Her Secret

by Tara Fox Hall

  “I thought you were leaving?”

  “It’s less work for Mary. I’m heading out after I tell Danial what happened.”

  “I can tell him.”

  “It doesn’t matter that you’re okay, or that it wasn’t an attack. You were shot. Danial will expect that I report it to him.” Terian moved off into the house. I followed.

  Danial met us in the great room. “Someone shot Sar?” he said, enraged.

  After Terian explained what had happened, Danial calmed down visibly. “You handled it well, Terian,” he said finally, his rage replaced by quiet approval. “Please leave us.”

  Terian nodded. With a last glance at me, he left.

  I stared at Danial silently. I’d had a child with this man, made love with him countless times, and worked side by side with him for the last two years. Yet I couldn’t think of one single thing to say.

  He gave me a soft tender look. “Come,” he said, taking my hand. “I’d like you to see Theoron before Cia puts him down for his nap.” We passed Elle’s room. “She’s already gone,” Danial added. “I didn’t want to risk her presence until I saw how much control you had tonight.”

  “That was wise of you,” I said softly. Despite Elle’s acceptance of Theo, she likely hoped Danial and I would reconcile. “We should come up with something, in case she does see me here with you.”

  We came to Theoron’s room. Cia was there, just taking back an empty stained glass from Theoron. Theoron saw me. “Mommy!” he shrieked.

  I went and took him from Cia, hugging him. “How old are we today?”

  “Daddy!” Theoron shrieked right in my ear. I winced a little.

  “Still young, but getting bigger every day,” Cia replied to me.

  “Say ‘Cia’,” I said to Theoron. “Cia.”

  “C-ah,” he said, saying it phonetically.

  Cia laughed, and took him back from me. “I’ll put him to sleep,” she said, giving us a smile. “Say goodnight, Theo.”

  “Night!” Theoron said with glee. Danial and I both hugged and kissed him, then left quietly.

  “Will she be here the whole time?” I whispered hesitantly as Danial and I walked back into the great room.

  “Yes, but she’ll stay in there with him, and we’ll be in my bedroom, unless your urge to be loved decides on another location.”

  I resisted the urge to grimace, or tell him it wasn’t love. “Why did you want me to come so early?” I asked Danial curiously. “It won’t be dark for another hour yet.”

  Danial pulled me close to him. I was suddenly conscious that he was wearing a robe and nothing else. “Who said we would be going outside until dark, Sar?” he said, every syllable pure seduction.

  I groaned as his lips brushed my face, then came the slight prick of his fangs. Like being encompassed by a tidal wave, I lost myself.

  “Please,” I panted, grasping at him. “Please, I need you Danial—”

  “And I, you,” he replied gutturally. He sucked gently at my neck. I let out a wanton cry, then pushed back from him. Breathing hard, I shoved down my jeans, stripping them off and throwing them aside. Danial was on me instantly, pushing me back to the couch, pulling off my panties and spreading my legs. With a grunt he slid inside and began moving rapidly, his mouth latched to my throat sucking gently.

  I writhed beneath him, moaning and jerking. His hands reached up under my shirt, cupping my breasts beneath my bra. In the midst of pleasure, there suddenly came the pressure of his fangs, then absolute joy as I felt them penetrate me. I pushed up with a jerk, sliding them further in, my orgasm breaking over me as I screamed out my release. Danial jaws worked at my throat, his moans muffled as his movements quickened. Abruptly he came, his fangs coming free as he gave a shout of pure pleasure. Danial pumped his hips a few more times weakly, then let out a contented sigh.

  Damn it, we’d done exactly what we shouldn’t have. I swallowed hard and began to shake under him.

  “Shh, Darling,” Danial said softly in my ear. “Things are not as they seem. I wore protection.”

  I gave him a look of amazement. “How did you manage that?”

  He smiled sexily. “Supernatural speed and forethought. I had one in my pocket ready.”

  I went limp with relief. “But I felt your fangs.”

