Prince of Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  Her question surprised him. The last twenty years? That one foolishly romantic gesture that had cost them everything? He smiled wryly and said, “My peripheral vision, no thanks to your cousin. You?”

  Kendra went right for the jugular. “My innocence.”

  She was so much better at this game than he was. He tapped his glass against hers and took a big swallow. Then they sat beside each other, staring straight ahead, neither moving. She finished her glass and held it out for more. At least her hand was steadier.

  “Have you done it before? Mated . . . in your other form?”

  His glance darted to hers, then away. “Once. A long time ago. The Instinct demands it when we come of age.”

  She angled toward him, curiosity and a good vintage suppressing her fears as she curled her legs beneath her. “Did you like it?”

  He bristled defensively. “We don’t talk about such things.”

  Kendra raised a doubtful brow. “You didn’t have any problem sharing all your other sexploits. I’d think that would be exactly the sort of thing you Terriot males love to boast about. Becoming big, ferocious animals. Traumatizing helpless females . . .” Then she was scrutinizing him, seeing what no one else would have. Distress and distaste. “You didn’t like it. Why?”

  “I don’t remember much. Wes and Jamie got me so drunk, I could hardly stand up. I’d never been with a female before. It wasn’t what I expected. It reminded me too much of things I’d rather forget.” He let his words trail off, then asked suddenly, “Are you afraid of me, Kendra?”

  She was studying him intently, her eyes wide and deep and troubled. “No. Not of you. Just of what you’re going to do.”

  Kendra had known the minute she’d entered the bedroom that her evasion was at an end. She didn’t blame Cale. She understood his reasoning. He’d been amazingly patient with her. But that was over. Time to make her decision. Accept or struggle. The answer was astonishingly easy.

  Though Cale wasn’t the boy she remembered, he wasn’t the monster she’d feared, either. After what she’d seen and learned from Tony, she recognized great potential in him that could reverse the downward spiral of their House. She could see a place for herself in that plan, encouraging him to become that better man. They’d both experienced a different kind of life in their early years, one of reward instead of punishment, love instead of cruelty. She had the power to affect that swing vote between decency and domination with her choice of mate. Cale could overthrow Bram’s dark influence if she could awaken the goodness he’d had to suppress to survive.

  Quick and done. The awful, relentless dread would be behind her. Then she’d be safe. And she’d be his. This could become the home she’d always dreamed of. He could become the man she’d always longed for.

  Kendra was looking at him through different eyes as he glanced at her again, and this time she didn’t turn away as he spoke.

  “I wish there were another way, but there isn’t. Maybe with small steps. Maybe if you got to know me a little better?”

  What he’d probably seen growing up in Bram Terriot’s household. The thought of causing her pain haunted his gaze. Perhaps they both needed to go slowly and with great care to repair those broken bits and pieces for the other.

  “I want to touch your hands.” She slipped her fingers between his. “You have such nice hands, so strong, such long fingers, like an artist.” While he allowed it, a wary frown on his face, Kendra lifted his knuckles to her lips. Her gaze rose to hold his. “Strong enough to protect me, but are they gentle enough to give what I’ve been afraid to ask from you?”

  His voice was low and gruff. “What do you want from me that you’ve been afraid to ask for?”

  “Pleasure.”

  He didn’t react immediately, his expression shuttered, his breaths light and even. Then he reached out to stroke his fingertips over her cheek, along her jawline, down her neck until her throat was lightly circled by his hand. His touch whisper-soft, his grip almost nonexistent, he leaned forward to brush her lips with the most tender of kisses. “All you had to do was ask.”

  She shivered at those husky words and moved the hand she held beneath her sweater to the cup of her bra as he kissed her again with the same searching sweetness. He palmed that soft swell gently, then slipped his hand to the center of her back, where he spread his fingers wide to urge her to him.

  “You don’t have to go slow,” she panted against his mouth, her body growing restless with that need to know.

