Darkness Bound (30 page)

“Yes, I can. That and much more. I want to see them. Undo some buttons for me. Just one or two.”

So hot she felt slightly faint, she shook her head, no.
And he shot his hands up the backs of her legs to hold and squeeze her bottom. “Just one or two,” he repeated, his smile wicked now. “I love your ass, too.”

“Niles!”

“Do it.”

So he wanted to taunt her. She could play that game, too.

“Buttons?” His fingers slipped over her flesh and into the cleft of her bottom. He stroked her there very softly, letting his little fingers stray under her enough to barely touch the part of her that still throbbed.

Leigh undid a button on her dress. He raised his brows and she pushed another one undone and, without any indication from him, opened a third and a fourth.

The top of the dress was meant to be snug. Unbuttoned, it gaped.

Niles held the tip of his tongue between his teeth.

Leigh spread her dress open wider. She was coming alive in a new way. Pleasing him obsessed her.

“Why do you wear this?” he said, tracing the edges of her bra.

Confused, she looked down. Apart from the dress, the bra was all she wore above the waist, a white piece of lace that didn’t quite cover her nipples.

“I like it,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him.

“Mmm hmm.” Languidly, he reached to flip his tongue beneath the lace of her bra to surround the nipples and leave them exposed. She tried to arch her body and keep him touching and stimulating her there, but he drew back. “It doesn’t serve much purpose, this little piece of nothing.” He stared at her breasts and his fingers on her behind dug in forcefully.

“Although I like the way it looks,” he added.

“What about showing me those things I don’t know about you?” Leigh said.

A shadow passed over his features. He stood up, so close she had to arch her neck to look at him.

“You’re still sure you want to know?”

“You can’t imagine how much.”

Niles took her by the hand and led her to the room she had thought must be a second bedroom, or another bathroom. It was neither. Except for boxes that looked dusty enough to have been there forever, the room was empty.

With one hand he moved aside stacks of boxes taller than he. They had hidden bifold doors, gleaming dully as if made of an old metal, but without handles.

“They can’t be pushed open. Not by anyone but me, unless I want them to.”

She felt sweat on her back. Moment to moment she moved deeper into a dark and enigmatic world.

Niles looked at her, and at her breasts. He bent to makes circles around a nipple with his tongue until she wanted to scream.

“Passion is power,” was all he said.

He looked at the door and it swung open. “My initiator was no ordinary werehound. He had come to his state by strange paths that traveled through sorcery. Some of his powers were passed to me.”

She slid her hand back into his and straightened her shoulders. “I have powers. One day I’ll know about all of them, not just that I am sure I can hear what I shouldn’t hear or see what other people can’t.”

“You’re a gutsy woman,” he said. “Don’t worry. I never
doubted you’d turn out to be a tiger. Now come on. I can’t wait any longer.”

“This is a passage into the cliffs,” he said, nodding ahead where an unearthly green glow showed rough-hewn walls that curved to meet overhead in a tunnel that gradually disappeared out of sight. “It goes all the way beneath Two Chimneys. I was told to build the cabin by Chimney Rock, and my sanctuary in these cliffs. I can’t tell you who told me what to do—I don’t know.”

She swallowed with difficulty. “The glow,” she said. “Could this be something to do with the light from Chimney Rock?”

“The light I can’t see, you mean? I suppose so. I only know what that looks like because you’ve told me. Before you came I learned that Chimney Rock was responsible for the veil that separates the natural from the supernatural world, but no details. There was no one to ask. No one I could trust to tell me the truth.”

He walked slightly ahead of her, enveloping her hand and leading her.

“This supernatural world,” she said. “How extensive is it?”

After some thought he said, “It extends beyond our understanding. But we know it is vast and its members are more numerous than any one of us will ever completely know. And they come in a multitude of forms. Good and evil. And quixotic. It’s only through time and experience—and often a lot of trouble—that we learn who we can trust.”

He stopped and faced her. “My team is honorable. I’m honorable.”

“I believe you.” Leigh squeezed his hand. “What about
the Deseron? What do you know about us—if there are such people?”

“Almost nothing. There were never large numbers and you aren’t supposed to exist anymore. Thank God you do. There is too much uncertainty for us to pursue it now but when we can we will talk to Sally. I believe she may know more than most.”

He kissed her hand but what he had said frightened her. She wanted answers to her questions.

“Come.” He smiled at her and they went on until there was a curve in the passage and more metal doors, these so shiny Leigh could see Niles and herself in them. “They look silver,” she said.

“They are. Silver doesn’t hurt us like it does the wolves.”

Once more they opened in front of him, and closed behind them when they were inside. Leigh was speechless. This cave was huge.

“Are you finally frightened?” he asked.

She shook her head, no. Little did he know the truth and he wouldn’t learn it from her. One thing she knew for certain. She would not give in to fear.

And in truth, she would not want to live without this man or this moment.

Many lamps in vaguely familiar shapes, all made of silver and inset with colored glass, hung from the ceiling. The cross over a simple white-covered bed was the easiest symbol. Leigh thought another lamp had a masonic shape and several others resembled ancient pagan carvings. There was a circular lamp, amazing in its construction and the way shafts of brilliance seemed to shine inward rather than outward, as if the sun had found it. She realized it looked like a druid circle.

The lights were hung too high to totally penetrate the chamber’s shadows.