  “I didn’t drink; I only bit and contracted my jaws lightly. You have only four shallow scratches. They’ll likely heal within the hour.” He grimaced. “But I wasn’t prepared for you to impale yourself on my fangs. I’ll have to watch that next time.” He withdrew and pulled off the condom. “Come in here and finish undressing.”

  I grabbed my discarded clothes and my bag and followed him into his bedroom, where he disposed of the condom. “Thank you for handling me so well,” I said, slipping out of my clothes. “And thank you for getting me a robe.”

  “You’re welcome on both counts,” Danial replied as he sat down on his bed. “The question is did it work?”

  “We won’t know for at least a few hours,” I said, sitting down beside him. “And that’s good, because I need to ask you something serious.”

  Danial’s expression changed to one of mild alarm. “What is it?”

  “I need to store something in your safe,” I said quietly. “Will you let me?”

  “What is it?” he said curiously. “I know you have a safe of your own.”

  I removed the manila envelope I’d brought with me from my bag, and handed it to him. “This.”

  “It’s marked Brennan,” he said. “What’s inside?”

  “Something I don’t want to lose, something I need to keep safe.”

  “In other words, you don’t want to tell me.” He turned to the far wall, and held his hand over it. Magically, the faint outline of a door appeared.

  “I could never figure out how you did that, no matter how many times I watched.”

  “Magic, of course,” Danial said, entering the combination. He opened the door and tucked the envelope inside. “A spell of concealment on an already well-camouflaged compartment.” He shut the door and took his hand away. The outline of the safe faded into smooth and unbroken wall.

  Danial led me over to his bedroom’s small anteroom. The fire within his wood stove was burning cheerily, the warmth relaxing.

  “Sit down with me.”

  I sat down in front of him obediently. When he sat down behind me, I tucked myself into the hollow created by his shoulder and neck, leaning back into his arms.

  “I’ve missed you,” he said softly. “We sat here many nights like this, you and I.”

  Danial had built this room for me. We’d enjoyed it often in the year and a half I’d lived with him. It closely resembled the central room at my house, his wood stove the same model that I had at my home. I’d missed this too, but admitting that would lead to more confessions. “It’s good to be here with you, too.”

  “Now that we’re relaxed, what is inside the envelope?” Danial said pointedly. His arms tightened over me. “It’s clearly something you didn’t want Theo to find. Marking it with the name of your first husband wasn’t safe enough. You had to bring it here.”

  My relaxed mood vanished in an instant. “Poetry from Devlin,” I admitted. “It was in the box with the boots. Theo’s going to be alone in the house tonight, and he knows the safe’s combination. I couldn’t risk him finding it by some freak accident.”

  I didn’t mention the gold choker with Devlin’s emblem of the grizzly bear that was also in the envelope. If Danial discovered that, he would not just be furious, he’d surely destroy it.

  “Who was the poet?” Danial asked.

  “There was a book of poetry and some he’d written himself. I burned the book, but I couldn’t bear to destroy his words to me. No one ever wrote me poetry before.”

  Danial was as tense as a board behind me. “Did he ask you to come to him?”

  “Yes,” I said softly.

  “Then he gave you a way to get in touch with him,” Danial replie
d. “Have you contacted him yet?”

  “No,” I said honestly. “And I’m not going to.”

  “Sar, I know how much you liked being with him,” Danial said jealously. “Don’t tell me you’re not going to go back for seconds now you’ve tasted all that he is.”

  I pulled away angrily and stood. “Don’t presume that you know what I feel for him. Even if it was more than physical with us, which it isn’t, I can’t trust him. Dev wouldn’t restrain himself like you just did, no matter how important it was to my welfare.”

  “Darling,” Danial said sarcastically. “I know exactly what you feel. It’s in your voice like syrup when you speak of him.”

  “If I was going to go with him, I’d have gone when he asked me that night,” I said angrily. “I’m old enough to know that men don’t always mean the words ‘I love you’ even when they say them repeatedly.”

  Danial’s mouth dropped open. “He said that to you? When? During sex?”

  I blushed, casting him a reprimanding look. “He said it many times.”

  “What did you do to him?” Danial said in wonder, looking at me as if he’d never seen me before.

