Forgotten in Darkness (25 page)

“Because we die. That’s not what I’d call getting through it. How do you not despise me the moment you see me, knowing you’ll croak inside of a few weeks?” She dropped her gaze from his and whispered, “I don’t want to be the cause of your death.”

“I’ve never despised you. This is not your fault. You are a warrior at heart, but never a murderer. The curse is not you.”

“Why do we have to do this?”

“The gods fated us for each other. We cannot escape our need to find the other when in the same time. The curse is mostly my fault. Djoser hated me for killing his brother several years prior. When he discovered his newest sacrificial virgin missing…well, he did what he does best. Breaking the curse seemed impossible...until now.”

“Then I will do this. I’m sorry for falling apart. This is just…well it’s a lot to take in at once.” She faked a smile. The panic in her brain didn’t relent.

“Since you have volunteered for this insanity, let me show you how to use your
bochnori.
”

“The moving tattoo?”

He held out his hand. “Come.”

“No funny business. No flipping into kill-Shay mode.”

“As much as I may believe the Asian shaman might be right in what I should do, I cannot kill you. I apologize for threatening you earlier. If only you remembered the past, then you would not have been so frightened. This lack of memory puts us at a disadvantage. ’Tis up to you to determine when and how you destroy me in this life, and move us on to the next.”

“I won’t do it.”

Softly he said, “You will. But let us not dwell on that. Let me show you the power the gods have gifted you.” He rose and held out his hand.

Dakar led her into a spacious rectangular room with a shrine to weaponry. Swords, daggers, axes, maces, crossbows, hammers, and even spears littered every bit of free space on two walls. They were well-used weapons, given the buffed-up look to the weaponry and the hacked-to-shit hardwood floor. But no guns.

Only half the floor was hardwood. The other half was covered in large blue mats. Practice room? She wondered if the shooting range was out back.

She pointed at a broadax. “You’re definitely never getting me to use that. I doubt I could even lift it.”

Dakar smiled elusively. “Do you know how to use any of those weapons?”

“I can shoot a handgun, not that I see it on that wall. Beyond that, not really.”

He moved to the wall opposite the weapon shrine and un-docked the MP3 player. With his back to her as he scrolled the player, he said, “We will work on that.” He redocked the MP3 player. He held out his hand. “May I have the honor of a dance?”

The sultry notes of a Latin dance surrounded her. “What? Here? No thanks. What is this? A tango or samba? I definitely can’t do that.”

Dakar cocked a dark eyebrow in an obvious dare. “I have never heard this music.”

“Then how are we supposed to dance? I don’t know about you, but I’m a terrible dancer.”

He pulled her toward him into dance position with her right hand clasped in his left. He placed her left hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Many remarked upon my great accomplishment on the dance floor in the past.”

“I still don’t think so.”

“Let your
bochnori
lead you. They are in many ways all-knowing…except when it comes to modern devices, I have discovered. Close your eyes. Let us find the rhythm. Ask your
bochnori
to aid you.”

The firm clasp of his large hand over hers, the intimacy of his large body…that held her attention, not dancing. “Maybe you should teach me how to use the broadax.”

His lips tipped upwards. “You think you could lift that weapon off the floor?”

She shook her head.

“Your
bochnori
could give you the strength to lift it. First, you must learn to trust it.” He leaned close to her earlobe. His breath feathered over sensitive skin. Chills tickled her spine. “Dance with me.”

The intensity of his gaze drove her nuts, desperate to know what was going on behind his swirling eyes as he pulled her with him. She clumsily tripped along. One thing she knew for certain about him: there were depths she hadn’t begun to fathom. He intrigued her. Good Lord, she didn’t even know how old he was. He might actually remember the past. As in ancient Egypt. Wow. She tripped. He caught her before she fell.
Focus on dancing, girl. Try to at least pretend you remember anything from that social dance class you took in undergrad.

Her cheeks blazed when he bumped full frontal into her. She hadn’t missed the massive hard-on. God, she could handle a repeat of their first meeting right now. Only, her imagination took it to a very different level. She’d do anything if he would alleviate the escalating throb between her thighs. The relentless need was slowly consuming her mind.

