Her body slammed up against the wall with his pounding, her desperate panting growing loud in the room.
He grasped her face with his hands and smothered her mouth with his.
Kissing him back, she sucked on his tongue with fevered anguish as she wept.
Filling her with his thrusting, he smoothed his hands down over her breasts. With an abrupt swiftness, he pulled from her.
She gasped loudly at the sudden separation.
“I want to hurt you,” he whispered the warning to her lips. “I should go.” He attempted to step back.
Phoebe grabbed his shirt and pulled him back. “Hurt me!” She released the words with a slow breath into his mouth. “Hurt me so much, that I feel it for the rest of my life.” She tilted her hips up and spread her thighs open wide to bare herself to him.
Rick gazed down at her open thighs, grabbed her entire labia into his fingers and squeezed her tender skin. The raging possessive lust he felt exploded in his brain. He rubbed his palm over her with a hard sweeping motion.
She flinched and panted while she shook all over. “Harder!” she begged.
He let go of her skin and lowered his mouth to her nipple, he nibbled it with his teeth.
“Hurt me, make me suffer,” she pleaded with a mixture of misery and rapture in her voice.
Rick lifted her up while he felt betrayed and torn. He could not let this woman go from his life. He wanted to delve into her with all the feelings he couldn’t face. Punish her for existing, for choosing to leave. He shoved into her again and raised her hips even higher.
Phoebe’s body grew rigid. “Rick, I’m sorry,” she screamed out as she came, her climax pulsing around his swollen cock. “I will always belong to you, always!” she wept out as her body heaved with sobs of ecstatic anguish.
His body stiffened as he came inside of her and he pinned her hips back. “I cannot let you go,” he whispered to her lips. “I just can’t.”
……“I just can’t.” Rick heard his own words bounce back across time. But I did leave her there. Phoebe had slumped to the floor in a desolate heap of misery and he quietly left the room. He could still hear her pitiful weeping, as he miserably leaned back against the wall out in the hallway.
A lifetime ago, twenty-seven empty years ago.
The saltwater sat all around him. He hadn’t even felt it. Rick released a pent up breath, stood up and knew somehow, he would reach her. I won’t just stand out in the hall again, and let her go. He knew now after having her back with him so briefly, that he really had no choice—because he might kill someone himself, if he didn’t get her back this time.
Rick attempted to control all of his resentment and anger as he turned toward Madeline’s beach house and stood motionless. The old rage, at a life spent without her boiled up again inside of him as he stared down at his hands. He flexed his long fingers. These fingers have molded many things in his lifetime. They had created perfection and haunting images on wood, stone and canvas.
Rick raised his head while a quiet determination filled him, replacing the wild fury from a moment before. I will take this whole thing into my own hands. “I will hurt her again, to keep her if I have to,” he vowed and walked down the beachway.
MADELINE
Madeline crept into the guest bedroom and peered down at the bed.
“He’s not there, Maddy,” Dev whispered from behind her.
She gasped and flipped around. “What?”
“He took matters into his own hands.”
Aghast at the thought of it, she drew her hands up to her mouth.
“He decided to carve out his own fate.”
She shook her head. “No! He didn’t.”
Dev nodded and drew her close. “He did.”
Putting her face to his shoulder, she cried out, “Oh, no. They will be wanted felons, hunted!”
“They will never be found.” He gently patted her on the back. “Sometimes, things happen and are…” A smile edged at his lips as he smoothed her hair down. “…Unexpected.” He took her back to bed.
After a few hours, Madeline felt Dev tossing and turning in bed, she sat up and looked over at him.
With a shout, Dev sat up abruptly and gasped.
Madeline took his arm. “Dev!” she whispered with concern.
He swung his long legs over the side of the bed. “We have to get to…” He seemed out of breath.
Madeline put her arms around him. “What is it?”
His body shook violently. “Maddy?”
“Yes, Dev?”
“Go to the council—”
Madeline’s eyes rounded. “No, Dev, don’t!” He disappeared from her arms and she fell off the bed to the floor. She looked up and saw the sunlight glint from the window. “At sunrise?” she asked aloud in a puzzled tone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
KAMI
Skywalk Lodge, Grand Canyon, Arizona
Kami opened her eyes and she was lying on her bed in her darkened room. “Taylor!” she shouted and sat up.
“He’s with the spirits, walking with them,” a familiar voice announced through the darkness.
“Nonni?” Kami whispered back.
“Yes, and I have come to help you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, Kamikowa.”
She scooted to the edge of the bed. “I want to be with him.”
“It is your destiny.”
“I don’t think he wants me.” Kami lowered her head.
“Tsk-tsk,” Nonni responded.
Her head shot up.
“You are his chosen and it was already marked upon your birth,” the woman stated in a flat tone.
“Yes, I know. The council told me.”
“Then, you must get him,” Nonni paused. “He must take you as wife.”
“He already thinks that I only care because of duty.”
“So?” Nonni sighed.
“I cannot seem to convince him.” Kami stood up.
“You do not know the ways of a woman’s power to pull at a man.” Nonni laughed.