  “Yes, I do.” His rough velvet voice got her fever-hot. His words made her tremble. “You’re a right-off-the-showroom-floor Porsche, not a used pickup. I’m going to take my time and break you in easy, with the appreciation a fine thing like you deserves. Then I’m going to drive you hard, fast, and as far as we can go. How’s that sound?”

  She gave an assenting sigh and opened her mouth wide to invite him in.

  After a long wet tangle, he drew back until just their breath was touching. “Open your eyes, Katy.”

  She gazed up dreamily to find his expression taut and serious.

  “I’m the only one who’s ever going to be at the wheel.”

  “Just you,” she agreed as her eyes slid shut. Her arms went around him, her fingers sinking into his hair. “Put your hands on me, Cale.”

  “Where do you want them, baby?”

  “Everywhere. Touch me everywhere.”

  Her bra came loose before she realized he’d unfastened it, and his palms replaced the supportive fabric. So warm, just holding her, kneading ever so lightly as they continued to kiss.

  Finally, Kendra lifted her arms, coaxing him to scoop her sweater and underwear up and off her, leaving her torso bare to his touch, to his heated gaze.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, making her, for the first time in her life, really feel that way.

  His thumbs rubbed leisurely around her sensitive nipples until they were budded tight, aching with exquisite tenderness. Kendra whimpered softly, pleading for something she didn’t understand. Then Cale bent down, and her whole world expanded.

  His mouth was a hot, wet flame licking those virgin peaks into unbearable arousal. The swirl of his tongue, the graze of his teeth, the intense suction that seemed to trigger a flood of dampness between her thighs. It was too much and not enough. What had those foolish females been talking about? Cale Terriot was steamy, slow-burning sex incarnate.

  “Just me,” she gasped between those deep, mind-blowing tugs. “No more joy rides around the block in those trashy used models. You’re in my driver’s seat now. Just mine.”

  He made an inarticulate sound low in his throat, an impossibly delicious cross between a growl and a moan as his palms roamed from shoulders to hips, scooping beneath her to lift her off the sofa cushion, skimming off her pants with practiced ease. Before she could stiffen in surprise, his hands returned to the adoration of her breasts while he kissed her into a brainless languor. She let herself enjoy his attentiveness, let herself be wooed by his unhurried mouth and massaging fingers.

  “Trust me, baby,” he murmured against her lips. “You’ll enjoy everything I’m about to do.”

  She took a slow breath and challenged, “Prove it.”

  Cale leaned in to her, using his weight to carry her down until her shoulders rested on the arm of the couch. At the same time, he insinuated his body between the spread of her legs. Her hands went to his shoulders, gripping tight.

  She sighed into his long, soulful kiss, and when he whispered, “Close your eyes, Katy. Let me show you what pleasure is all about,” she did so, trusting him to be the answer to everything she was desperate to discover.

  In that sensual darkness, Kendra concentrated on the strange hitch in her breathing. Then on the soothing stroke of his palm, over her knee, up and down her calf in slow, seducing motions, unknotting the tension that had unknowingly begun to gather. She never thought to protest when he cupped her heel and lifted it to rest upon his shoulder, because his mouth was
rubbing over her delicate instep, moving to her ankle, where, with the light swirl of his tongue, he murmured, “You have the most deliciously sexy legs.”

  Her inhibitions trembled and gave another notch as his mouth followed the downward slope of her thigh.

  Until his lips cruised over soft fair curls.

  Cale drew in her scent with a long, savoring inhalation, then released a shaky breath. Kendra shivered as the warmth of it grazed across her skin.

  “Do I reverse or drive?”

  His husky question jacked up her heartbeats until they thundered with anticipation. She’d wanted him since that first kiss, long before she understood what that might entail.

  Her voice was unrecognizable, thick with need. “Drive.”

  Kendra shuddered when his mouth fastened over her damp sex. His tongue parted the slick folds to circle her achy center. The effect was electric. Her body bowed as nerves sparked and tingled. Her arms fell overhead, fingers digging into the rolled arm of the couch. Tremors raced up and down her legs to pulse wildly where he licked and sucked and teased with the same concentration he’d shown her lips and breasts. Relentless, provoking, pushing sensation beyond anything she’d ever known.