His breathing turned shallow. “Believe me, I want to do whatever it is you’re thinking, but right now I need you to learn how to trust your
bochnori.
It will save your life, if there is a time when I cannot be there. Put that thought on hold. Close your eyes and dance.”

“I can’t tango or whatever this is.”

“Can you feel the beat pounding deep in your abdomen?”

I feel something pounding. The music is making it much worse.
A visual of him naked took over her mind. She suppressed a moan.

He chuckled low. His gaze reflected frank knowledge of exactly what passed through her mind.

Although mortified, her body still ached.

His hips started a slow, enthralling rotation. He led her into a quick spin in time to the music.

She stumbled into him.

He pulled her close and whispered, “Stop thinking. Talk to your
bochnori
. Close your eyes. It helps.”

Shay slammed her lids closed out of desperation to tone down the sexual fire burning her alive. She struggled to find the music’s beat, allowing him to pull her blindly in circles on the floor. Filled with skepticism, she asked the weird tattoo to help her stop bumping into him.

The tattoo’s power spread throughout her body. The
bochnori
didn’t control her as if she was a puppet. She was still herself. Yet, it directed. Her body moved in time with the beat.

She cracked her lids to see what was going on.

Dakar grinned a wide told-you-so.

Her cheeks got even hotter, if that was possible. Had she ever been this graceful? This smooth? This sexy on a dance floor? Hell, no. She was gliding, turning, and doing hip rolls that would make a Latin pro dancer jealous.

Was he putting her into a dip? Oh God, he was. And she didn’t land on her ass!

She felt his appreciative laugh as his nose touched her chest just above the neckline of the borrowed sweater. Her nipples puckered, straining for his mouth to travel just a little south.

He pulled away and gyrated along the floor. Who knew anyone so massive could be this beautiful and erotic. Most men would rather die than be caught doing a hip roll like that. He twirled her so she faced away from him and pulled her tight to his body. He led a leisurely gyration through a slow-down in the evocative music. The arousal in his jeans pressed into her back.

She bit her lip to suppress a moan as a surge of sexual longing flooded her body.

The song ended, but he didn’t stop. A flamenco guitar flourish led into a slow song whose chords evoked images of unhurried lovemaking with a lot of the right buttons pushed.

She drew in a ragged breath.
Okay,
bochnori
, let’s make him lose control.
Make him burn hot enough to combust.

Dakar needed to focus on the objective of this lesson, not on the spectacular curves she was currently rolling against his rock-hard arousal. At this point, he was pretty sure she understood how the
bochnori
helped. He should stop this madness. Admittedly, he shouldn’t have chosen a song called
Gypsy Fire.
Gypsies and fires were a mix guaranteed to lead to losing one’s mind.

Had her hand just caressed his ass? Was it part of the dance or did the maddening desire have her in its grip as much as he? What he wouldn’t give for a mental connection. This was like being thrown back to the dark ages of basic wooing, which he had not attempted in a very very very long time. And he hadn’t excelled at it back then.

Her hand slid around his neck in a slow motion that drew her to him and then pushed away. Was it a real suggestion or just the dance? Hell if he cared right now. She was touching him.

A smile played at her lips. The woman enjoyed the power he’d just given her a little bit too much. And, goddamn, if his heart didn’t just snap in half.

He’d long ago memorized every nuance of her. And right now, the way her lips parted and the subtle once-over glance she threw southward meant she was turned on.

Their pelvises pressed together tightly in a roll through a swell in the music. He couldn’t suppress the groan when pure electric need shot down his abdomen. His head dipped to her neck. He licked the smooth, graceful arc and nipped the junction of her neck and shoulder. Cheating, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.

She moaned.

Before he could take it further, they were back in formal dance position moving down the floor until the music halted and went slow.
Bloody hell
. She was dry humping his thigh in rhythm to the music. He could feel the moist heat at the junction of her thighs beneath the gauzy cloth she wore as a skirt.

He couldn’t keep this up. Okay, maybe some parts of him could stay up. But this dance went way beyond torture.

