by Joey W. Hill
“I’m not sure I understand.”
He shrugged. “Lot was the guy bent over me right after it happened. He probably saw that same look on my face you’ve seen, but it wasn’t for him. What happens when you look at someone is fatal, right? There’s going to be a pretty fast and terrifying chain of reactions through their whole body and brain.”
Perhaps her ability to kill with her gaze made her a monster, intent aside, but intent was the difference between saving a soul and losing one, right? Yeah, acts against those like the old woman and her grandson couldn’t be ignored. He’d killed and had regrets, and those regrets were sharp, piercing him to the core and waking him in the middle of the night. He wouldn’t be the idiot asshole who trivialized her crimes, but he’d damn well stand at her side to balance that scale with other viewpoints.
Yet he also knew how much helping the damaged submissives had helped him with that scale. It would never be level again, no, but somehow being able to throw pebbles into the plate opposite the boulder of his past had given him room to breathe again. She’d been trapped on this island, no chance to do that, and it was clear the result was guilt and bitterness that could eat her alive in the darker moments. And if more enemies kept coming, men with wrongheaded thinking but not necessarily all with wrong hearts…
A problem for another day. Dropping to one knee, holding her hand, his other at her waist, he lifted his face to her. “If you could simply want, without worrying about any of the rest, what would you want from me, my lady? What could I give you?”
“I have continued to ask you why you are here. I think, the last time, when you told me of your life before, that was a great deal of it for you.”
He nodded, and she shifted under his touch. “But I feel like there is still a piece missing. Like why is this important to Maddock? Why did he do this, help you get here? I must have your honesty, John Pierce. You seem to want me to give all that I am to you. My trust, my soul, my heart. But I must know you better. You understand?”
“Yeah. I do.” The first time he and Maddock had sat down and JP gave him a real shot at convincing him of his lunacy, the scientist-wizard had put it in words he could understand. He would give them to her now. He wouldn’t hold back this time, no matter how crazy it probably would sound.
“There isn’t a grand purpose to it, not really. We tend to judge progress through battles and territory, wealth and prosperity. Some judge it based on what they can take—like the body of a virgin priestess, no matter her own feelings about it.”
Tension strummed through her fingers and increased his hold on them. “But Maddock believes in powers deeper and stronger than men or what men call gods. A connecting energy, like all the drops of water in the oceans. To those powers, the point isn’t to win a war that’s already been lost, or to stop a death that turned bones to dust long ago. It’s to heal a broken heart. Because that can cause a ripple effect in the universe impacting everyone.
“Maddock believes the key to all of it isn’t saving the world, but one soul at a time. That’s how he talked me into this. Because I wasn’t interested in saving the world. I’ve been down that road and know how pointless that is. I came here to save you. And Maddock believes, when those souls start adding up, the selfishness of a selfless love might just save us all.”
He shifted. “But that just makes me sound like the hero, and the truth is it’s two way. What I said about my mom, pointing out how lonely you must have been? I heard it as an answer to what was inside of me. Always lonely. Always feeling alone, even in a crowd.”
Feeling her gaze on him and trapped in the darkness of the blindfold, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from giving her more than he’d intended. “Probably the second worse thing I remember about my job was this kid. Four years old. He died, shot in my arms while we were trying to get him out. He was crying for his mommy until his last breath. Then he was gone. Ten years before that, there was a woman, another undercover agent in the DEA. She and I worked close together on a job, but she got strung out…addicted to the drugs we were trying to stop. She switched sides so she could pay for her habit. When I confronted her, she blew her brains out in front of me rather than face prison as a cop.”
He wasn’t explaining the terms that might be unfamiliar, but her hand fell onto his wrist, gripping, and he knew he didn’t need to explain.
“Lot was the one who took me to Maddock. Before the two of them, I’d always been kind of on my own, had never had what I considered family. I was in pretty bad shape after that op with the kid, physically and emotionally. Being so badly shot, all of it piled up on me. Lot helped me…figure it out. When I got out of all that, I was helping women who had been through things like you had been. For the first time in a long time, I felt clean and real. And then he introduced me to Maddock.”
“Oh.” Her hand drew away. “So I am a mission of sorts, like the others. Which is as you said at the beginning.”
“Yes, and no.” He cocked his head. “You’re kind of getting mad at me, aren’t you, thinking that I see you as another woman in need of rescuing?”
When she said nothing, he felt a tightness in his chest that wasn’t unpleasant. “That actually makes me feel good, thinking that it matters to you, that I see you as special. You are, Medusa. I said the women were like you, but I never took one for myself. No one ever belonged to me, and I couldn’t figure out why I had no interest. I thought I’d broken something inside myself, like I was dead.”
He shook his head. “But I kept dreaming about you. When Maddock told me his theory and that how I felt about you was something not only special, but real, it’s like I woke up. To the world I came from, it would sound like the biggest pile of crap, and maybe it does to you, too. No one believes in a fantasy love you’ve dreamed about since you were a kid. One that, when you finally get the chance to meet her, you feel this miraculous moment of ‘Fuck, it was real.’ I don’t expect anything of you. I just—”
“It is a very romantic notion,” she said cautiously, before he could continue the line of thought. “Yet it feels…true.”
