbs stroking the turgid nipples.

She reveled in the look of him, from his heavy-lidded eyes to the full mouth open over white teeth. God, he was so beautiful, rugged. His black pants tented over the thick cock eager to escape. She’d missed the chance to enjoy the sight of it their first go-round. But the blindness spell was gone now, and she wanted to see what she’d been missing.

That wasn’t her problem now. Her fingers fumbled with his belt buckle, tugging it loose. He pinched one nipple hard, but she ignored the warning, sliding the zipper down. She slipped her hand inside, grasping the thick cock as it sprang free of its confinement.

The hooded tip was dark and reddened with need. A drop of pre-cum glistened against the slender slit. It was a struggle to not fall down and taste him, but Jacob hoisted her upward. His chest slid against her breasts, hot, slippery skin on skin. He didn’t waste time on her scrap of panties, ripping them off with one tug.

His fingers stroked across her pussy, one arm banding around her back like steel. Cassie jerked as his nails scraped ever so lightly across her clit, the nub throbbing with raw need.

“I should save you more often,” Jacob teased.

“I was hot for you before you saved me.” She wasn’t ashamed to admit it, either. She’d wanted him in the hospital room. Her heart punched at her ribs, trying to match time with his. His scent was rich, musky, and filled with need.

“Yes, you were.” Jacob thrust two fingers upward, stretching her channel, and she groaned, shifting against him and trying to wrap her legs around his hips, but he had all the control. All the angle.

“What’s a matter, princess?” He grinned, pulling his fingers out to thrust them in again. Cassie clenched, straining. Dammit.

“That’s not what I want.”

“No?” He swirled his thumb over her clit, thumping it gently, a torturous pace at off-cadence to his thrusting fingers. If he wanted to kill her slowly, he’d found the perfect method.

“No.” The word hissed out through gritted teeth. She wiggled her left arm free from the cage of his embrace and thrust both hands into his hair. Fisting it, she jerked his head down to taste the arrogance in his smile.

His tongue vibrated as it slid along hers, his fingers continuing to probe, stretching her until three fingers thrust upward, his thumb strumming her clit.

“What do you want, Cassie?” Jacob arched his head back, breaking the kiss. His lusty eyes hooded under the dark fringe of his eyelashes.

“I want you.”

“Do you? Or am I a stand-in for your Elf?”

She froze at the challenge, her body strung out taut. “No, Jacob. I know who I’m with right here, right now. I know who I was with in
your
shower. In
your
bed.”

Cassie pulled his hair, hard. “Don’t you feel me right here?”

Jacob’s jaw flexed at the action, but he didn’t release her. “I don’t share well.”

“I’m not asking you to share.” His skin was like fire where it rubbed against her.

“Aren’t you?” His mouth tightened, anger kindling in his gaze. “Aren’t you with me because he’s not here?”

“Where the hell is all of this coming from?” Cassie struggled to break away, but her hands slipped against his damp skin.

“It’s coming from a place where you need to understand every part of what it means to be choose between a Wizard and the Fae.”

“Why does it have to be a choice?” Her stomach flip-flopped at the idea of having to abandon Helcyon. But she didn’t want to lose Jacob, either. Her body ached with wanting him. His fingers were still deep inside of her, and she wanted his cock there. She wanted him to let go of this anger and just let them be who they were.

Better, who they
could
be.

“You think
he
will want to share you?” The Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed.

Would Helcyon have a problem with them? He’d been angry at Jacob’s house, but Jacob had shut him out. In her bed in California, he’d promised her they would be lovers.

Jacob was her lover now.

Helcyon would be her lover.

“It’s all right.” Jacob’s fingers slipped free of her, and he was setting her down on the bed.

“No.” She grabbed his arms, scrambling to keep him close. “I won’t choose between you, Jacob. But I am not
not
choosing you.” The words bubbled up from inside. When Jacob stilled, his dark eyes locking on her face, she knew they were the right ones.

“Your father didn’t choose you, and you hate the Fae for that. But I am not choosing the Fae over you. I am not choosing the Fae at all.” A clarion bell resounded in her mind. “I am choosing you, Jacob. I am choosing Helcyon. I choose you for being Jacob and Hels for being Hels, not for Wizard, Fae, or monkey’s uncle.”

The words tumbled out in a rush. She canted her head back, holding his gaze. His chest rose and fell in short, panted breaths. The arrested pain in his face eased.

“For how long?”

Cassie trailed a single finger down his chest to tease the dark, springy curls around his cock. “For as long as you will both have me.” Her soul vibrated with the rightness of that oath. Somewhere between sex, danger, and magic, she’d fallen in love.