Race the Darkness (10 page)

He relaxed against the pillow, facing her. “Thank God.”

“You don't think that's weird? That I sound crazy?”

“Weird is relative. I…”—he winced and closed his eyes—“I've heard you inside my head for years.” He opened his eyes and she saw something deep inside them, something she didn't have a name for, something that looked painful.

“It's okay if you had the dreams too. I'm glad.” From the moment she'd opened her eyes in that room and realized Xander was really there to take her away from all the suffering, she'd known they were connected in a way that defied normalcy.

“No, it wasn't dreams.” His hand, still on her ribs, squeezed, holding her tight as if she might try to move away from him and he didn't want that. Apology shone in his eyes. “I heard you… Holy Christ, I heard you inside my head begging for help. Begging me to find you. Only I thought—fuck—I thought you were a hallucination. I didn't know you were real. I thought I was insane.”

Her heart halted its beats and hung limp inside her chest like a discarded plastic bag snagged on a tree limb. How many times had she cried for his help? Pleaded for him save her? To end her suffering? More than she could count.

He watched her, his gaze doing more than just taking in her response to his words. He was sorry and trying to understand everything she'd been through. There was no understanding, no rationalizing. Nothing was going to make what happened to her and Gran all right. The buried memories, all the things she never wanted to remember, threatened to stage a resurrection.
No.
She wasn't going to let the past steal her sanity and revoke her new reality.

Not now.

Not ever.

She took every word, every syllable he'd just uttered and planted them directly in the grave of memories.

Instead of moving away from him, like he seemed to expect, she scooted in closer until no space separated them. He hugged her tight and thankfully didn't say anything else. They remained that way for long, lazy minutes, until she found the exact right words she wanted to say.

“The past is the past. Right now is all that matters.” She gyrated her hips against him. “And right now I want you.”

He held perfectly still. “You're only five days out of that torture trailer. Your body is still healing. Everything is happening so quickly for you. I don't want—”

“I feel good. I feel healthy.” She kissed his throat. “I want you like I had you in my dreams.” Talking about her dreams was nothing compared to talking about her past. It just might get her what she wanted—him. And a distraction.

“I don't want you to go down a road you might regret later.”

“I know what I want. I want you. How many more times do I have to say it?” Impatience crept into her tone.

He flipped her over onto her back and was on top of her, the steel strength of him covering her like a safety blanket of Kevlar. His beautiful, changeable eyes locked on her lips. “If I do more than hold you, if I kiss you, I'll want more than your mouth. I'll want to fuck you.”

“…I'll want more than your mouth. I'll want to fuck you.” Did he just say that out loud? Yes, he had. He could tell by the way her lips parted in an enticingly stunned manner. He opened his mouth to…to what? Apologize? Nope. He meant every word; he just hadn't meant to be so damned blunt.

“Xander, I want you to”—cotton-candy pink splotches of color tinged her cheeks—“fuck me.”

Her words went straight to his dick. She'd never uttered a word that could obliquely be called a curse word, and now she was dropping the f-bomb? Sexy as hell.

“Baby.” It was the only word in existence.

She reached up, weaving her fingers into his hair, and tugged him to her mouth. He could've resisted. Yeah, he could've. Until he got his first taste. Her mouth tasted of sweetness and promise, of the past and future, of now and forever. Logic no longer existed. In its place resided a profound certainty that this was his destiny.

His heart banged inside his chest. Her heart—he could hear it—beat a counter rhythm. Her breathing, his breathing, only added to the melody. “I wish you could hear us. Our heartbeats, our breathing.” He whispered against her mouth, pressing his forehead to hers. “Together we sound beautiful.” Maybe he shouldn't have said anything about his hearing issues. Not yet.

She put one hand over his heart, the other over hers and closed her eyes. “I can't hear it, but I feel it.”

Fuck. This woman was something special. Rather than the thought scaring the shit out of him, he recognized the deep possibilities between them. She wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him and holding him like he mattered more to her than anything on the earth. He soaked up her affection, letting it fill in all the dry cracks in his soul. Her cool hands slipped underneath his shirt, touching the skin of his back, running up to his shoulders and down in long, slow agonizing strokes that had his dick wishing those hands were lower. A lot lower.

She lifted his shirt and pushed it higher and higher on his back until it bunched underneath his shoulders. He sat back on his knees, straddling her hips, and tore the material over his head.

What was he doing? He shouldn't be doing this with her right now. Not after everything she'd been through. As if she sensed his hesitation, she sat up, never even glancing at his scars, and pressed her bare cheek over his heart, then kissed him there. His heart sucked against his rib cage, straining toward her touch.

“Baby, I want this.” He grabbed her hand and settled it over his crotch. His dick—already hard—went to steel. He sucked in a breath and willed himself to not move or he might go off, just from her hand. On the outside of his jeans. What was up with that?

