The Serpent in the Stone (The Gifted Series) (30 page)

Little by little, her trembling subsided. Her tears dampened his shirt. He pressed his face into her hair. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear. Please believe that.”

She turned her face up to him at last. The hurt pride cleared from her features. In its place came a cool wariness that cut him worse than her tears had done.

She’d closed herself off...gone where he couldn’t follow. And he never would have believed it, but that pained him still more.

She wiped moisture off her cheeks, then pushed out of his grasp. “You want what you can get out of me, like everyone else who would turn me and Faith into lab rats if they knew about us.”

He spread his hands. “Sara, I have told
no one
. I wouldn’t do that.”

“Oh?”

He saw it in her eyes; she expected a fight.
Probably even welcomed it, because then he could leave her, and she
’
d be just as alone as she
’
d looked in that tavern on the mainland.

Oh, no.
Not this time.
Not when his insides were roaring at how she pulled away.

He stroked her hair.
She remained immobile, unresponsive.

Distrustful.

“
What
’
s it gonna take, Sara?
”
he whispered, stepping back toward her.
Gently, he kissed her again.
He slid his arms around her, telling her with his body what he couldn
’
t say, and what he knew she wouldn
’
t accept.

She lit like a dynamite fuse, seizing his shirt in both fists.
But she would have none of the slow, soft caresses.
She dragged at his shirt, demanding fire.

And, God help him, he gave it.

When she took his lip between her teeth, his body ignited.
He swept her mouth with his tongue, drinking in the taste of her.
He couldn
’
t pull her close enough.
She pressed against him along the entire length of their bodies, and still she was too far away.
She gasped against his mouth as his searching hands reached the soft skin under her shirt.

Christ, she burned.

He broke the kiss long enough to pull his shirt off and throw it on the floor.
Her hands explored the muscles of his back.
Blood boiling, he reached between them to undo the first button of her shirt, and placed a kiss there.
She made a low sound, and the skin of her throat vibrated under his lips.
The earthy scent of her flooded his senses.

Another button, another kiss.
Her fingernails dug into his back.
He fought to keep from tearing her shirt open to get to the rest of her.
With painstaking slowness, he undid the remaining buttons and drew the shirt off her shoulder, planting still more kisses on her satiny skin.

She straightened her arms.
Her shirt fell to the floor.
Her hazel eyes glowed in the lantern light.
Separated from him only by her bra and pants, she was more beautiful than he
’
d ever seen her in any form.

His control slipped.
He molded his hands to her and she arched against him, her body molten with desire, but her eyes...

Cold as gemstones.

No
, he thought fiercely.
Answer me.
Answer this.
He reached up to grapple with the hooks of her bra and it fell away, leaving her bare under his hands.
When he cupped her breast, skin to heated skin, she moaned and pressed closer.

With an inward hiss of triumph, he crushed his body against her, reveling in the feel of her skin on his.
He urged her to the cot with fervent kisses.
She went, willing under his touch.
He lay beside her and drew his fingertips along a taut nipple, teasing it with his thumb.

She inhaled, sharp and surprised.
Ian lowered his head and took the nipple in his mouth, drawing hard on it, grazing the edges with his teeth.
She whimpered, and he wrestled for restraint.
He pushed aside the amulet at her throat to touch his lips to the hollow between her breasts.
Her heartbeat thudded against his mouth.
When her nails grazed the skin of his back, he sucked in a breath and looked up at her.
“
Are you sure you want this?
”

She answered by cupping the back of his head and drawing him down to her.
He kissed her again, groaning when her tongue swept into his mouth to imitate the strokes he made with his own.
His erection strained against his pants.
Ian broke away and took another breath, trying to cool his raging blood.
Slow down,
he told himself.

Hell, no,
demanded another, more primal part of him.
He wanted all of her.
Here, now, before another second went by.
He stroked the burning skin of her belly and she sighed, lifting her chin.
He bent his head to her throat and savored her with gentle nips.
Her nails dug into his shoulders.

Ian blasted apart.
With a possessive snarl, he unzipped her pants and almost tore them off.
He stretched out over her with triumph scorching through his body.
The feel of her skin, hot and satin-smooth, tore another snarl from him.

Sara dug her nails into his skin again, pinning him there, though he
’
d have died before leaving her.
Naked, she lay beneath him, watching him with eyes that blazed now with the need echoing in her body.
Ian memorized every curve and hollow, then swept his hands along each contour, lingering with kiss and touch.

