Tempered (A Daughters of the People Novel) (Daughters of the People Series) (15 page)

“I wanted to
keep you.” Her eyes swept up, meeting his, and the longing there bored into him.
Intense, needy, everything he was feeling, reflected in the stormy pull of her
gaze. “You would not hear me then.”

“I think I’m
ready to hear you now.”

He stroked his
thumb across her face, testing the corner of her mouth, the sensuous curve of
her lower lip. Her eyelids fluttered shut and her head tilted back, and her
beautiful, luscious mouth was there, inches from his own.

“I’m gonna kiss
you now,” he murmured, and she
mmmd
and tightened her fingers in his
sweater, and then his mouth was on hers and his heart shouted a resounding
yes
.
Her lips parted under his, accepting him, taking him in. It was like coming
home after an eternity away. The rightness of it flooded through him, urging
him to take more, to have more, and he burned with it, fighting the need that
rose up, so fierce and urgent it overwhelmed him.

He drew back,
exploring her slowly, nibbling her full lips, testing the sharpness of her
teeth, tasting the corners of her mouth. She seemed helpless under his
onslaught, clinging to him with one hand on his shoulder and the other curled
into his sweater over his heart, and he wanted her to be.
God, yes
. He
wanted her to be as helpless as he was in the storm of their need, as
devastated by the passion that had consumed him since the very first time
they’d come together.

The music
changed, snapping him back to reality, and the noise and weight of the crowd
rushed into his consciousness. He tore his mouth from Hawthorne’s and rested
his forehead against hers, struggling to still the frantic beat of his heart
and the breath that panted in and out of his lungs, mingling with hers. They
were in public.
God
, he’d kissed her like a man on fire in a public place,
surrounded by her friends and colleagues. What had he been thinking?

The pressure of
his erection against the fly of his jeans answered that question, and he nearly
laughed.

Hawthorne
unclenched her fingers and smoothed the wrinkles in his sweater. “Perhaps we
should go home now, Aaron.”

He searched her
expression, examining the taut need anyone else would miss. Yes, maybe they
should go home. He skimmed his hands down her arms, tangled his fingers with
hers. She tugged him off the dance floor and wove through the crowd, leading
him toward the only place he wanted to be.

* * *

The air in the
close confines of the SUV was thick with desperate need. Aaron stared calmly
into the night, his seatbelt buckled, his hands resting flat upon his thighs. Hawthorne
envied him his demeanor. Her own heart pounded so hard in her chest, it would
not have surprised her if he heard and reconsidered. As she had told him, the
wise fled before her. It had been thus since she had wrested her vengeance from
the men who had stolen her honor and her mother’s life, and it would be thus
eternally.

At her age, she
had no expectation of meeting mortality save at the end of another’s blade,
though the lack of hope would not keep her from trying.

The man beside
her was no warrior. He battled the world with his hands, yes, but also his
mind, using his creations to explore reality in a way no other could. He was
tender, some might even say weak, though only if they discounted the power of
his creativity, and of his heart.

Aaron Kesselman
had a strong heart.

Their kiss had
stoked the desire she had tried so desperately to deny. A woman’s control
lasted only so long before it collapsed. She had had an eternity to hone and
refine hers, had thought it strong enough to survive any salvo, only to have it
flee in the face of Aaron’s heart.

Perhaps she was
the weaker one after all.

She parked her
Land Rover in the garage. Switched the ignition off and activated the automatic
garage door, waiting for him to speak. He seemed lost in thought, unaware of
their arrival. She unfastened her seatbelt and exited the car. Behind her, his
car door slammed and his footsteps thumped quietly against the concrete floor.
He followed her into the house and through the hallway separating the living
room from his office. She could feel his presence behind her, hear the slowness
of his breaths and the brush of fabric as he moved. Uneasiness pricked at her.
Would he never speak or touch her? Was he waiting for her to set the pace, or
had he changed his mind?

Did he regret
touching her now, as he had at DragonCon?

Perhaps she had
read the situation incorrectly. Perhaps their kiss had meant nothing to him and
was simply an extension of his kindness.

The uneasiness
shifted into an ugly band that squeezed her chest, closing her lungs and
forcing her heart to boom in too small of a space. She crossed to the stairs
and climbed them automatically, measuring her steps upward without being aware
of them through the thick tears gathering behind her eyes and the bitter
heartache clogging her throat. She kept moving, always moving. That was the way
a warrior dealt with pain, by forcing it outward, not by bottling it up inside.
Is that not how she had always mitigated the cruelty and hardship of the
centuries? Had she not held her own through a life well lived, thus thwarting
those who sought to harm her?

Her steps
faltered at the door to her bedroom. She faced the solid oak with the weariness
of a woman who had simply had enough. How long must she survive without a mate
to hold her through the long, empty nights, without the love of a companion to
break her immortality, without a hope of finally knowing peace after centuries
of restless wandering?

Aaron’s hands
rubbed over her shoulders, a gentle, comforting warmth. He turned her slowly
and tilted her chin up, and blanched. “Hawthorne, sweetheart.” He pulled her to
him, cradling her head on his shoulder, rocking her as if she were a child.
“Shh. Don’t cry. We don’t have to do anything.”

She curled her
hands into fists against his chest and absorbed the goodness of him. “I am not
crying.”

His laugh was
short and soft, a grunt of sound that pierced the shell of her heartache. “I’m
not gonna argue. I’ve seen the way you handle a stick.”

“It is a
hanbō.”

“Hanbō,
stick. I know how deadly you are. Come on.”

He opened the
door to her bedroom where she had not been able to continue. In her bathroom,
he wet a washcloth and scrubbed her face, holding her chin with firm fingers.

