by Diana Duncan
Rowan lost a few moments of time. When he opened his eyes, he was prone on the grass, Delaney’s face hovering above him. “Oh, my God! Rowan!” She swallowed hard. “Okay. You’re gonna be okay—”
That thing’s. Not. Dead. His essence was nearly spent, his message faint. I am. Get. Away—”
“Shut it.” She wrangled him to a standing position. He staggered, and she propped him against her slight body. “And hustle your sweet arse into the car!”
Shoving, boosting him with her Power, she wrestled him into the front seat. She yanked off her sweatshirt jacket and packed the wadded cloth against his torn abdomen. “Hold this tight.” She buckled his seatbelt, then ran around and jumped into the driver’s seat. “The nearest hospital is—”
Take me. Sea. Only. Chance.
“You got it.” Tires churning sod, she sped past the cabin. “There’s direct beach access for vehicles near the lighthouse. Don’t you give up on me, Braveheart. I’d hate to have to tell Archer you wimped out, and have a Guardian finish my training.”
He smiled through the pain. Saints forbid.
The car raced along the winding back roads. “Stay awake, MacLachlan. Talk to me.”
Not. Terribly. Conversational.
“Oh, come on. I’m sure as a big, bad Enforcer, you’ve had worse, yeah?”
Sure, he lied.
“There, see? Aren’t you supposed to be all, ‘buck up, chap, it’s just a flesh wound…keep a stiff upper lip and all that rot?’”
You’ve mistaken. Me for. James Bond.
“So, you’re admitting an English dude is tougher? I think William Wallace just rolled over in his grave.”
Shite, it hurt to laugh, but damned if he didn’t. You took. Big chance. Back there.
“I threw Power around the car. No damage to my baby, lots to Godzilla.” Anxiety tightened her lovely features. “I flipped a U-turn the second I sensed you got hurt. I should never have left.”
Should’ve kept. Away. He battled to stay conscious as the automobile bumped and jarred every painful kilometer down a gravel path. It veered through a narrow opening in the cliffs surrounding the lighthouse. Oblivion beckoned.
“Open your eyes,” Delaney demanded. “Stay alert.”
He didn’t know if she realized she was doing it, but her Power blanketed him, lent him energy. Rowan forced his heavy eyelids up.
The GTO stopped on the beach in a secluded cove surrounded on three sides by towering rocks. Delaney whipped his door open. Her arms wrapped around him. “Don’t you dare die on me.” Her whisper warmed his ear. “I need you, Rowan MacLachlan.”
Her confession gave him more strength than her Power.
He tried to make his legs work, but she pretty much had to drag him to the surf. The instant his body dropped into the waves, the ocean knew what he needed. Seawater boiled furiously around them in a heated frenzy.
Rowan clenched his jaw against a scream as hot salt water surged into his torn flesh.
Delaney scooted beneath him, cradling his head in her lap. “It’s all right if you need to yell. Or cry. There’s nobody around.”
Chieftains. Don’t cry. Haven’t cried. Since I was. Six.
Her worried, compassionate face was the last thing he saw before darkness claimed him.
* * *
Rowan drifted in and out of awareness. The only constant was wrenching agony…and Delaney.
Each time he surfaced still bathed in warm seawater, she was there. Holding him. Forcing him to drink from a bottle of fresh water. To chew bites of a protein bar. She encouraged and bullied him.
She refused to let him go.
He fought the poison and the pain, for her as well as himself. She’d come after him and faced down a monster.
If he lost this battle, she’d be vulnerable to much worse.
Finally, Delaney’s stifled sobs shocked him fully conscious. He lay in warm, eddying waves, smooth sand hollowed beneath him. His head rested in her lap, her body supporting him from behind, her face buried in the curve of his shoulder. She was rocking him.
Her hot tears trickled down his neck to mingle with the sea. Listen to me, Rowan. Fight! Beat this! I can’t lose you, too.
He shakily reached up. Touched soft copper tendrils that curtained his face.
She jumped. “You’re awake!”
“Aye,” he croaked. He blinked at the gray-clad sky. “How long…?”
