Jacob didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Okay then. So why don’t you tell me what’s been nagging at you. I know it has to do with the deal you made to get here, but I haven’t been able to figure it out.”
“Let’s lay down.” I gestured to the bed and was reassured by Jacob’s fleeting smile.
“I don’t know if lying down while you’re naked is a good idea,” he said, but followed me as I stretched out. “Can you imagine up some clothes?”
“Are you the same Jacob I left? You keep trying to clothe me. Besides, if I did get dressed you’d be furious with me.” I couldn’t take my eyes off Jacob as he tucked his hands under his head and rested his cheek against them. “I’ve missed this, you know. Just watching you. Though, I will admit, your bed is far more comfortable than your windowsill.”
Jacob snickered. “I can just imagine, my beautiful stalker.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“You only have yourself to blame, love. Now spill, and don’t you even dare think of the Syndicate once.”
Pushing that menace out of mind was easy for the moment, though I knew it would come back. I couldn’t just pretend the threat didn’t exist. It was harder, though, to put words to my worry. Jacob closed his eyes and I followed suit. His hand touched my shoulder then slid up to curl around the nape of my neck. I let him pull me closer and sighed as he slung his leg over my own. “They want you to reverse the ritual, the bond you set up with me,” he said.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“And that frightens you. Why? Not that I want to lose it either, but that’s what’s bugging you.”
“I know how I can return home for good. In theory. And it’s a good theory. I’m certain it’ll work if I’m given the chance. And before you ask, I can’t tell you. If I don’t think about it and keep it locked inside, I’ll get the chance to pull it off. If I tell you, or ponder it too long, they’ll find out, and I have no doubt they can block me indefinitely.”
“If they know so much, don’t they know you’re trying to pull a scam on them?”
“I’m sure they do, but necessity dictates their actions. They had to let me come back because they have to have the link broken. It’s like a chess game. Whoever has the best strategy and luck wins.”
I closed my eyes as well and pressed my forehead against Jacob’s, wrapping my arm around his waist. A little spark of excitement came to life inside him. “You are sure.” I knew he was smiling without looking and I returned it. “What’s the catch then? What’s got you so worked up?” he asked.
“It’s hard to explain. The Ascended…. I wouldn’t say they’re emotionless because that’s not true, but their emotions are buried deep and they refuse to allow them to influence their decisions. I don’t think they would’ve forced me to come back if our connection wasn’t creating havoc with them. We’re all linked together. What one feels, the whole feels. You don’t have to stay a part of the whole—you can go out and explore on your own, though I doubt they’ll consider me ready for that anytime soon. But even if you’re apart, you’re still connected.” Even now, I could sense them. It was distant, a thin thread, but still there.
Jacob gave me a mental poke. “You’re straying. Get to the point.”
I gathered my thoughts back together and tried to suppress my growing fear. Jacob’s fingers stroked the nape of my neck. The simple contact soothed me. “Because I was connected with you, I didn’t experience the same divorce of emotion the rest of the Ascended have. Everything you were going through pulled at me. I was made to feel it just as keenly as you. They tried blocking it, but you broke through every time.”
“And since you felt it, they all did.”
“Exactly. It was akin to setting off a tornado in a monastery. It upset our balance more and more the longer it continued.”
Jacob burrowed closer and I accept his wordless comfort, sinking into it. “Tell me, love, what about losing our connection frightens you so much?”
My lover had the uncanny ability to draw from me what I usually buried deep, and the words poured forth from my mind into his. “What if I become just like them when we break the link? What if you become just a memory and what we had becomes just another curiosity to study? Then where will the drive be to make that change, that sacrifice for you? That is what scares me.”
I struggled to pull myself back from that brink and get my emotions under control, and Jacob’s grip tightened. “No, don’t push it away. Just let yourself feel, Kristair. You bury too much even as you fear having it buried forever.” That was easier said than done, but this was Jacob and he let all of his feelings run rampant. “Now come on, you really think you can forget me that easy?”