Her heart
softened. His touch was so gentle, so kind. “You are a good man, Aaron.”

“Not so good if
I made a woman like you cry twice in one year. Close your eyes.”

She obeyed and
relaxed while he washed gently around her eyes, cleansing away her sorrow along
with the tears.

“There now.” He
placed the soiled cloth on the sink and cupped her jaws in his hands, kissed
her forehead so tenderly she blinked back a bemusing spate of tears. “Better?”

“I was well
before.”

“You’re a
terrible liar. What do you sleep in?”

“My skin.” She
lifted her hands to his, ran trembling fingertips over the warm skin,
memorizing the length of his fingers, the alignment of bone and muscle. “You
know this from our time together at DragonCon.”

“I thought you
were doing that because we were…” His voice trailed into a murmur and his eyes
dropped to her mouth. “Don’t you have a t-shirt or something? I could let you
borrow one of mine.”

“Why do you wish
me clothed thusly?”

“So I can tuck
you into bed, take care of you. I’m so sorry. God, am I sorry.” He gathered her
near again, holding her carefully. “I didn’t mean to push. You have to believe
me.”

“I believe that
you did not meant to push me, though I do not recall you doing so. Perhaps you
should explain further.”

His laugh rang
through the bathroom, echoing off the pine and tile walls. “God, I adore you.”

If he adored
her, why did he insist on pulling away from her, rejecting her twice now? Men
were a baffling species, and this man insisted on being among the most
baffling. He was not, as he had asserted, an uncomplicated individual. Would
that he were, so that she had a hope of understanding what motivated him to
kiss her one moment and ignore her the next.

His hands slid
down her back, gripping her hands. She followed dutifully behind him as he led
her to her bed and prepared it, she presumed, for her entry. He untied the
lace-up ropers she wore, pulled them off. Set them neatly by her nightstand, stood
and tugged off her sweater, leaving her upper torso clad only in a thin, white
camisole.

His breath
wheezed out. “Sweet merciful God, you’re not wearing a bra.”

She glanced
down, confused. “Have I need of one?”

He shook his
head slowly, squeezed his eyes closed. “Tell me you haven’t been wandering
around the house braless for the past week.”

“It would be an
untruth to say otherwise, Aaron.”

“Whew, wow. That
didn’t help.” He rubbed a hand over his closed eyes, muttering things like
all
week
and
I can do this
. He dropped his hand, leaving his face bare
to her gaze. His chocolate eyes were hot and needy and his hand held a fine
tremor. “Let me, ah.”

He unfastened
her jeans and drew them down her legs, his fingers caressing her whether he
intended to or not. She balanced with one hand on his shoulder, lifted each
foot patiently so he could pull them off, and failed to miss the way his eyes
lingered on her. His breath puffed against her skin, fanning it with warmth as
he worked, plucking at the desire lingering in her blood.

He rose slowly
and all but pushed her into her bed, pulling the covers up to her shoulders
before he kissed her forehead. “Goodnight, Hawthorne.”

She raised
herself onto her elbows and considered the resolve in his expression, and the
unmistakable arousal pushing against the fly of his jeans. “You are leaving
me?”

“I am. Get some
rest.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and regarded her solemnly. “We’ll
talk in the morning.”

He truly
intended to leave her, though he was aroused and ready and
adored her
.
She sniffed delicately, caught the faint aroma of his pheromones, and in that
moment, lowered herself to the manipulations of a common human. “Perhaps I need
the comfort of a friend this night, after the pushing you did.”

He winced and
glanced away, and if she had been capable of feeling shame for her own actions,
she would have then.

Fortunately,
shame had been burned out of her system centuries ago.

“That’s a really
bad idea,” he said. “Really.”

She turned down
the covers on the opposite side of the bed and patted the mattress. “I insist.
You would not wish me to cry again, would you?”

His eyebrows
snapped together and he whirled, muttering
God’s gonna strike me dead for
this
under his breath as he snapped off the overhead light and closed the
door to her bedroom. She shimmied out of her camisole and panties and dropped
them on the floor while he undressed and climbed into bed. He met her in the
middle, and she wrapped herself around his long, fit body.

His hands cupped
her bare hip and his breath hissed. “You took off your underclothes.”

She buried her
face in the crook of his shoulder and slid her hands under his t-shirt,
scratching his skin lightly with her nails. It was as she remembered it, warm,
firm, beautiful. “Yes.”

“And you expect
me to hold you all night like that?”

“If that is what
you desire.” She ignored his constrained laugh and skimmed a hand around his
ribs, exploring the muscled plane of his back. “Have you not missed our time
together?”

“I have, so
much.” He slid a muscled thigh between hers and sighed. “I don’t want to hurt
you anymore.”

“Then do not.”

“You make it
sound so simple.”

“It is as simple
as you wish it to be. I did not cry from a harm you inflicted, but from a joy
you withheld.”

“That’s…not
exactly clear.”

“When you kissed
me this evening,” she explained, “I believed you desired me.”

“I did.” His arm
tightened across her back where he held her. “I do.”

“Yet, you
refused to speak on the way home, refused to touch me or share your gaze with
me. Should I not have taken your distance as rejection?”

“No, Hawthorne.
Not just no, but hell no. I want you so much it hurts, inside and out, all day
and night. Especially the nights. Dreaming of you, the way you smell and taste,
like sunshine and woman and everything I’ve ever needed, and the way you feel
when I’m in you, so tight and hot and good it takes my breath. I’ve waited so
long to have you again, I was afraid my control would snap and I’d take you in
the car.” His voice dropped to a low murmur against her ear. “So, no, I wasn’t
rejecting you, sweetheart. I was trying not to jump you.”