The Relentless Warrior (19 page)

“So tough,” I murmured, taking a step closer to her. The movement of my body pushed
a wave over the tops of her shoulders and left little droplets of water dotting her
slender neck.

“At first, maybe. I did the whole goth thing for a while. I was like the girl you
expected to carry a knife to school. Combat boots, dyed black hair, spikey jewelry...
the whole thing. It took me a little while to figure out who I was. But when I did,
I liked myself. And I had my family and my goals… I didn’t need other people to feel
like I had worth or value.”

“I would have liked to see that.” I reached out and tucked some of her darkened hair
behind her ear. She had run her fingers through it so it went straight back over the
top of her head, hiding her usual part. She looked older like this, but in an undeniably
sexy way. She didn’t look like a victim that got bullied, or even an angsty little
thing just trying to find her way. No, this Olivia knew exactly who she was. This
Olivia was strong and driven. This Olivia could survive being tortured and experimented
on and come out of it with not only her sanity but an even stronger purpose. This
Olivia had all of her dreams taken from her and her family and still bounced back,
still believed she could make them all happen. This Olivia had me so completely pulled
into her gravity that I couldn’t remember what life was like without her in it, or
what my Magic felt like without hers inside it.

And I didn’t think I ever wanted to know again.

“You wouldn’t have recognized me,” she told me. “I looked really different with black
hair. Trust me. My skin is way too pale too pull that off.”

I smiled because she was smiling, because I couldn’t help it. “Still beautiful, though.”

Her breath caught in her throat and I moved closer. She shook her head to disagree
with me.

“No,” she said. “I was so ugly. I swear.”

I shook my head this time and laid my hand on the curve of her naked waist. She fit
perfectly in my grasp. Her skin burned against my palm. I had never seen so much of
her, both physically and emotionally and I was sure I would do anything to discover
even more, strip her until there was nothing left between us. My attraction had escalated
into something so much more… something so much bigger than the physical. I wouldn’t
be satisfied until I knew more, saw more. I wouldn’t be able to stop until I had it
all.

“You could never be ugly to me, Liv. No matter what you look like or what you do to
your hair. When I look at you, all I see is beauty. Inside, outside, it doesn’t matter…
you are beauty to me.” I hovered over her now. I’d slid her closer with that grip
on her body. Her body pressed against me and I loved the feel of her bare skin against
mine. She was hot, she was smooth, she was pure. She was everything that I wasn’t.
And I wanted what she had. I told her she was beauty to me and she was. I wasn’t that…
I was the opposite of that. I had been contaminated from these wars, from these battles
I’d fought in the name of a greater good. I had been emptied. But my entire body and
soul knew Olivia was the answer to that emptiness. She could redeem some of those
terrible things I’d done. She could help me through this endless existence that I
didn’t want.

She could fix me.

She could save me.

Her hands rested on my chest, neither pushing away nor bringing me closer. Her breathing
had quickened and she was chewing on the corner of her bottom lip nervously. “Jericho,”
she breathed as if in warning. “I didn’t tell you that story so you’d feel sorry for
me. I just meant that, er, I don’t really need friends. I’m not looking for friends.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Because I’m not looking to be your friend.” Her breath shuddered
against my chin when I dipped my head to meet her. “All you have to do is say ‘no,’
Liv. I’m not going to force you. And you don’t have to break my arm to get me to stop.
Just say no.” I grabbed her hip with my other hand and brought her even closer to
me. Slowly, so slowly I wanted to punch myself in the face for giving her so much
time to back out, I let my lips touch hers.

Unlike in my dad’s office, she didn’t just stand there and let me do all the work.
This time, when I increased the pressure on her mouth, she pushed back, and hell,
if that wasn’t the most amazing thing I’d ever felt. I tried to keep this slow… tried
to give her time to adjust to my escalating hunger; but soon the press of her soft
lips wasn’t enough. I wanted more.

I swiped my tongue across her bottom lip, asking for permission to enter. She opened
immediately and I took over her mouth.

I could not get enough of this girl.

I didn’t want to get enough of her.

I just wanted more.

I devoured her mouth, using my tongue, my teeth, my expert kissing skills. I set out
to seduce this girl, but not just for sex. I wanted her to fall as hard for me as
I had fallen for her. I wanted her to be as desperate for this kiss as I was. I wanted
her to believe that she would die if I stopped.

Because at this point, I knew I would die if she ended this.

I pushed her against the pool wall and set about making her mine. My hands coasted
over her bare skin, happy to seek out every exposed part, biding my time until I could
also explore the unexposed places. I pressed a solid hand against her lower back and
brought her as tightly to me as I could. The feel of her smooth stomach against my
own… there were just not words. Bliss. Ecstasy. A whole different goddamn plane of
existence.
 
Her hands reached up to tangle around my neck and she nibbled my bottom lip while
one of her legs slipped around my hip.

Holy shit.

This girl.

I released my Magic fully into hers. Or rather, I stopped fighting the natural instinct
to entwine us. I hit her with the full force of all my attraction and something deeper
I still couldn’t define; and this time when our Magics crashed together around us
I knew I wasn’t imagining the light show underneath the water, in the air around us,
pouring out of our very skin. This was real… this was it.

Desperate for more of her, I followed my hunger and left her mouth, only to taste
every other part of her. I trailed kisses across her jawline, down her throat, I licked
that line across her collarbone I’d fantasized about earlier. She moaned this delicious
sound that vibrated my lips and I lost my mind.