  I blushed deep red, thinking about Devlin’s ardent cries of love as we’d sated ourselves in the front seat of his Hummer. “Nothing, um...abnormal.”

  Danial gently drew me down again and hugged me. “You should have told me this. It explains everything.”

  “Devlin said a lot of things that day, and I’d be surprised if half of them were true,” I said bitterly. “But that’s my fault. I asked him to lie to me, to tell him he cared for me as part of my fantasy. Don’t put too much stock in spoken words.”

  “He may have lied as part of your fantasy, though I’d be surprised even at that,” Danial said slowly. “Dev is always very careful and deliberate about the words he says, even when he seems flippant. In any case, he would never have lied after the sex was done. What would be the point? He’d have just told you goodbye and left.”

  “There was weirdness,” I said conspiratorially. “He gave me lines about wanting to change, and others about how he didn’t regret anything and could only be who he was. He said he was sorry for what happened, and then said he wasn’t. He was utterly satisfied to leave me covered in his scent after our goodbye sex, and then called me later from the road to tell me how to cover it up.”

  “Sounds like he was an emotional wreck,” Danial said with a faint smile. “Or a man in love.”

  I looked over my shoulder in exasperation. “Please.”

  “You sound confused, too, to have been forced into intimacy and then to be grabbing a quickie in his front seat before he left,” Danial added, his smile widening. “Perhaps you suffer from the same malaise.”

  “Perhaps you do,” I said sarcastically. “You’re jealous one moment and then amused the next.”

  “I’m jealous slightly,” Danial amended. “I’m much more intrigued that you aren’t swooning over my brother. Understand, all the women he took from me over the years were nothing to him, though I loved them all. You not only remain immune to his charms, you found a way into his heart past all his defenses. This is bittersweet moment for me, one I’d never expected. I’d enjoy it more thoroughly, except that he and I have made up. There’s an element of pity I’ve got to allow him now.”

  “How nice for you,” I said coolly.

  “Stop your sarcasm,” Danial whispered, kissing my earlobe. “I mean no disrespect to you, Sweetheart. You know you’re the only woman I love.”

  “That’s not hard to believe, seeing as I killed your last lover.”

  Danial took a sharp intake of breath and drew back slightly.

  “I’m sorry I said that,” I whispered, cringing inside.

  “Let’s not speak of it,” he said sadly.

  My hackles rose instantly. “Yes, we will speak of it,” I hissed angrily. “Don’t you dare be sad about—”

  Don’t say her name.

  “—her. She caused all of that shit with Devlin and everything that happened before that with Al. I still have nightmares about being whipped—”

  “Shh,” Danial said, hugging me tightly. “Please, Sar. I know you’re hurting. But I’m hurting, too, can you understand that?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, turning in his arms to hug him tightly. “I’m not sorry for anything else I did, except for hurting you.”

  “You didn’t,” Danial replied consolingly. “Please, let’s not waste these hours speaking of suffering. I’ve missed you too much for that.” He moved my robe off my shoulder, then kissed my naked skin gently, his fangs again pricking me.

  I took my next breath by inches, my lips parting, my body trembling.

  “Devlin’s in love with you,” he whispered in my ear. “Tell me that doesn’t make a difference to you.” He slid his fangs down my neck, gently pressing.

  As I leaned hard into him, he sensed it and moved slightly back, his fangs pricking but not penetrating. “Answer me,” he said seductively. “Don’t you want him anymore? Was the one day enough to sate your desire?”

  “I wanted him before,” I groaned, arching into him. “I want him more now. But I don’t love him.”

  Danial was running his fangs over my skin ardently now, his breaths coming fast. What I was saying was arousing him.

  “What do you wish he would do to you?” Danial asked. “Tell me.” His hand slipped beneath my robe and rubbed my clit gently. I shuddered and let out a moan.

  Danial slid his finger into me, then gripped possessively. I let out a whimper of longing. His fangs pressed again against my shoulder, then suddenly broke the skin.

