And she knew instinctively, as her legs finally crumpled beneath her, that Colton had come.
Chapter 28
Her white-haired lover appeared on the sill, looking like a real ghost; a fierce, feral werewolf in man form. The look in his eyes told her of his desire to swallow her whole.
He had somehow reached the third-floor window and wasn’t breathing hard from the effort. He was half in and half out of the window, crouched in the space he crammed his generous bulk into. They stared at each other in silence. The tension building between them made Rosalind sway.
“I hoped you would come,” she finally said in a husky tone.
He didn’t move.
“You have doubts,” she said, having to put that out there to get things he might be feeling that they’d never actually faced into the open.
“Yes,” he said. “Doubts.”
“You’re not sure about the vampire traits I’ve adopted, or that have adopted me. Is that it? Fangs like mine hurt your loved ones.”
He leaned into the room, closer to her.
“Because I have fangs and can perceive monsters with similar ones doesn’t mean I can read their thoughts,” she explained. “If they even have thoughts.”
He waited for her to go on, probably sensing she would.
“I’ve been a rebel in most ways because of an energy too boundless to contain. It’s there now, pushing me, encouraging me. Beast or spirit, that energy tells me that I must be near you.”
She watched a muscle in Colton’s right cheek twitch.
“It could be that the monsters simply sense my attraction to you and want you out of the way, as my father suggested. And it also might be that you were their target all along by belonging to an old Were family, and I’m the one in the way. Since we can’t ask the monsters about their objectives, there’s only one way to find out what their agenda is.”
“By going after them,” he said.
“Yes. I’m not really like them. You know that. But I can’t have this hanging over me, and over us. I hate it all. Don’t you imagine I’d like to be normal, like the rest of the Weres out there?”
Her confession moved him, and also possibly hurt him in some way. Her ghost unfolded himself and stepped into the room with an understanding light in his pale eyes. In spite of his formidable size and the fact that he now bore signs of the same strength and power she had first noticed in that blasted park before his injuries, his expression softened. When he looked at her lovingly, a groan of relief escaped through her lips.
“If I didn’t care so much,” he said, “none of this would matter. Can it be fate that brought us together? Some sort of metaphysical trick that we aren’t even aware of? Something in me has found something in you that I’ve been searching for, and vice versa, that runs as deep as our DNA? Hell, I’d like to think of it like that. Who wouldn’t want to believe that spirits continue on in the ones we love, and that true love can find us in a world this large?”
Although Colton hadn’t touched her, Rosalind felt the heat of his gaze. Warmth had never seemed so close, while at the same time unattainable. If they were to physically meet tonight and she were to become more like him than she already was, her unique connection to the monsters might lessen or be lost altogether. If she couldn’t key in to the bloodsuckers’ location, everyone here would be at a loss.
As she saw it, she stood at the edge of a cliff with her toes hanging over, wanting Colton desperately and knowing how desperately he wanted her in return. The short distance separating them hummed with the frantic energy of withholding themselves from having what they needed most. Physical contact, and the signal to go ahead and take what they could, while they could.
“Can’t you sleep?” he asked gently, looking to the bed.
“I’m afraid to shut my eyes,” she confessed.
“What if I’m here beside you?”
“Won’t that be the ruin of us both?”
“I’m your guard dog, Rosalind. Tomorrow will test our strength. You need some rest before tomorrow arrives.”
“I have never been stronger,” she whispered. Another confession, and something you might not know.
She went on before he could address her remark. “I’m attempting to contain the power surges that rise and fall inside me without my permission. I’m not sure where these surges are coming from or where their origins lie. Maybe all the different parts of me—all those monstrous traits—are vying for dominance. I have a war going on inside me, Colton, and can’t take much more. Moving eases the urge to throw myself out of that window.”
“Then I will have to distract you,” he said.
She replied earnestly, “I wish you could.” But you can’t. You won’t. You’re honorable, even now.
Breath had become the thing uniting them lately; his warm breath on her face that shouted to her of how close he was. Her slow, exhaled sigh mingled sensuously with his in the open, and without their mouths having to meet.
As she faced him, the moment seemed suspended in time. Both of them wanted to give in to the urges. Just one move would crash the barrier they had erected, whether by accident or on purpose.
“Rationalization versus needs,” he said. “We can’t even console each other properly. But we’re here, together. We’re alive and surrounded by allies, and tomorrow might be a turning point. That will have to do for now.”
He didn’t believe this. His eyes told her that. They were wide, shining and surrounded by dark circles that were remnants of a pain that would never fully leave him. She had become a part of that pain.
Yet she looked deeply into Colton’s eyes, tilting her head back to do so. “That’s the difference between us,” she said. “I’ve always been greedy, and have required more than what my life had to offer me.”
Howl to howl. That’s what had brought them together and sealed the deal, Rosalind thought. Spirit calling to spirit. Those spirits were wresting the willpower from them both right here. Right now.