A laugh broke free because I knew he was only half-joking. “I’m not worried about forgetting you.” Though I had done just that in those initial months when I’d been reborn and inundated with all the new knowledge and experiences, I didn’t anticipate that happening again now that I’d become somewhat accustomed to the experience of being open to the universe.
“I worry that my memories will cease to matter. You don’t understand how seductive that world is, how easy it would be to be pulled in. I could spend forever in there and just touch the surface. If I don’t have the connection with you anymore to keep me grounded, if I become just another part of the whole… I don’t know, Jacob. If I had to make the choice now, while I am entirely myself, I’d choose you. But if I’m incapable of feeling the way I feel when I’m with you then I’m afraid of what my choice would be.” I couldn’t even say it because then it might make it real. It was shaming to admit, because in my mind it lessened what we had and it shouldn’t be allowed to.
Jacob was quiet for a long time and I opened my eyes again so I could look at him. There was disbelief and sorrow, but underneath it all, there was his strength of conviction blazing in his eyes as he stared back at me. “You won’t forget,” he insisted. “I’m not dismissing your fears, but I know you won’t.”
My lover had far more faith in me than I warranted at the moment. He didn’t understand what it was like. Jacob propped himself up on his elbow and shook his head. “I do understand,” he said. “Or at least in part. When you shared what happened with you earlier today, I got a taste of it. And knowing you the way I do, I get how attractive that life would be for you. You’ve always claimed to be more unfeeling than you really are and you do a very good job of hiding it on the surface, but from the first moment your mind touched my own, I knew it was just another mask you put on.”
“I’m not like you, Jacob. I can’t take it on faith. I need a plan, something to fall back on.”
“Then we’ll come up with something. Between your brains and my sheer awesomeness, we’ll think of a way in the next two weeks.” Jacob traced a finger in the air over the tattoo on my shoulder. “If nothing else, Kristair, you’ve proved to me that anything is possible.”
Anything was possible. That was true and it was also what had gotten me into this mess in the first place. I’d trained my mind and will to the point where I could do just about anything I wanted. If only I had access to that power right now. Normally, I didn’t mind gambles, but this time, too much was at stake.
Not to mention that the Syndicate was still out there as well. Jacob’s blue eyes narrowed. “You’re damn lucky I can’t touch you or else I’d thwap you on that bald head of yours.”
“I’m sorry, but ignoring them isn’t going to make them go away, and they’re a problem I can do something about.”
“You know what your problem is?”
I cast Jacob a curious glance. At least most of his frustration and anger was gone and now he seemed more exasperated than anything. “What?”
“I think you’ve got this complex about protecting people, and that somehow keeping them in the dark makes things better. Hell, I don’t even think you do it deliberately, not really. So it’s not like you’re lying. You’re just used to keeping things close insi
de. And if it’s something you don’t think you can handle, then you bury it, ignore it, and concentrate on something else. That’s what’s going on here.”
“Maybe I do.” At Jacob’s pointed look, I held up my hand. “Okay, you’re right. So, what are you trying to get at?”
I tried to probe his mind, but couldn’t make out where he was going. He wasn’t upset, more calm than anything else, almost reflective. Either this was something he’d pondered for a long time or else he was holding it in remarkably well.
“You used me.” Jacob said it in such a matter-of-fact way that it took a moment for his words to register and my conscious to twinge in remorse. “You went into this relationship knowing from the moment you spotted me that there was a very good chance you’d disappear sooner rather than later.”
I couldn’t deny it. I had been selfish from the start. Even before I’d found Jacob and knew he was what I wanted, I’d known that my chances for a long-term relationship were slim. Maybe given my experiences in the past, the idea of a fling had been more palatable. But Jacob had changed my mind, just by being who he was. And, by then, it was too late to back out, even if I’d been inclined to do so, which I wasn’t. From the moment I’d first seen him, I’d wanted him with everything in me. He was mine, my true other half. The mate I had been searching my whole life to find.
