Watching his expression, I caressed his inner arm where it lay on the couch cushion in front of me, then the tattoo on his bicep.
“Why is that embarrassing, Revik?” I said. “It’s beautiful.”
Pulling me down to him, he kissed my face, then my mouth.
“Allie,” he murmured, kissing me again. “It’s from the seer Book of the End, like the last days...or Revelations.” He caressed my belly through my shirt, his eyes holding an intensity I recognized, that still managed to warm my skin.
“It is about the Sword and the Bridge,” he said. “It is from a set of verses called the Love Song...” He kissed me again. “...I was in love with you even then,” he murmured.
I felt my heart react as his light flooded mine.
Before I could say anything, he started massaging my lower back. He kissed me for what felt like a long time, taking his time, using his light in more and more subtle ways as he pulled me further into his. We didn’t let it go much further, but we were both breathing harder when we paused, and I had my hand on him again.
“We need to go back to the room, Allie,” he said, softer.
“I know.”
He kissed me again, glancing at the other seers. I followed his gaze, seeing eyes look away from mine once more. I felt Revik getting turned on again and massaged him, watching his eyes close as he pressed against me.
“Gods, wife...what are you trying to do to me?”
“They don’t seem to mind,” I said, soft.
He grunted. “Of course they don’t mind. They want to watch us fuck.” He pulled me deeper under the blanket. “I’m afraid I’m going to oblige them if we stay here much longer,” he murmured.
I didn’t answer. I knew it was a seer thing, the whole group sex, resonating with one another’s light thing. I even knew it could be a friendly thing, a sign of affection, I guess. I knew from Balidor that it could be a way of bonding, too...incorporating a new member to a team, or solidifying a group into a single, cohesive unit.
I’d only just started to get my head around dynamics in seer communities, anyway. Seer mates were intensely possessive, and monogamous pretty much without exception. Still, they touched the larger group, and in ways I didn’t fully understand. Revik and I probably plugged into the rest of them even more, simply because of who we were.
I also knew from Balidor that the op in D.C. had been centered around the Vice President getting off on seeing seers being together like that.
Revik had been in the middle of that session, too...partly because he led the op, and the other seers responded to him as the leader. Partly because they’d felt what Balidor called “sympathetic pain” from his being separated from me in the middle of our bonding. In any case, both things drew the other seers to him, specifically...which made it a lot harder on me afterwards.
Even the humans had been after him.
I’d never been directly involved in any kind of overt expression of seer sexual dynamics like that...but I could feel the part of my light it affected.
It also brought up memories I didn’t really want to think about right then.
“Allie.” He caressed my face. “I don’t want anyone else.” He pulled on my light, caressing me again. “I don’t want anyone else, Allie.”
I nodded, but didn’t look up, tugging on his shirt.
He kissed me again. “...You led them in there, in Brazil. You’re the one they’re trying to get close to. Not me.”
I nodded again, but I didn’t really believe him.
To distract myself, I looked over my shoulder. I watched Wreg smile faintly at one of the younger seers. She was pointing at the image of me with the glowing eyes, making some kind of joke as the others laughed.
Still watching them, I said to Revik, “Maybe it’s not us. Maybe it’s just the being alive thing, like you said...basic seer hormones.”
Revik didn’t answer. He stroked my hair as I watched the monitor. I saw a thoughtful look in his eyes though, coupled with a near-predatory glance around the room before his gaze turned thoughtful again. I saw it threaded with something else, what might have been indecision.
I couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking.
Whatever it was, it made me a little nervous.
The newscaster continued to narrate the action in the background...I was too far away to hear the reporter’s words, thank gods...but I did see the sadness return to Wreg’s smile as his attention shifted back to the screen. I was still thinking about it when Wreg glanced at me, and his smile grew instantly warmer.
He finger saluted me, and I nodded back.
Revik wrapped his arms tighter around me, and I felt myself softening. Glancing over at the nearer faces, I saw them look away. I realized at least ten seers were watching us while pretending not to. I saw Nikka curled up in Holo’s lap, and they were kissing, Holo’s hand under her shirt. I felt another tendril of light around ours.
“Is that really from us?” I said, quiet. “Partly, I mean?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
Looking back at him, I paused, studying his face.
He was really turned on. He was getting more turned on watching the effect we were having on the others...but worried about me reacting unfavorably if he let it show. He also wasn’t sure how he felt about the number of males he could feel staring at us.
That predatory thing wove in there somewhere as well, and I realized it was the more practical, military side of him I was seeing. He wanted me incorporated into the group more tightly...he wanted me a part of his team. He also wanted me bonded more closely to him. It came out in various ways, with both of us, but I’d never caught him thinking about it so overtly before. I wondered if it had occurred to him that an energetic tie of that kind would be yet another thing to make me feel a part of his world.
I could feel him thinking about it tactically, wondering what effect it might have, to have his leadership team of seers bonded to me more specifically. I watched his eyes slide around the room once more. I could tell the idea made him nervous, too...partly because he worried it was manipulative on his part.
