Dark Rival (18 page)

She had to heal him but she hesitated. Even badly wounded, he was a magnificent sight. And she felt his lust—not around her—in her. It seethed and begged for release.

She was almost afraid of him. But her body was humming and vibrating with an intensity of its own. Her gut was hollow, aching. "You're bleeding to death."

He sent her another heavy, hot look. "So heal it." Then, he spoke in a murmur. "Come an’ heal me, Ailios.”

She trembled and poured her white light over him, into him.

His eyes widened, as if he hadn't expected it.

But then, had a Healer ever healed him before? She knew her power was warm and that it felt good. She knew the moment he received her white power, his pain would begin to diminish.

He staled at her in surprise, but his gaze remained intently male and predatory. Allie felt the sharp pain going through him, through her, but it wasn't blinding now.

She poured more light over him, into him, focusing on his shoulder and the deep wound. He grunted. The sound was one of release.

Then he gave her another long look. His gaze was coherent now.

Confident that he was not about to leap on her in a very bestial manner, she walked up to him and laid her hands on the wound, ignoring the blood. More healing power flowed from her hands, surging now because of their proximity.

His gaze held hers, watchful and intent. "It feels good,” he said roughly.

She smiled but didn't speak, She could not focus while having a conversation. She threw more healing power directly into the wound this time. She became aware of his bulging bicep. Just above her eye level and his bloodstained chest.

He grunted again as more pain was released. He sat down.

Allie was so short it was easier to stand with her hand on his shoulders while he sat. The bleeding had stopped. She felt the flesh inside the wound binding and renewing itself. His pain had dulled to a mere ache. She smiled, pleased, and then her heart lurched.

She had almost been the cause of Royce's death—again.

“I'm fine,” Royce said thickly.

Allie saw that he was even more fiercely aroused than before. But of course he was. That shocking, savage, murderous frenzy was gone. The barbarian was gone. But she’d stopped the bleeding, meaning his blood supply was going somewhere else. His gaze was on hers, oddly uncertain and searching.

Her heart turned over, hard, "Don't move," she said softly. "Let me finish."

He just sat there, staring at her face.

Allie went to the door and stepped into the hall, hoping to find Ceit for the linens and water. She'd set a basin of water and clean linens next to the door. Allie gathered up the items and returned to the hall.

Her steps slowed. Royce sat naked on the bench, fully aroused, looking exactly like what he was: a supernaturally virile, superpowerful holy warrior with a godly ancestry. He turned and stared at her. His gaze sizzled.

She came forward, her entire body flaming. Was he inviting her to bed, finally? Or was this still about the battle from hell? She cleaned the blood from his shoulder with the wet linen, pleased to see an angry red scar there. By the morning it would be pink, and in another day or so, white.

She wrung out the linen and ran the wet rag down his arm, cleansing the blood there, too.

He breathed deeply and threw his head back. His eyes closed. The pulse in his throat throbbed. His abdomen tensed, the muscles hard and tight.

She rinsed the rag and laid it on his shoulder, so swollen she couldn't stand it. Everything had changed in the past few hours—and there was no anger between them tonight.

Aware of what he was asking her for. aware of what she wanted, she moved the moist linen slowly over his chest.

He said, without opening his eyes. "Oh, dinna think I'm nay angry."

She had to smile, removing more blood. "Hush." She ran the moist rag lower, over his ribs, removing the blood there.

His gaze opened, hot and heavy, languid with intent, He remained arched backward against the table. "Ye can disobey me anytime," he said softly, seductively, "but nay in battle."

Allie hesitated. Her gaze was not on his. He was straining for that moist rag. “I think," she said, and she slid the wet linen low, all the way down his belly, even though there was no blood there. "I may have learned my lesson."

He sat still breathing hard, watching her now.

Allie took the wet cloth and flicked it up his long, thick shaft.

He made a very harsh sound of enjoyment.

Allie met his gaze and smiled at him, her heart hammering with excitement. His gaze flared and tie seized her hand.

