“Isn’t that likely to happen with the devil?” Guardian smiled faintly.
“Of course, but the Wilders’ deal was based on a promise to serve the devil. If that’s part of your promise, and you spend your time killing demons, then the devil got screwed, too.”
“Too true.”
“Don’t you think you have a family of beings just like you somewhere? Yetis in the Himalayas or something?” She leaned across the table and put her hand over his. “That you got captured by a mad scientist who was experimenting on you? That plate in your head means someone was doing something awful.”
“You’ve thought about this.”
“I’m used to being busy,” she said apologetically. “I’m used to a daily adrenaline rush. Here, it’s peaceful. I like that. For the first time in years, I’ve been able to read, to listen to my body as I work out, to nap. But I can only read so many books, run so many laps, take so many naps. I have time on my hands, and so I think”—she grinned at him—“deep thoughts.”
“About me.”
“About you. And you and me. And how happy you have made me. If I could, I would save this day encased in amber and wear it as a memory I could revisit when we . . .” She faltered.
He looked across the table at her. “When we have to part?”
“Yes.”
“Today is not that day, Charisma.”
She looked at him, bathed in candlelight, his strength of character clear in his expression. She watched the way he moved, with the balanced grace of a large man in a small environment. She noticed the little things she liked so much: his blue eyes, his warm smile, the way he watched her as if she was precious as a diamond with the warmth and sparkle of a whole mine full of rubies.
To her, he was the handsomest man in the world.
She blotted her lips with her napkin, folded it, and put it neatly beside her plate. She pushed back her chair, and the scraping sound echoed softly through the cavern. “No. That’s not today. In fact, that exquisite meal has fulfilled every desire, every appetite I have . . . except one.” She walked toward the stairs, then halfway turned and looked over her shoulder.
He was fixated on her butt.
As he should be.
She reinforced her physical invitation with a verbal one. “Come and help me fulfill all my desires.”
Chapter 31
Guardian followed Charisma, but slowly, waiting for that moment when she climbed the stairs, watching as she lifted each stiletto-clad foot, observing as each time her skirt hitched up a little.
He didn’t need to see what was or wasn’t beneath her skirt. Knowing she was bare, that no barrier existed between her pussy and his touch, fired his imagination. All the way through dinner, he had been plagued with fantasies that kept him hard and frustrated him at the same time.
He knew she had given him a lot to think about; the information about Aleksandr Wilder felt real, important, worth investigating.
But nothing was as important as taking her into his arms and—
High on the stairway, with one foot resting on one step and the other on the step below, she turned and asked, “Aren’t you coming?”
“Not yet,” he muttered. “But it’s a close thing.” He ran up the stairs after her.
When he got to the bedroom alcove, she stood behind the old-fashioned brocade-upholstered rocking chair. She was smiling. “Here,” she said. “Sit.”
He frowned. This was not what he had planned.
But she beckoned and pointed, and he obeyed.
For him, with his long legs and broad shoulders, the chair was uncomfortable. The seat was low to the ground, and narrow. The back was high, tall enough to support his head. There were no arms, no place to put his hands.
But when Charisma came around to face him, and bent and kissed him, and slipped her tongue into his mouth, then leisurely sucked on his tongue . . . he suddenly had a place for his hands. He cupped her breasts and pressed them through the slippery red satin, feeling the lace that supported them, the hardening nipples that invited his mouth. Putting his fingers to the top button of her blouse, he opened it to her waist, and pulled away to enjoy the view.
Her breasts were small, firm, the skin pale through the red lace, and those nipples . . . what a beautiful pink, like two small rosebuds. “Come here,” he whispered.
“Why, Mr. Guardian, whatever do you have in mind?”
He pulled on her waist.
She put her hand on his chest to stop him. “I have an idea.” She sank onto her knees in front of him. “Let’s do something new, shall we?” Putting her hands on his tunic, she pushed it up over his knees, over his thighs, and slowly, slowly pulled it along his erection. Each movement of the silky material caressed and tormented, and when she bared him to the open air, she smiled and cooed, “Look at that. You’re asking for a kiss.”
He wanted to moan at the thought.
She placed her hands on his thighs, leaned forward, and took him into her mouth.
And he lost his breath. He lost his mind. He couldn’t move, caught in the exquisite agony of her full lips massaging the length of his cock, her wet tongue working the head, her breath, warm and moist, adding an erotic balance to the torment.
He wanted to come there, now, in her mouth.
And he wanted to hold off, to get inside her, to fill her and love her and hear her scream her satisfaction.
So he gripped the seat with his hands, his fingers digging into the wood and upholstery. He leaned hard against the back of the chair, making the effort a counterpoint to his need.
When she sucked on him, he groaned low and deep in his chest. He heard himself; he sounded like an animal in agony.
And he was. In such agony.
He didn’t know how he could get any harder . . . and yet he did.
He didn’t know how he could contain himself . . . and yet he did.
Finally she lifted her mouth. She looked deep into his eyes and licked her lips slowly, deliberately. She rose. “You are so stubborn, Mr. Guardian; you should have a reward.”
