by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
Hunger.
Chapter 14
Rose sat on the hotel bed beside Drew. The drapes were drawn. The light by the door created a lopsided darkness with the bed in the center of the room, sitting somewhere between twilight and a yellow, artificial dawn.
His skin was clammy. He was entirely still, barely breathing. His eyes were half-open and entirely unseeing.
But he wasn't entirely gone. Even though she couldn't reach him, some part of him lingered, dimly accessible. Even after he'd gone away inside himself, he'd answered her instructions, delivered with voice and mind and heart. Walk. Turn. Lean on me. Lie down. With the help of the copilot and stewardess from the plane she'd gotten him here, but she was desperately unsure if she'd done the right thing. Maybe he should be in a hospital, regardless of what he'd said.
But there would be people, bright lights, intrusions both physical and mental at a hospital. Doctors weren't prepared to deal with a nearly catatonic empath.
She wasn't sure she was, either. His shields had fluctuated wildly at the airport—failing, she thought, due to the pressure within and the press of people without. She'd been terrified. Heathrow was not the place for a blocked empath to suddenly lose all his barriers—the flood of otherness from the crowds would have destroyed him.
But neither could Drew afford to remain blocked. The pressure from within would eventually destroy his mental dam, and might take his mind with it.
Unless he had help when that deluge hit.
Rose took a deep breath and cupped his face in her hands. "Time to come back, Drew." Bending, she feathered kisses over his face. "It's safe now.
Nothing. She hesitated, then drew her hands along his chest. His bare chest. She'd unbuttoned his shirt.
Her breath quickened. She hated that, hated knowing she could arouse herself by touching him while he lay helpless. It felt like rape. He was unconscious, or something very like that state—but he had to be called back. Somehow. He was too far away, closed up tightly inside his mind, no longer responding to her voice, his psychic barriers so strong she couldn't touch him except with her hands and her body.
If she couldn't call him back now, he might never return.
Careful kisses weren't working. He needed to be aroused—literally. She bit her lip. Do it, she told herself. And unfastened her belt, tossing it to one side. Then her shirt went. And her bra.
After a brief hesitation, she left the bed and opened her suitcase. Gemma had packed a few things she hadn't specifically requested, including a souvenir she'd brought back from the little shop where she'd bought the dress she'd worn to the palace. That purchase had been made half in humor, half wishful thinking.
She opened the box and put a couple of the foil-wrapped packets on the bedside table. Just in case.
Then she settled alongside Drew, pressing her body against his, putting skin to skin. Her nipples hardened at the contact. Her breath sucked in. This time she didn't just kiss him—she teased with lips and tongue. She slid her hand up his chest and tickled one flat nipple with her fingernail.
His chest moved. He shuddered. And two hard hands seized her arms and rolled her over onto her back.
He sprawled on top of her, heavy and male. His mouth crushed down on hers, and there was no teasing, no exploration, no gentle melding. He forced her mouth open and took.
Shock held her still. He kissed her as if she was all his hope of heaven, every muscle of his body taut with need—kissed her as if he wouldn't, couldn't, stop. Something—she refused to call it fear—trickled through her, but it was dwarfed by sensation. His shield was tight and she couldn't feel him, but his scent filled her. His skin was hot now, and she sent her hands racing over it, cherishing the feel of his back, then stopping to dig her fingers into his shoulders. He'd brought his thigh up between her legs, pressing up against her.
She wrapped herself around him, holding on to him with her arms, twisting one leg around his as if she could press him inside her entire body. He shuddered. She said his name, then said it again—Drew was with her, he was back. And he wanted her. She felt him—her love, her lover—not with her Gift, but with senses more primitive and basic, and everything in her answered.
But was it right? Should she make sure he was all the way back, that he knew what he was doing? If he made love to her now and regretted it... She pushed on his chest, but he groaned and kissed her harder, his tongue tangling with hers.