He took the rag and tossed it aside. Allie sank to her knees, pleasure building wildly now, nuzzling his perfect length. He gasped and she teased him with her cheek. She thought she heard him ask her to hurry. She rained kisses on his hot skin.

Suddenly he seized her hips, lifting her to her feet and anchoring her between his legs. ''Let go," Allie gasped, because she had been about to do something she'd been thinking about for days.

"I'm master here,” he said, and he pulled her hips forward. Suddenly she was on his lap, his turgid erection against her side, and he was clasping her face in his hands. "I'm tired of this game!” "Me, too," she said, her heart ready to explode from her chest.

He looked at her and their eyes met. She saw wild excitement and hot lust, but also something else, bright and light. Then he lowered his face to hers.

Allie gasped with pleasure, with joy, because he claimed her lips with such hunger, such need and desperation that for one moment, she thought herself back in 2007. She reached for his shoulders and clung. He thrust his tongue deep while he kept her face still in his huge, uncompromising hands. Allie came to her senses and started kissing him back.

He finally grasped her skirt, the gesture brutal. Allie knew he was about to rip her clothes from her body. She seized the zipper and frantically pulled. He never stopped kissing her, but his mouth softened and she felt a smile,

" Yer precious garments,” he murmured.

"Very precious," she gasped. Somehow she wriggled out of the skirt. He seized it and tossed it to the floor.

And he stopped kissing her.

Allie opened her eyes, breathing hard, her body positively in flames.

He stared down at her thong—and the soaking-wet flesh beneath. Then he gave her a sensual look. He slid his thumb beneath and Allie almost wept from the delicious pressure. Smiling, he rubbed deep, deeper, firmer, knowingly.

"Oh," she gasped.

"I want to watch ye come, right now."

Allie didn't think it was a problem. She was about to crest and break. And then something stopped her—he stopped her. with some kind of force over her mind, her body, her sex.

Just as he’d done that first and only night.

"Except,” he said, his gaze blazing, “I want ye coming the first time with me inside." He lifted her and laid her on the edge of the table, a knee on each side of his hips as he stood.

Allie began to hyperventilate. “Hurry.”

Ho smiled and dipped between her thighs and rubbed against her. She couldn't stand the exquisite pleasure and she writhed. He restrained her.

"Be still," he murmured. "Let me do the fucking. Lie still an' enjoy it."

She looked at him.

He was dead serious. "This one time, ye can obey. Let me pleasure ye, Ailios."

She nodded—or thought she did. It was really hard to respond because he was starting slowly, with agonizing deliberation, to push inside—only to pause after every single inch.

She lay as still as she could, starting to cry from the pleasure and pressure, and she let him stroke her, bit by bit, until it was long and slow, deep and deeper still. Madness began. She was blinded by the need for a release. She didn't know how she could hold so much pressure inside her—or bow lie could do so, either. Because she felt his pleasure, too. It had crested into a tidal wave, one about to crash down on the shore—on her. And finally, she couldn’t stand it: finally she wanted to beg,

"Aye,” he said and he gasper surging deep.

Allie felt the block being lifted. She felt the huge damn break. She cried out exploded and flew farther, higher; than she'd remembered weeping his name, shattering a hundred times, each time more intense than the one before. He came with her; each time, violently, long and endless. "Ailios."

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALLIE AWOKE IN A BED twice as large as her own. She lay naked beneath a fur and instantly she thought about Royce's very hot, very endless lovemaking. She smiled reaching for him. to move into his arms. He was gone.

That was okay. She looked up at the ceiling, grinning so widely her mouth hurt. Wow. Those first two times hadn't been a dream. She hadn't imagined all that supernatural sex.

Mr. Medieval was hot.

She lay still thinking about the heated night—thinking about his passion and her own. For her, loving him now as she did, it had been even more intense than in her time. That first night it had been only sex and desire; she’d begun to fall in love with Royce after spending that night with him. As for his passion, it had been so off the charts there was no way she'd believe he wasn't in love with her, too. In fact, unless she was imagining it she felt that he was even more insatiable than he'd been in 2007. That was pretty impossible, though.

