Lover Reborn (32 page)

It terrified him.
She
terrified him.

And yet, looking at her strained face right now, he was glad he’d come back from that alley alive. “I’m happy I’m still here.”

The breath she exhaled was relief made manifest. “Your presence eases many, and you are important in this world. You matter a great deal.”

He laughed awkwardly. “You overestimate me.”

“You underestimate yourself.”

“Ditto,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” He punctuated that with a squeeze of her hand, and when she didn’t reply, he said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad
you
are here. It’s a miracle.”

Yeah, she was probably right. He had no idea how he’d gotten out of that one alive. He hadn’t been wearing a vest.

Maybe his luck was changing.

Little late in the game, unfortunately.

Staring up at her, he took in her lovely features, from her dove gray
eyes to her pink lips… to the elegant column of her throat and the pulse that beat beneath her precious skin.

Abruptly, her gaze went to his mouth. “Yes,” she said. “I will feed you now.”

Heat and raw power resurged in his body, jerking his hips up and oversolving that blood pressure problem of the surgeon’s. But all the off-the-chain was still a no-go. The part of him that wanted things from her, things that she wasn’t going to be comfortable giving anybody… things that were all about what he had done in the shower and in his bed alone during the day… was not getting airtime here.

Besides, his mind and his heart weren’t interested in any of that shit, and this was another reason she was perfect for him. Layla might well take his body up on the arousal; No’One never would. And there were worse betrayals to his
shellan
than wanting the unattainable. At least with No’One, and thanks to his self-control, those impulses would forever be just a fantasy, a harmless, unrealized, masturbation fantasy that had no more substance in his real life than porn on the Internet—

God help you, a small voice pointed out, if she ever wants you back.

Too right. But as she appeared to hesitate, he was certain that was never going to happen.

In a guttural voice, he told her, “I’m in no hurry. And know this, the lights will stay on this time… and I will take from your wrist only as much as you care to give me.”

A
s No’One sat beside Tohrment, she heard herself say once again, “Yes…”

Dearest Virgin Scribe, something had changed between them. In the thick, charged air that separated their bodies, some kind of heat was sparking, the current of electricity warming her skin from the inside out.

This was totally different than when she had been in the dark of the pantry with him, struggling against the past’s perennial stranglehold.

Tohrment cursed softly. “Shit, I should have them clean me up first.”

As if he were naught but a countertop that had been spilled upon, or a bolt of cloth that required laundering.

She frowned. “I care not what you look like. You breathe and your heart beats—that is all that matters to me.”

“You have very low standards for males.”

“I have no standard for males. For you, however, if there is health and safety, I am at peace.”

“God damn,” he said softly. “I really don’t get it… but I believe you.”

“ ’Tis the truth.”

Staring at their entwined hands, she thought about what he had said… about the past, about the cobbled-together family the three of them had formed in the Old Country.

About how she had shattered that for them all, including her daughter.

Indeed, she had always viewed the resurrection she had been given as an opportunity for penance for taking her own life, but yes, she realized once again, now there was another purpose to serve.

She had hurt this male, but she had also been granted the opportunity to help him.

It was the Scribe Virgin’s fundamental tenet at work: all things coming full circle so that balance could be retained.

Assuming she
could
help him, that was.

With a sense of purpose, she looked down his body—or what she could see of it under the surgical sheeting. His chest was padded with muscle, a star-shaped scar marking one pectoral, and his abdomen was ribbed with strength. All along, there were a number of bruises that she didn’t want to guess the causes of, and small round holes that scared her.

But what was happening below his waist captured her eyes. He was holding the blue sheeting in place over his hips as if hiding something, his forearm and hand tightening up as she stared.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said in a guttural voice.

He was aroused, she thought.

“No’One, come on—meet my eyes. Don’t look down there.”

The temperature in the room shot up even higher, to the point where she considered taking off her robing. And abruptly, as if he could read her mind, his pelvis rolled in an arch that was… sensuous.

“Oh, fuck—No’One, you gotta not go there.”

A strange anticipation threaded through her veins, making her head buzz and her stomach feel vaguely sick. And yet she had no cognition of not feeding him; if anything, she wanted his mouth on her even more.

With that thought, she brought her wrist up and over his lips.

His hiss was quick, the bite was fast, the pain sweet as the prick of a hundred tiny needles. And then… he was sucking, his warm, wet mouth fitting a seal against her flesh and pulling at her rhythmically—

He moaned. Deep in his throat, he moaned in pleasure, and as he did, her heart jumped in her chest and then beat even faster. More of that heat, insidious and suffusing, bloomed on the underside of her skin, her mind growing woolly and her body getting languid.

As if Tohrment sensed the changed in her, he moaned again, his head
craning, his chest rising, his eyes rolling back into his head. And then he began making mewing noises, the supplication fitting not at all with his tremendous size, the plaintive sounds rising repeatedly up from his throat, alternating with his swallows.

With the lights on, and her arm her own to retract, her panic flared only briefly, before being dismissed wholly. There was just too much of Tohrment in this for her to mistake him for anyone else, and the well-lit room they were in had nothing in common with that root cellar: All was bright and clean, and this male at her vein… was very much vampire and nothing even remotely
symphath
.

The more at ease she grew, the more aware she became.

His hips were moving all the while now.

Under the sheeting she would soon be washing, beneath the cup of what was now both of his palms, his pelvis was gyrating. And every time it did, his abdominals tightened and his torso arched… and those noises grew a little louder.

He was deeply aroused.