Delaney dashed her hand across tear-stained cheeks while he pretended not to notice. “Over thirty-seven hours.”
Beast? Did it revive—
“And attack again? Yeah. But you’d warded this area in with the cabin’s perimeter, and the protection seems stronger here. Native American legend says this is sacred ground, maybe that makes a difference. After Godzilla fried his fugly face about two hundred times, he finally limped off.” She cupped his jaw. “How do you feel?”
He should be a hundred percent after so many hours in the ocean. Especially on sacred ground. But his wounds still throbbed viciously…and he couldn’t raise enough Power to heal.
Bollocks, he couldn’t even sit up. Lifting his chin to assess his wounds sapped every scrap of energy. Delaney had removed his boots, socks, and shredded sweater and left him in just jeans. Raw, angry scars branded his bare torso and streaked across his left thigh through the torn denim.
Delaney carefully extricated herself, tucking her folded sweatshirt jacket beneath his head for a pillow. Grabbing a water bottle, she knelt and supported his head while he gulped the cool liquid.
“Where’d you get drinking water?”
“I regularly travel the mountain passes between Portland and the cabin. Since cell service is so spotty, I stow emergency supplies and spare clothes in my trunk.” She laid him down, then tossed the empty bottle beside a crackling driftwood fire above the waterline. “I’ve kept the fire going for light, although I didn’t need the warmth. The ocean has stayed warm, and there’s an ethereal shield all around us. I’ve been sitting in the ocean with you, but it hasn’t waterlogged me.
“Water is my element. It maintains a symbiotic relationship with my living essence. ‘Tis the sea taking care of its own.”
“Another big storm is brewing on the horizon. Will the sphere of protection around us block out the bad weather?”
His essence was too spent to actively fortify the shield. In truth, he didn’t know how much longer it would hold.
Hovering over him, she easily read his uncertainty. “Okay, can you make it over to the lighthouse? There’s a living area upstairs for the former overseers, complete with washroom and shower. Archer keeps it in good condition and I’ve camped out in that lighthouse many times.”
He doubted he could turn over, much less walk. For some reason, the monster’s venom was so powerful his system couldn’t expel it all. Perhaps he was as healed as he was going to be.
Rowan scowled. He’d skewer himself on his own sword before living a few short days as an invalid until a demon found him and devoured his soul.
Delaney’s horrified expression told him he hadn’t blocked that thought either. He sought to reassure her. “More soaking in the ocean may strengthen me enough to move. You head to the lighthouse. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence, MacLachlan.” She frowned. “I’ll wrangle you to the car. There’s no cell service here, so I can’t reach Archer, but I can drive you to his place. He’s a Supernatural soldier, too. He’ll fix you up, right?”
“Under different circumstances, he might have done. But if you remove me from the water, I won’t survive the trip.”
“I’m not leaving you alone in this condition to fetch him. How do you heal someone? Talk me through the process.”
“You haven’t the experience or the Gift. You can’t.” Especially without harming herself.
Resolve fired in her lovely North Sea eyes. “Never tell me I can’t.”
“Lass, just take shelter—”
“I don’t desert the
people I care about.”
She leaned close. Closer. Her lips touched his. Waves crashed around him, and a brilliant glow spiked his system.
“Ah, there,” she murmured. “Contact between us creates energy, doesn’t it?”
As their lips met again, her golden Aillidh blazed over his skin. Her sweet, sunny taste flooded him. Their breaths mingled, his rapid inhalations rushing oxygen into his lungs, pumping endorphins through his bloodstream.
Delaney eased back from the kiss. Silken lips trailed down his neck, tenderly brushed the throbbing scars at his shoulder, then his ruined bicep. Rowan’s muscles twitched, her strength vanquishing his weakness. The pounding ache disappeared.
She glanced up, eyes wide. “It’s working! Even the scars are fading!” She moved lower, kissed his ravaged pectoral muscle. The wound instantly healed. Yet the process wasn’t draining her.
Impossible.
But he couldn’t deny success.
