Wanted: Fevered or Alive

by Long, Heather

  “Too much?” he asked, grinning at the wild color blooming in her cheeks and the sheen of perspiration dotting her skin.

  “I want to do the same for you,” she said between gasps.

  “No,” he shook his head, unwilling to let her play yet. Not when he was enjoying her reactions so much. “Not yet.” Trailing a finger down the valley between her breasts, he traced a path across her navel to the dark curls. “I’m still learning your body.”

  She laughed as he drew a line down one hipbone. “I don’t know if my body can survive your education.”

  “Then let’s find out, shall we?” He followed the path of his finger with his mouth. He tested her reactions to licks, kisses, and little bites. She responded to all of them and he couldn’t decide which he liked best, so he used a combination. When he eased her thighs apart, her muscles tautened and he stroked a hand back over her hip. “It’s still me.”

  “I know.” Her voice trembled and the quaver drew him back up so he could see her face. “I feel so many things when you touch me.”

  “Good things, I hope.” The need to hear her assurance was natural, because he loved touching her.

  “Very good things,” she admitted and she arched up, shaping her hands over his chest and pressing her lips to the spot just above the old knife injury that had tried to carve out his heart. She kissed the scar and then drew her tongue along its length and his spine stiffened, and heat began to burn through the icy measure of his control. But she wouldn’t be dissuaded from her task, so he cupped the back of her head and held on as she nipped her way across his chest. Every kiss teased his restraint and she snapped it utterly when she used her teeth on him.

  Fisting her hair, he tugged her away from his chest and captured her mouth in a long, hard kiss that left them both panting. He broke away only long enough to dispense with the rest of his clothing. His cock ached, and thumped against him. Olivia followed him up, and her hands came down on his hips and he forced himself to go still.

  Curiosity filled her face and he stared at her, watching her delight at exploring him. When she wrapped a hand around his erection, he had to push air past his teeth. It was sweet torture. Her light caress turned bolder, sliding up and down and then across to his hips and back again.

  “Olivia.” His voice sounded strangled.

  “You don’t want to play anymore?” She was laughing at him and he grinned.

  “No, I definitely don’t want to play anymore.”

  “Promise to let me play after?”

  If he survived that long… “Yes.”

  “I want to tease you longer,” she murmured, but released him in contrast to her words. “I want to be with you more.”

  He followed her down onto the bed and slid a finger along the inside of her thigh until he found her damp entrance. “It will hurt.” That part seemed the same for every woman or so he’d been told. “If it is too much, you will tell me.” It didn’t matter what it did to him, he’d stop the moment she told him.

  “Jason.” Olivia frowned and she slid her hand up to his cheek, cupping his face. Her silvered eyes seemed to gather all the light in the room. “Be quiet.”

  “What?”

  “Shhh.” She brushed her thumb across his lips. “No more. I’m not a child. I know what I want I knew I wanted you before you understood. I knew I wanted this before you did.”

  He would have argued, but she kept her thumb pressed to his lips.

  “Love me. Love all of me.”

  Capitulating to that order was a simple thing and he pressed a kiss to the thumb holding him silent. “I love you.” It was no simple thing, and he would never take it for granted. He wanted her to know that.

  “I know.” She smiled and beckoned him with an impatient lift of her hips. Fisting himself, he stroked the tip of his cock against her warmth and this time when she groaned, he joined her. It was an agony he’d never been able to appreciate and he took his cues from her expressions. When she tensed, he slowed and when she scowled up at him, he had to swallow a laugh.

  Easing into her, he braced one hand on the bed. Her fingers dug into his back and they both paused. The liquid heat enveloped his tip and it was beyond anything he’d experienced. Another gentle push sent him deeper and he felt resistance. He wanted to go slower, but Olivia gave no quarter and surged up to meet him and then he slammed home to the hilt.

  They both shuddered and she bit down on his shoulder. The pain added to the pleasure streaking through him. “Hurts?” Gritting his teeth made the word harsh, but he wanted to move and he didn’t dare in the same breath.

  “Yes, and no.” She wiggled, rubbing against him and seating him a little deeper. He hissed out a breath and she went still. “Are you all right?”

  Sweat dripped down his brow and slicked his back. “I’m in heaven,” he told her and when her tremulous smile grew, he leaned in for another kiss. She opened to him, mating her tongue to his in an invitation that snapped the last of his restraint. The plan for slow deliberate movements slipped away and he began to rock his hips, dragging another groan from her throat and from his with every thrust.

  Olivia stroked his back, her nails raking lightly, and she met him kiss for kiss. He teased her breasts and tried to add another layer to her pleasure, but all he could feel was her. Rising up, his arms shook with the force of not driving into her again. He stared at her wondering face, her dark hair spread across the sheets, and the flushed color of her breasts.

  God, he wished she could see how utterly beautiful she was. Her arms twined around his neck and dragged him back down and then he took her mouth and let go, responding to every movement she made with another. When she cried out beneath him, pleasure in every syllable, he felt his spine go molten.

  Pleasure arced along his nerves and tore through him, his mind shattered outwards and Olivia cried out his name again. Jason!

