“What do you mean?” she asked, blinking at him. Heal her like his body healed itself?
“For me to heal you, your mind must be open to mine. I tried to help in the forest after you ministered to me, but I was either too weak or your mind was too closed. Lean forward a little bit and let me see what Pathos did to you.”
He urged her to sit up, still in his lap, her bottom nestled into the crook of his hard thighs. Before she could even think about what to do next, he lifted her shirt up to her underarms.
“Why do you mortals insist on wearing clothes? They are only a hindrance as far as I can tell. They limit movement and keep hidden your softness and your beauty.”
She gasped and clamped her arms over her exposed breasts as a shock of desire sent her pulse racing. The cocoon of care his warm strength had created had become a hothouse with the mere shifting of her shirt.
“Trust me,” he said, sliding the palm of his hand against her back, just along the curve of her hip. Her nipples hardened, pressing into her palms covering her breasts, and she bit her lip. “You ministered to me. Now I must to you.”
She did him, and now he was going to do her? Sort of a tit for tat. Not funny, Annette. No doing and no tits for tats. He’s not tat. Everything she’d felt when he’d touched her before rushed through her again. She sucked in air to stop herself passing out.
“Annette?” he asked softly.
Angling to see his face in the shadows, she studied his dark eyes in the play of light the moon had slipped through the room. His rugged features were drawn into lines of concern, softening their warrior-like harshness despite the rough edge of his beard-shadowed jaw. He earnestly meant what he said, as if he were the healer and she a patient.
It made her feel prudish to resist taking off her shirt. She was in the medical profession, for heaven’s sake, and by necessity dealt with nudity every day, but how could she just bare all, with him—with the man who made her body burn? Even the thought of it sent a fissure of fire right to her center. The combination of his sex appeal and her sex deprivation was proving to be more than she could resist.
Grabbing her shirt hem, she pulled it over her head and held the slightly damp knit against her breasts.
He set both his hands on her back, and a bone-warming heat penetrated deeply into her muscles. His touch was light, fluid, and made her ache to feel it—everywhere.
That thought had her so distracted that she missed what he was doing until she heard him speaking, low and softly mesmerizing, in a language she didn’t know. He’d moved until his hands were now pressing against what she knew was her raw, scraped skin, yet she felt no pain. Instead a deep, tingling warmth spread down her spine and radiated outward in waves of pleasing sensation, sensual sensation, warm and beautiful. Her body seemed to be melting and floating at the same time, and she closed her eyes to absorb what was happening to her, feeling so good she didn’t even question the why or how of it.
Suddenly, it seemed that his hands were just where she wanted them to be. She could almost imagine his mouth and tongue were claiming her as he drove the hard fullness of his erection straight to the exploding center of her entire being.
Aragon felt his spirit slip intimately around Annette’s as he concentrated on easing her pain and healing the scrape that ran the length of her back. He could sense lingering traces of Pathos’s scent upon her and was determined to eradicate it, soothing his touch upon her soft skin. That the vile beast had marked her angered him, made him more determined than ever to stop—
His breath caught, and his mortal flesh hardened again, as it had when she’d summoned him to her bath and his body had pressed so closely to hers. The desire grew as images exploded into his mind, images of touching her everywhere with his hands and his mouth. Images of him mating his flesh to hers, claiming her with a passion that felt like liquid fire in his veins.
He knew of mortal mating, but he’d never imagined himself doing so, not in any of his spirit forms, or even of mortals doing so with each other. It was never a part of his awareness as a spirit being. But now he couldn’t see anything else. He wanted her. It was like a driving hunger inside him that urged him to know her completely.
By Logos, what was he doing? She’d trusted him, and here he was taking advantage of that trust. Just as he was about to jerk his hands off her, she groaned with such sensual satisfaction that he realized he’d melded into her mind and being so deeply within her he was seeing her thoughts.
