A Love Neverending

by Rowan Larke

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  The second his lips touched hers, everything else faded away. The demands Mihai was making on her other body disappeared beneath the needs this body was insisting be fulfilled. Her world narrowed to the feel of Jason's lips, the slow intrusion of his tongue into her mouth, his hands twining ever so gently in her hair. A fierce, agonizing need flared between her thighs, a wet heat demanding release. And still he coaxed her. Convincing, persuading, soothing her, all with his tongue and his lips.

  She moved, intending to maneuver herself over him, but he followed her movement so that she found herself splayed out on her back, Jason moving over her, though holding himself so his weight didn't pin her down. When his tongue thrust into her mouth, the pain—the need—

  between her legs throbbed. She moaned in her throat, unwilling to release his mouth, his tongue, even to give voice to her desire.

  His name resounded in her mind—a wail. A wish. A wish granted, she realized, and with the thought, she became frantic. She wrapped her legs around his thighs, pulling his hips against hers. She ground against him like an animal in heat. Needing. She helped him out of his jacket, his shirt, and licked at the skin of his chest, his shoulder, his neck. She wanted to reach more of him, but the angle was wrong, and she wasn't willing to let him go, even to allow herself access. She'd been without him long enough.

  “Jason,” she murmured. Begging. Though she wasn't sure what she was asking for. Thankfully he seemed to know exactly what she wanted. In a matter of seconds, they were both naked, his body pressed along hers, skin against skin. She writhed beneath him so her clit was massaged by the ridge of his hip.

  He moved, breaking the contact, and she bit back a sob. “Don't,” she begged. Don't go…

  …don't stop…

  …don't leave…

  …don't let this be a dream…

  …don't let me be taken away from you…

  He looked at her then, and his eyes—a chocolate brown she'd always thought of as velvet soft—blazed within his face. “No,” he whispered, and his voice was ragged. He shook his head slowly, disbelief and fear and anger in his expression.

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  Clarissa stilled beneath him, aware only that something was wrong. Something had changed. He didn't want her. She moved, planning to sit up and find some dignity behind the shield of her clothes. He forestalled her movements, gripping her hands in his, feathering kisses along her wrist. She watched him, confused and aroused and resentful he could make her feel so much so easily.

  “I've watched you,” he told her. He met her gaze, willing her to know what he meant, but she shook her head. No. He didn't mean what it sounded like. He hadn't… watched…that. “For the last year, I've haunted the club. And I've watched you…” She shook her head in denial, but he kept talking. “I've seen you”—he had to clear his throat so she'd be able to hear him—“with other men. What you make them do.” His voice faltered, and she could hear the tears and frustration he was barely keeping at bay. “Don't be gentle,” he spat.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, and Jason nodded. “You watched?”

  “Every time.”

  “Why?” She shook beneath him. Naked and trembling, she felt cold as gooseflesh broke over her skin.

  “You were punishing yourself. Being…with them. Letting them do what they did. It was only fair I punish myself right along with you. Since it was my fault.”

  “Jason.” she sobbed. She wanted nothing more than to ease his pain. To ease her own. To stop the ache that throbbed within her with every damn heartbeat since he'd died. “I'm sorry,” she murmured, over and over again, until he pressed a kiss on her lips to stop her. She moaned when he pulled away.

  “I've missed you,” she whispered, afraid she'd shatter the moment again but unable to not say it. How long did they have? How much time? The thought was enough to spur her to action. She was going to make the most of it. She needed him. Only him. Always him.

  “Don't,” she said again, and he glowered at her. He growled, and she was startled…and her need ramped up at the sound. Jason had always been the only one to work her up like this. The only one who could make her want him with a word, a sound, a look. “Don't make me beg,” she said, and saw relief and need and pain flare in his eyes.