I could feel the part of him that didn’t care about that either, though.
Torn between the two, he watched the monitor without seeing it, trying to think about something else.
It scared me how easy he was to read these days. I couldn’t help but wonder if I was that transparent to him.
He looked at me. I held my breath as his eyes studied mine.
“Do you want to go in the other room?” he said.
I studied his face, realized he’d made up his mind...or at least reached his tipping point. His eyes were glassed, almost opaque. When I touched him, his skin was hot.
“You want to stay,” I said.
Pain flickered through his eyes. He gripped my hair in his hand, even as he pulled me tighter against him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, softer.
I just looked at him though, thinking.
“Are you sure?” I said. “You won’t freak out about it later?”
He shook his head, pulling on my light. “I want you to stay,” he said. “I don’t care, Allie...I want you to stay here with me.”
I heard the second meaning in that, too.
I kissed his face. “I’m not going anywhere, Revik. You don’t need to do this to get me to stay here with you.”
When I looked at his eyes, they remained unconvinced.
“Please,” he said. “I promise I won’t touch any of them...I won’t let them touch you.”
Still studying his eyes, I swallowed. Then I nodded, almost to myself.
Glancing around the room, I forced myself to relax. I found myself replaying his words, then I nodded again, looking at him.
“Okay,” I said. “I haven’t done this before.” I put my hand on him again. “Is there etiquette, husband? Are you talking sex under the blanket? Or do you want me to give you head?”
His eyes reacted to my blunt question. He stared up
at me, not hiding his disbelief.
“Were you kidding?” I said. I bit my lip. “Was that some kind of test?”
“No.”
“Do you want them to see me naked?”
“No,” he said, after a pause. “No, Allie.”
He sounded like he meant it.
I felt a whisper off his mind and realized I’d shocked the hell out of him, just from being open to this. He was still trying to decide if I was serious. He was trying to decide if he was.
“Allie,” he said. “Don’t let me push you into this...”
“I’m not.” I hesitated, studying his face again. “Do you want me to talk you out of it?”
He looked at me, and I saw indecision in his eyes.
“No.”
I unhooked his belt, unfastening his pants even as he pulled the blanket back around us. His hands tightened on my shoulders when I started massaging him for real. After a moment, I felt him melting against the back of the couch. He was fighting not to cry out then.
I felt every eye in the room on us now.
I put my mouth on him and he groaned aloud. When I didn’t stop, he gripped the back of the couch, gasping, his other hand in my hair.
I felt light flicker around mine as I brought him to the edge of orgasm. Slowing him down, I brought him closer again and the lights pulling at mine grew more urgent, asking to be let in. After another few minutes, I slid up his body again, meeting his gaze.
“Tell me what to do,” I murmured. “They want to feel this...”
“Don’t let any of them touch you,” he said. “Please, Allie...”
I kissed his mouth, and he kissed me back, hard. He let out another groan when I opened to the lights I felt around us in the room. For a long moment we just kissed. He was fighting to undress me then, holding the blanket around me even as he yanked down my pants.
I felt him wanting to look at the others.
“Revik, it’s all right...you can look at them...”
He bit my neck, hard enough that I gasped.
He had his light inside me then. When he went deeper, I turned my head, saw eyes on us. They didn’t look away that time, watching as he read me. I felt them in my light as he opened me further, his eyes on the others, watching them react as he let them in.
He was sweating then, but wouldn’t let me touch him. He pinned me to the couch instead, talking to me, getting me to answer, until I felt every seer in the room reacting to both of our voices. He wanted them to want me, I realized, but it was driving him crazy too...hitting at all of his fears, turning him aggressive. He took it out on me, not letting me climax, forcing me to ask him again and again.
I glanced at Wreg, half out of my mind.
The young seer sat in his lap now, a hand in his shirt, the other between his legs. I saw Wreg’s eyes half-lidded as he sent me a flicker of heat, strong enough that it arched my back. His desire grew harder, more specific.
Tell your mate he’s asking for a fight...
Revik raised his head. For an instant he froze, staring at Wreg.
I saw the predator in his eyes...but before I could really interpret the look, he turned me over with his hands, and had me half-pinned before I could think straight enough to be embarrassed. He cried out as he entered me, but made love to me slowly, deliberately, coaxing me and holding me back until I completely lost control. That time his light wound into mine, so deep I blacked out completely for a few minutes...so far in him and the Barrier I didn’t know where I was.
He didn’t let any of them near me.
In truth, no one even tried.
I felt every eye in the room on us though when I came back, even as he held them off my light...I felt the possessiveness on both of us worsen. Every flush of desire towards him from any of them, male or female, made me cry out...until I realized he wanted that, too.
I felt the other happening in the background, in spite of us almost.