She was picturing him mating with her. The sudden raw vividness of what he saw shook him, made him burn, made him need, made him want the fullness of that desire to be happening at that second and not just in their minds. He wanted to touch her breasts and mold their softness to his need. He wanted to kiss her so deeply that they were but two halves of a whole. He felt as if they were mating, that the hardness of his flesh was buried deep inside her and the world was erupting like a star bursting from a dark cloud in the heavens.
He stopped chanting and opened his eyes. The images disappeared, and he found himself as he’d been just moments ago. His hands were still pressed firmly to Annette’s now healed wound, but everything was different somehow. He was different. She was different. He slid his hands up her soft back to her shoulders and pulled her back against the heat of his chest and the aching flesh of his groin. She arched against him. His lips pressed into the silk of her hair, and his heart raced like a wild wind.
He needed more of her, of her scent that was so sweetly lush and alive. Gardenia. He ran his fingers into her hair and luxuriated in the feel. It was like a rolling wave of midnight, teeming with hidden fire. Without her shirt, her skin glowed in the moonlight.
“Why do you hide your beauty so?” He buried his nose in the silky tresses, breathing deeply of their sweetness before he slid his fingers down to her shoulders and around to her breasts. She groaned and arched to his touch, filling his hands with their hot fullness. Their peaks grew hard, begging more of his touch. “What magic is this?” he whispered, brushing his thumbs over the tips.
She groaned, turning to face him. Her lips were parted as if awaiting his. She opened her eyes slowly, and he saw the core of fire he sought flaming in them. The passion, the need, the desire, were all there, staring starkly at him. But there was more, a deep and painful vulnerability that made her appear as fragile as a mist in the wind. At that moment he realized he was seeing directly into the naked heart of a mortal for the first time. And the responsibility of protecting such a treasured soul awed him, humbled him. He leaned forward, pressing his lips to hers.
Annette erupted the moment Aragon’s lips connected with hers. He’d stolen the last of her sanity with his touch, luring her to such a sharp sensual edge that she could only plunge over it. She shifted in his lap, pressing against the hard jut of his erection as she brought her breasts against the firm contours of his hot chest while her tongue slid along his lower lip, then delved into his mouth. She wanted him to take his tentative kiss to the limit, and urged him every way she knew how. And after a moment’s hesitation, he didn’t disappoint her. His tongue met and clashed with hers, and his arms wrapped tighter around her, crushing her closer to him.
She couldn’t get enough as she ran her hands along the solid ripples of his arms and the broad plane of his chest, urging him to pull off his shirt so that she could explore every nuance of him, feeling the rush of his pulse, the silk of his hair between her fingers, and the rough edge of his jaw. She pressed him back until they were lying on the sofa, both naked from the waist up, his legs spread wide with her planted between them. She arched against the hard ridge of his erection, teasing the heated flesh with the press of her sex through the cover of their clothes. She reveled in the deep, wanting groan that rumbled through him, and she drank greedily of his passion, pressing for more.
“I’ve never wanted anyone like this before,” she cried, impatiently wanting to feel his mouth on her breasts and everywhere. She moved against him, shifting to offer her b
reasts to the fire of his tongue.
“And I’ve never known desire or this mortal mating before,” he gasped, gazing at her, looking dazed and needy.
Annette blinked as the wave of cold reality hit her.
Chapter Eight
H E’D NEVER KNOWN DESIRE? He was a virgin? Good heavens. She’d rocketed right out of her mind at his touch. She’d been all over him, grinding him into the couch just like she’d imagined backing him against the wall. He wasn’t a two-by-four stud looking for a screw. What sort of advantage was she taking of his innocence?
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, easing back from him and out of his embrace.
He shook his head as if confused as he angled up from the couch.
She shut her eyes against the mind-blowing display of his broad chest, rippling abs, and hard erection tenting his sweatpants. “This shouldn’t have happened. This is wrong. I’ll be right back.”
“No, wait,” he said, reaching for her.
