Burning Darkness (21 page)

“Eric . . .”

She watched his eyes. What if he woke while they were doing this? What would he think?

He would flow right into it. She moved against him, and they quickly found their rhythm. There was something both edgy and safe about making love like this. His pubic bone pressed in the right place, and she felt the orgasm spill deliciously through her, over her. Her body tightened with it, and her fingers gripped his back.

They moved together for a long time, bringing on more of those waves of ecstasy. He kissed her as they made love, something different for her. The face-to-face position was usually the most uncomfortable for her psychologically. She liked closing herself in her world, focusing only on the physical sensations. Kissing made the act so much more intimate, but with Eric unaware, she could lose herself in it.

He came with a burst of power, as though exploding her insides. He gripped her hard against him, groaning the way he had when he was doing sit-ups, his breath coming heavy in her ear.

She held onto him, wrapped around him as though he were a buoy in a raging ocean. He felt so right, throbbing inside her, like no one else had, and those waves threatened to drown her.

He curled one hand gently around her neck and pressed his cheek against hers. In the faintest whisper, he said, “I love you, little girl.”

Her eyes opened as the swell of those words took her dangerously high. She turned to see if he was awake. Eyes closed, a slight smile on his face. Dreaming, then. Had he actually said those words? She thought she’d heard
I love you
before when it had only been
That’s nice
to her ugly sweater. She replayed Eric’s faint words in her mind. She couldn’t be sure, couldn’t let herself believe that’s how he felt.

His body slackened, feeling heavy where he lay on her.

“Eric.”

No response. She’d lost him again. Her fingers tightened on his back. Still breathing.

You shouldn’t have done this, shouldn’t have let it happen.

Was it wrong? For him, for her? He probably wouldn’t remember it, but she would. She would never forget the way he felt inside her, the way he made he feel. She whispered words back, words she’d be too afraid to ever tell him otherwise.

She needed to clean up. She relaxed her body, running her fingers through his soft hair. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to move out of his arms. For now she was safe and happy, and so much more.

Eric felt as though he’d been in hell for days. Burning up, a vein of fire going from his arm all through his body. A brain synapses-induced play of lights like the Aurora Borealis. When he drifted away from that display, he sometimes heard voices, but he couldn’t move or feel his body. Then he would drift into that strange place again.

At last he felt his body, and it was connected to something soft and warm. He felt a hand on his chest, the curve of a woman’s body against his back. His mind filled in the image of that woman, with her white-blond hair and doe brown eyes, and before he knew it he was turning over and pulling her into his arms. A dream, or illusion, to taunt him with what he couldn’t have. If this was hell, he’d take this bit of it, because even a taste was better than never having it.

His hands drank her in, the feel of her skin, the curve of her back and then lower, sliding beneath the waistband of her pants and cupping her small firm ass. His mouth tasted hers; he so was hungry, he wanted to eat her up. He curled his body around her as though he could absorb her. He threaded his fingers into her hair.

His body drank in the feel of her. An erotic dream, touching her, and then her touching him, and even in the dream he felt the jolt through his body. Then the exquisite feeling of pushing into her, feeling her tighten around him. Her calling out his name. He held onto her as tightly as he held onto the dream, not wanting to lose any of it. When he came, those undulating colors exploded in rays of light, like two stars crashing into each other.

I love you, little girl.
The words crashed in his mind, too, as vivid as the colors.

The darkness crept in again.
No, not yet.
This was the hell part, taunt him and then haul him back to the nothingness.

“Eric.”

Her pleading voice pulled him back, an inch, and then he slipped again. He opened his mouth to say something, or tried to, but he’d slid away from the controls on his body again.

He still felt her, their bodies intimately connected, the gossamer feel of her fingers on his face, her voice in his ear.

“Eric, please come back to me. I need you.” The desperation in her voice tugged him back again. The sound of her breath against his ear, full of angst. “Not because you’re strong. Not because we’ve got bad people after us. I need you because you’re the only person who ever made me feel.”

A dream? Had to be. Fonda would never say those things to him. He felt himself sliding down the slope into the darkness, mentally scrabbling like a man sliding down a cliff. Fonda in his arms, her words, he would take both with him to hell, and it wouldn’t be quite so bad.

A knock woke her. Fonda opened her eyes and saw that once again sunlight filled the room. Her first thought was Eric, and she turned to him. He’d thrown off the sheets during the night and wasn’t wrapped around her anymore, but his arm was across her stomach. It felt heavy, warm, and she didn’t want to move yet.

Magnus stood at the doorway, his brown curls a mass. “Sorry to wake you, but you’ve been asleep since four o’clock yesterday. I left dinner, but you haven’t touched it. You need to eat.”

She glanced at the dresser where a tray sat, the bread curling up on the sandwich. Then what he said hit her. “I’ve been asleep since four . . .
yesterday
?”

He nodded. “You’ve had a hard few days. You obviously needed it.”

She tried to look at the clock from her angle without moving Eric’s arm. Eight-thirty.

Magnus approached the other side of the bed and placed his hand on Eric’s forehead. “Still warm, but not hot. That’s a good sign.”

“He moved around last night.” She wasn’t about to tell him just how he’d moved. “That’s good, too, right?”

He smiled, no doubt at her desperation for reassurance. “Yes. He should come out in the next couple of hours. Why don’t you get something to eat? Yes, we have toast and tea. My father was a tea connoisseur.”

The way he’d said that, as though he’d read her mind . . . “You can read minds, can’t you?” He’d done that before, too, though she’d passed it off as a coincidence. But he
was
an Offspring, after all.