  Her head thrashed helplessly. She couldn’t catch her breath, panting to stave off the dizziness threatening to drown her. Sounds fell from her parted lips. His name. Soft, desperate entreaties as he brought her to the brink only to lift away.

  Kendra could taste her own urgent excitement on his lips, on his tongue, as Cale kissed her over and over. He cupped his palm between her legs, beginning a taunting rhythm with the heel of his hand as her hips instinctively rocked and ground against it. Then the smooth invasion of those long clever fingers.

  Kendra was sure that eagerness would become resistance then, but her body had other ideas, squeezing tight as he thrust into her with a coaxing, quickening tempo. His thumb pressed, circled, rubbed until her ragged gasps became hoarse cries. Guiding her, hurrying her toward a sudden, clutching spasm that had her arching sharply and then falling, dazed, into a shivery collapse.

  He continued to kiss and caress her softly until her gaze focused on his. Her dark eyes grew heavy-lidded as she proclaimed, “That was amazing.”

  “You handle like a dream. Sweet, responsive, and,” he added with a grin, “lots of horsepower under the hood.”

  She smiled back. Her attention focused on his mouth and then drifted lower as her tone grew sultry. “I’ve never handled a stick shift. Is it hard? Learning to drive one?”

  Cale stood, keeping her wrapped about his hips as he invited, “Let’s go find out.”

  seventeen

  Cale laid her on their silky sheets. As he was about to join her, her palm pressed to his chest.

  “Clothes off.”

  He skinned off his T-shirt, feeling her stare like a caress upon his bare skin as she mouthed a single word. She thought he was beautiful? An odd descriptor, but it pleased him that she’d see him that way despite the evidence of ugly events that had left their scars upon him. Not wanting to alarm her with the pounding state of his arousal lest she pick a more discouraging adjective, like frightening, Cale sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her, unlacing his boots, undoing his jeans, and slipping them off.

  And then Kendra was behind him, her knees on either side of his hips, the hard tips of her nipples pressing into his back as she put her arms around him and kissed her way along his shoulders. He sat very still, scarcely breathing.

  Cale had spent practically every day of his life braced and ready to defend against unexpected attack. He’d learned quick and well that he had no friends in this world, that there was no one who wouldn’t betray him with the proper motivation, and that his best interests were never anyone else’s. He wanted to believe Kendra to be the exception. Most of the time he thought himself a tremendous fool.

  Her hands were magic, soothing, exciting as they rubbed over his body, as if he were being touched for the first time. Her lips were soft against the side of his throat, licking, nibbling, lightly sucking until he was shivering to the soul. He took a deep, perhaps reckless breath. And let himself enjoy her surprisingly bold touch.

  After charting the landscape of his arms, Kendra caught his chin, twisting his head at an almost painful angle so she could reach his mouth with hers for an aggressive kiss. Then her other hand closed about his erection, and he nearly swallowed her tongue. His brain went blank to all but how exquisite her palm felt curled about his taut, fevered skin.

  “Oh. My.” Kendra’s admiring words brushed over his suddenly slack mouth. “It’s true what they say about long fingers. No wonder they want you.”

  Cale had no clue what she was talking about, because her nails grazed along distended veins the same way they had on his forearms, and his breathing stuttered to a stop.

  He’d never considered sex anything except the means to an end. Sizzle, boom, done. Wasn’t that what the ladies claimed? And they were right. All he’d wanted was the quick release of tension, no petting or kissing or cuddling or touching beyond what was necessary. He hadn’t been interested in enjoyment, not even his own, just in that quick, violent conclusion. Except with Kendra.

  With her, he’d dreamed of pleasure, hers and his. He’d imagined the feel of silky skin, of the texture of her hair, the sound of moaning cries, the heat of her clutched about him. For years those dreams had sustained and tormented him. The reality was almost too good to be believed. And he loved it.