He stroked a hand along one slender thigh to the curls between her legs and found her center hot and moist.
When he slid a finger into her, she moaned.
His thumb found the sensitive bud between her folds, and he stroked her.
She arched off the cot with a soft cry.
“
Ian!
”

He drank in her reaction to his touch with ferocious greed.
His senses reeled with the sweet musk of her arousal.
Every time she gasped, his tenuous control unraveled faster.

Her fingertips brushed along the top of his pants.
His belly clenched.
He felt her reach for the button and realized she was following his example.
She wrestled, and he closed his hands over hers to help her.
He pushed his pants off and lay naked beside her, letting her look at him, hardly able to keep his patience when his entire body ached to be touching her.

She gave him the same thorough appraisal he
’
d given her, then glanced up at him.
At last he saw her come back from that distant place—no longer unreachable, but somehow both intense and shy.
He reined in his need and took her hand, pressing it to his chest.
“
Touch me.
”

She did.
Her hands swept along his skin, searing him wherever they landed.
He trembled under her questing fingers as he
’
d never done with any other woman.
Her hands closed around his rigid manhood, stroking feather-light along its length.
“
Sara,
”
he ground out, teetering on the brink.

“
Now,
”
she whispered.
“
Now, Ian, please.
”

The rest of his self-control shattered.
She urged him down and opened herself to him.
He pressed his hips into hers, and eased home in a long, slow, blissful stroke.

And then she was his.
Completely, finally.
No more secrets.
No painful pasts.
Only the two of them, here at this moment with the rest of the world far away.
Mine
, repeated his primal self.

She arched underneath him, urging him still deeper.
He cupped the back of her head in one hand and slid the other along the length of her body.
“
You
’
re beautiful,
”
he said.
“
So incredibly beautiful.
”

Her gaze found his again, glowing with passion.
She kissed him, pulling him into her, gripping him harder with each stroke.
Her breath came faster in his ear.
A moan caught in her throat and drove him higher.
Every nerve sang where she touched him.
Her breath, her skin, her heat, the very smell of her struck him like a storm to a lightning rod.

She gasped out his name, and her body arched like a drawn bow.
An electric hum seized him and burned along his spine.
He buried his face in her hair and swept over the edge with a groan.
The charge reverberated back up his spine, then faded.

****

Sara
’
s skin resonated with liquid flame.
Yes
, her body echoed, as if it had known all along that this moment was inevitable.
This time, this place.
Him.

Ian
’
s breath rasped in her ear.
She drew her hands up his back, tracing her fingers along the sweat-slick skin.

He was shaking.
So was she.
“
Are you all right?
”
she whispered.

He arched onto his elbow, still panting.
“
Your eyes are green.
What did you just do?
”

Her powers.
“
Oh, God, Ian, I
’
m sorry.
”

He cupped her face and shushed her with a kiss.
“
No, don
’
t be sorry.
Don
’
t be,
”
he urged, then kissed her again.
“
I
’
m fine.
”
He withdrew and rolled onto his back, curling an arm underneath her to pull her close again.
He kissed her hair.

She let her hand hover a second before settling it on his chest, then she huddled in the hollow of his arm.
“
I think I might have let go of my power.
I didn
’
t mean to.
”

Ian rocked onto his elbow.
“
Is that what that was?
”

“
I think so.
”
Her face burned with guilt.

He flopped back down and grinned, scraping a hand through his sweaty hair.
“
Jesus.
Do that whenever you want.
”

“
Are you sure I didn
’
t—
”

He rolled on top of her. “Whenever. You. Want,” he repeated, punctuating the words with kisses. “You didn’t hurt me. In fact, you
adamantly
didn’t hurt me.”

Another blushing wave heated her cheeks and she smiled, somehow shy after what they’d just done. It had never been like that before. But there was no before, now. No after. Just Ian, here in her arms.

She must have been staring, because he chuckled and stroked her cheek with his thumb.
He rolled to his back once more, and slipped an arm around her.
One-handed, he reached up and put the lantern out.

Sara laid her head against his chest.
She drew a long sigh, and he pulled her close against him.
His hands stroked her cooling skin, warm and rough and pleasant.
He pressed his lips to her hair.
And for the first time in twenty years, she felt at peace with herself.

****

Against her will, Sara
’
s eyes fluttered open.
The gray of pre-dawn had stolen into Ian
’
s tent, shattering the veneer of sanctuary in which she had slept.
She wanted to go back to it.
Back to believing she could shut the world out and lie there in his embrace.
Reluctant, she shifted toward the edge of the cot.

Ian
’
s arm tightened around her.
“
Not yet.
”

She burrowed into the warm hollow of his arm and stretched her own across his belly.
“
They
’
ll be up soon.
”

“
I know.
”
He rubbed her back.
“
How did you get up here last night without them knowing?
”