Her eyes flew open, taking a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. She felt the bulk of another figure in the bed, but she didn’t need to turn her head to know who it was. She could sense Spar, could have picked him out of a crowd blindfolded and deaf. He called to her senses in a way she’d never experienced before.
The last thing she remembered was her sofa and her grand plan for hunting the Hierophant. She must have drifted off right there and left Spar to get her into bed. Her own mental phrasing made her snort. So far, the man hadn’t had a lick of trouble getting her to bed anytime he wanted. He was rapidly becoming an addiction.
Careful not to wake him, Fil shifted until she could look at the man lying beside her. He took up a good deal more than half the bed, but she had to give him credit for not being a cover hog. Surprisingly, that was important with him, since unlike the few other men she had slept with in her life, this one didn’t pump out heat like a furnace. She knew that if she touched him, his skin would feel pleasantly warm, but heat didn’t radiate off him the way it seemed to from her human bed partners.
Human bed partners.
Fil rolled her eyes in the darkness. Wasn’t that just a statement of the surrealist wonderland her life had become? Now she was thinking about her past lovers in terms of their species, because the latest was decidedly not a member of her own. She wondered: Should that bother her more than it did?
No, she had plenty of objections to the current situation that didn’t involve DNA. She just wasn’t certain she wanted to look at them too closely. She had a feeling she wouldn’t like what she found.
She knew she had been sending Spar mixed signals, and she sort of hated herself for it. She’d always hated the kind of person who blew hot, then cold, then hot again as if unable to decide on a straight course. As far as she was concerned, playing games should involve cards, dice, or little plastic timers, not emotions. Her grandparents had raised her to tell the truth, even when a white lie might be easier. Sparing a person’s feelings was one thing, but leading him on was quite another.
How she could lead Spar on when she herself had no clue what path she was following only added to Fil’s confusion. She could admit that she had made the first move between them. Well, the first sex move. Sure, he had kissed her outside the hospital, but when he’d had her naked in the shower, all he’d done was clean her up and tend to her wound. She was the one who had seduced him, and God help her, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
Spar made her feel the most amazing things. Every time he touched her, she felt electricity rage through her. It was like the strange magnetic energy she’d felt every time she’d seen his statue only amplified by a thousand. She would love to chalk it up to chemistry, but even the strongest attraction she’d felt for another man looked ridiculous compared with the feelings Spar inspired. Those feelings were so intense, they scared her.
Seriously. If she’d been wearing boots, she’d have been shaking in them. Spar was the first thing in her life ever to threaten her independence. From the beginning, her grandparents had taught her to take care of herself. They’d wanted her to be a strong woman, because they had known that their ages would take them from her before she was ready. Her love for them meant she could never have been ready, even if they’d lived two hundred years, but they had realized they wouldn’t be with her through adulthood, and they had planned for that.
When they had passed away during her first year of college, the pain of the loss had staggered her, but she had known how to make their final arrangements, manage her own finances, deal with her grandfather’s business, and basically do everything necessary to continue to build a life for herself. She had them to thank for that.
Now, eight years later, along came someone who not just wanted but needed to take care of her. She understood that for Spar, a Guardian’s duty could never be shirked; it was part and parcel of what made him who he was, the literal reason for his existence. Without that desire to protect her and her fellow man, he wouldn’t exist, and the question for Fil now wasn’t if she would be able to let him protect her, but whether she would be able to cope when he stopped.
She tried to picture her life after he left, when things went back to normal, and the gaping hole his absence created nearly stole her breath. How could the life she’d so enjoyed before look so empty now? It had only been three days, for God’s sake! Three days was not enough for him to become some integral component to her happiness. She had a career that challenged, fascinated, and delighted her, a hobby that qualified more as a passion, a comfortable home, and friends who made her laugh and do and think. Before she’d stepped into the abbey, she’d been happy, really happy with the life she had made for herself. Why did that have to change?
Okay, it made sense that she might see things a little differently than before. After all, until she’d met Spar and encountered the nocturnis, she’d had no idea there was some sort of ongoing war between good and evil being waged before humanity’s unseeing eyes; and of course now that she knew, it wasn’t something she was likely to forget. She also knew now that her ability to see the special abilities of others was only the tip of the iceberg as far as the existence of magic in the world was concerned. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to stop looking for it now, and every new person she met would face the scrutiny of her inner eye. Was he gifted? Not gifted? Nocturnis? Something else?
A new perspective she could handle—would have to handle, since she doubted she had much choice in the matter. What she didn’t know was whether she could handle watching Spar turn back to stone, knowing that by the time he awoke again she might be gone. A Guardian was immortal, but Fil knew she sure as heck wasn’t. If nothing else, the past few days had made that abundantly clear. One day, she would die, and Spar would live on.
Will he remember me the next time he awakes? she wondered. Or would she be some vague shadow tucked away in the corner of his mind, a sense of déjà vu that never really made itself clear?