The dark thing in her soul did a slow turn, bringing up the image of an ancient memory she couldn’t quite see. Was it this Were’s image, and what lay inside him? Is that what the spirit in her was trying to tell her? That it was all right to give in, and that neither of them had to be strong all the time?
“It won’t let up,” she said, breaking off eye contact and hanging her head. “If you stay, it won’t be in that window. Not for long.”
His lips were inches from hers. She knew the feel of their fullness and the moistness within; knew she shouldn’t do what her heart told her to do, and that there might be consequences. But the dark thing nestled inside her urged her to rebel this one last time. When joined with the wishes of her own spirit, that urge was too great to ignore.
She stood, and rose onto tiptoe.
Reaching up, taking hold of Colton’s soft white hair with both of her hands, she pulled his lips to hers.
Chapter 29
Rosalind was liquid fire, blazing flames, raging desire in the shape of a woman. How could he stand against that?
The animal in Colton wanted more. The spirit in Rosalind demanded it. Through her tantalizing lips Colton felt the core of heat that awaited him. He had never experienced anything like this, not even with her, and was willing to accept the damage that might result.
It was absolutely necessary to reach that heat.
He closed his eyes, giving in to the shape and texture of her with all of his senses. Below his waist, he was already erect and aching. His beast was excitedly calling to hers. All due to a kiss. This kiss. The culmination of so many withheld feelings.
Their hands met near his thighs. Her fingers brushed over his. As she slid her tongue between his lips, her hand moved between their bodies to the hardness pressing against her. The murmur of her pleasure turned him on, dr
ove him on, made him realize that he loved her with a fury that bordered on obscene.
She was already naked. Sensuously, seductively naked.
As the kiss deepened, Rosalind’s sharp nails tore at his shirt, scratching his chest, leaving a sting. As if his partial bareness wasn’t enough to satisfy her, her hands then sought the waistband of his pants. He heard the buttons pop.
Riled up and unable to wait much longer for what was going to happen, and what was inevitable, Colton pushed her hot hands aside and lifted her up. He’d always had this same compulsion to hold her.
Their bodies, locked together, crashed to the carpet. He rolled her over onto her back, reveling in the slender angles so sharp beneath him.
Her sinewy arms wrapped around his rippling back, hugging him close, assuring he wouldn’t change his mind.
Never in a million years would he have changed it.
She gasped once, and growled low in her throat as if she needed air, but he didn’t want to let up or let her go.
He took his mouth from hers for a span of seconds to allow her that breath, and looked into her eyes when she took it. White lashes made the gray irises seem lighter. Masses of tangled white hair framed her face. Long white strands spilled across the floor like rays of moonlight. These were ghostly signs. Symptoms of their intimacy.
They were his fault.
He came back to her when she flashed a smile, but he couldn’t smile back. And when Rosalind ran her tongue across his chin in a slick downward slide that ended at his neck, then lightly bit into his flesh with her little white fangs, waves of surprised pleasure shot through both man and beast that made thoughts about promises and honor useless.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked as he stoked the curve of Rosalind’s bare thigh with his fingers, inching them toward the heavenly place he would soon lose himself in if anything in the world would allow it; thinking that if he didn’t get there soon, he might lose his mind.
“Not all I’ve got,” she whispered with her head thrown back. “Not nearly everything.”
Her voice was thick and incomparably sexy. Colton spread her legs with his. For good or ill, we have jumped that boundary. Whatever happened next, they were both equally to blame.
Her thighs were inferno-hot. He reached her soft, feminine folds without taking his gaze from hers. Dipping one finger inside her to test her readiness was nearly his undoing.
Just as it was hers.
Rosalind arched her back, lifting her breasts precariously close to his mouth. Her smooth skin was luminous in the darkened room and as pale as the meager light slanting through the window.
Soon, Colton thought fleetingly as he ran his tongue over the valley between her breasts, the moon would hand the sky over to her golden competitor. Sunrise was fast approaching.
They had so little time left. Not enough for taking one delicate pink bud of her nipple into his mouth, or removing his pants. “I’m sorry about that,” he said.
Rosalind’s eyes widened when he unleashed himself and settled between her legs. She opened her mouth as if she’d cry out when he pierced her petal-soft folds and slipped his cock inside her. But she didn’t make a sound.
She writhed beneath him, sending her hips upward, and he had to withdraw, wait, hold on. His muscles shook with the effort.
Rosalind held him tighter.
His slight retreat shook him to the marrow, and made him colder. This isn’t what they wanted. No retreat.
“More,” Rosalind whispered, as if she had read his mind.
Harder. Faster. Now, she was demanding.
He sank into her again, knowing he belonged there and that he was claiming her for his own. His next thrust shot through her with a burning intensity that robbed them both of breath. He pulsed inside her, feeling her rush of sweet, blistering heat rain down to meet him.
Again, he plunged into her soft, warm silk. And again after that, caressing Rosalind from the inside out, each stroke more potent than the one before.
Deeper he went, feeling impossibly hard and long, until all thoughts about time vanished—blown away by the way Rosalind openly and unconditionally accepted him and the smoldering power in this union.