Finally she grabbed his hair and pulled his head away so she could look at him. His eyes were dark, pleasure-filled and just this side of desperate.
"Rose, beautiful Rose." He cupped her breast, his thumb drawing shivers from her. "Don't ask me to stop. Please. I need you."
"All right. But if you regret this later, I'm going to kill you."
His eyes gleamed, their color lost in the static shadows that wrapped them. "There is nothing about you I could regret," he said, and brushed his lips lightly over hers. "No matter what happens."
Before she could muster enough thought to wonder what he meant, he'd turned his attention to her breasts. The dampness, the heat, the tugging made contradictions in her. She wanted to lie there and let him make magic on her body for hours, but she wanted equally to explore his body, to taste and sample and find the places that made him wild. The needs built and clashed until she felt him unfastening her pants.
Naked was a good idea. But if she was going to be stripped, so was he.
They tumbled together on the big bed, hands reaching for zippers, tugging cloth, each of them easily distracted by the opportunities presented by newly bared skin to lick, touch, savor. At the last minute Rose remembered the condoms she'd put on the bedside table. She stretched out an arm, snagged one and handed it to him.
Seconds later they came together again, skin to skin, and the shock of sensation stole her breath. He nudged her legs apart and braced his arms on either side of her head. His gaze was on hers. A drop of sweat rolled down his cheek, and she leaned up and licked it off. He turned his head, catching her mouth with his.
While he was kissing her, his hips moved, a tentative thrust that stopped with him barely inside her.
He was big. The teasing, stinging feel of him was foreign to her. She shifted, trying to find an angle, a position that would help her accommodate him.
He gasped and his head went back, the tendons in his neck standing out. "Rose," he said, hoarse. "Be still a moment so I don't... I don't have much control left.
Again he moved, testing. Pushing against the barrier, that scrap of flesh she'd claimed didn't matter. It hurt. It felt wonderful. She needed to move but didn't know what to do. Then the muscles in his buttocks bunched and he drove inward.
"That hurt!'' Her surprise was outsize, unreasonable. She'd known it would hurt, but the pain had chased away the other feelings and it was that loss she was unhappy about. Her fingers dug into his hips, but she was trying to keep him from moving now, not urging him on.
"I know. I'm sorry." He bent and, instead of kissing her, licked her lips. Slowly, carefully, as if he wanted to lick where it hurt, but he was lodged there and couldn't. Some of the tension sighed out of her.
As soon as it did, she noticed other things, like how full she felt. He was throbbing inside her, or was she pulsing around him? The other feelings weren't gone, after all, she realized, and experimentally pushed up with her hips, which pulled him in even deeper.
Oh, my. That felt...incredible.
He began to thrust, slowly at first. He was being careful of her, and she loved it, loved the closeness, the heat, the sensations shimmering through her. The pain wasn't entirely gone, but behind the lingering sting lurked shadowy feelings she was hungry for, a huge, wanton excess of pos sibilities. She matched his careful strokes and ran her hands down his back, letting her fingertips linger just above the cleft in his buttocks. On her body, that spot was particularly sensitive.
Apparently it was a sweet spot for him, too. For a second she felt him—his essence, his self, to
uching hers. But it was the merest flicker, and then his shield was back. And then he was kissing her.
This kiss was greedier, not so careful. He licked her ear and rocked against her. "I'm beginning to understand why I found the idea of a purely technical virgin so exciting.
She laughed, low and husky.
He pushed her legs a little wider, making more room for himself and changing the angle, and he began to move faster. With each shift, each change in tempo or pressure, she discovered new sensations. She had the dreamy thought that she could do this forever and never be done, never stop finding some new and marvelous feeling.
Of course she knew better. She knew what a climax was. But she didn't know what it was to climax with her lover—with Drew—inside her. This question was beginning to gather some urgency.
Her hand slid over his buttocks and down between his legs to the bit of skin stretched tight there. She scraped it lightly with her fingernails.