She shook her head and ran from the room, fleeing the voice inside her head that urged her to forget any sense of responsibility she might have to an innocent being, one who knew so little of her world.
Once inside her bedroom, she pressed her back to the door and froze. Not because of any pain from her injury, but because there was none. Rushing over to the mirror on her dresser, she turned her back, finding nothing but the faint lines of a healed claw mark running down her back. Only a smear of dried blood on her lower back provided evidence of how deeply she’d been scraped. She tentatively touched her spine, utterly amazed. He’d healed her. This spirit being capable of changing into a fierce beast and back again had healed her.
And changed her, she thought as she turned and saw herself in the mirror. She looked decadent. The long waves of her dark hair framed her full breasts, which still ached to experience the heat of his mouth and the torturous pleasure of his slow touch.
The searing need he’d awakened within her stunned her as much as his healing of her wound. He’d protected her at cost to himself, and how had she repaid him? Literally attacking him, then running like a coward.
Going through her private door to the bathroom, she dipped a washcloth into her scented, now cold, bathwater and cleaned her skin all over, trying to soothe the fever in her blood. It barely helped. Toweling off, she put on sweats; then, after digging the amulet out of her pocket, she dumped her jeans into the hamper. Her sweats didn’t have pockets, and she didn’t want to part with the amulet. She finally gave in and slipped the amulet around her neck for the first time, burying it under the sweatshirt.
Just as she was about to band her hair back into a safe knot, she realized the flash drive wasn’t hanging around her neck, and hadn’t been there when she and Aragon had almost made love…
“Hell,” she cried. She remembered feeling it in place at the clinic. When had she lost it? Heart kicking into a panicked beat, she ran from her bedroom and right into Aragon’s arms. He hadn’t put his shirt back on, and the supple heat of him flared over her senses again.
“What is wrong?” he demanded, thrusting her behind him as if danger were fast on her heels.
She clutched his arm, sliding her fingers along his muscles longer than needed to get his attention. Heaven help her, but the shadowed profile of his stubbled jaw and rugged features made her racing heart miss a beat. His tall, dark, and dangerous sex appeal wasn’t for the faint of heart.
“There’s no danger,” she assured him. “It’s just that I have lost something very important, a string with a plastic and metal tube on it. I have to find it.”
He held up his hand, dangling the flash drive by the string he’d wound between his fingers. “You dropped this as you fled.”
“That’s it.” She reached for it, relief flooding her until he moved it beyond her grasp.
“This time I make the conditions. Tell me why you ran away just now.”
“This calls for coffee.”
“Coffee?”
“Liquid heaven.” Unfortunately, she didn’t have the electricity to fix a fresh pot. What was left from earlier would have to do. She led him to the kitchen, realizing that she was starving. Besides, they both needed something to distract themselves, and the last she’d eaten anything was a sandwich in her office hours and hours ago. Scrounging around in the dark, she grabbed some strawberries and cheese and crackers from the fridge, then poured two cups of warm sludge from the coffeepot.
Handing him the coffee cups, she took up the snack. They’d probably be safer staying in the kitchen, but they would need light and heat from the fireplace.
“Set those here,” she said as she placed the snack tray on the coffee table. Then she moved over to the gas logs, lighting them. Warmth radiated, and a soft glow filled the room. When she finally turned to look at Aragon, she found him on the sofa, leaning back against the overstuffed cushions, studying her. Between the burn of his gaze and the bulk of his size, he’d turned the large sofa into an instant love seat.
She went to the coffee first. After grabbing her cup, she handed him his before she dared to sit. “We’ll eat before we talk.”
He frowned as if the idea didn’t sit well with him, but he didn’t argue. After a moment, he sniffed the coffee. “What did you call this?”
“Heaven in a cup, known as coffee,” she said, taking a bracing sip. Not bad for just warm and old.