  Images flooded my brain in a burst. I moved quickly, trying to turn my body towards him, my only thought to have him. My searching lips met his and I kissed him, bearing down hard. At once, I tasted blood. Danial pushed me back to the floor, his hands on my wrists as his mouth sought mine, his tongue eagerly licking me.

  I tore my wrists from his grasp and reached down, slipping my hands beneath his robe to stroke his stiffening penis. Danial let out a grunt, then rolled onto his back, his hands already busy opening another packet. I moved eagerly to straddle him before he could put it on, but he was quicker. I pushed down onto his shaft just as he finished, his movements forceful as he drove upwards, baring his fangs in a wide snarl of pleasure. The moment I saw them, I bared my throat and leaned forward.

  Danial grabbed a fistful of my hair, and pulled my head back. “No, you don’t,” he said cruelly, thrusting deeply and slowly into me. “Do you want me or my fangs?”

  “I want it all,” I said wantonly, lust dripping from every deliberate word. “All of you.”

  “Then please me,” Danial said lustfully, going still.

  The commanding tone made me shiver. I began to rock rhythmically on him, bringing groans from us both. Then I bit my bottom lip hard, and kissed him.

  Danial went crazy, his mouth locked to mine, his tongue delving into me, licking eagerly as he bucked under me. His mouth fastened on my cut lip, and he began to suck hard in time with our rapidly speeding thrusts. With a scream, I orgasmed, writhing against Danial. He began jerking, his moans soft and muffled as he continued to suck. Then he went limp under me, and his mouth released me. We lay gasping in each other’s arms.

  Danial gently moved out from under me, took off the condom, and threw it away. Then he hugged me close, as our breathing slowly calmed.

  I was exhausted as if I’d run a few miles, my body covered in sweat. Within moments, I was asleep.

  When I came to, I was in Danial’s bed, facing him. One hand was woven in his hair, my other on the back of his neck. His were at my waist, holding me gently. I stirred, shifting my body, and he opened his eyes.

  “Are you okay?” Danial asked. “Was I too rough with you?”

  “I’m fine,” I assured him. “All I felt was pleasure.”

  “As much as I’d love to cuddle here with you, it’s close to eight by now,” he said. “Let�
�s shower, and then get you something to eat.”

  I was supremely happy and the last thing I wanted to do was move. With a reluctant sigh, I pushed back the covers. “Lead on.”

  When we’d finished showering, I wound my damp hair up and we both got dressed. I followed his lead, unsure of what he had planned for dinner. Yet when we emerged from the bathroom, he promptly plopped down again on the edge of the bed, giving me a satisfied smile.

  “What are you doing?” I said softly.

  “Watching you,” he said contentedly.

  “What are we doing?” I amended, flashing him a smile back.

  “You mean now that we’ve had sex twice already?” he said with a dazzling smile. “We’re going to find you some food next, unless you pull me back into service. I’m not about to protest. I love that right now my body is somehow immune to the normal laws of physics. ”

  I cracked a smile, and sat down next to him. “Be serious. I’m worried about you.”

  He was surprised, his brow knitting up. “About me? Why?”

  “I don’t want my condition to keep you from finding a lover of your own.”

  “Don’t worry,” he sighed, running his fingers through his damp hair. “I’m not about to take another lover even if we stop getting together Saturdays.”

  “Why not? And don’t tell me it’s because you love me.”

  “A lot of reasons,” Danial said, meeting my eyes. “Your certain jealousy would complicate our relationship. Also, I really don’t care that much about sex without love. But mostly because I can’t risk Theoron’s life on another bad judgment. When he is eight or nine and old enough to protect himself—”

  “Danial, that is almost a decade away. Be reasonable.”

  “Sar, I wasn’t with anyone when you met me, and I hadn’t been for a long time. I can stand to be alone for a while. My sex drive is not as strong as my brother’s, as you’ve seen.”

  “Forget sex. I don’t want you to be lonely.”

  Danial took my hand, caressing it in his cool one. “I’m not lonely. I have you in my life, and the child you gave me, not to mention Elle. Besides, who knows how long it will take, to get you back to normal? I’m going to enjoy you while I can—”