  “I'm not going to hurt you,” he whispered, and she nodded. Of course he wouldn't. She didn't want him to. His tongue was on her neck, trailing down her skin, between her breasts. He

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  nuzzled the inside of her breasts before kissing his way across one to suckle at her nipple. Circling it with his tongue, he waited until it was taut before he took it carefully between his teeth, tightening his grip slowly, so slowly she barely knew when he crossed from pleasure to pleasure-pain, and sobbed in agonized relief when he let her go. It continued to tingle with awareness as he treated the other nipple the same, and she wanted to scream with need. Her hips lifted, arching her body into his, melding her hips to his stomach and chest. He smiled—she could feel the way his mouth moved against her chest—before he kissed his way down her stomach, along the edge of the triangle of hair at the apex of her legs. His breath taunted her clit to awareness before he nipped at the sensitive flesh of her thigh. Squirming beneath him, she wanted to beg. For the feel of his tongue on her, inside her. For release. He chuckled, and his breath fanned across her clit, dragging her awareness back between her legs. Deeper, into her own aching need.

  Then his tongue swirled around the desperate piece of flesh, and she groaned. Her attention, her need, her everything, collapsed within herself, narrowing to that one bit of sensation. She writhed beneath him.

  His touch was so gentle. His tongue swirled, so there were moments he almost wasn't touching her at all—yet she was focused on nothing but him. Could feel nothing but him. She arched her hips again, demanding. Needing. “Please, Jason,” she murmured and felt him chuckle against her. The heat of his breath against her supersensitive flesh was enough to flip her into orgasm, and she sobbed at the sudden fury that blazed through her. He nipped at her during the height of it, sending her spiraling higher, further into fulfillment. Still shattered by her climax, fragmented into pieces of consciousness—her clit, her breasts, the sudden pounding of her heart—she moaned in startled pleasure when he slid inside her. She tightened around him, reveling in the feel of him, and delighted in the low moan he gave as she did.

  “I've missed you,” he whispered into her mouth before claiming it with a kiss. He lifted himself above her, bracing his weight with his arms so he could hold her gaze while he slid slowly, torturously out of her. He adjusted to allow her to hook her ankles on his shoulders, and although he grinned lazily, she saw the sudden glazing of his eyes and knew it felt just as good for him.

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  He looked down and watched where their bodies were joined, but she focused on his face, trying to recapture every detail. To see if she'd forgotten anything—though she hadn't. Need built within her again, and she wriggled her hips to encourage him to speed up. He slowed down.

  She laughed and bit her lip when he gave her a falsely stern glower. “You don't laugh at a man when he's inside you, Clarissa. It hurts his feelings.” He slid his hands down her body to cup her ass, lifting her into him, grinding his hips against hers. She moaned as the friction of his pelvic bone on her oversensitized clit shattered her thoughts, and she was once again nothing but sensation.

  He slid in and out of her with slow, careful thrusts designed to keep her on the edge of need. He held her gaze, laughter and delight and torment shining in the depths of his eyes. He slowly increased their tempo, stoking her toward orgasm with a steadiness she wanted to hate. But the sweetness of it made her every protestation fall from her lips as a moan. Her orgasm tightened within her, the muscles of her thighs, stomach, and ass clenching and relaxing in a rhythm slightly
faster than the one he'd set. He sped to match her, and she held his gaze through the rising haze of lust and fulfillment. His arms bunched, and his eyes glazed. Beads of sweat stood out on his skin, and she barely resisted the urge to lean forward and lick them away.

  But only because he felt so good right where he was. Because he was hitting a spot within her that was tension and relief at once. Because she was already throwing her head back in a soundless scream as she fell through her orgasm. He groaned above her, his body tightening all at once, pounding fiercely into her as he milked the last of his orgasm from his body. He groaned loudly, and she realized she'd clenched her muscles tight around him, though she hadn't planned any such thing.

  It felt…amazing. Right. Perfect.

  Like every time had always felt. Softness and warmth and…love. Her eyes slid closed, and she became aware of a pair of hands moving over her stomach, her chest, her neck. With frustration, she realized what she felt was Mihai, trying to revive her body. Not yet, she told him, though of course he couldn't hear. No! She screamed it at him in her

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  mind. I'm not leaving. But already she could feel the pull of that body, the insidious tethers of her living flesh.