He followed her example and grimaced as he swallowed, then firmly set the cup on the table next to the couch. “You’re mistaken. Hell is a more apt description for such a brew. Heaven is…” His gaze dropped to her lips, and he frowned again. “Why did you run a—”
“Have a strawberry,” she said, picking up one, twisting off the tiny green leaves at the top, and handing it to him. “They’re sweeter.”
How in the world could she explain that she had a moral obligation not to take advantage of his innocence? Not to mention the fact that they’d known each other all of…oh, God…eight, nine hours. It didn’t seem possible. It seemed a hundred times that. A thousand times that. What had happened to her?
His eyes widened as he bit into the strawberry. He sucked in a deep breath of air, then chewed. She watched him eat five more as if they were seductive ambrosia. She watched the way his mouth opened for the fruit and how his tongue would come out just enough to catch the juice as his teeth bit into its ripeness.
And not a damn bit of what she saw was cooling her ardor.
Just before he bit into the next one, his gaze met hers. “You’re not eating? Here.” He brought the strawberry to her mouth. She had little choice but to take it. As her lips closed around the fruit, he brushed his thumb over her lips, sending a jolt of fire right to her center. Her toes curled, her nipples hardened, and everything else in between went damper than before, if possible.
He made her want more than strawberries. And he wanted more than strawberries. She grabbed her coffee and gulped. Strawberries were becoming dangerous. She kept picturing him, her, and strawberries, tasting their juicy sweetness—everywhere.
“I like sweet,” he said. “You’re sweet. I would taste you both.” He moved toward her.
She choked and set her coffee down. Could he read her mind? God, if he kissed her now, she’d be sunk.
Standing up, she moved away from him, dragging in much-needed air. She couldn’t seem to stop this burgeoning desire between them.
He followed, moving up behind her. “Do you fear me?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s just that—”
“What?” He set his hands on her shoulders and leaned in to brush his lips against the nape of her neck. Her knees nearly buckled.
“Why does this fire between us frighten you?”
She sighed. “Don’t you understand that I don’t want to cause you harm? And we, well, we barely know one another. Making love is more than assuaging the desire that flares between a man and a woman. It’s an affirmation of what two people feel for one another inside their hearts. An expression of
caring for another person that is given after they’ve spent time together and are sure about what they feel.” There, she thought, feeling a flood of relief. Now he would understand.
He was so silent for so long that she had to swing around and look at him.
He stood, studying her with a sadness in his eyes that pulled at her heart.
She sucked in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He turned away from her and faced the fire. “You haven’t. Those things of which you spoke are there—you’ve felt them from me, and you’ve given them to me. There is a connection of spirits between us that cannot be denied. Perhaps that is why you are able to summon me to your side. You must know that I ache to share more with you, to know this fullness of pleasure and the feelings you evoke within me before my time upon the mortal ground ends.”
“What do you mean?” Annette’s heart jolted, and her body chilled. The thought of him not being here cut at her. “How long are you here for? How will your time end?”
“I know not the answers to those questions. A day. Longer. Shorter. My fate no longer rests within my power to change. I don’t even know what has given me this substance within the mortal realm.”
Annette bit her lip. She had a suspicion of what had connected them, of what made his presence so strong. She slipped his amulet from around her neck and held it out to him. “Here. Maybe this will explain a lot.”
He turned, and his dark eyes widened with surprise, but he didn’t speak and didn’t reach for the amulet. He just stared at it. “You keep it,” he whispered.
“Isn’t it yours?” She slid her fingers over the raised twelve-point star on the face of the dark gold disk, still awed by its iridescence and heat.
“Was mine,” he replied, his voice harsh. “I proved unworthy of its honor. I left it at the Sacred Stones because I knew my brethren would search there for me.” He turned away from her and paced across the room. “Where did you find it?”
“At the Sacred Stones this morning. I prayed for an answer to where my sister was, and I found the amulet in the same place my sister’s backpack had been found after she disappeared. It was after Jared—”
The Lure of the Wolf Page 11