His whole body arched as a low sound tore from his throat—then he was slamming into her. Hard, too hard—pitching her into a realm that was all body, no mind. If it hurt, she couldn't separate one sensation from another enough to know—all were tangled up together, subsumed in urgency.
He gasped, paused and put a hand between them, his thumb finding the sweetest spot on her body. As he thrust hard into her, his thumb pushed on that spot and she convulsed.
Having lost thought in the moments before, she now lost her grip on time, as if it were a thread wrenched from her suddenly lax hands. After a while she drifted back into herself, smiling.
He was heavy. His breath came fast and hard in her ear. He kissed it, wrapped his arms around her and rolled so that she was on top of him. The air was chilly on her damp back and bottom. She considered lifting her head, but it was so comfortable to let it rest there on his chest. She could hear his heartbeat.
And she felt horribly alone.
Now, every instinct shouted, now was when she should feel him, heart to heart, open to her. But she couldn't feel him, not in the way she needed to.
He was petting her again, stroking a hand along her hair. But the silence was deafening. She stirred, shifting more to his side with one leg over his, and winced.
His hand paused. "Sore?"
"A little." She propped herself up on her elbow so she could see his face. Sleepiness and satisfaction had his eyelids drooping, but the eyes beneath them were sharp with thoughts and feelings she couldn't guess.
Rose touched his cheek, finding the hint of beard she'd felt against her breasts earlier. "You promised not to regret this."
His mouth crooked up. "Surely that's supposed to be my line."
Their eyes met, and the silence grew louder.
Does he hear it, feel it? Is there a place inside him that aches with emptiness where I should be, the way I'm empty now where he belongs?
"I told you," he said softly, "I couldn't regret you, no matter what." He tucked her hair behind her ear. "And now, much as I hate to leave you for even a moment, I'd better..." His gaze drifted down the length of his body. His eyes widened. "Good Lord."
He was still semierect and sheathed in the condom she'd handed him.
It was green. And glowing.
"Oh, my," she said weakly. She'd forgotten the special properties of this box of condoms. "Not exactly your usual English overcoat, is it? My aunt, um, apparently decided I might need them. She included them when she packed for me."
"Your aunt packed condoms for you." It wasn't a question. His eyes were still wide, fascinated by a part of his body that didn't normally glow a radioactive green. He shook his head. "I have seriously underestimated that lady.
* * *
Drew disposed of the glowing condom in the bathroom. Then he stood with his hands braced on the counter on either side of the sink, his shoulders tense and his head hanging.
He was in a hotel. That much was obvious. A fairly nice one—the door to the bathroom was heavy and paneled, and the counter he leaned on now was an expensive synthetic that looked like brown marble. Everything looked familiar, but in a generic way. He didn't think he'd stayed here before, but he'd been in hotels much like this one.
With a quick, almost violent gesture he turned on the tap and splashed water on his face. He didn't know where he was or how he'd gotten here. Or why Rose had decided to seduce him instead of having him taken someplace quiet, with padded walls and burly keepers.
No hospital, he'd told her. For some reason she'd agreed.
How many people had seen him flip out?
The face in the mirror returned no answers. He shut off the water and the lights, then padded back into the bedroom.
She'd turned on the lamp by the bed. Her shoulders were smooth and erect, the black hair tumbling over them in messy extravagance. Her eyes were dark and wary.
He tried to soften his expression as he sat beside her. "I'm not sure how to handle this except by plunging in. We need to talk about what happened. Not what happened between us exactly." He captured her hand. "Though God knows that comes into it. What happened...at the airport." He paused. "You'll have questions. I have some myself. I guess I'll start with the obvious. Where am I?"
"The Robertson Hotel at Heathrow. The stewardess and copilot from the plane helped me get you here."
The swift wash of humiliation made his jaws tight.
"I told them you had epilepsy. A rare form that caused lingering disorientation.
That loosened his jaw. "Ah...epilepsy?"