“Yeah, doesn’t it?” He was relieved she thought so.
“I suppose it makes sense, to send a man who believes in a bedtime story, to heal the heroine’s heart.”
There was no mockery in her voice. She was speaking sincerely. With belief. His throat went dry. Understanding it himself was one thing; hearing her understand it, the mythical character herself, was nothing short of a miracle.
“So that’s what it’s about, my lady,” he said at last. “That’s all of it. Promise.”
She drew away and paced in front of him. He held his tongue, not sure what she was considering. Then she stopped and put her hands on his face, stroking her thumbs over his cheeks, his eyes. He sensed she was looking hard at him, so hard he could feel the heat of her stare, a peculiar tingling over his skin.
“My lady…”
“Please, be silent another moment.”
So he did. And then she began to unlace the blindfold. His heart thudded to a halt. Her hands were trembling.
“You ask me what I want from you. Yes?”
“Yes,” he said roughly, reaching up to close his hand around one quivering wrist.
“I would lay down my fear and my anger. Lay it at your feet and trust you, John Pierce.” Her voice was as female and vulnerable as he’d yet heard it. “Trust you to care for me. I would have no fear of betrayal and believe there is one moment, one person in my life, who I can trust to lay my head on his heart and know I am safe with him. Whole with him, with no need to be on guard. It is a simple wish, but it is everything to me.”
The blindfold fell away and she was looking at him, and him at her. He saw her shudder, hard, as his gaze rested upon her face. Her body was rigid and her eyes teared with the effort it took to not close them, to risk this. He could tell her heart stopped in that first fateful moment, too, when she fully expected he might be wrong and he would turn to stone right before her eyes
.
He caught both her hands, holding them tight until she could breathe again, until it sank in that Maddock had been right about the contacts. Thank God. He wouldn’t like to be stone, but the true agony for him would have been leaving this life knowing he’d hurt her exactly as she’d feared he would.
Having all the time in the world to gaze upon her now took his breath away. Her eyes like deep garnet gemstones, the riotous mane of black silky hair curling around her fine features and falling to her hips. Her snakes poised at various places on her crown, shoulders or breast. Her slim, athletic body, clad in the sleeveless short top and skirt. Her wings, at half spread behind her, the claw at the joints marked the way her own claws were, with the spell craft that made her this way. This fantastical, noble female.
“I would have you touch me and there be nothing between us but those feelings and sensation,” she said abruptly, reaching up to touch his face. “I want you to take over all of me. Chase away every demon, bring light to every dark corner, and make it clear to me in every way that there is no room in my mind for bad memories or fear. That as you serve me this way, protect me, so I serve you, as I believed I served the Goddess. With room for nothing in my heart, mind and soul but love.”
Her moist lips parted to reveal one small sharp fang worrying her bottom lip. She was thin and small. Christ, too thin, the bones of her shoulders sharp and her face possessing an angularity he expected would disappear with more nourishment. But there was a tough resilience to her features that matched all he’d learned of her since he’d come. Her chin was tilted up and her slim jaw set in a determined line that held back so much emotion, especially in this overwhelming moment. His was the first human face she’d gazed upon without worry in how many years?
Every word she’d spoken to him, every hint of body language he’d picked up, suddenly found this missing piece. In a blink, he knew even more about her, which also came with a whole world of new things to discover.
He smiled at the pleasure of it. Her features eased, as well as showed a flash of gratitude and relief so strong it gripped her like pain. When he reached out and traced her temple, cheek and jaw, she closed her eyes, pressing her face into his hand. Her ringlets of dark silken hair curled over his knuckles, her snakes moving restlessly over her shoulders and his forearm. She’d described them well. Ratqueen looked like the ghost of a large snake, curled at the crown of her head. Tunneltrap and Waterlight were sleek and black. Treebark had the spiky texture and color of a peeling birch tree. Little Earthson had the hue of copper pennies streaked with red. He was a tiny curlicue on her collar bone, watching JP.
Her wings were at half fold, as if she’d considered taking off in that first second. JP hooked his fingers in the shoulder strap of her laced top, his thumb making a slow, sensual pass over the jumping pulse at the base of her throat.
“Thinking of flying away from me, snake-girl?”
She swallowed beneath his touch. As he increased the range of his stroke, he was fiercely delighted at her response. When he glided the rough pad of his thumb up and down that small section of her throat, her chin lifted to give him more access.
“You don’t look like you would allow that.”
Her choice of words was a shot straight to his groin, making him harden more. “Damn straight. You said you want me to lie with you. I’m not going to let you back out of that.”
The memories of the past warred with the present in her face, and he constricted his grip. “You know the difference between us, Medusa. Don’t let your head fuck with that.”
She shook her head. “No. I won’t. I won’t let it spoil it.”
“Nothing could spoil it. Nothing could spoil a single moment I get to spend with you. How about you let me take things from here, so you don’t have to worry about anything but the way I’m making you feel?”