The younger woman almost smiled. Nonni had been a teacher for all Kami’s life and had nurtured her healing abilities and trained her for her career. “So, this is why I was your student?” She laughed a little.
“Yes, we knew the day would come when he would turn to the sun,” her teacher responded.
Kami looked around to see light come through her window. “What happens if I don’t—don’t...”
“…Be with him?” Nonni whispered from the dark.
“Yes, what will happen?”
The woman became silent.
“Nonni?” Kami called.
“He will become all spirit and join the elder spirits,” she finally answered.
“What?” Kami gasped while her hands began to shake.
“The legend says that if he does not mate with pure blood from the tribe, that his human life will be forfeit. It is the price for the saving of the tribe all those ages ago. You must choose.”
Kami sat down on her bed and drew her arms up around herself. “No.” Tears fell down her cheeks. “I can’t let him go.” She started to cry. “I can’t let him just disappear!”
Nonni patted Kami’s shoulder. “Then, this is what we will do. I will show you the medicine but…” the old woman paused.
“What?”
“You may suffer from the wrath of his god-like being, he will know maybe, that you seduce him and he may be angry.” Nonni took her hand
“So what? It’s better than losing him.” Kami released a shaky breath, as she wiped her tears away and squeezed her teacher’s hand.
Kami stood on the Skywalk. The darkness of night had forced her to walk blindly out onto it until she felt the bridge bow. She stood at the center which hung directly over the canyon just as Nonni had instructed. Pausing to wait until just before sunrise, Kami still wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do, but she really had no choice.
Nonni had told her of
how the elder’s council had always known Taylor would someday come to this point. His genes were cursed they said, as a penalty for Devon Ananza’s occupying a human form in the Ananza family, a hundred and fifty years ago. She explained to Kami that if humans mess with the order of the cosmos, a price would be exacted from the humans someday. Time meant nothing to this course of reciprocation.
A soothsayer in the tribe had prophesied that Taylor would turn into pure sunlight and be human no more. The legend had foretold that if he took a Hualapai wife of pure blood from the tribe, he would not fade away.
The young healer had thought she’d heard all the legends, but somehow, only the few older tribes people knew of this one. An elder spirit told the rest to the chief about how Kami was chosen by the spirits to be his bride. After the accident, when Taylor lost his memory and the council appointed her as his caretaker? Yeah, it all made sense now, and then when she left him in LA? She met with their disapproval, because they knew she and Taylor needed to be together to lift this curse of the supernatural.
As the first rays of sunlight glimmered upon the sky, she nervously released a breath. She raised the magnificent dream spinner up to face the sunrise. She’d smiled down at the forgotten handcraft when Nonni handed it to her last night, as Kami had made it when she was ten years old. Nonni said that it was intended for this purpose from the day she’d crafted it. To use it as a bridge to the Gateway—a preordained spirit tool for this particular moment.
With her other hand, she pulled a small green twig from her pocket. She stood statue-still and waited for the light to glimmer on the facing canyon wall. Just as her teacher had instructed.
The sunrise spread across the sky and pastel colors lighted the rock cliffs. Kami held the dream catcher up higher, so her face was behind it and raised the twig to her lips. She shook her long black mane as the sunlight gleamed upon her face, and took a bite of the bitter root. She held it in her mouth.
‘A medicine so powerful it will draw him to you...’ She heard her teacher’s voice. ‘He will be unable to turn away as desire will light in him.’
Kami shook violently as the sunlight’s warmth hit her face and the spinner threads caught the light. Her whole body glowed with it as she could see herself reflected from the glass floor of the Skywalk. Streams of colored light swirled through the spinner and her feet rose slightly from the glass bottom as she was lifted from the walk. The light was so bright she closed her eyes. She felt the glass floor of the bridge move completely away from her feet. Just keep your eyes closed. She warned herself. Do not open them until you feel solid ground!
Her body shook terribly as Kamikowa the Hualapai healer made the journey to The Gateway of the Sun.
Sun Cave, Horseshoe Bend, Arizona
Kami’s body spun around in rapid circles and the roaring sound around her was deafening. She curled her fingers up into her palms and her fingernails gouged her skin. She thought she heard sounds and even voices as the roar became a low hum while her body slowed its spinning. She gasped for air and realized she’d been holding her breath.
“What the…?” Taylor whispered with surprise in his voice.
With a fearful start, her eyes popped open and she was standing at a metal railing.
Taylor stood in front of her and his eyes glowed with light. “What the fuck?” he shouted.
Kami felt her body begin to fall and she screamed.
Swiftly, he was there before she even took a breath. He hefted her up and set her down.
Her eyes remained shut while she held her body stiff and tight.
“Kami?”
Her eyes popped open and she released a gasping relieved breath. “Oh!” she yelled and slumped down against him.
Holding her tightly, he steadied her.
They were at the top of some building and she didn’t recognize her surroundings. There was a strange mist swirling around them and odd noises seemed to bounce off the metal of the building.
“The Eiffel Tower,” Taylor announced.
With confusion, she blinked her eyes with a rapid fluttering.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked in a quiet voice.