  He loved her.

  A light push toppled him onto his back. He offered no resistance. She went down to the mattress atop him, kissing his lips, his chin, the rapid movement of his throat. Her mouth followed the path her hands had taken, and all the while, she stroked him gently, wonderingly. He’d never felt so powerful, so adored or desired.

  And then the touch of her tongue.

  Kendra had never imagined doing such a thing. Her fantasies were always naively modest. Brigit called them by a term in an old Erica Jong novel: the Zipless Fuck. The enjoyment of the act without the messy, realistic details. That was how she’d always viewed potential intimacy with Silas, as all sighs and kisses and loving touches and spectacular orgasms while skipping over the nitty-gritty mechanics. She’d been curious, but she’d never been fixated until that motorcycle ride with Cale.

  Everything about Cale was gritty and real. He made her feel and want and hunger for more. He’d taken her from chaste imaginings to explosive experiences and opened her eyes. Wide.

  She’d expected to view that enormous appendage as a threatening weapon, not as a very real part of him that pulsed with life and heat. So smooth and hard and hot and intriguing.

  The sound he made when she took that first taste was a revelation. She had seen him beaten and whipped, but he’d never been so utterly reduced as when that low moan twisted from him. She took him into her mouth and watched his control shatter. It was a shocking and empowering thing.

  Not sure of what she was doing, Kendra let Cale’s responses guide her. When she bathed him with her tongue, his breaths grew fast and harsh. When she applied firm suction, his body tensed and trembled. When she reached down to stroke the heavy sac between his legs, his hand fisted in her hair, directing her movements until his hips jerked hard and long.

  He came in a sudden burst that was startling, but not unpleasant as she coaxed him to conclusion with soft pulls of her mouth.

  Finally, he muttered, “Enough, baby. That’s enough,” and lay with eyes closed, panting unevenly as she reluctantly released him. “And I was going to show you things.” He laughed faintly, amazed and drained down to nothing.

  When he patted the mattress beside him, Kendra curled into the crook of his arm, enjoying the delicious sensation of bare skin on bare skin. Her head pillowed on his shoulder as her palm pushed across his damp, laboring chest. She was smiling as she coaxed, “Is there anything that you were afraid to ask for?”

  His breath coming in shallow gasps, his heart so
full his chest could barely contain it, Cale let his defenses drop away. Happiness was such a foreign concept that it took him by surprise as he fell into her soft, satisfied gaze and spoke from his soul. “Your love.”

  She blinked as if she hadn’t understood.

  “I love you, Katy. I’ve loved you forever.”

  In that agonizingly long stretch of time when he waited for her to reply in kind, she simply stared at him, the tenderness in her eyes morphing into a blank sort of panic. He could hear her taunting words from the club: “I don’t have to love you to want you, do I?” Cut by that candid truth, he palmed the back of her head and directed it down to his shoulder as he squeezed his eyes shut.

  “Cale—”

  “It’s okay, baby,” he interrupted. “It doesn’t matter.”

  What a fucking idiot he was.

  Once the exquisite tension had shivered from his body, Cale opened his arm to let her move away from him. Only she didn’t leave. She hugged about him, riding the rise and fall of his chest. It was then that he realized how much he wanted her to just . . . go.

  And then the buzz of her phone.

  “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

  “Cale,” she began again with such pained regret.

  He shoved her off him and, without a glance her way, jumped to his feet. He snatched up his jeans and tugged them on, cramming his feet into boots without bothering with socks, his words a thick growl. “Tell the bastard I said hello.”

  “Cale, please.”

  He was stuffing his arms into coat sleeves as he strode to the door, movements violent and nearly out of control as he stepped out into the frigid night. His fractured breaths plumed and frosted as he stood for a broken heartbeat, completely without direction.

  He roared down off the mountain on his bike, cold to the bone without gloves, without a shirt, without protective eyewear to keep the moisture from freezing into twin streaks back into his hairline. He couldn’t fly far enough or fast enough to outdistance the trail of dreams crumbling behind him.