The smart thing, but not the necessary thing.
She gathered her courage and walked toward him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Arren felt a disturbance in the air.
He turned. Laine.
At last. His pulse sped at the sight of her, walking up to him and shaking raindrops off her hair. She wasn’t coming downstairs from a leisurely morning spent sleeping in. He’d been getting worried about her.
His talk that morning with Melved Gibbs had made him feel better about himself than he had in years. It had been a long and informative talk. The man, close to death though he was, enjoyed passing his own personal wisdom to another.
Melved Gibbs would get his eternal gratitude.
Laine walked toward him, looking pale and rain-spattered, her soft brown eyes deep and troubled as a smoke-filled forest. He half-stood to meet her, feeling the connection between them start to hum . . . the closer she approached, the more compelling the hum.
Gibbs had given him a lot of advice, but one piece particularly stuck in Arren’s mind. If you have the choice, love her first as a woman. For, once you change and experience her as a cabyll ushtey female, you will never be the same again. Nor will she. You need to join as man and woman first; only then will you truly bond—mentally, not merely sexually.
Could he trust himself to do that?
He pushed the tantalizing words to the back of his mind.
She dropped into a chair across the table from him. He could feel the jagged edge of emotion from her. He wanted to cradle her on his lap and make her tell him what was wrong, but reached for her hands instead.
Her fingers were icy. He wrapped them inside his own and tried to channel his store of warmth into her.
It seemed to work. “Oh, God, that feels good.” Some of the trouble left her eyes. “Have you been here long? I’ve been out exploring.”
“Just got here myself. Don’t move, I’ll get you some coffee. Then you must tell me where you went.” He headed to the self-serve pot and was rewarded with her audible groan of pleasure when he returned with a steaming cup.
After a few restorative sips, Laine sat with her hands wrapped around the hot cup and sent him a look from under her lashes that made him decide that throwing her across his shoulder and heading upstairs would be an excellent idea.
He suppressed the urge ruthlessly. He wanted Laine to talk, not run screaming. He sat back, forcing his expression to soften. He’d been informed by various people whom he trusted that when things got tense, his face tended to get . . . scary. So he let his eyes widen, his brow relax and his lips form a small smile.
Laine slid lower in her chair. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go for a drive, just to clear my head.”
“Did you succeed?”
Her expressive eyebrows quirked, and she took her lower lip in her teeth for a second. “Yes and no.”
“What do you mean?”
She looked around tensely, as if suspecting the walls to have ears, or the otherwise empty room to sprout curious onlookers. “Arren,” she said, “we need to talk, but not here. Not in public. Can you come up to my room right now? I promise I’ll buy you breakfast later.”
Arren blinked. His stomach, which had been anticipating food, had just performed a flip, and the rest of his body had gone from quietly attentive to full alert. The possibility of being alone with Laine, in her bedroom, made all thoughts of breakfast vanish.
“Yes. I can. Of course. Yes.” He stood abruptly, his chair teetering behind him, and reached for her hand. “Let’s go.”
She was up as quickly as he. The trip upstairs was suddenly much too long. How the hell was he going to behave like a gentleman when he got there?
It was the snake that did it, thought Laine as she ran upstairs with Arren in tow. That damned reptile was in cahoots with Arabella and Innis. Or worse: with Jaird. A servant of the Devil encircling her with coils of magic that she had no hope of avoiding.
Avoiding it was the very last thing she wanted. Acknowledging that fact sent a jolt of . . . something . . . to her core. Lust? That she felt in plenty. No, it was more than that. It was power.
Power over what? Over Arren? At that insidious thought, she caught back a smile. As he has—will have—power over me.
But then she thought: what if I want him so badly because of what he is? If he were an ordinary man, would he be as fascinating? Am I some kind of gold-digging—magic-digging—female?
She didn’t think so, but she might not be the best judge of her own motives. It was she, after all, who had the most to lose in this relationship. Arren was cabyll already, and she still had the chance to change her mind.
But she wouldn’t.
Whether Arren was a normal human or something wildly more than human, she would be an idiot to let him go without a fight.
But if they were to have any future at all, the threat of Jaird’s dominance had to be eliminated. To do this, she had to bind her chosen cabyll chieftain to her with more than just friendship, a few kisses, and a shared problem. The primal union of flesh to flesh, heart to heart, was but the first step in what she hoped might be a transformation beyond anything she could have imagined mere days ago.
So, if she couldn’t avoid the coils of magic, she had better attack them.
No. Embrace them.
Her mouth dry with a mix of fear and anticipation, she pushed open the door to Number Eight and felt Arren’s hand tighten still more on hers. But inside he came to a halt, like a reluctant horse confronted with a scary, unfamiliar jump. Or perhaps it was that big, puffy, rose-patterned bed that was making the whites of his eyes show.
She tugged him forward. “It’s okay, I’m not going to proposition you. Yet.” Her heart was racing.
He stepped inside and stood like a tree stump, hands now clasped behind his back. His face was drawn and grave, that of a man going into battle. Seriously? she thought. Is it that hard to love me?
He said, “I promise I won’t proposition you, either.” Was that a yet she saw in his eyes?