I followed that same path back to her mouth, my lips blazing a trail so hot and seductive
my breathing had stopped being easy. I wanted this to never end, I wanted to taste
her until I couldn’t remember how anything else tasted, I wanted to touch her until
my fingers had every inch and piece of her memorized.

I pressed my hips into her, hating that there was any separation between us and she
gasped against my mouth. Her other leg joined her first around my hips. She was feather-light
under the water and I easily lifted her so that we fit together how a man and a woman
were meant to fit together.

This time it was me who groaned.

Goddamn, this could never end and it would be too soon.

Her hands were frenzied at my neck and in my hair. Water sloshed between our bodies
with our desperation and somehow my hand had found its way to playing with the thin
string of her bikini top.

“Jericho,” she sighed against my mouth and I lost my mind.

Lost it.

She took it all, whatever it was, and left me with nothing.

And somehow that was okay with me.

I just wanted to hear my name on those lips again, just like that; breathy, needy
and completely as out of her mind for more as I was for her.

I would do anything to hear her say my name like that again. But I was kind of excited
to get to that part.

I pushed my hips into her again and this time it was her turn to moan. Dear, God,
nothing had ever felt this good before and
we were still relatively clothed
.

“Jericho!” From across the patio. I was going to kill them. “Oh, er, uh, er, sorry.”

Olivia immediately pulled her mouth away and I felt my entire body sag in defeat.
I rested my forehead against hers and kept my eyes closed so I could gain some control.

“What?” I bit out.

“Sorry, I didn’t know I’d be… er, interrupting something,” Xander apologized, but
it was too late.

“What do you want?” I repeated giving each word gravity.

“There’s been a development,” he explained. “Sebastian asked me to come get you.”

“Tell him I’ll be right there,” I said. And I would be. Because as sweet as Olivia
felt wrapped around me I still had responsibilities, not only to my people, but to
my friends that were captured and my friends that were Kings and Queens, but I had
a responsibility to her as well. She had been wronged in a great way and I would right
that in an even greater way. She was a part of me now. She was mine now. There was
no different way to say that. I wouldn’t let her go after this.

I couldn’t.

I would avenge her and I would give her back all those goals and dreams, the family
that she loved so completely
 
again.

I sensed Xander leave and without opening my eyes I said, “We have something in common.”

“What’s that?” she asked, sounding amused but still very breathy.

Slowly I opened my eyes to meet her heated gaze. God, she was beautiful, so damn beautiful.
Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen from my kisses. It took everything in me
to hold back from taking her mouth with mine again. Plus her body was still wrapped
around me even though her arms rested lightly on my shoulders instead of clutching
me with passion and I felt it as though it were a physical loss of something incredibly
vital to my survival.

“I don’t have any friends either,” I told her.

She laughed at that, completely carefree and unrestrained. I loved the sound. And
I loved that she wasn’t shoving away from me and running. She was letting me hold
her, she was letting this happen.

“What about the people in that house?” she teased.

“Those are not my friends,” I told her. “I hate those people.”

“Since when?”

“Since two minutes ago,” I told her honestly. “It’s deep-seeded. I mean, this is as
real as it gets. I’m done with people. All of them.”

She laughed some more and I watched her face in happy rapture, completely transfixed
by her smile and twinkling eyes. “All of them?”

“Well, maybe not all of them.” I leaned in for a few more stolen kisses and brought
us as close together as we could be, just to remind her what kind of heat we shared,
what potential pleasure we could bring each other.

She slapped at my chest. “Go,” she commanded. “Before I won’t let you.”

“I think I’m alright with that,” I confessed.

“Me too, but they need you. We have to finish what we started.”

“Oh, we will,” I smirked at her. She giggled and it was another sound to add to my
growing list of obsessions.

“Not what I meant.” She dropped her legs and I had to stifle a wince. I needed that
feeling back.

Now.

But instead of acting out those intense feelings of desire, I took her hand and dragged
her to the shallow end. We walked up the stairs together while I openly ogled her
hot little body exiting the water a step at a time.

Good God.

She was perfect. Her milky skin perfectly smooth and dripping with little beads of
water. The bikini covered just enough of her important parts to leave my imagination
running absolutely wild. Her delicious curves were completely exposed to my wandering
eyes and it was all I could do not to put my hands back on her, back where they belonged.

When she wrapped a towel around herself I felt the need to pick my jaw up off the
ground.

She caught me staring at her and her cheeks flushed pink at my obvious admiration.

“You’re exquisite, Olivia,” I breathed in a reverent one. “You make me forget everything.
You make me want to start over and wait until it’s right.”

She didn’t understand me, I could see it in the dip of her brows. But it was true.
Those words were truth, maybe truer words than I’d ever said.

She made my past seem silly and immature. She made me want to erase everything I’d
ever done and just wait for her, wait until she walked into my life. She made me wish
I knew what to do with her from the beginning. And she made me promise oaths to myself
that I would not mess up this time.

I would win this time.

I would get what I wanted.

Only this time, she was more than what I wanted. She was what I needed… what I couldn’t
live without.

We walked into the house and towards our separate bedrooms. I had to change before
I went downstairs and I wanted to walk her to her door. When we got there, I leaned
down and kissed her again, just because I could.

“I’ll see you later,” I told her with my face buried in the curve of her neck. I let
my tongue taste the skin there and she shivered against me.