My light wove gradually into theirs. I could feel them all clearly...as individuals, and as a unit...the young ones on the couch as much as the ones I’d gone into Black Arrow with. I felt Wreg, even glimpsed pieces of his life, stretching the timeline between us. Nikka too, became so real to me somehow. I saw things in her that made me flinch, even as a flush of compassion found me.
I felt Holo that way, Jax, Ike, Neela...
Revik was right. These were the strays. He was protecting the ones who had been bent and mashed and dented by the world the way it was now.
I felt how connected he was to them. I felt him weaving my light in with theirs too, and there was a desperation to that, as well. He’d never let them this close to him, either. I felt them pulling at him, trying to feel more of his light...
By the end I was crying, and he had the blanket wrapped around us, caressing my face and body as he shielded my light from everyone else in the room. I forgot them again as he asked me if I loved him, if I wanted anyone else, if I was happy just with him. I felt the Balidor thing on him at the question, for the first time in months...and the pain in his heart when I answered. I found myself making promises to him again, meaning them as much as I had the first time, in that cabin in the Himalayas...trying to get him to forget about what had happened to us since.
We ended up curled around each other, oblivious to the seers around us. Not long after, we left the room, but not before I found myself understanding something else.
Balidor had been right. Revik was tying me to him, in any way he could. But for the first time, in all of my back and forth around him and what I felt and what I told myself about us...I realized I was doing the exact same thing to him.
28
SUSPICION
PICKING UP THE headset on the wooden table by the bed, Revik glanced at the time through the VR link and cursed softly. His mental alarm clock hadn’t woken him up for once; it usually got him out of bed pretty much to the minute, if not before he intended to rise.
Instead, he’d woken over an hour late.
He wouldn’t have time to check in on the ground floor. He would have to go straight to the debriefing he’d scheduled.
As he thought it, her arm tightened around his waist, as if sensing he’d been about to get up. Her fingers clenched on his skin and he glanced down, studying her face in sleep.
Remembering the night before, a flush caught him off-guard.
Gods.
He focused on her face, fighting back his reaction, trying to view her objectively. She looked so different now. Her face had matured since he first met her, leaving the features of the person he’d fallen in love with, but transitioning them from a girl’s to a woman’s seemingly overnight.
Her youth had unnerved him a little when they were first married...and made him feel guilty too. The latter had been irrational, he knew. Her soul was older than his. Physically, she’d been well within age, by half a decade according to seer law.
Over a decade, according to the law of humans.
Even so, he wanted her more now. Some of this wrapped into feelings, their history together, having lost any sense of taking her for granted after Delhi...and knowing himself more since D.C. Some came from her, and the changes she’d gone through since those early days in the United States, when she still thought she was human.
Some of it he couldn’t explain at all.
And some, as much as he hated to admit it, came from pure male reaction to stimuli. Her body had grown more curves in the past two years. She was taller...leaner, too, and her hair fell nearly to her waist. She had a natural curiosity about sex, and about seer bodies, including his body...and an interest in learning, down to gradations in subtlety that drove him crazy.
More than anything though, her light did things to him, pulling reactions from his that no one else had come close to. He felt constantly starved to be in her light, even with her living there with him. That probably had more to do with her being Elaerian...but it felt so personal he couldn’t quite make himself reduce it all to racial compatibility.<
br />
Menlim had been right. It hadn’t felt like it back then, but it was worth the wait.
As he thought it, he remembered her face from the night before. He was sore...but at a base level, his body didn’t care about that, either. His groin reacted as he looked at her, even as he fought back another wave of possessiveness that bordered on paranoia.
He hadn’t really intended to go there with her in the common room.
Much less to do it the way he had, letting them see her naked, or taking things so far in terms of pulling them into her light. But, despite a faint whisper of anger as he remembered Wreg’s reaction to watching her climax, he couldn’t say he regretted it.
He trusted Wreg. As much as he trusted anyone, really.
But he’d always been a little paranoid about older, more experienced seers, especially those who’d earned enough control with their light that females sought them out.
That had been true even before Balidor seduced her.
At the thought, pain crippled him.
Cutting his breath, it transformed into emotion before he could stop it. Hatred broke somewhere inside his chest, forcing out air in short pants. His fingers curled protectively over his own heart, as if holding something in that might have forced its way out otherwise.
He hadn’t let a thought like that catch him off-guard in awhile.
He waited for it to pass.
He couldn’t look at her until it dissipated. He still got flashes of anger so intense he could barely admit them to himself. The only thing that helped at all was to remember that he’d done worse to her.
But, truthfully, he couldn’t make himself believe that, either.
His transgressions had hurt her; he wasn’t denying that. But in context, he couldn’t see them as remotely the same.
He’d let Kat give him head a few times after he and Allie had first been married. He’d only done it because he thought Allie had rejected him as a mate...he could hardly put that in the same category as an overt infidelity. They’d both been so confused back then. They hadn’t consummated anything between them...they hadn’t talked about anything.
Allie's War Season Two Page 47