In the very center of the room water bubbled almost to the brim of a large circular pool.

Stone walls were unadorned and the bed was the only furnishing.

“I can sleep here in complete safety if I ever want to,” Niles said. “I can bring my team here also. And if you choose, you can come at any time. You will be my mate. When we are sealed, what is mine is yours, including the loyalty of the team.”

He took off his shirt, stripped away his jeans, and stood before her.

Leigh’s heart did the strangest things and her knees felt weak.

He was naked.

He was beautiful.

And he was dangerous to love with a capital D.

She wouldn’t change a thing.

“You do have to tell me if I’m acceptable—as a man. As your man.”

Leigh took in every sexy inch of him. She had no idea how to respond.

“Leigh?”

Bemused, she shook her head.

“You dislike something about me?”

“I think you’re the most fantastic male I’ve ever seen,” she blurted out. “You are incredible. You make my legs weak. I want to touch you.”

“Then touch me.”

He smiled but she noticed there was a hint of relief and almost laughed aloud.

His hips were firm and narrow and she could grip them while she tried to figure out what to do next.

Suddenly she knew. She traced his face from flaring brows to full, sensual lips, his clean-cut jaw, strong neck, and massive shoulders. With her fingertips and palms she made a map of his triceps and biceps, the solid muscles in his chest, the ridges over his midsection. Her fingertips moved down his hair-rough belly to his groins and thighs. Cupping the male weight of him knocked all the air out of her lungs.

Without warning, he dived sideways into the pool, disappearing at first and coming up quickly, slicking his hair away from his face. “I think you enjoyed that, woman. Very much. Now you have to pay for your pleasure.”

He rose out of the water, climbing steps she couldn’t see. He pulled her toward him too fast for her to react.

He shimmied her dress from her shoulders, tugged her arms free of the sleeves, and swept it down until she had to step out. That dress hit a wall, torn away with such force that it was in shreds.

Two fingers between her breasts made sure she would never wear the bra again and her thong simply disappeared, together with her garter belt.

With another serious look into her eyes, he rolled her stockings down and took them off with care. He held them to his mouth then set them aside. “I shall keep them,” he said. “A memento of this night.”

Without a hint of a smile, he returned to the water and said, “Jump. I’ll catch you.”

“I’ll knock you off your feet.”

His laughter echoed. “Let me worry about that. Just jump to me.” As he spoke he took another backward pace.

“What if I can’t swim?”

“What does it matter? You’re with me.”

Leigh drew in a breath. She held it, ran at the side of the pool and jumped toward Niles, closing her eyes as she felt herself suspended in midair and without any support.

His hands closed around her ribs, just below her breasts, and her eyes opened. He grinned up at her, circling slowly, letting her feet and ankles trail in the water. And he kept walking backward, going deeper into the water. Leigh clutched his wrists.

“You’re safe!” He tipped her face closer to his. “Kneel on my shoulders.”

Scrambling, she managed to get her knees onto his shoulders, which barely cleared the water. Still held only by his hands, the next part of him to touch her was his mouth—between her legs, across her clitoris, curling up and back, up and back—before she cried out and twisted, sensation burning, knifing, exploding until she felt torn in half and never wanted this to stop.

When her head finally cleared a little she was held in his arms, her head on his shoulders. “You planned it,” she said, panting. “Every second of it.”

“I did, ma’am.”

“You started out there.” She pointed vaguely toward where she thought the cabin was. “And you knew I’d go right over the edge the instant you touched me again.”

“Guilty as charged.”

The grin fell away. He let her legs down until they were body to body, facing each other, and he slid her over his penis, making sure she felt exactly what he was able to control.

He made circles over her breasts with his mouth,
working inward until she pressed for him to suck at her nipples. Then he kissed her mouth, wide and wild. Leigh had to wrap her legs around him to hold on.

“Are you ready?” he asked quietly, sounding very strange.

She stared into his mysterious eyes. “I want you.”

“This will be a commitment. You and I will be lovers, mates, forever.”

“I am ready.” She spoke firmly, staring into his face.

Niles lifted her into the air once more. His features toughened. The veins at his temples and in his neck stood out. He climbed with her up the steps again and as they reached the top he brought her down, sheathed himself in her, and moved, they moved together, driven by his strength. Niles lifted and lowered her, never completely leaving her body until, with a harsh yell, he drove himself in so far her body vibrated.

There was bright, hot sensation. Her body might have exploded. She felt as if she were swimming against a rip tide.

The climax broke again, washed over her. And singing pain followed. She must be opened up, torn in half.

She tried to say his name, but she was too far away, and slipping farther. He wouldn’t hear her. She was such a long way away now, disappearing into darkness.

N
ILES LOOKED DOWN
at Leigh stretched across the white bed in the cavern. He had carried her there when she passed out.

He sat beside her and cursed himself for not being more careful, for not searching out better guidance.

Who could he have gone to? He had read what was written in the old books they had carried with them through the years. A reference to “more fragile mates” and the need to be gentle, to hold back the full force of the werehound’s strength during “ultimate loving” with a human was all the research he had.

He had thought he was following the instructions flawlessly.

Her hand on his arm startled Niles.

“You look so worried,” she said sleepily.

Some color had returned to her face. For the half hour since they made love she had been so pale she scared him. And she slept as if she was deeply unconscious.

Yet her breathing was even, her heartbeat regular.