She watched him breathing, seeing the rise and fall of his chest in the darkened room. When she was a child, she’d spent more than a few nights lying awake in the dark and wondering similar things about her mother. As much as her grandparents loved her and as clearly as they had explained that her mother just wasn’t able to take care of her the way she deserved, she had occasionally wondered. What had it been about the drugs that made them more important than a child? Why had the money for a fix been more important than the money for rent or food or clothes? Why had Fil not been worth the sacrifice of an addiction?
She knew it wasn’t a fair question, had known it even before she’d spent several worthwhile sessions with a counselor coming to grips with the fact that none of her questions had answers. Her job was to learn to stop expecting any and to build her life around the empty places where the answers should have been. Eventually, she was reassured, she’d find other things to fill those gaps and she wouldn’t even notice them anymore. She’d thought she had done that, but now the idea of Spar winning his battle and slipping back into his enchanted sleep felt like a great big backhoe, digging up those spots in her subconscious all over again. She could practically hear the rumble of the engines in the quiet bedroom.
She wondered if Ella felt the same way about Kees. She’d seen the way the two interacted and knew there was something between them. Ella had called herself Kees’s Warden, and Fil knew by now that it was a lifelong position—but for the length of the Warden’s life, not the Guardian’s. According to Spar, a Guardian would have dozens of personal Wardens during his life, each one handing the position on to a successor at the end of his life. How would Ella bring herself to do that? How could she grow old, knowing exactly where her lover was but never being able to talk with him, hold him, make love with him; then have to teach someone else to care for him after her death? Didn’t her heart break just thinking about it?
Fil already felt a crack in hers. She knew that as long as the threat from the Seven existed, Spar and Kees woul
d remain awake and on guard, but that wouldn’t last forever. Eventually, the Light would prevail, the threat would be eliminated, and the Guardians would return to their stony forms. If the opposite happened … well, at least Fil wouldn’t have to worry about missing Spar, because they’d both be demon chow. It almost made her wish the battle would go on forever, just because as long as it did, she could keep Spar at her side.
Hm, maybe she should give Ella a call soon, when Spar and Kees were otherwise occupied. If her friend was currently suffering from the same thoughts and anxieties plaguing Fil, maybe she’d have some advice to share on how to cope with it. If not … well, at least they’d each have a shoulder to cry on.
Sighing out a wry chuckle, Fil shifted to pillow her cheek in one hand and lifted the other to trace an invisible line down the muscles of Spar’s forearm to the back of his hand. She knew the soft touch would wake him, but she didn’t care. He’d have hundreds, maybe thousands of years to sleep during his lifetime. She had only now.
“You are awake.” His voice was low and quiet and still thickened by sleep. It rumbled through her like the purr of a great cat and made her shiver. If she hadn’t seduced him first, he could have had her with the sound of his voice alone. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head and drew her fingertip back up to trail across his broad chest, stopping to explore the furrow that ran between the two sides of the hard, muscular plane. “I fell asleep so early that I just woke up. Then I saw you.”
Slowly, he reached for her, giving her plenty of time to refuse, not that she had any intention of turning him away. She wanted to wince at the evidence of how she’d confused him, but she didn’t want to kill the mood. She’d been pushing him away most of the day. Now she’d just have to make it clear that she’d changed her mind.
She arched into his hand, moving eagerly closer as he drew her against him. He made a much nicer shape to snuggle into than a spare pillow. He fit against her perfectly, hard where she was soft, angled where she was curved. Cuddling against him felt like coming home, yet filled her with longing for something more. She needed him to touch her.
Whether he read her mind or her expression, she couldn’t tell, but his warm, rough fingers stroked down her arm, over her hip, gliding down her thigh. Even through the covers, his touch heated her skin, and she murmured her pleasure, punctuating the sound with soft kisses pressed against his collarbone.
He made a low sound of approval and reached for the edge of the blankets. He tugged them away, his gaze following every inch of bare skin revealed by the slow retreat. She knew her skin was pale enough to glow in the moonlight, but Spar didn’t seem to think that was a flaw. His gaze ate her up like she was a big bowl of his favorite dessert topped with a healthy dollop of whipped cream. No one had ever made her feel as beautiful as he did, as desired. As cherished.
Bared completely, Fil shivered, not from cold, but from the heat his attention generated. Wherever his gaze touched her, she felt as if flames licked at her skin, and the thought of what it might do to her to feel his tongue follow suit had her eyes drifting shut on a moan.
Spar chuckled softly and leaned closer until his breath teased the rim of her ear. “I would pay more than a penny for those thoughts, little human, were I not filled with such vivid imaginings of my own.”
Her skin flushed as dizzying possibilities danced through her head. If the man’s thoughts were anywhere near as dirty as her own, he’d be moaning, too, but instead he growled and leaned down to take her mouth with his.
The taste of him thrilled her. Warm and rich and earthy, with the mineral tang of a French white wine and the clean softness of spring sunshine, she wanted to drink him down in fast, greedy gulps. She tried, but he made no secret of the fact that this was his kiss. He controlled it from the first moment, leading, directing, conquering … all she could go was grab hold of his shoulders and enjoy being swept away in the storm of his making.