Those soft, insistent lips meandered over his ribs. A heated ball of energy gathered inside his chest, rippled outward to his limbs. Power rocketed through him and he groaned beneath the exquisite onslaught of pain and pleasure.
She hesitated. “Am I hurting you?”
“Nay,” he rasped.
As gentle fingertips skated over his hipbone, he strove to remember this was a medical necessity. Delaney had to touch him to cure him. Not because she wanted intimate contact.
An argument his body wasn’t heeding.
Her warm, moist mouth followed her hands down to his thigh, healing the lacerations. He jerked and his cock surged to full salute, a whole different ache swelling inside him.
Rowan clenched his fists, fighting the urge to yank her under him and plunge into her.
Fiery tresses drifted silken flames across his abs as her lips meandered upward again, gently kissed his belly. He swallowed hard, propping himself on his elbows in the surf. “I’m…not…injured there.”
Her lashes flicked up. Their gazes tangled. Her generous mouth curved in a deliciously naughty smile that tripped his pulse. “I know.”
“Then we’re done.”
“Far from it.” Her head bent again and a velvety cheek rubbed the fine hair around his navel, forcing another moan from his throat.
“Delaney,” he warned. “I— Mmm…” As her tongue danced over his abdomen, his eyes closed, his head fell back. It was hard to talk. To breathe. Delicate licks and tantalizing nibbles teased his skin.
There was torture, and then there was torture.
“Lass, I’m…well and truly…healed. You don’t have to…go any farther.”
Breathing as rapidly as he was, she crawled up his torso, and he looked into the determined face of the bonny, humorous, courageous woman whose enticing curves lay along the full length of him.
“Rowan, I almost…I almost lost you.” Her voice hitched and she blinked back a rush of tears. “In ten days, we’re headed for a crucial battle where one, or both of us, could die.”
Tender hands cradled his face, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t want to die without knowing what you feel like inside me.”
Rowan’s heart stopped, then tried to slam out of his ribcage. “And if— If we both survive…and you regret this?”
“Tomorrow might, or might not, bring regrets. Today, I want to make every second count.” She claimed his mouth in a reckless kiss that threatened his final shreds of reason.
Delaney. He struggled to cling to sanity. You don’t understand the implications—
She drew back, touched her index finger to his lips. “Please don’t go all medieval on me about the whole virginity thing. I’m fully aware of what I’m doing.” Her fingertip skated over his chin, down his throat, blazing a path down the center of his sternum.
“You aren’t…we should not—” All the oxygen evaporated from his lungs when her caress circled a leisurely detour around his nipples.
“Shouldn’t is just a disguised version of can’t.” Her nails teasingly grazed his belly, slid lower to skim the bulging fly of his jeans. “Appears to me you’re more than able.”
As his fingers dug into the wet sand seeking an anchor, the sea around them churned as wildly as his emotions. It was nearly impossible to fight the connection he so desperately wanted.
But fight it he did.
Delaney’s soft lips and seeking hands tasted, explored every inch of his torso from forehead to waist. Still, he held himself in check until he shook with the effort. Later, she would need to remember he hadn’t taken this from her. That their union had been her choice.
It wouldn’t stop her from hating him at the endgame. But perhaps he wouldn’t loathe himself quite so much.
Her tongue dipped into his navel at the same time she unsnapped his jeans. His zipper rasped open. Delaney swallowed audibly as his hard-on sprang free. “You are a perfect work of art, Rowan MacLachlan.”
A slow fingertip stroked over the moist tip…and his control shattered.
* * *
The low growl rumbling from Rowan’s throat reverberated a thrilling shock-wave through Delaney. Big, strong hands fisted in the neckline of her shirt and tore it in half. Sinewed arms wrapped around her, rolled her beneath him into the warm waves. Only when his bare chest grazed her nipples did she realize her bra was also gone.
Rowan tugged her jeans off. He ripped apart her panties, tossed them aside. He dragged off his own jeans, then his body covered her, a taut-muscled thigh wedging between hers to open her for him.