"Well, I had to tell them something. The migraine story worked when you were all pale and bleary with pain, but migraines don't turn people into zombies."
A zombie. So that's what he looked like when one of his spells hit.
"A friend of mine has petit mal seizures. She blanks out from time to time. Sometimes she goes entirely out and falls, and when she comes to she's confused for a while. Sometimes she just gets a blank look in her eyes for a few seconds and loses a little time. You had the same not-there look on your face, though your attack lasted longer than her seizures do."
' T suppose it's better than telling the truth." He rubbed his thumb along the back of her hand. "The story will get back to my aunt and uncle, though.
"You haven't told anyone at all, have you?"
"Told them what? That every now and then I go nuts?" He dropped her hand and wished, suddenly, he'd pulled on some clothes before beginning this discussion.
The sheet slipped as she leaned forward, revealing the upper curves of her breasts. "You are not crazy."
"I did see a doctor, Rose. A specialist. There's nothing wrong with me physically, which means the problem is mental."
"Sure, if you consider all forms of psychic ability some kind of mental problem."
His lips tightened. "I'm not psychic. I can't read minds, and I would have noticed at some point if I were prone to trances. Unless you think that's what happens to me—that I go into some kind of trance."
"I'm not sure what to call what happens to you, but it isn't a trance. A fugue state, maybe. And you're an empath, not a telepath, so you don't read minds, you pick up feelings. Or would, if you weren't completely blocked. That's what is causing your problem, Drew. Your shields."
He stood and reached for his pants and underwear. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm the only one you're likely to find who does know what I'm talking about on this subject.
He pulled on the boxers. "You may be, as Lucas said, great at starting fires. That doesn't mean you're right about me.
She made an exasperated noise. "So, because I can start a fire without a match, you trust me enough to fly across the ocean. You believe what I say about a woman I've never met—a woman I know about only because I held her ring in my hand. But you don't think I'm right about the man I love?"
He froze with one foot stuck in his slacks.
"Dio, come stupida," she muttered. "I didn't intend to say that."
He let the trousers drop a
nd turned to face her. She was pale. Worse, she'd braced herself, expecting to be hurt. "I don't know what to say."
Her mouth curved up. It didn't affect the look in her eyes. "You don't exactly have a problem with your mouth running away with you, do you? I wish I could say the same. Drew.. .1 know you aren't thinking in those terms and your first instinct is to head for the hills. I 'd planned to keep it to myself for now, but my mouth snuck up on me."
She was right. His first reaction was to run. To put distance between them as quickly as possible. Moving carefully, as if his center of gravity had shifted and he had to learn how to balance all over again, he came and sat beside her on the bed. Feelings swirled in him—a dry torrent, windy and wordless.
"Rose." He couldn't find any way to make what he felt clear to either of them.
"I'm warning you." Her voice aimed at wry but wobbled. "I don't think my ego can handle a let's be friends' speech right now."
"I have never wanted to be just a friend to you." He touched her cheek, then let his hand fall. "You scare me, though."
She swallowed. "I'm scared, too."
"Not, I think, for the same reason." He had to look away. "You seem to be triggering my crazy spells."
A beat of silence fell, followed then by her demand, "Why? How? And you are not crazy.
"I don't know how. But until I met you, they were mercifully rare. Now they're hitting constantly. And... the week I didn't see you. I didn't have any spells that week.
She thought that over, her teeth worrying her lip. "We need Gemma.
He couldn't imagine discussing this with anyone else. He didn't like discussing it with Rose. "If my spells are triggered by being around one psychic, I don't think bringing in another one would help.
"She isn't powerful, but she's Earth-Gifted, not fire. A healer. Of course, another empath might be able to help, but..." A worried V formed between her eyebrows. "There are only two empaths in my family. My great-uncle Alfredo is Water-Gifted and functions very well, but his Gift is slight compared to yours. He couldn't get past your walls to show you anything."