  “I love you,” she whispered to Jason, and tears slid from her eyes to coat her cheekbones in moisture. She couldn't say good-bye. Instead she lifted her head to meet his eyes, which were moist with unshed tears. “I love you,” she said again and was rewarded with his voice, soft and resonant in her ears, echoing within her chest.

  “I love you.”

  She pressed her hand to her chest, as if she could trap his words there, and felt a rope, like silk, between her fingers. She followed the line of it from the corner of her eye and saw it end at Jason. This was the tie that bound them, even beyond his death. She smiled. Even if she went back, they were forever bound. A love neverending.

  Then she was dragged away from him by slow, insistent fingers. Backward, through the tunnel of brambles. Only now she understood what they were. They were the bonds, the connections she should have made in the world she lived in. The people who tried to be her friends, who tried to make relationships with her. They were life. They turned into fingers—grabbing, clutching—dragging her away. She fought, struggling, kicking, and thrashing, but they didn't let go. Instead, they tightened, becoming manacles and chains binding her to a life she no longer wanted.

  When she reached the tunnel's mouth, the sound of something tearing filled her ears—the tunnel's mouth, the world itself—and she watched as the crimson tether that bound her to Jason stretched, spiraling away into the darkness toward him like a ribbon of blood. Clarissa screamed.

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  Chapter Eleven

  “Oh shit, Tamiel. What have you done?” Mihai fell to his knees at Clarissa's side, watching the livid bruises bloom around her neck. He sat back on his haunches, tears filling his eyes. Since the first day he'd met her, he'd been afraid of this day. He'd worked to try to avoid this. To avoid staring into those dead and vacant eyes.

  Tamiel walked into her life, spent a few hours with her, and now she was dead. “I am so sick of losing people to that asshole,” he said. The last word was a guttural roar that scratched his throat as it exited. Tamiel, death, and pain—the usual triumvirate. He stared at Clarissa's face, peaceful in death in a way it had never been in life, and wished it weren't so. Wished he could see regret in her features, or fear. Instead her lifeless features seemed restful. With a sigh, he closed his eyes to avoid looking at her anymore. This was what she'd wanted, from the very beginning.

  “She's coming back.” The familiar voice was loud in the silent room, and Mihai's eyes flew open as he faced the Dark Angel.

  Tamiel crouched at Clarissa's other side. He cradled her head with his huge hands, and the unexpected gentleness gave Mihai pause. Tamiel nodded toward Clarissa, as if he knew that, for a moment, Mihai had thought of someone else entirely. “I did it. Not her.” The Dark Angel's huge shoulders rounded as if he shouldered a burden too heavy for him. Mihai didn't understand. He couldn't grasp the meaning of Tamiel's words, and he felt as though there was some deeper message he should be hearing in them. Not knowing pissed him off.

  “She wanted to die, Mihai. You knew that about her. If she did it herself…” Tamiel swallowed, seemed to force the words out. “You know what that would have meant?”

  Mihai shook his head.

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  Tamiel smiled quickly. Sadly. “You never understood what I was, did you?” The softness in Tamiel's voice was too much to bear. “I'm a Dark Angel, Mihai. Not named so because of my skin color but because of the work I do. I reap the souls of…difficult deaths. Souls of suicides are my…specialty.” Tamiel's lips gave a sardonic twist to the last word. “Clarissa wanted to do it herself.” His voice was so hoarse, Mihai had to wonder how he made any sound at all. Maybe he didn't. Maybe Mihai was simply reading the words on Tamiel's lips. “All those men before me, they were supposed to do it for her. Suicide by the hands of another. But if I hadn't come tonight, I think she would have done it herself. And she would have paid the price. Suicides go on to their next life, and they struggle from the moment they are born, as payment for the choice they made.”