She sat on the bed, letting him remain standing. “I had an encounter with an adder this morning.” Arren’s eyes narrowed, but she forged on. “It’s okay, it didn’t bite me. It circled me. Twice.”
“It what?” His shoulders had squared and he’d gone up on the balls of his feet. If the adder had appeared on the pink carpet, he’d have beaten it to death with a shepherdess figurine, of which there were several.
Quickly she filled him in on her disturbing morning, including the scholarly old man. And what he had implied about her as he fled.
Arren took two strides across the room toward her as if to take her in his arms, then diverted to the window and stood in front of it looking out, hands jammed in his pockets.
Damn. He was thinking, when she wanted him to feel. To understand intuitively what she needed. Was that too much to ask of a man?
She watched him observe the twirling plants on the windowsill, unimpressed by their hypnotic activity. He cast an eye at the ivory horse but did not touch it. His shoulders were hard knots of muscle under his shirt, and his head was down, like a bull that was thinking about slashing a matador to death.
He said, his voice disconcertingly calm, “Snakes are depicted in a couple of stone circles near here, but I’m not sure of the meaning, or if it’s a misinterpretation of the way the stones lie. But why would a real snake behave in such a bizarre way?” He turned and looked at her sharply. “You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. But ending up where I did, at the hillside horse with its crown of stones, makes me feel like I have no control over anything.” Her lips tightened. “I hate that.”
She did hate it. Laine had been accused more than once of being a junior control freak. Not totally obnoxious, just needing to know what was going on around her, what was going to happen next, and how she might, if not control things, at least not be swept away by circumstance.
She’d been drawn to that hill an
d its ancient stones for a reason. Was it simply to make her choose?
She eyed him. Perhaps she should stroke his nose, blow into his nostrils like you did with a skittish horse. What would happen next? Would she have a chance in hell of controlling anything?
“Now . . . ” she said, feeling dizzy and scared, “Now comes the proposition part.”
Under his heavy lids she saw a spark. This was good. And if his heart was going as fast as hers, she should be able to see the pulse in his neck . . .
She trailed her regard from those suspicious eyes, down that in-need-of-a-shave cheek, lingered a moment on a set of tight, wary lips, then on to his neck and the impressively square angle of his jaw. Though he stood still as one of the stones she’d seen this morning, the pulse in his neck was jumping. Just as her own was, in the place where he’d tasted her sweat.
“I’m—” He cleared his throat. “I’m listening.”
“I want you to make love to me. Here and now.”
“Laine—”
“But close the door first, please.”
She had to admire the way he didn’t move a muscle. At least he wasn’t in full retreat down the stairs.
“Arren,” she murmured, using her softest, most persuasive tones, tones she only used when she really, really wanted something. “I’ll never settle for everyday life. Not after what I’ve seen. Not when this kind of magic is around. And I don’t want you to settle either.” She leaned back enough so her breasts jutted a wee bit more. No sense wasting ammunition. “I’ll never settle for an ordinary man.”
He held her eyes impassively, not even glancing down. She felt a heart-shriveling moment of doubt. What was she doing? Arren was right. She should run home now and forget she’d ever seen him in moonlight.
Perhaps he was being a gentleman. She had to put a stop to that. But then she saw a gleam in those ice-blue eyes.
She felt a surge of pure lust at the sight of him, long and lean and hard, his hands clenched at his sides like a fighter’s.
She forced herself to hold his eyes with hers.
She said, “I must choose my fate. I won’t run away. I can’t let Jaird claim me. Or Innis.” A shiver raised the hairs on her arms, at the memory of the river. “It would be truly creepy to be changed by my father or my brother.” Besides, near drowning was not her idea of the proper introduction to magic.
There had to be other ways this was done.
He took one step closer to her, then stopped. “Laine. Don’t you understand? I’m just as bad as the rest of them. You can’t trust any of us. Send me away, because God knows I won’t leave on my own.” At last he ran his gaze along the length of her, eyes to toes, lingering at a few places between.
“You’re not the rest of them.”
Allowing him to stand there like a petrified oak tree was not working.
Allowing him to choose safety over passion was wrong.
“Arren. Close the door. Now.” Her heart was hammering in her ears.
With one hard shove and a deep growl, he did.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She fell back on the bed, his weight on top of her. He took her face in his hands and kissed her deep and hard. She opened her mouth to his as his hands slid down and under her sweatshirt to find her breasts. Laine pulled back for just a moment to open the zipper on his jeans, then saw him look sharply away at something. Instinctively she closed in on herself. Was someone watching? Her heart was pounding even faster than before.
Her eyes followed his, and she knew what had distracted him. The damned ivory horse. Its presence on the windowsill was like a splinter in the back of her perception. Static in her brain. Was it in his too?
Arren jumped off the bed and pounced on it, but the magic thing evaded his grasp. Did she really just see that? With a tiny clatter of its tiny, broken-off legs, it jumped—or did it merely fall?—from the windowsill to the floor. Did it fear him? She felt a pulse of horror as the carving writhed on the carpet, as it had moved in the water back home.