  The depth of the sound was unlike any other she’d made and he locked his gaze on hers as he fought the sensuality melting him to his bones. Her mouth didn’t move, but he heard her again. Clearly. Jason…

  The distinctness of her, soft and feminine, burned deep in his mind. He had the sense of her thoughts, unspoken words he’d never heard. Her mental voice was as decadent and charming as her real one.

  Olivia? He shuddered, trying to lock away anything dark she might see in him. Her silvered eyes took on an odd light—as though a brightness shown on them and her expression turned wondering.

  “Olivia?” He repeated the word, blanketing her with his body, completely unwilling to leave the anchoring home he’d found in her. “Can you hear me?”

  “I see…” The words hitched in her throat and a tear trailed down her cheek. “I see me.”

  The opaque silver surface of her eyes hadn’t changed, but he lifted a hand to touch her cheek. “What?”

  I see me and I see your hand. Touching shaking fingers to his cheek, she frowned and her mouth worked but no sound came out. How…is that me? The room was dark and he stretched away from her pull open a shutter. She winced at the light flooding the room. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Too much. Too much—Her voice cried out inside of him and he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to determine what he’d done. Finding the sense of her, he closed in around it and blocked her. It flowed together naturally, an inflexible barrier guarding her and she sagged with relief.

  “Better?”

  “What—?” She moistened her lips. “What was that?” She opened her eyes slowly and the silvery depths held no glow.

  He had no idea. “Are you all right?”

  “I feel wonderful.” She traced her fingers over his face. “But I saw me. How did I see me?”

  Olivia? Can you hear me? He focused first on her, but she didn’t respond to the thought. Exhaling a slow breath, he sought the cordoned off part of his mind, the place he’d held the sense of her. He eased apart of the barrier he’d constructed, and whispered, Can you hear me?

  She jolted. “I hea
rd you...” in my mind.

  Sealing up the barrier again, he studied the construction of it and then glanced down at her again. Stroking her cheek, he began to smile. “He was right…”

  “Who?” Bewildered, she clung to him and he pressed a kiss to her cheeks and then claimed her mouth again.

  “I’ll explain, but I want to play again.” He wanted to do more than play, he wanted to test every part of this. Because if she was in his mind, he truly could keep her safe from everything—and that was a cause for celebration.

  Chapter 12

  Olivia, A New World

  “I’m scared,” she admitted as he led her out onto the porch. She’d pulled on a dressing gown and he’d tucked a light coat around her. Summertime had come to the ranch, but the mornings were still cool.

  “Nothing to be scared of,” he told her, leading her down to sit on the steps. She sat with her back to him and his legs bracketing on either side. “We want to see how this works, don’t we?”

  “I like your choice of words,” and that part was true, though a curious reluctance continued to plague her. Realizing what had happened and making it happen again seemed two very different things. A wild profusion of emotions swirled through her.

  Passion, she decided, was a double-edged blade. She’d never felt closer to Jason than she had in the last few hours. He could go from playful to intense in one beat of her heart. The thoroughness with which he explored her reactions to every type of touch was coupled with his open acceptance of her own desire to know him. He’d lain still for over an hour as she studied his body, memorizing every line, every scar—even if he still refused to tell her the origin of many of them—and what made his heart beat faster, his breath come a little quicker.

  More than one of those acts had heated her face until she believed she’d caught on fire, but she couldn’t deny the sensual knowledge that came with knowing her husband fully. Rubbing her arms, Jason rested his chin against the back of her head. “You ready?”

  “I think so…” She shivered and his arms slipped around her. His strength bolstered her flagging courage. If she could have projected bravado or confidence, she would have. But she was terrified and, while she knew Jason would never let anything happen to her, she couldn’t quiet the violent trembling shaking through her.

  A streak of color spread across empty canvas of her sight. She knew it was dark, it was always dark. Everyone told her that blindness meant she was in the emptiness that made up night all the time. Jason’s arms flexed lightly and he gave her a squeeze. Yes, there was definitely color across the bottom of the dark. She sucked in a deep breath. It wasn’t quite light, she didn’t even have a name for it.

  “It’s a band of purple,” Jason whispered close to her ear.

  “Purple,” she exhaled slowly. She’d heard the word. Knew it had meaning, but she’d never had a context for it. Her respiration slowed and she could feel the gentle beat of Jason’s heart. Time elongated as she studied the band. A second sliver of color began to expand around the purple.

  “Red.” He gave her the name for it and when a third color twinkled in the places between the purple and the red, he called it pink. The trembling in her limbs returned, because a fourth color replaced the bands of purple and pink. “Orange.”

  Olivia shuddered and the colors went away. “We can stop,” Jason whispered.

  Tears splashed down on her cheeks and she shook her head, almost mute.

  “Olivia,” he coaxed. “It’s okay. We can stop.”

  Don’t. God she wanted to see it, but he didn’t understand. I never knew what those words meant.

  What words? The deep masculine timbre of his voice was a stroke across her mind, and it sent a fresh wave of delicious sensation through her. It was so—intimate. It seemed almost more intimate than what he’d done to her body.