  His next words were strangled. His lips barely moved. As if he'd decided not to say anything but was speaking anyway. “It was my fault.” Mihai focused on Tamiel's face, trying to catch the words before the pain began. “I fucked up the reap of her boyfriend, a few years ago. She's been tethered to him ever since.” Tamiel's eyes were haunted then. “Living her life, incapable of creating new connections with new people. Wanting nothing more than to die because the most sensitive part of herself, the most critical to her well-being, was tethered to a man who was dead and in limbo.”

  Mihai felt a wave of dizziness crash over him. “You?” It wasn't what he'd wanted to say. He'd meant to show sympathy, understanding, but all he'd managed was his shock. The expression on Tamiel's face—the pain and sadness—made Mihai wish he could take it back, but his teeth ground against each other as he fought not to feel any closeness to Tamiel. He was the enemy.

  “Yeah.” A single word, so full of self-loathing and recrimination. “My fault. So when I saw her tonight—when I understood what had happened to her—I…helped her.”

  Mihai bristled. “How did you help her?”

  Tamiel's closed his eyes, opened them again, and fixed his gaze on Mihai's, unwavering as he spoke. “I helped her cross to see Jason. To say good-bye. By my hands, instead of hers, so she wouldn't have to pay the price. But now she has to come back.”

  Mihai swallowed again. Coming back was harder than crossing. More painful. You could help, an insidious voice whispered inside his head. He closed his eyes, trying to avoid the

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  temptation—temptation was the devil's work. But it hadn't been so hard to ignore his powers for almost a century. Not since Eden.

  Memory and the current moment collided. Tamiel had been there then, and moments later, Eden was gone. Tamiel had said he dealt with suicides, hadn't he? Did that mean Eden, too?

  Mihai's eyes slipped closed, as if somehow that could brace him against the pain. Instead, deprived of distractions, something stirred in a distant part of his mind. A monster reawakening. His lids flew open, and he found himself facing Clarissa's peaceful face. Beneath her flesh he could see her soul, could see the struggle she was facing to return home. He could see her pain.

  With a muttered oath, he made his decision. He'd been given a power, and as hard as it was to wield, walking away from it hadn't helped anyone. He closed his eyes. Ridding himself of his power had been like stuffing fog into a box, scooping handfuls of something with no substance and putting it away. Locking it away. He'd cut himself off from his power, but he hadn't fallen. Apparently that was a right granted only to the Light and Dark, not to their
half-breed bastards. He reached with shaking mental hands for the box, specifically the chains that surrounded it. Picking up where he'd left off would carry more consequence than walking away. The punishment his brethren believed he'd escaped would be made public to them, and that would only be the beginning. His proclivities would be laid bare. But he could help her. He opened his eyes and looked at Clarissa. Inside his mind, tendrils of his power seeped from the edges of the box. Not enough yet to commit him to any course of action, but taunting him with their closeness. With how easily they escaped. Staring at her face, at the livid bruises on her neck shaped suspiciously like very large fingertips, he steeled himself. Flicking his wrists, he coiled the tendrils of smoke around them, drawing his power back to himself, wielding it like a pair of whips. He would use them to lash out. Against Tamiel. For Clarissa, and for Eden.

  With a will of its own, his long-ignored talent flooded him with electric pulsing. He'd forgotten how it felt. How overwhelming, how frightening. How tenuous his control over it had ever really been. He was the vessel the power used for channeling, but that was the extent of his control. He couldn't make it do anything.

  Ironic that being filled by such power left him feeling powerless.

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  That was the last thought he had. The tendrils of smoke became fog, then an obliterating white noise as the power surged through and around him. Ease her pain, Mihai told it, and it surged forward from him like a pack of ravenous, wild beasts. Even as his talents worked their miracle on his behalf, he felt the rest of the connections he'd severed slip back into place. The panoply. The entire host of angels he'd abandoned. Connections reestablished. A network of minds slid into place around him as if he were a square peg, finally pounded into that round hole. He bit back a scream and let it all happen. This was the price he'd known he'd have to pay to help her. And all he could give her was some relief from her pain. Nothing more.