Was it just a hunk of ivory, old, dry and dead for centuries, or was it a living part of the cabyll ushtey world? Unless she was imagining things, it truly was magical. Don’t try clinging to rationality, not now, not here. Whatever she thought she’d seen it do, it could do more.
Pity for it vanished. Arren swore and lunged for it with both hands. She heard him snarl as he grabbed it and stuffed it into the drawer of her bedside table. He slammed it shut and stood panting, staring at the closed drawer.
The splinter was gone from her brain, the static silenced. The tiny blood-red eyes were no longer watching them. Would it try to get out?
Arren sat on the bedside, rubbing his right hand with his left. “Where did you get that thing? I swear it bit me.” He displayed his palm and several minuscule pink marks on it. His short laugh was harsh with tension, his eyes gone such a dark blue that they looked black. In fact, his whole body looked black. Was she passing out? What the hell was happening here?
He loomed over her. Everything went white all around him like an outline, the reverse of what she’d seen before when the moon had etched him in darkness, and Laine suddenly found herself on her back, with the down-filled comforter puffing around her like a hen’s belly and his fingertips between her teeth.
She bit down and felt him jerk his hand away. “Jesus!” he yelped. A weird, hot urge to sink her teeth into his flesh—not hard, just enough—flooded her senses. She’d never been a biter before, but Arren’s smell got into her brain and made her want more.
Laine closed her eyes and sucked in the spice-grass smell of him. It was addling her brain, and she didn’t care. With both hands she pulled him down onto her again, relishing his weight.
He wound her hair around his wrist and bent her up into his chest, as if being on top of her wasn’t enough. He needed her closer. She needed to be closer. He was very strong. She ran the tip of her tongue along his neck where that pulse beat, fast and hard. The blood under the skin, so hot.
He angled his head to let her tongue run higher, and she felt his erection push against her thigh. She couldn’t stop herself from rolling her hips and rubbing against him. Damn, he still had his jeans on. She fumbled for the zipper. He made a rumbling noise deep in his throat, then bounded to his feet and stripped out of his clothes, not taking his eyes off her for a second. She wriggled out of hers as fast as she could, tossing jeans, shirt, and bra to the floor.
He stopped her before she could take off her panties.
“I’ll do that, Miss Summerhill,” he growled. “Lie still.”
She writhed.
“Lie still, I said.”
She surrendered to the tone of command in his voice and arched back, closing her eyes. Immediately her other senses heightened. The pounding of his pulse in tandem with hers, the salt-spicy tang of his sweat in her nostrils. The silken feel of his naked skin. She ran her hands down his back to the rise of his buttocks and felt smoothness become dense, velvety hair, short and thick. She sank her fingers in, gasping with pleasure, and felt it change back to skin. Did he realize what he was doing?
Before she could haul her mind together, his mouth was on her breast, pulling hard on her nipple.
She groaned. A trail of fire lit from breast to belly and down as his hand explored. Instead of slipping her panties off over her hips, he slid his fingers inside the white cotton, where her thigh met the small nest of crisp, short hair. The feel of his hand on her so intimately, each hair transmitting his touch directly to the center of her, was excruciatingly sweet. Almost like pain. Laine couldn’t stifle a sharp moan.
The sound she made turned a switch in him. He froze for just a moment. Then the bed bounced, his warmth and weight vanished and she opened her eyes. He was kneeling on the floor beside the bed, clutching his temples.
“Arren, what is it? Are you all right?”
“I’m . . . fine.” His face twisted into what he probably thought was a smile. “Just . . . something I . . . remembered.”
She curled up, pulling the comforter around her. She was shivering. Had she done something wrong? “What was it?”
He rocked back on his knees and let his hands drop. The hot lust in his eyes had been replaced by something cold and dead. “It’s what I did once, to a girl I loved. Or thought I loved.” His voice was flat, and he had calmed a bit, but she could still see the pulse in his neck. The light around him strobed—black, white, black—and she blinked the effect away.
He said, “I was only sixteen. It was nothing more than puppy love.”
Yet the memory, whatever had happened years ago, had stopped him in his tracks. “Arren, please get back in bed with me. You look ridiculous kneeling on all those pink roses.”
He looked at the floor, paused, then shook his head. “Damn it, you’re right.” She’d got a real smile. Laine stuck a hand out from under the covers and crooked her finger in a come-here motion.
“There are just as many roses on that comforter, you know,” he stated maddeningly. He hooked his index finger in hers for a sweet moment, tugging, then climbed in bed beside her and stretched out, looking exhausted.
She unwound half the big, flowery comforter from her shoulders to drape across his body. Whether it was to warm him or simply to hide the view she didn’t know or care. She did know that this would be a bad time to succumb to instinct and fling herself on top of his naked body. “Tell me about it. Tell me what happened.”
“Her name was Patricia McCowan. Tricia. I was sixteen. She was a year older than me, but I had recently had a growth spurt and managed to catch her interest.”
“An older woman,” she said hollowly. “Irresistible.”
“I certainly found her so.” He cast her a rueful glance. “I asked her out, she accepted, we went to a movie. No idea what it was, then or now—all my cognitive powers were devoted to getting inside her jumper.”
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