She met the beating of his hips with thrusts of hers. The sound of their bodies meeting filled the room with dull slapping echoes. Her heated legs wrapped around him like a fleshy velvet vice, making it more difficult for him to pull back.
Her hands were again in his hair, and on his shoulders. Her fingernails, like claws, raked his upper back.
He felt their wulfs connect in that mystical union that took them down to another layer of being. The soul of the wulf and the soul of a man were together and meeting their match, their refuge, their sanctuary, in Rosalind. The sensation was overwhelmingly complex, and had to be even more unimaginable for her, since she housed not only two spirits, but also a third.
If he was lost, so was she.
She came back for a kiss, and sucked his lips between hers. Her canines pinched his tongue, so that he tasted blood.
Colton squeezed his muscles and plunged in and out of his lover with a demonic force. He had been seeking this all his life, and perhaps, if the whole spirit theory was true, even longer. They weren’t just two bodies merging; they were starving souls bringing life back, full circle.
Their spirits were anchored by an intimacy beyond the imagination...in a place where hunger was everything. Theirs was a relationship that wove mind, body and spirit into a braided whole.
Too soon, he found that place in her he had desperately needed to reach. So hot. So very tight. With a final push backed by all of his need and condoned by his wulf, he hit Rosalind’s molten core and burst, drowning that core with a heat of his own and feeling as if the night had swallowed them both.
Rosalind, her mouth still clamped to his, screamed. That scream went on and on as her climax hit and stretched, and as he held her there.
God, was Colton’s final oath when he could breathe again. I’m home.
* * *
The room had grown quiet. No breeze stirred the curtains or ruffled his hair as Colton stood at the foot of the bed like some sort of angelic sentinel, observing Rosalind.
He had counted every ragged breath she took in, and noted each flutter of her eyelids, until her eyes finally stayed closed sometime after dawn.
He talked to her then, whispering tender endearments as he kept watch, and fighting the constant yearning to lie down beside her.
The room smelled of open windows, warm sheets and hot, spent bodies. It smelled of wulf, of sex, and hardly like anything human. Rosalind’s heat still warmed his veins, though his muscles were stiff from standing.
He waited until the sun rose before finally flexing his shoulders. He crossed to the window to see if Weres still roamed in the yard, knowing that daylight hours would allow them an overdue rest in preparation for tonight’s show of strength.
Eventually, he’d also have to sit down, eat something, shut his eyes. But he didn’t see how he could do any of those things when Rosalind looked so small lying there. In sleep, it was difficult to see the brave, supernatural entity she had become in the outline of a young woman curled up in a fetal position.
She smelled like him, he thought as his lips hovered longingly above hers for what seemed like the millionth time. But with the rising sun came a warning protest from his beast.
It was time to leave her.
He looked at her again, wishing for just one more minute. Her face was healing with incredible speed. Only a smooth pink line hinted at where the shard of glass had penetrated her cheek.
“There’s enough Lycan left in you to access our healing powers. You’ll be glad to know that, my love,” he crooned.
Rosalind’s face and hands were the only naked parts of her visible. A blank
et covered the rest. The heady allure of those small areas—the length of her slender fingers, the sculpted edge of her jaw—drove him crazy. That same madness brought his beast in and out of focus as all parts of him lusted for the woman on the bed.
“Oh, yes, there has to be a next time. We’ll see to it.”
For werewolves, sex wasn’t taken lightly. But slowness, carefulness, tenderness required discipline that only real love necessitated. And he’d come to love Rosalind with every fiber of his being.
“There’s no mistake about that.”
He ignored the knock at the door that came a few hours after dawn, and murmured a stream of assurances to Rosalind to cover the sound. Twice, he layered her with more blankets to calm her shudders, unable to close the window that was his only means of escape.
In Miami, chills like the ones covering Rosalind, if she were human, would be an indication of illness. In her, it was a manifestation of her internal tug-of-war.
“If I have hurt you, I’m sorry,” he said.
She moved a leg, and made a troubled sound. Time, for Rosalind, was speeding toward what lay ahead.
When her father called out from the hallway, Colton glanced up from his place at Rosalind’s side, surprised to find that the sun had again set, and that he had somehow missed an entire day.
“Open the door,” Kirk said.
It was almost time. How many Weres would fall, in their honor, a few hours from now? he wondered.
The jangle of keys in the hallway made Colton wince. “Rosalind,” he murmured.
Whatever spirit forced her to open her eyes gazed up at him with deep black pupils. The intensity of her dark-eyed scrutiny caused his internal pressure to expand and his wulf to utter a growl through his too-human throat.
“Go now,” she said, moving bloodless lips.
Rosalind was now whiter than white. He saw that clearly now, where he hadn’t before. She’d become an albino, like him. Their lovemaking session had drained all remaining color from her. Every last bit.
He swore again, though he couldn’t allow himself to feel guilty. The night had been necessary on so many levels for them both. They had both known there might be consequences.
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