  Colors. And then they were back, splashes of orange and red, with streaks of yellow and she couldn’t stop shaking.

  Here it comes. Together, they watched her first sunrise and when she burst into tears, Jason held her and stroked her hair. He kept watching the light until her head began to ache from it and then, only when she was ready, did he let the light go out.

  She could see.

  Through his eyes.

  * * *

  The next three days passed in blissful adventure. Jason tested the limits of their new ‘shared’ awareness. Did he have to touch her? No. Did he have to be next to her? No. Unwilling to take it to the limits, he promised to test it with him town and her on the ranch, but only after they’d returned to the house. His protectiveness intensified, if that were possible, but so did his attention. No one from the ranch came out to visit, and she was the sole focus of his attention. On the third morning, food arrived in a basket on the porch. Meat, corn, and apple pie—her favorite—and Jason claimed to know nothing about it.

  It was, in every respect, perfect. There was still so much about each other that they didn’t know and her favorite part of their sequestered time together was getting to know each other.

  “I like the stars,” she told him. They were outside again, lying on a blanket and Jason kept his gazed turned upward. The stars glittered like gems, he’d said, but all she saw was the perfection of the night and the sliver of the moon. It glowed in the distant horizon.

  “So much for you to see,” he murmured.

  “I want to see you.”

  “We need a mirror, and we’ll find one at the house, but not yet.” He kissed her knuckles and she giggled when she saw her hand. Of all the things he saw for her, he always came back to gazing at her and it made her laugh. As if summoned by her thought, he turned and she saw herself—and her smile softened. “I like looking at you. I’m far less interesting, I promise.”

  “I disagree on principle,” she teased. “But I can be patient.” She marveled at the smile she could feel widening his mouth and she nudged him to look up again.

  “You are not that patient.” He traced patterns against the back of her hand, a lazy soothing stroke of his skin on hers.

  “I waited years for you,” she countered.

  “Yes, you did do that.” He sounded a tad smug, and she grinned. The idea of their marriage seemed to delight him as much as it did her. He so rarely indulged in his satisfaction—but that too had begun to change. He opened up to her in the most unexpected ways.

  “What was it like?” She asked. “Hearing everyone? All the time?”

  He paused, a considering silence draping over them. Jason wasn’t given to swift answers, he always paid careful attention to his words. “Initially? It was frustrating, I didn’t really understand what was happening. Later, I thought I must have been going mad.”

  “When did you know you weren’t?” Because there must have been a moment.

  “When I met you. The noise stopped. It was quiet and free. Even your tea parties were a relief.” The last came out with a twist of wry humor and she giggled.

  “Was I so terrible?”

  “Demanding. Precocious. Utterly sweet. You were quite terrible.” Not that he seemed to mind. “You were a bright spot, a single solitary one.”

  “What happened to you? I know you told me about your missions and about Stanley, but what happened to you? The scars.” She’d tried not to push, but something in his reluctance to discuss it beckoned her.

  “Some are from accidents. I broke my arm when I was younger, falling out of the hay loft.” Amusement spaced out the words, but a trace of lingering sadness underscored them.

  “It must have hurt.”

  “It did, but not for long.” He sighed. “I told you Kid has a gift as well.”

  “Yes.” She threaded her fingers between his. When his attention turned inward, the images had been occluded.

  “He did something to me that day, the pain was sharp when the bone snapped. I couldn’t even breathe around it. People were rushing to help me and their minds bombarded mine and it made it that much worse. It hurt and I didn’t know how
to keep them out.” The shadow of remembered pain fogged his voice.

  “What happened?”

  “Kid happened.” For the barest moment, she caught a sliver of something else in his voice, but it vanished into chilliness. “One moment I could see him above me, in the loft, staring down. His face was horrified. Our eyes locked and then he was in my head—and all of the pain vanished. Every drop of it.”

  Shivers raced over her skin and she turned, seeking his warmth and hugging him. “That wasn’t a good thing?”

  “No.” He wrapped an arm around her and rubbed her back. “It wasn’t. Because he was still there, in my head, absorbing every drop.” Another pause, then Jason sighed. “Olivia, you feel things about everything. Just like we are always thinking, a person is always feeling. Disappointment. Anger. Regret. Hope. Longing. They’re always there.”

  She could agree with that. “That seems natural.”

  “It does.” Jason stroked his thumb against her spine in a lazy circle. “After that I didn’t feel anything for a long time. It was gone. All of it. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t sad. I simply—wasn’t.”

  “What?” Confusion stormed through her and not for the first time since he’d confessed this world to her did she wish she could understand it more clearly.

  “He took everything. It was all gone, except for what I felt when I was with you.”

  Horror weaved through her confusion. “I—you feel nothing?”

  “I feel now.” Warmth trickled through the ice in his words. “I didn’t for the longest time. The affection I held for you seemed to be safe, I never understood that aspect of it before. I held onto it, though. It anchored me.”

  “That’s why Stanley got to you?” It was a leap, but…if he’d felt nothing, then what meaning would death have?