She squeezed him, the pressure a painful pleasure. He fought to keep himself from coming in his tighty-whities. “Christ, woman. I can't stand much more.” He closed his eyes and balled his hands into fists to keep from ripping her clothes off. “Tell me how far you want to take this. I want to make it right for you.”

As her hand moved away from him, regret flayed him open, and the loss nearly broke him. His closed eyes burned, and he almost wanted to cry like a goddamned baby. He wanted her that fucking bad. But he'd honor her wishes. He would.

“Xander, I want it all. I've wanted you for so long. Longer than you could possibly imagine.” Then he felt her hands on the button of his jeans, tugging and struggling. His eyes snapped open. She worked the button through the hole and wrangled with his zipper.

He stilled her movements, then waited until her gaze flicked up to him. “Promise me something.” There was only one thing he was afraid of when it came to Isleen and sex. Her past. She didn't want to talk about it, and he wasn't going to press her. He couldn't handle it. Thinking that Queen might've hurt her—in that way—was enough to shoot his anger to the spontaneous combustion level.

“Anything.” The word came out breathy and full of yearning.

“If something doesn't feel right to you, if you don't like something, you tell me. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He nipped the end of her nose, then got out of bed and began wrestling his jeans off.

“Can I see all your scars?” She spoke the words to his back.

He froze, pants halfway down his legs.

Right after the lightning strike, he'd been shocked by his own appearance. The thing that helped him most was hearing everyone's thoughts about the scars. The things he conjured in his own mind were always worse than what people actually thought. With her, he didn't have that advantage. He had no idea how repulsed she'd be when she saw the whole damned thing.

He heard her moving on the bed, shifting closer to him, then standing up behind him. Hell, he couldn't see her, but he could feel her at his back. Her hands lightly touched his hips, and he jerked as if she'd slapped him.

“I told you before… Your scars are beautiful.” Her words were a cool caress across his spine.

She dipped her hands into his underwear, sliding them down until they met his pants and he lifted his feet out of them. It felt so weird—and oddly wonderful—to have her undress him.

He forced himself to face her. He stood bare-ass naked in front of her, his Mr. Happy waving at her. “Yeah, I know.” He heard the resignation in his voice. “It's one big scar.” He expected her to be staring at the deformity marring half his body, but her gaze was locked on his dick. The little fucker liked her looking and somehow got even harder.

She lifted her eyes to him and then reached for his face. It was crazy, but he almost flinched away from her. She touched the tippy-top edge of deformed skin on his forehead. A punch of energy surged through the network of scars, both painful and pleasurable. Shivers rolled over his shoulders.

“Is it sensitive? Hurt when I touch it?” Her eyes met his.

“No. It feels…odd and good. Way good.”

“I'm glad. I've wanted to do this since the very first dream of you.” With the tip of her finger, she traced the irregular flesh down his face and neck.

At his chest, she replaced her finger with her mouth. Each collision of lips to flesh was a percussion of feeling reverberating through him. Her touch was heaven and hellfire. Cooling and burning. Agony and ecstasy. He'd never felt anything like it. He wanted to feel it forever. He shook, his entire body trembling. He was acting like a damned virgin at his first prom.

She followed the pattern of scarring down, oh sweet Jesus, down to his hip, to the tangled branch of puckered skin that disappeared only when it reached his dick. Her beautiful thick hair whispered over him, and it was too much. A bead of pre-come oozed out, sliding down his shaft, and Christ, even that was an exotic pleasure. A tortured groan slipped up from deep in his throat. Her gaze flicked up to him, and it was all he could do to not grab her head and shove his dick in her mouth. He wouldn't do that to her. Not now. Not yet. Not until he knew that's what she wanted.

“Gotta stop right there.” He spoke through clenched teeth and forced himself to take a step back from her. At this rate, he wasn't going to make it to the finale. He sucked in a breath, trying to calm his body.

“I want to be naked too.”

All he could do was watch and make sure his tongue wasn't hanging out the side of his mouth. Her shorts and panties came off as one. There was no hesitation or shyness to her movements when she pulled the braless tank top over her head. She stretched her arms up, arching her spine and thrusting out her small, but perfect breasts. Her nipples were the exact shade of pink as the blush of her cheeks. Maybe it made him a pussy, but pink was his new favorite color.

Over the past few days, not only had her hair grown at an exceedingly fast rate, but her body had filled out. She was still too thin, but she no longer looked skeletal. Scars marred her skin, some pale with age, some red and fresh. God. After everything she'd been through, for her to be standing here in front of him wearing only a smile, was a miracle. She was a miracle.

“You have so many scars.” Okay, not the most romantic words. He settled his hand over the healed wound on her side, the one that had oozed blood when he'd found her. Now only days later, it was completely healed. Somewhere deep inside, in a place of intuition and instinct, he knew he'd played a part in her recovery.