She might be giving him trouble verbally.
But he didn’t care.
Because she put one hand on his shoulder to steady herself, and lifted one foot up and over his leg to rest on the floor beside the rocking chair.
He saw everything in a flash: a fluff of blond hair, the attractive, plump flesh, and the portal to heaven.
As she set her foot down beside the chair, her heel echoed off the stone floor. Lifting her other foot, she performed the same ritual, and again he caught a glimpse of . . . everything. When she set her second heel down on the other side of the chair, when he heard that snap, the hem of her tight skirt rested at the top of her thighs.
She was completely open to him. Completely. Open. To. Him.
Yet he was at her mercy.
The little witch knew exactly what she was doing, too. Her eyes lit with mischief and desire, and she scraped her short nails across the cloth on his chest. “Your heart is thundering, Mr. Guardian. Is there anything I can do to help?” Leaning forward, she put her left breast near his mouth. “Maybe you’d like a taste?”
He pulled her toward him. He took her breast into his mouth, sucked on the nipple through the lace, and listened as she moaned and rubbed herself against him. He did the same with the other nipple, and chuckled when she undulated against him, pressing her body against his in irrepressible need.
Yes, she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
She caught his hands when they wandered down to touch her, to arouse her. “No!” she said. “Let me.” She leaned back and sank down, her firm thighs flexing as she lowered herself. Gripping his cock, she held him firmly in place and smoothly slid down onto him until she was seated on his lap with him all the way inside of her.
With her hands on the tall, narrow back of the rocking chair, she pressed forward, then back, then forward. The motion of the chair thrust him first deeper, then forced him to withdraw, little increments
that taunted and enticed. She moved them slowly at first, forcing him to enjoy the subtleties of the motion. Then faster, increasing the pressure, her pussy so warm and tight and silky he wanted the moment to go on forever.
He gripped her thighs, stroked them, marveled at their strength and her passionate determination.
Far below, he could hear the ripple of the stream as it flowed eternally across the rocks. The stones in the cave glowed softly, giving up their light.
Close at hand, the rocker scraped across the floor. The world narrowed to the two of them, here and now.
Her chest began to heave as she gasped. Her damp breasts in the red lace bra swelled. She blushed with arousal. Inside, where she wrapped his cock in heat and glory, her muscles rippled and convulsed.
And the way she squirmed—she was rubbing herself against him, using him to give herself pleasure.
With that, he could help.
He could most definitely help.
Gliding his hand close between their bodies, he opened her, and used his thumbs to stroke her clit.
She moaned, and began the sweetest begging babble. “Oh. Oh, Guardian. Yes. Please. More. Like that.”
She began to lift herself, at first a bare inch, then, as their urgency increased, in fantastic, long sliding motions that made him clench his teeth and fight off his orgasm. He moved his hands to her bottom to hold her, help her, and the flex of her muscles against his palms was a rhythmic sexual accompaniment to a moment he would never forget.
The rocking grew more vigorous.
The pleasure intensified.
Charisma’s face glowed. Her eyes closed. Her lips opened as she panted, and clearly she was waiting . . . waiting. . . .
Guardian’s balls drew up tight against his body. He was waiting . . . waiting. . . .
Charisma threw her head back. She cried out. She strained. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and her pussy clutched his cock.
He came, pumping into her, filling her, each thrust a blessed relief, a joy, an enchantment that lit his dark world.
This woman—funny, innovative, horny, intelligent, his—made him know, for the first time that he could remember, that love took physical form. That love could possess his mind. That love was real.
They finished.
The rocking slowed.
Charisma collapsed into his arms.
They subsided slowly, reluctantly yielding to the return of life beyond this blissful madness.
He closed his eyes, breathing in her scent, knowing that no perfume could ever set his senses on fire like the fragrance of Charisma’s skin against him.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she looked up and said, “I love you.”
He started to speak, to protest.
She put her finger on his lips. “I know. It’s stupid. There isn’t time. There isn’t hope in the world. But you make me imagine a better world, and you make me a better me. You are my hero, Guardian. Promise that no matter what happens, you will never forget me. Promise you’ll love me as I love you.”
He agreed. He hoped. He loved.
Which was why it was such a surprise when, later that night, the nightmare ripped him from his happiness, and he woke screaming.
Chapter 32
Petrified by the shriek of anguish, Charisma sat up in bed.
It was daytime. Sun streamed through the skylights of the cave. And all too easily she could see the terrifying sight of Guardian beside her, rigid on his back, his eyes transfixed, staring at nothing, while a long, terrible scream came from deep in his chest.
She had seen Guardian roaring out his rage. She had held him in the ecstasy of orgasm. She had never imagined he could scream like that, as if the tortures that endured in his nightmares lived in him during the day.
Charisma had always heard one should never wake a person in the throes of a nightmare.
She didn’t care.
“Guardian!” she shouted, and put her hand on his chest.