It was intuitive for him, knowing when he needed to let that part of himself take the upper hand. Though with her speaking those trigger words, he wasn’t sure if he’d summoned his Dom side or she had. Or some combination of both.
A slight nod told him she’d agreed. Moving slow so as to savor the moment as well as not to startle her, he unlaced the short top in front. As he released it, he pushed it away so he could cup and frame her breasts in his large hands. Her eyes half closed again as she leaned into his touch. Stepping closer, he unbelted the tunic, holding onto the braided cord as he let the fabric flutter to her feet. No underwear, so she stood before him naked, a wild creature of myth and legend whose garnet eyes lifted to his and lowered again, her breathing shallow. He bent, holding her chin with two fingers as he pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“Hold your lips open but very still,” he commanded. “I want you to stay as still as one of your stone statues, until I tell you otherwise.”
He would kiss and tease her until her body was quivering so hard that, if had been encased in stone, it would crack and fall away. He played with that sensitive corner of her mouth with tongue and lips, loving the little puffs of her aroused breath on his face, which strengthened as he moved fully over her lips, slipping in to dance with her tongue, trace the fork. She stilled at that, but he didn’t pause, moving on to caress her teeth, then out to the other corner of her lips, to her cheek. Slipping his fingers under her hair, he put his mouth beneath her ear. Her hands were at her sides, the fingers curled.
“Open your hands. Let them stay loose. You’ll stay open to me in all ways, Medusa. No fear, nothing but trust that I’ll take you where you wish to go.”
“Deep inside you,” she whispered.
He lifted his head as her eyes opened. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken, he could tell. “Tell me what you mean,” he said.
“Deep inside you, where there is no thought, nothing but…”
“Surrender.” He supplied her the word she’d used earlier, when she was less vulnerable than she was now. Here she was a babe, shivering and exposed, but he was going to bring her warmth, be her blanket, her refuge. “Surrender and service.”
“Surrender and service,” she repeated, her face paling a little as she probably realized how deep down this road they might go.
“Joy and pleasure,” he added, to help with that. “The way it’s supposed to be.”
“The way it’s supposed to be.”
Repeating his words seemed to be steadying her. He resumed his tasting of her flesh, working over the point of her delicate shoulder. He lifted her hands to his shoulders. “Hold on to me,” he ordered, and picked her up under her arms, bracing her against the wall so he could cup her breasts again. Meeting her gaze briefly, he lowered his and took one sweet peak into his mouth.
She gasped, her head falling back as her claws dug into his shoulders and her legs coiled around him, bringing her core tight against his abdomen. He kneaded her small curves and pushed them together, letting her feel the strength and heat in his hands. His cock strained for contact, but he was going to deny it until he had her truly mindless. He’d told her he’d draw her deep into himself, where she’d be safe from fear or memory, able to experience this fully and purely.
He suckled her breasts, licked the curves, nuzzled and nipped until she was writhing against him, rubbing her cunt unconsciously against his stomach, making it slick with her arousal. He’d love to keep going until she came that way, but he’d save that for another time. Curving his arms around her body, he took her away from the wall and to the bed.
“How are your wings most comfortable when you’re on your back?” he asked in a husky murmur.
“Fully stretched out.”
“Do that.”
She did it as he lowered her, so that she looked like an exotic Goth butterfly unfurling against the pale cloth. The slim arms he told her to put above her head became the graceful antenna. He removed his shorts, adjusting himself as he did so to avoid injury against the zipper, thanks to his engorged size.
Her eyes focused on his loins and briefly widened. He saw a trace of fe
ar as memories that had no place here tried to get a foothold.
“Hey.” He brought her gaze up with the one stern word, spoken in a low voice. “Right here. You look in my eyes, because they tell you the truth. What did I tell you, over and over?”
“That…I’m safe with you.”
“Yeah.” Leaning down, he pressed his mouth to her thigh, worked his way over her hipbone and to her navel, teasing her with his tongue there until she was squirming and giggling, despite herself. He looked up at her, grinning with lustful pleasure. When she met his gaze, he saw her surprise that he’d made her laugh, that he’d chosen to be playful. But it had had the desired effect.
“My buddy Lot said that the Greek women prefer men with smaller equipment. That you’d run screaming from me out of disgust, not fear.”
“He is your friend, so I will not insult him, but I will say he does not know as much as he thinks he does.”
John smiled, then his gaze heated anew. “Spread your legs for me. I want to taste your desire.”
She did, with a lovely little tremble he savored. He dragged moist kisses up along the inside of either thigh, passing so close to her core that his nose brushed her smooth mound. He wondered if the spell craft had made her hairless there or if she kept herself that way, like the neatly trimmed and clean toenails. He wasn’t complaining, because it would make her all the more sensitive to friction. Her clit was swollen, the labia glistening with her juices.
He made a couple more passes, watching the way her hips lifted in little involuntary jerks, her body knowing what it craved even if her mind didn’t. When he put his lips over her labia and clit to indulge a nice, probing taste, she nearly came up off the bed, pressing her cunt to his mouth. He slid his hands beneath her buttocks, gripping tight to hold her still as he licked and got her moaning, her fists grabbing the edge of the bed.