“What you say is true,” I admitted. “Before I got to really know you I was just thinking of myself and not the consequences to you. Maybe I should’ve stopped when I stopped thinking of you as more than a potential vessel. Please, don’t ask me to regret doing it, mo chroí, because I can’t. All I regret is hurting you. But, I can’t be sorry for making you a part of me.”
“I’m not looking for apologies.”
I cocked my head and studied him, uneasy with his calm. This wasn’t Jacob, but something stirred beneath his demeanor and I hoped we were getting close to the heart of what was on his mind. “Then what do you want?”
“I’m not sure. Acknowledgment maybe, which you just gave me. I was so pissed after you were gone. Partially because of that, mostly because you’d given up. I kept thinking that if you’d given enough of a shit, you’d’ve fought harder.”
My mind spun, and my heart, which was the only physical part of me left, lurched in Jacob’s chest. How could he even think that? At the same time, given the circumstances, I could understand where his anger came from. It wasn’t undeserved, but it still hurt.
“Jacob, I—”
“No, don’t.” Jacob lifted his hand as if to touch me again and then gave me a rueful smile. “I said don’t apologize. Come on, love, I know you better than that. It was easy to be pissed and to blame you when I was hurting, but now that we’re together again….” His gaze caressed my face. “It’s hard to stay upset when I know what’s going on in your head, when I can feel what you feel toward me.”
He cocked his head. “I think I understand better now why you’re so worried. It’s funny. Back when you were here and we’d be separated all day long while you slept, I would get so confused and muddled. Until sometimes I had to ask myself what the hell I was doing. Then you’d wake up and it would all become clear.”
“You’ve summed it up perfectly.” We were so different, in temperament, in outlook and philosophy on life. But when we were together, we clicked, even when we fought. There was an intensity between us because of the bond, because there were no walls. What would happen when the link was destroyed?
“We’ll figure it out. No sense in stressing over it,” Jacob soothed, giving me a mental embrace.
Exasperation snapped through me, and if I could, I would’ve shaken him. “Might I remind you that you’re the one who brought this all up and said I wasn’t worrying enough about the problem?”
A lazy smile crossed Jacob’s sensual lips. “That was earlier. You’re falling behind. This is now. We’ve talked about it and you promised you’ll behave.” His grin widened as my mouth fell open in indignation. “It’s been a long, crazy, fucked-up, wonderful day. We’re both on edge.”
He closed his eyes and shot me a very erotic image of us twined together. “Why don’t we do something about it instead of arguing?”
Chapter 20
I SURRENDERED; I never could keep up with the twists and turns of Jacob’s whims even if I tried. I suppose it made us even. I closed my eyes and pressed a kiss to the center of his chest. “What am I going to do with you?” I murmured.
“Oh, I can think of plenty.”
“I’m sure you can.” I shifted closer to him and waited until he opened his eyes and looked at me again. “I love you.” I sensed the aching lurch of Jacob’s emotions and then a wry smile touched his lips.
“We haven’t said that yet, have we? I guess it’s been crazy.” He lifted his hand and stopped just before his knuckles would’ve brushed my cheek. “We knew it, felt it, so maybe the words weren’t necessary.”
“But you like hearing them.”
“Hell yeah I do, and I love you too. Now close your eyes and kiss me.”
I smiled and leaned closer, my eyes on his face as he let out a low hiss of frustration. “I have an even better idea. Do you have anything we can use for a blindfold?”
“Silk scarves, bondage, and now blindfolds? What a kinky night this is turning out to be,” Jacob said, but rose from the bed to go rummage in the top drawer of his messy dresser. “I should have something. I’ve indulged from time to time.”
“I’m sure you have.” I rolled onto my stomach and watched as he pulled out two long black cloths, arching a brow. “Me too?”