Or was it? Everything had changed and so swiftly, at the speed of light. In the future. He’d waited almost six hundred years for her. Last night, although he hadn't had to wait centuries for her they'd shared a lifetime in a few days—a very dangerous, intense lifetime. "They'd fought and argued, they'd saved Garret from the rockslide, they’d fought demons, she’d healed him from a mortal wound—and he'd comforted her while she tried to adjust to the shock of the truth about her mother.

Allie sat up slowly. That last action meant as much as anything, if not more. He was a very complex man, with so many sides—he could be savage and barbaric, bait he could be caring and kind. She thought about the way he’d used the ax to destroy the giant who’d captured her and her stomach vanished. He'd been scary. He could have used an energy blast but he'd preferred an ax. She'd been afraid to rush up to him to heal him. But hadn't she needed someone that ruthless, that brave and that determined to hold the line, her entire life? Royce had the savage intent and the strength to fight the most powerful demons and win.

Allie shivered and lifted the fur. She almost wished she hadn't recalled his savagery and bloodlust. But she had to admit that she had a primitive side, too. She was fascinated with the savage warrior. She admired his intensity.

Still, she would have never dreamed in a hundred years that the same man would hold her while she unraveled. He had probably been just as surprised. Now she could see how the medieval version would evolve into the modern man she'd first fallen for. However, it was a bit presumptuous to think he was starting that transformation already. Maybe, maybe, he could do it in a hundred years.

Allie got up, wrapped in the fur, smiling. She wasn't sure what her life span was; apparently her mother had lived at least six hundred years. It would be interesting to watch Royce embrace his softer, kinder side, Her heart leapt impossibly as she imagined long nights like the last one, times spent before the fire or on the ramparts, gazing at the stars.

She was falling for this Royce, and she had better slow down, because Mr. Medieval might be back at any moment and be was not ready to hold bands. Her smile faded a little. One thing had been missing last night. He hadn't cuddled and he hadn't talked.

Allie focused. She needed patience—she'd be his teacher now. It was okay. All that sex was coming from his macho side. He needed a bit of time to learn bow to be intimate and about the enhanced pleasure intimacy could bring.

Maybe she'd start teaching him tonight.

In any case, things were looking u p. They were becoming friends, and they were lovers, too. The beast wasn't as scary as he'd seemed, and he was starting to eat out of her hand. Now she had to figure out why he'd wanted to die in 2007. It was time to get to know him—she needed to get inside his bead.

Allie was eager to know him better, but she was not at all deluded. If he didn't like talking—and he had made it clear be did not—figuring him out might not be that easy. That was going to take time, no matter his kindness last night.

Her heart wanted to float up to the ceiling like a hot air balloon. Last night made up for his initial hostility; it sure did. And she had time, didn't she? There was no rush to go home, even if Royce changed his mind and let her do so.

Allie walked over to the hearth, wishing a fire flamed there. She'd assumed her stay in the past would be a brief one. In fact, she'd assumed her future with Royce would be in the future, too.

They were meant to be together, that was clear—he was the one for her. But in which time?

Allie became uncertain. She would stick around in the fifteenth century for a while, but at some point, when they had away to prevent his murder, she was going to the future to be with the modern Royce, wasn't she?

Unease began. She would leave her medieval man there at Carrick, in the fifteenth century, and with a leap through lime, she would be reunited with Royce instantly. But he’d be left behind in his time, and he'd spend centuries without her—until he aged into his fourteen-hundred-year-old self and was reunited with her.

How could she leave him for five hundred and seventy-seven years? They were embarking on a new relationship. He'd become her guardian as well as her lover. He needed her, here and now, and she needed him.

Allie looked around at his chamber, thinking about the bedroom in her Manhattan penthouse. Then she shoved the memory of her luxurious room aside. The Middle Ages weren't as bad as she had expected. Nothing at Carrick was that dirty, and while there was a lot of body odor, Royce smelled great. She would bet a fortune that he swam in one of the lochs every morning.

She wasn't going to be able to leave him, she thought. And the moment she realized that, her heart began to dance and sing, rejoicing. Grudgingly she smiled. Man, she was getting in deep!