She gasped like a drowning woman when his lips finally slid from hers to trail along the curve of her jaw, up to her plump earlobe. He lingered there for a lifetime at least, tugging the nub of flesh with his teeth, then soothing the sting with soft strokes of his tongue. Never in her life had she understood the allure of a lover playing with her ear, but when Spar did it, it might as well have been her clit. His skillful touch sent bolts of electricity straight to her pussy, making her clench with need.
He reduced her to a keening whine when he dragged his mouth across her throat, the flat of his tongue tasting her like melting ice cream. A tender nuzzle against her breast made her shake; the feel of his hot lips closing around her nipple made her sob. He drew on the peak with strong, rhythmic pulls, then teased with clever little flicks before resuming the suction. Fil tugged desperately at his shoulders, trying to bring him over her, but he resisted with casual strength. He kept them both on their sides, facing each other, while he fed on her flesh and left indelible marks on her soul.
“Spar. Please.”
She tried to curl her arms around his head, to cradle him against her breasts, to do something to alleviate the ache that threatened to drive her mad. Chuckling, he slipped easily from her grasp and continued his ruthless assault.
A rough palm stroked up the side of her knee, along the quivering line of her thigh, before drifting inward. Gentle fingertips brushed like feathers through the soft, pale curls concealing her sex before delving deeper. She arched helplessly against him, urging him to soothe the pain of relentless need.
When his fingers slid away, she almost broke, almost begged him not to leave her, but he hushed her with butterfly kisses and lifted her upper leg to drape her knees across his hip. The position left her open, exposed, and his fingers quickly returned to fill the space he had created. He slipped through her damp folds, parting her tender flesh to uncover the tense little bundle of nerves at the top of her slit.
He slid a finger across the nub, and that single touch was enough to have Fil tensing and arching as if a bolt of lightning had coursed through her. She cried out, but he swallowed the sound, his mouth returning to hers with renewed passion.
This time, he didn’t just taste her, he devoured her. She felt consumed, overwhelmed, feasted upon. His tongue tangled with hers while his fingers rubbed hard, tight circles around her clit. In seconds he brought her to the edge of release, but before she could fling herself into the void, he abruptly stopped. She tried to pull her mouth from his, to berate him for toying with her, but he fisted his free hand in the hair at the back of her head and simultaneously plunged two fingers deep into her swollen passage.
She screamed into his mouth, her hips snapping forward as pleasure crashed over her. A mini climax grasped her by the neck and shook hard, but it didn’t even take the edge off the hunger. Immediately it began to build once more, and Spar fed it with greedy kisses and clever fingers.
Struggling for air, she broke away from his kiss and gasped frantically. A vague thought edged with hysteria pointed out that if she’d wondered before how she could survive without him, now she should be wondering how she would survive this encounter. The man was killing her, and she couldn’t wait to embrace her end.
“Open your eyes,” he growled, the sound rough and feral, different from anything else she’d heard from him. “Look at me.”
It took several tries to force her eyes open. When she finally succeeded, the world looked hazy and out of focus. All but Spar. He stared into her eyes with fire heating his gaze and between her legs, his touch robbing her of sanity.
“You are mine, Felicity.” The words fell like hammer blows, fierce in their intensity. “My human, my woman.”
She knew she should hate the primitive statements, but they resonated inside her like church bells. Her heart could detect no lie in them, nothing false, nothing to take issue with. Even her mind was silent on the subject.
And her body? Oh, her body wept a rousing chorus of hallelujah.
“Say it.”
His voice
was an order, a demand, a decree from on high. Within her channel, his fingers curved to stroke firmly against her inner wall, hitting the spot that made her see stars on every contact.
“Mine.”
How could he expect her to speak when she couldn’t even breathe? She struggled for air, struggled for a voice, struggled for a mind not shattered from the pleasure of his touch.
Suddenly it left her. His fingers withdrew, and despite their bodies pressed together, only his fist in her hair held her to him.
“Say. It.”
He scraped his teeth—were those his fangs? How were those his fangs?—against her throat and thrust his hips forward. With her leg pinned above his own, the movement brought the tip of his erection to her opening and taunted her with heavy nudges.
“Say you are mine,” he snarled, and Fil felt herself nodding in agreement.
“Yours,” she breathed.
Then she screamed as he drove himself deep inside her.
He filled her up so full, stretching her, fucking completing her, the stony bastard. She was his. He had made her his, and now he pounded within her to celebrate his claim.
She could feel her muscles tightening, her pussy clenching, her whole being vibrating with the need to come. Her head thrashed, but his grip in her hair held her in place. His other hand cupped her ass, keeping her steady while he tore her world out from under her.
Their play and their positioning had started slow and tender, an exploration and sharing, but it had turned into a frank act of possession, her body his to hold and possess. She’d have given her next breath to possess him in return.
They strained together, each struggling to get closer, until it felt as if they shared the same skin. She breathed his air; his skin drank the perspiration from hers. Their hearts beat wildly but together, sharing a rhythm in perfect synchronicity.
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