“Oh yes.” Jacob tossed the blindfolds down on the bed then stripped out of his clothes, his eyes on me, hot and loving. “Are you going to put yourself in my hands?”
“Don’t I always? Just let me get my fill of looking at you first. I was too busy earlier to appreciate.” I knelt up on the bed and let my gaze wander over him. Jacob was as beautiful as he’d always been. Muscles taut from working out and playing football, the little golden rings at his nipples and my silver torc the only items gracing his body, and he didn’t need anything else. Broad shoulders tapered to his trim waist then flared out to strong thighs. The tattoos stood out against his golden ruddy skin and my hands ached to touch him.
Jacob wasn’t embarrassed at all, not that I expected him to be. If anything, I’d say he preened from the attention. He huffed and snatched up one of the blindfolds. “I don’t preen!”
“Yes, you do. You love the attention.” I closed my eyes as he approached then felt his fingers fumble against my face as he tied on the strip of cloth.
“That’s different,” he said, tying it on before pressing the other blindfold against my palm. The bed dipped as he knelt in front of me and slipped his arms around my waist. “I know how good I look.”
I covered his eyes with the second cloth as his fingertips caressed sensual circles at the small of my back. His lips feathered over my own and I slid my hands from the knot in his hair then down the length of his body. “I want to take my time,” he said, kissing along my jaw. “I was too impatient earlier. Not this time.”
Jacob’s breath teased my skin as he laid me back on his bed. My lips found his pulse at the base of his throat and tasted. I could still smell his blood, though the craving to feed no longer existed. That particular hunger didn’t drive me anymore. The instinct had died when I’d become one of the Ascended. But my longing for the intimacy we shared when I bit him was as strong as it ever had been.
Jacob caught my lips in a dizzying kiss. “I’m calling the shots tonight.”
“Do I have a choice in the matter?” The ache spread throughout my body as he touched me, his hands possessive and reverent.
“You don’t want a choice, love,” he whispered in my mind and deepened the kiss in a way that made me weak. “You’re the kind of man who likes to surrender. You just bury it deep. Let that side out tonight, Kristair.” Jacob didn’t wait for my agreement. He pulled my hands above
my head and pinned them there as his mouth broke away to torment my throat.
Jacob’s access to my memories, to my soul, provided him with entirely too much insight. He chuckled and gave my wrists a light squeeze before caressing down my body. It didn’t matter if he knew how to manipulate my desire now when he didn’t know it before. My lover had the innate ability from the start to just look at me and make me want.
His lips traced trails of fire across my chest. His tongue circled around my nipple then drew the aching peak into his mouth, nibbling, tormenting. I couldn’t keep my hands still any longer and drew them down so I could touch Jacob in return.
Searching by touch, my fingers found the ring piercing one of Jacob’s nipples and gave it a light tug. “You should get your own piercing,” he groaned, and I knew that mischievous smile of his graced his lips. He rocked his hips against my thigh, his bare cock pressing into me, making me very aware of my own cock rising hard between us.
“Keep dreaming.”
Jacob laughed and slid lower, his tongue dipping into my navel as my hands caressed the strong contours of his back. It was strange not to be watching him, seeing the flickers of pleasure cross his face. It seemed I’d always been watching him in one way or another. Instead, now I allowed myself to be guided by my other senses.
The soft cotton ends of Jacob’s blindfold brushed against my lower stomach and my muscles tightened in response. He eased my thighs apart and moved to settle between them and I grabbed his shoulders.
“No. Wait. I want to taste you too.”
I sensed Jacob’s mental nod and then he shifted again as I rolled onto my side. I slid my hand down his hip; the scent of his arousal so close stirred my senses and my hunger. Jacob’s heartbeat quickened and my own echoed its call in his chest. I kissed the tender skin on the inside of his thigh and felt his breath shiver along my cock before the wet heat of his mouth slid over it.
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