His voice rumbled through her as though it had a special pitch of some kind. She was still shocked and breathless, and couldn’t answer him.
He gripped her arms tightly. “I asked you a question!” He sounded angry.
Kami swallowed and tried to answer. All that came out was a squeak.
Releasing a frustrated sigh, he pulled her close to his chest. “How did you even get here?” he sounded baffled. Kami sighed again. Hefting her up, he gazed into her eyes. “What are you doing here?” he repeated.
“I needed to…” she rasped again, “…Needed to find you.”
Reaching down, he grabbed her ass to pull her tighter to his body. “This is a dangerous thing, Kami,” he whispered to her with a strained voice.
The feel his hands on her and his body next to hers was so right, she knew now that she’d done the right thing. “I want to be with you,” she whispered to his cheek as her pulse picked up again.
Taylor stilled and set her away. “Do you think this is a fucking game?”
At his irate expression, she gulped and shook her head.
The air around them seemed to change and the light grew brighter as they spun around. Kami closed her eyes while he held her tightly to him, and the metal floor of the tower drew away from their feet.
They were standing in the cavern of light when Kami opened her eyes again.
Taylor stepped away from her.
Kami looked into his eyes and there was still a faint glowing there.
“Dammit!” he shouted and let go of her. “Why are we here? I wanted to be at the lodge, not here!” He gazed all around. The cavern had been visited since he was last here, this he could tell. There were blankets and bedding in the corner. A fire roared at the center of the huge cave. Stacks of wood for the fire were stacked along the wall. He looked all around; boxes of food, kerosene lamps, chairs and a dining table. He walked over to another table, which was set up near the large bed. It had neat stacks of clothing. He picked up some of it. “There are men’s and women’s clothes here.”
Kami blinked at all the new stuff sitting everywhere in the once empty cave. “The council?”
He turned to her. “What?”
“The tribe provides for the Sun Warrior.” Kami looked over at the fire as she rubbed her arms.
His brow wrinkled up. “They are supplying for the both of us.”
“Yes, they are.” She swallowed.
“What’s going on, Kami?”
She shrugged. “They knew that I was coming here.”
“And we come back again to that subject. Why are you here?” In an instant, he was in front of her, right in her face.
Attempting to think of a safe answer, she hesitated.
“Just answer!” he yelled.
To avoid meeting those knowing eyes of his, she looked away. “You may need me, you…”
He lifted her up and they both floated from the floor.
Startled, Kami gazed down at the ground.
“You do not lie, remember?” he accused.
“I came because we—” Her words faltered.
Taylor shook her. “Why is it so hard to just tell me?”
“I love you!” she yelled to his face.
“You what?” He blinked with surprise.
“I want to be with you, I need to—be with you.”
He set her down and took a step back. “I don’t believe you.”
Kami’s eyes rounded. “You know I cannot lie, Taylor.” Her lip trembled.
“There’s something not right about all of this.” He gazed around with suspicious eyes. “You’re keeping something from me.”
Nervous, she gulped again.
“Tell me what the council said.” Taylor crossed his arms over his chest. “Exactly what they said.” He countered her subterfuge with direct a question
. “To you.”
Kami stared down at the cave floor. “You will turn to pure light soon.” Her voice was soft.
“What?” He dropped his arms down and stepped closer.
“This sun spirit will be all that you are soon, unless…” She gazed up at him.
Taylor pulled her body to him. “Unless?” he urged.
“You marry and mate with…” She stared into his eyes. “A Hualapai bride.”
His eyes narrowed. “You?”
Slowly, she nodded her head.
Astounded, he let her go. “They ordered you to come here and…” His eyes rounded. “Go to bed with me?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not like that, it—”
“So, if they tell you to go and screw someone, you’ll do it?” he shouted into her face.
Tears came into her eyes. “No. You know I wanted you before they—I want to be with you!”
Taylor let go of her. “This is all so crazy, so surreal!” He sighed and moved to gaze at the glowing fire. “How long do I have?”
Kami stared at his profile in the firelight. “How many times have you turned to light?”
Rolling his eyes up as though he were concentrating, he shrugged. “I don’t know; five, maybe six times?”
With a fearful gasp, her hand rose up to her mouth.
“Why, what does it mean?” He looked concerned.
“Is it five or is it six?”
“I really don’t know,” he answered
“Seven sunrises, they said.” She wrung her hands together.
“And then what?” he asked in a quiet tone.
“You become spirit and will be human no more,” Kami quoted Nonni’s words.
“Maybe it’s for the best.” He let out a cold laugh.
At the cold statement, Kami gasped.
“I have wasted my life on greed and avarice.” He let out a cold laugh. “Piling up money and brokering power.” He started to laugh almost hysterically. “A lot of fucking good it did me!”
Staring at his face, she trembled with fear that he may be serious.
“Taylor Scott can’t broker or buy his way out of this one!” he shouted with a laugh. It echoed through the cave and the fire rose up as though his feelings were an energy which vibrated through the huge space around them.
Tame Me: A Filthy Billionaire Romance Page 29