She smiled, but the smile was a sad one, the kind you expected to see on someone who'd suffered a great loss and was trying to hide it. Her shoulders slumped and her arms moved a bit in front of her body as if she were trying to hide her nakedness from him. Leave it to him to say the asshole thing, even when he wasn't trying to be an ass.

“Don't do that. Don't hide from me. You have scars. So do I. Do you think mine are hideous and deforming?”

Her head snapped up. “No, not at all. They're beautiful. So beautiful.”

“All those scars on your skin are beautiful to me too. You know why?”

She shook her head, her gaze locked with his like what he was about to say meant more to her than anything in the entire world. Without even trying, she made him feel so damned… Fuck, he didn't even have a word for it. The best he could come up with was some hybrid of
special
and
important
and
adored
.

“Because they're evidence of your strength, of your ability to survive. They are badges of courage. And you know—” He placed her hand on his shoulder where the lightning had entered him and the damage was the deepest. Again he felt that rush of electricity through the network of his scars. “—we match. Life has marked us both.”

She rose on her tiptoes and kissed the spot on his shoulder before she hugged him. He didn't need to hear her thoughts to know he'd said exactly what she'd needed to hear. Instead of hugging her, he swept her up in his arms and laid her on the bed.

He scooted in next to her and leaned down, keeping eye contact as he neared her breast for a taste. No fear in her eyes, only wanting, and then her hand on the back of his head encouraging him. She tasted sweet and warm and of something that had no name but was purely her.

She moaned and arched up, and he caressed her other breast, rolling the nipple between his fingers. She started moving, gyrating her hips, pumping and thrusting—her actions showing him what she really wanted. Which was exactly what he really needed. He slid his hand down the jut of each rib, then lower, feeling the springy softness of her hair.

Her movements became frantic.

He smiled around her nipple. “Easy, I'll take care of you.” His hand traveled lower and lower until he found the heat of her. “Open your legs for me.”

No hesitation, she did as he asked. He slipped a finger inside. She was wet and slick and so fucking tight. He knew his dick didn't have a brain, but he swore the thing was imagining what it would feel like when it pushed into her—or maybe that was just him doing the daydreaming. She grabbed on to his hair and yanked him to her mouth.

He swallowed her moaning, taking her voice into him, letting the sound meld into his bones. Their tongues thrust in a cadence that matched the movements of his finger.

He couldn't wait any longer. He slid his finger from her. He shifted over her, bracing his forearms on either side of her face, needing to see for himself that she wanted this, wanted him. What he saw was himself reflected in her eyes. Saw how she trusted him, respected him, and felt complete with him.

He was there—right there—poised at her entrance. Ready. He tangled the tips of his fingers in her hair. Her hands were on his sides, sliding around to his back, her touch light, almost ticklish.

“Please.” She arched under him, pushing up closer. That was all the encouragement he needed. Slowly, he pushed into her. Jesusfuckingchrist. Every nerve ending went on the alert, then exploded with sensations. He was lost in a wild combination of tranquility, euphoria, and awakening. He felt invincible, like nothing could ever hurt him, and he'd never let anything hurt her.

He felt her stiffen, heard the hitch in her breathing and how her heart's rhythm shifted—not in a good way.

He stilled.

“Xander?” Her voice was small, and fuck if he didn't hear a bit of fear in there.

Underneath him, her face scrunched up with no resemblance to flushed and relaxed.

“What's wrong?” Was that his voice? He sounded like a wounded animal.

“It hurts a little.”

A thought air-dropped into his mind. She wasn't a virgin, was she? “Um… We probably should've had this conversation before we went this far”—and son of a bitch, he should be using a condom—“but you've done this before, right?”

A hesitant little smile hitched up the side of her mouth. “Not in real life.”

His brain must've been set on slow-mo—her words and their meaning took longer than they should have to register.

She was a virgin. Holy fucking Christ, she was a virgin. She was his. Completely his.

His heart went skippity-do-dah throughout his chest cavity. It was one of those things he hadn't known he wanted until he'd been freely given the gift. “I don't like that you are hurting, but you have no idea how happy it makes me that I am your only one.”

“You will always be my only one.” Her words were an arrow straight through all of life's bullshit, hitting the center of her target—his heart. He wanted to say something more, to let her know that he felt the same, but couldn't figure out how to say it right.

“We're just going to stay like this a moment, okay? Until you feel better.”

“It already feels better.” She reached up to his face, settling her palm over his scars. “I dreamed of this. Of being with you.” The sweetest smile of promise teased the corners of her mouth. “We did this a lot in my dreams.”

He chuckled, the action causing him to move a bit inside her. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back against the pillow. Shit, shit, shit. He didn't want to cause her pain. And then, she moved, pushing against him, releasing, pushing. He held still, letting her move, letting her guide this according to what her body needed. “Xander. Please…I'm good now.”