His mouth quirked in a smile. “Sorry, it’s such a part of me, I don’t think about it. Just words here and there. I heard ‘tea’ and ‘toast.’ ”

“Do you get anything from Eric?” She wanted so badly for him to be thinking about something. Unless he was thinking about what they’d done last night; that could be embarrassing.

“It’s indistinct. But I think he’s thinking about you. I get the sense of you, anyway.”

Eric’s fingers twitched. She looked at his face, hoping for an awakening. Nothing.

“Get some nutrition into you. He’s not coming around anytime real soon.”

She started to slide out from beneath the sheet until she remembered she was naked. “I need a quick shower.”

He nodded toward their duffel bags. “I brought those in from the truck.”

She gave him a smile of appreciation.

“I’ll leave toast, jelly, and tea in the kitchen. It’s down the hall to the left.”

She showered, checking on Eric before she even dried off. No change. His hand was in the place where she’d been not long ago, as though he’d reached for her. She was too scared, too overwrought, too . . . too involved. She’d only
thought
she loved Jerryl, and look at what a pitiful mess she’d become. She couldn’t let that happen again. Jerryl had stood up for her at a bar; Eric had saved her life. That kind of thing made her weak in the knees, and worse, in the heart. That’s what Eric did. He wouldn’t let her die, no matter who she was. He was honorable.

Don’t make more of it than it is, because that’s what you do. He protects you, and you think you love him.
Everything he’d done filled her with that need, with that scary feeling. What he made her feel was the scariest thing of all. Was it real or something contrived by that little girl inside her who yearned for someone to protect her?

She dug out the tie-dyed yellow jeans and a green tank top, put them on, and pushed herself to leave the room. Her stomach growled at the thought of toast now. The kitchen’s walls were painted a taupe, with metallic red tiles going halfway up. The counters were dark stone, the light fixtures contemporary. Magnus had, to his word, left a loaf of whole-grain bread on the counter, a plate with a pat of butter and knife, and a tea set. She started the kettle and looked through the assortment of tea tins. Several exotic varieties tempted her, and she chose honey vanilla. She scooped the chunky blend into the tea diffuser.

While she waited for the tea to brew, she tuned into a strange clanging sound in the near distance. Alert for anything odd, she walked down the hall and looked out into an interior courtyard filled with flora and fauna. Across the way, she saw a studio with walls of glass and two men wearing Scottish garb, fencing. Their swords clashed, the sound bouncing off all the glass. She watched them for a minute, amazed at their grace and strength, which reminded her of Eric, which propelled her back to the kitchen.

Once she’d eaten her toast and brewed a second cup of tea, she returned to the bedroom. Eric was sitting up in bed, looking dazed. Her heart shot through the ceiling and she nearly dropped her teacup. Relief was quickly followed by guilt for not being there when he woke.

She tamped down her soaring excitement (Okay, she wanted to jump up and down), set down her cup and walked to the bed. “How are you feeling?”

He pulled his gaze from her and looked around the room. “Where am I?” His voice was hoarse. “This isn’t hell, right?” His gaze settled on her, softening. “You wouldn’t be in hell.”

She perched on the bottom edge of the bed. Now she would have to tell him about the antidote. “You’re at Wallace’s compound.”

He looked at her again, and she could see his muddled mind sorting through the pieces. “I didn’t die?”

She shook her head.

“You got me here?”

“I called Magnus. He and Lachlan brought you here.”

She saw the exact moment that he put it together. His face got pale and his icy blue eyes snapped to hers. “You gave me the antidote.”

“I wasn’t going to let you die.”

“You could have gotten killed. I could have fried you. Or Magnus. That’s why I told you to leave me alone.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t, and everything turned out all right.”

He looked at his hands. They were shaking a little, but then again, he hadn’t eaten in more than a day.

“You’re welcome,” she said, with what was probably a forced smile, reminding him of the time she’d followed him when he’d gone to find Sayre.

“You disobeyed me, risked your life, and allowed some unstable substance to be put into my body. I don’t know whether I want to thank you or throttle you.”

She cat-walked across the bed to him. “If I were you, I’d kiss me and thank me. Be a lot less messy.”

He was torn, and that was a good thing. Instead of doing either, he dropped back and covered his face with his hands. He’d gone almost as still as he had been through the night. “What the hell are the brothers doing?”

“Who?”

“Magnus and Lachlan. They’re fighting with swords.”

“Yeah, I saw them, though I was in too much of a hurry to get back to you to watch them.” She blinked. “How did you—you can still remote-view.”

His hands fell away, a ghost of a smile on his face. “Yeah. I didn’t lose my abilities. Maybe I’d better test the pyrokinesis.”

“No! Not here. Wouldn’t be considered good guest-age.”

“Guest-age?”

“You know, being a good guest.” She inched closer, looking down on him. “So you don’t hate me?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “A little.” He took her arm and pulled her closer. His hair was messier than she’d ever seen it, but that could be her fault. “Why? Why did you risk your life even after I’d ordered you to leave me alone? After everything I’ve done to you?”

Her throat tightened. The truth? The line from the movie
A Few Good Men
came to mind:
You can’t handle the truth!
She couldn’t handle the truth. So she improvised.

“We’re working together. We’re a team, and we need each other if we’re going to kick this Westerfield’s ass. And . . .” She glanced to the right of him. “ . . . I couldn’t help Jerryl. It’s what haunted me the most, that I was right there and couldn’t help him. I wasn’t going to go through that with you.”

He released her, and she swore he looked disappointed. “You have the soul of a soldier. You do what you have to do for your comrades.”

“Isn’t that why you saved
me
?”

He paused. “Yeah.” He sat up again, scrubbing his hands through his hair, and then made a sniffing sound. “Damn, I need a shower.”