The sensual delight of tasting his skin, the exhilarating discovery that she could make her unfazeable warrior’s breath catch, his heart pound, had made her wet and ready. She raised her knees to accommodate the span of his hips—and the huge ridge of his erection glided over her sensitized cleft.
When she gasped, he captured the sound with a kiss. His fingers tunneled into her hair, his tongue delved into her mouth.
He kissed her as if he were starving, and she was his only sustenance.
Rowan’s Power roared through her with the force of a tsunami, her body taut and quivering, already on the verge of a climax.
His palm slid between them, over her hipbone, down her belly…and then cupped her beneath the water. As one long finger slicked through her folds and pushed inside her, she tensed at the bombardment of new sensations.
Rowan froze. Broke the kiss. His finger withdrew, and his head dropped into the curve of her shoulder. He inhaled, obviously fighting for restraint. Exhaled unsteadily. “Shite!” he hissed. Soft lips brushed her ear in a caress before he propped himself on his elbows to look at her. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Delaney stared into deep, passion-dilated pupils. “I’m certainly not.”
“You’re trembling, sweetheart. I should’ve remembered what you went through, been gentler—”
“Don’t.” For the second time, she pressed a fingertip to his mouth. “There’s nobody in my head but you and me. I’m shaking from desire, Rowan. I want you.”
“Nevertheless, you deserve care your first time. Instead, I’m having at you like you’re my last meal.”
She smiled. “Knowing I make you lose control gets me all hot and tingly.”
His erection twitched against her, and he gave her a rueful smile. “I could exhibit just a wee bit more finesse.”
“No matter how turned on you are, you’d never hurt me. I’m completely in your excellent hands. Now, could we continue?” She rotated her hips, relishing the delicious friction, loving Rowan’s appreciative groan. “Like immediately.”
“You want me to hurry?” He pushed up and sat back on his heels between her raised knees. Green eyes alight with wicked appreciation, he gazed down at her, naked and open to him.
The sight of him kneeling between her spread thighs—handsome face flushed, nostrils flared, big body hard and magnificently aroused—tripped her pulse. Apparently, Mages were a gorgeously virile bunch. Apparently, Mages not only had a whole lot of stamina, they h
ad an abundance of everything. She gulped. “In a word…yes.”
“Hmmm.” Callused fingertips cruised up the insides of her thighs, urging them wider apart. “I’m thinking…not.” His Power whispered through her, and heated ocean waves began to lick all over her body. Laving every fold of her tender inner flesh, the sensitive opening at her bottom. Thousands of simultaneous warm, wet ripples caressing every inch of her, everywhere.
“Ohhh…” She writhed beneath the exquisite caress.
“Like that, do you?”
“Touch me, Rowan. I want your hands on me.”
His predatory grin flashed. “And you’ll have them.”
Subtly using his Power—and the ocean around them—to intensify the pleasure, his knowing hands, searching tongue, and gentle teeth very thoroughly sought her body’s secret pleasures. Everywhere except the places she needed him to touch her the most.
Her heart galloped and her limbs shook. The world spiraled away in a vortex of taut anticipation.
Wide, sword-callused palms gently kneaded her breasts, insistent thumbs rubbing her nipples. Then his satin tongue flicked across the pebbled tips, over and over, wrenching moans from her throat.
When his mouth finally closed over her nipple and sucked, an inferno flared all the way down, blooming deep and low inside. He alternated from one breast to the other, licking, sucking…careful, unexpected erotic grazes of teeth coiling the thrumming need impossibly high. Higher still.
Rowan! She couldn’t speak if her life depended on it. I know you can make me come.
“That I can,” he rasped, voice husky.
Then do it!
“I will.” Soft lips curved in a smile against her breast. “In due time.”
Now!
Rowan’s chuckle vibrated his body, his breath hot on her skin. “Impatient wench.” He shifted to lay beside her, and his hand trailed down her stomach.
Her hips rose urgently to meet his touch. Finally, finally, a fingertip brushed her achy, swollen center. Circled her clit. Fire licked over every nerve ending, and her back arched. Oh. My. God! Whatever you do, don’t stop doing that!