Pelvis to pelvis they rolled. Electric sensation tore through his nerve endings. A gasp escaped his lips. He slammed his eyelids closed, fighting the raw desperation to be inside her.

The first move was not his to make, considering he had threatened her with death and then almost forced her over an hour ago. For that he was ashamed, but knew not how to apologize.

After a sharp turn they moved slowly, no longer twirling but face-to-face. Shay licked her lips in a mesmerizing, hungry movement that had him throbbing.

“Dakar, please,” she begged in a husky voice.

“Please what?” he whispered back. They no longer danced.

She moved her left hand off his shoulder to touch his cheek and then around to the back of his neck, giving a gentle tug in her direction. “Haven’t we waited long enough? Kiss me. I want to feel what the gods or this curse have given us before I die. Just once.”

“Once will not be enough. It never is.”

Dakar pulled her tight to the length of his body. His mouth clamped down on hers. His hands slid down her spine, coming to rest on her waist. And then glided up underneath the sweater and over her trembling belly.

Her hands worked under his shirt, exploring. Sensation exploded over his skin as if his nerve endings were on fire. The sensations were sharper, more focused than he ever remembered. Maybe the intensity was ramped up because he needed to pay rapt attention to everything, unable to hear her in his head. Somehow she managed to get his shirt off. He maneuvered her sweater off and shoved the scrap containing her breasts above the magnificent orbs. A little bit more than a handful. Perfect.

He found the clasp for her skirt, and with a flick it landed in a pool on the floor.

Her nails raked his abdomen down to the buttons of his jeans. With each button, she released the pressure, making him throb so hard that he was shocked he didn’t come the second her hands closed around him. He clenched his teeth as her slender, cool fingers caressed him.

“Bloody hell, Shaiani, I cannot continue this much longer.”

“Poor thing,” she whispered as her tongue made a circular path around one of his nipples.

The woman of his past would’ve said that. The woman in that fantasy behaved this way. This was the Shaiani he knew. He detected the amusement in her voice, which spurred him to act. No more waiting. He needed to be in this woman. To claim her as his. He lowered her to the blue floor mats.

He halted to examine the scrap of dark lacy fabric hiding her folds from him. A slow hiss of air escaped through his teeth…now that was way fucking erotic. His fingers pressed into her cleft, aching to rip the scrap and plunge in. She squirmed, as if needing more. “Hold on,
sesen
,” he murmured.

“Please, Dakar…please.”

“That’s what I needed to hear.” He slid two fingers beneath the lacy scrap straight into her core.

A cry tore from her lips as her swollen heat milked his fingers.

She freed his hair from its tie. Her petite hand cupped the back of his head and pulled him to her lips. He knew this woman heart and soul. The gods and curse aside he still loved her. Her soul would remember. It had to. He needed to believe or he would gladly die right now.

Her tongue stroked against his, spreading the sweet nectar of her mouth against his tastebuds.

Everything he did, every stroke, every touch was torture to Shay. God, the taste of him...hot, male. Never had her body felt more alive or in tune with another person.

Broad hands removed her panties and then forced her thighs wide. He paused. Her eyes flew open as if searching for the reason the ecstasy of his touch had stopped.

“See me.”

“I see you,” she replied.

He angled her hips upward. His mouth was on her folds. His tongue speared into her core. Deliberately with teasing licks and sucks, he built her need. One more teasing suck to the bundle of nerves and her core clenched. Her hips jerked, but didn’t yet release. She sat at the precipice. “Oh…please.”

“We’ll be together this time.” He came to his knees and drew her legs to his sides. Her feet naturally linked around his back. His mouth caught hers. His tongue seduced, teased, and then he breached her folds. But paused before releasing that surge she wanted.

“What’s wrong?” she choked out.

“Are you…have you before?” His facial muscles pulled tight with restraint.

He was about to have a case of morality, if she’d been new at this? “I’m not a virgin.”

He released a pent-up breath.

Shay’s core stretched as each short, surging stroke brought the breadth of him inside her.

“Ah,
sesen
,” he murmured as his thick, heavy flesh sank deeply.