Even terribly injured, his body was ready for mating—desperate for it, if the way he moved was any indication.…

At first, she didn’t understand the tingling that came over her, numbing her up and hypersensitizing her at the same time. Mayhap it was the fact that she had given him two feedings in less than a day… But no. As Tohrment’s hands tightened anew at the front of his hips, as he gripped himself even harder through the sheeting, it was clear his sex had cried out for attention and he had been forced to give it some—

The sparkling returned even more keenly as she realized he was rubbing himself.

No’One’s own lips parted as breathing became difficult, and under her robing, the warmth cranked up even higher and focused in her lower gut.

Dearest Virgin Scribe, she was… aroused. For the first time in her life.

As if he could read her mind, his eyes shot to hers. Confusion was in them. And an eerie darkness that seemed to be near to fear. But there was also more of that heat, so much more…

Whilst she met his glowing stare, one of his hands unlatched from down below and traveled up his chest. When he touched her forearm, it was not to keep her in place or restrain her, but to stroke her flesh softly, slowly.

Breathing became impossible.

And she did not care.

His fingers running lightly over her skin were intoxicating, drawing her closer to this flame that she could not see. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to fly far away from any worries or preoccupations, until she knew nothing but the sensations in her body.

Indeed, as she fed him, she was fed herself, a part of her innermost soul nourished for the first time.…

Eventually she heard licking and realized he was done.

She wanted to tell him to continue.

To beg him, was more like it.

Raising heavy lids, she could not focus her eyes, and that seemed only appropriate. The world was fuzzy and so was she… boneless and fuzzy, with honey in her veins and cotton batting in her brain.

Tohrment was anything but, however.

He seemed sharp as a blade, his muscles straining now not just in his hips but his whole body, from his biceps to his abdominals—even his feet beneath the sheeting stood up straight.

His other hand, the one that had been stroking her, returned to below his waist. “I think you’d better go.”

His voice was so deep, she frowned as she tried to decipher the words. “Have I done something wrong?”

“No, but I’m about to.” He grit his white teeth as his hips moved up and back under the sheet. “I have to…
Fuck
.”

And that was when his meaning became clear.

“No’One, please… I’ve got to… I can’t keep it back much longer.…”

His massive body was so beautiful in this particular agony: Even though he was bloodied and wounded and bruised, there was something undeniably sexual about the way he ground his teeth and arched upon the table.

For a moment, her nightmare with the
symphath
threatened to come back, terror trying to gain traction at the edge of her consciousness. But then Tohrment moaned and bit down on his lower lip, those long white canines tearing into the soft pink flesh.

“I do not want to go,” she said roughly.

His face squeezed up tight, another curse breaching his lips. “You stay and you’re going to have a hell of a show.”

“So… show me.”

That got his attention, his eyes snapping back to hers, his body freezing. As he blinked, he did not otherwise move.

In a harsh tone, he blurted, “I’m going to make myself come. Do you know what that means? Orgasm?”

Thank the Virgin Scribe for the chair, No’One thought. Because between that graveled voice, and his heady scent, and the erotic way he was holding on to himself, even her good leg had no strength to support what little weight she had.

“No’One, do you understand?”

The part of her that had woken up was what answered: “Yes. I do. And I want to watch.”

He shook his head as if he intended to argue. Except then he said no more.

“Ease yourself, warrior,” she told him.

“Oh, Jesus…”

“Now.”

As she commanded him, a thrall appeared to come over him: Below his
waist, under the sheeting, one of his knees came up toward his body, his thighs splitting wide as his grip secured that vital place that defined him as uniquely male.

What happened next defied description. He worked himself against the balled sheeting, rolling his hips, pushing down, his body gathering momentum—

Oh, the sounds: from the rasp of his breath to his moans to the squeak from under the table.

This was the male animal in the throes of passion.

And there was no going back.

For either of them.

Faster. Greater pressure with his hands, until his chest stood out, the anatomy appearing carved, rather than made of flesh. And then he cursed in an explosion of breath and jerked up against the grasp he had on his sex. His spasms had her clutching her own chest and breathing in a pant, as if what was happening to him was replicated within her own form. Indeed, what miracle was this? Tohrment appeared to be in pain, and yet showed no evidence of wanting what racked him to end—if anything, he drew it out, shifting his hips ever more.

Until it was done.

In the aftermath, the only sound in the room was their breathing, at first quite loud, then growing quieter and quieter, until they were still.

As her heightened senses receded, her mind came forth, and the same seemed to be true for him. Releasing his hands from below his waist, he revealed a wetness on the sheeting that had not been there before.

“Are you okay?” he said roughly.

She opened her mouth. Her voice lost, all she could do was nod.

“You sure about that?”

It was so hard to put into words what she was feeling. She was not threatened, to be sure. But she was also not… right.

She was spinning and antsy. Inside her head. Outside of it. “I am so… confused.”

“What about?”

The bullet wounds in his flesh had her shaking her head. This was not the time to talk. “Let me get the healers. You need to be attended to.”

“You’re more important than that. Are you all right?”

Given the stubborn line of his jaw, it was clear he wasn’t budging. And no doubt if she left to get the surgeon, he would follow her and leave a trail of blood he did not have to spare.

She shrugged. “I just never expected to…”

As she went no further, the realities of their situation returned to her. That arousal, that satisfaction that he’d found… it had been about his
shellan
, hadn’t it. She had told him that Wellesandra was welcome between them, and he’d made it amply clear that he wanted no one but that female: Whilst he had appeared to be focusing on her, in all likelihood he had merely projected the image of someone else.

It had had nothing to do with her.

Which really shouldn’t have bothered her. It was, after all, exactly what she had told him she wanted.

So why did she feel so curiously deflated?

“I am fine.” She met him in the eye. “I swear to it. Now, may I please get the healers? I will take no true full breath until they care for you.”