His hand whipped up and grabbed her wrist. He squeezed; then, at her pained cry, he came to consciousness. His horror pulsed from him, and he threw her hand away. He leaped from the bed. Leaning a hand against the bedpost, he stood, head down, gasping and shaking.
“What was it? Guardian, what happened?” She glanced at her wrist.
She bruised easily.
He looked up at her, then away, as if he didn’t want her to glimpse his terror. “A nightmare. Usually I don’t remember what it is. This time . . . I do.”
As if he were a scared, dangerous animal, she crept toward him and tentatively offered her hand. “Can you share it with me?”
He stared at her hand, but he didn’t take it. “I can. But I wish . . . I wish I still didn’t know.” Slowly, stiffly, he reclined on the bed.
He didn’t reach for her, but he didn’t reject her when she rested her head on his chest, wrapped her arms around him, and whispered, “Tell me.”
When he started, his voice was hoarse, but gradually it smoothed, as if the memory drew him in. “I saw bright lights. Brilliant. Round. Boring into my eyes. They strapped me down. They always did. Everyone in scrubs. Surgical masks . . . all I could see was their eyes.”
“An operating room?” she whispered.
Guardian seemed not to hear.
“A couple of them were crying. Not most. Most of them . . . liked their jobs. The doctor . . . liked his job.” Guardian’s nails scraped on the sheets. “He loved what he was doing. He believed in what he was doing. Smug bastard. He told me he intended to place a homing device in my brain. He said if I did what he wanted, I could have anesthesia.”
“My God.” She brought herself tight against him, tried to give him strength.
“I refused. So many operations. No anesthesia. Never. Not once. Sometimes I passed out; sometimes I didn’t.” He lifted his right hand and examined his palm, opened and closed his fingers, then dropped it to his side. “I could endure this. I always had before. He believed he could force me to betray everything that I am. But I was . . . taught better than that.”
Charisma stroked her hand over the thick fur on his chest and wished she could do something to make this giant, strong, invincible warrior stop trembling. And wished she could stop trembling, too. Wished she could scrub the images from her mind—of Guardian, abused and terrified, determined to be strong, to do the right thing. “He cut your skull open while you were . . . awake?”
“Of course,” Guardian said, as if it were a foolish question.
And she supposed it was.
He continued. “While they used the electric clippers to shave my head, he held the bone saw beside my ear. The saw was high-pitched. Loud. Then he took it away. Again, he promised anesthesia if I would do as he commanded.”
“They were going to place something in your brain no matter what decision you made?”
For the first time, Guardian looked down at her and stroked her cheek, giving her comfort when he was the one who needed it. “With him, it was never a good choice. Only a less painful choice. He showed me the metal plate he would install, with a trapdoor that would let him in and out of my head whenever he wished. He described the way it would feel as he ripped through my skull. The slow cut, the fiery agony.”
“What did he want you to do?”
Guardian put his finger over her lips. “Let me . . . finish.”
She nodded.
“He used his scalpel. Peeled back my scalp. The cauterizing iron sent the smell of burning flesh up my nose.”
A wave of nausea passed over Charisma, but she fought it back. After all, she was not the one suffering.
“He used the bone saw.” Guardian’s expression was pure desolation. “I didn’t pass out. I wanted to. I tried to. All I could do was scream. Nothing . . . could ever . . . compare to the pain . . . and the terror.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“When I stopped screaming, he showed me the homing device he would implant.”
She hid her head in Guardi
an’s chest, not wanting to hear any more.
“He burrowed it into my brain.” Guardian stroked her hair, giving comfort, getting comfort. “They screwed the metal plate onto my skull. They shut the trapdoor. They sewed the incision shut. And that was when I faced the fact . . . that he was never going to stop. He had to win. He would seek to inflict his will on me forever. He would keep me and torture me until I died, or he died, or I yielded. But I also realized . . . I could escape. Only one way. But I had to escape.”
“You had to do what you could,” she whispered.
“Yes. But I had to do it before they put me back in my cell. So I bided my time. Pretended to be weak while I prepared myself to transform. In the recovery room, I begged one of the nurses who had cried for me to loosen my bonds.” He shook in a palsy. “And as I lay there on the bed, quietly, I changed. Mutated.”
She lifted her head and stared in shock. “Changed?”
“The nurse screamed and screamed, but it was too late. When I had become this”—he gestured at himself—“I was strong. I was invincible. I tore the place apart. I demolished the operating room. I rampaged through the facility, ripping out their electricity, their lines of communication. I found and destroyed every phone.” In a low voice, he said, “I killed the cruel ones. All of them.”
“The doctor?”
Guardian’s face contorted. “He disappeared.”
“He had prepared a way to escape? Just in case?”
Guardian nodded sharply. “He had told me who he was. Smith Bernhard. I refused to call him Doctor. Bernhard thought himself a genius. And perhaps he was. He despised the rest of the world as weak. For the sake of his experiments, he believed he had the right to kill and mutilate anyone and anything.”
“Without guilt?” Stupid question. Obviously.
Guardian’s low growl was truly that of a beast primed to attack. “He considered it a duty to his genius.”
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