He froze, fire and gold holding me in his sight, his expression softening to sad longing. “As I love you, my heart. As I always have.”
I wanted to weep, fall into his arms and never come up for air. For all that we’d suffered, for all the mistakes I’d made, for all the pain he’d endured…because of me. The intensity of the moment was too much.
As if he sensed my certain fall, with a swift movement, he pulled out of me. Lifting with one arm behind my knees, the other around my back, he cradled me in his arms and carried me to the bedroom. Laying me on the bed, he covered me, both of us still wet, our bodies sliding skin on skin, the most beautiful sensation I’d ever known. His hard erection pressed against my thigh, but he made no move to ease his anguish.
He brushed the wet strands of hair away from my face, observing every curve and line as he’d always done when I had his complete, singular attention. Jude oozed such focus when he looked at me this way, he made me feel like I was the only woman in the world. And I’d missed this so much. I thought I’d break apart in this moment of beauty with Jude looming above me in the dark, the dim firelight capturing his stunning profile. This man owned me, body and soul. I’d never admitted to myself that had he not returned to me fully, I would have been lost to the darkness.
“What happened there?” he asked, nodding to my throat.
It had only been a day, but my VS had already wiped most of the bruising away. Still, he had seen the injury. And he didn’t remember doing it. I wouldn’t burden him with that.
“Nothing.” I combed one hand into his hair. “I’ve missed you so much, Jude.”
“I know, love.”
“Do you remember…everything? Do you?”
“Shhh. Not yet.” He pressed his lips to mine, coaxing them apart, stroking his tongue against mine before he pulled away to kiss up my jaw and whisper, “I’m not done yet. Talk…later.”
A man on a mission. Far be it from me to disturb his determination.
I moaned as he worked his way lower, sucking at the hollow of my throat before descending. His mouth skated across my breast, his tongue flicking out at the taut nub, still damp from the shower but tight from the cool air and unquenched desire.
“Please,” I pleaded, one hand in his wet hair, pushing gently. He opened his mouth and sucked. I thought I’d pass out from the pleasure, arching my back to get closer. He used teeth. I opened my thighs so his tight abdomen pressed against my core. He growled low and opened his mouth, hot and wet, over my other nipple, flicking his tongue in delicious torture.
“Jude…please.” I tried to urge him up, wanting him inside me again.
He peered at me from under dark lashes, his scruffy chin abrading my breast, dark desire written in every line of his face. “No, my heart. I’m going to taste every inch of you tonight.”
My stomach flipped inside out at his erotic words, heavy with intent, as he moved down my body and held my thighs open. He nuzzled my inner thigh with sweet caresses, hot breath tantalizing my senses as he pressed a wet kiss just beyond where I wanted his mouth. I’d never had a man go down on me, such an intimate act. I’d never felt comfortable with a guy enough to let him do that. But Jude wasn’t a guy. He was my all, my everything. And as I watched his lips sweep so close, spots hazed my peripheral vision from the thought of his mouth working me there.
He slid his fingers along my slick slit in a slow, slow tempo, opening me farther. My knees fell wide on a moan, like the wanton I was when it came to Jude. His dark gaze held me in rapture as he licked my nub in one long stroke.
“Fuck,” fell from my lips. So poetic.
He grinned like a fiend before opening his mouth and showing me the true definition of erotic bliss. My head fell back onto the pillow. I couldn’t watch him do what he was doing anymore. Unable to keep from squirming—the sensation too heady, too intense—I rocked against his mouth as he stroked and licked and sucked with ravenous appetite. He pushed a finger inside me, then another, thrusting in the same languid rhythm as his mouth. Without warning, my body skyrocketed.
“Oh God! I’m coming again,” I said, panting.
He withdrew his mouth and fingers and rose onto his knees. “No,” he said, his rough timbre scraping so deep and low, it sounded more monster than man. “Not without me you’re not.”
His entire body was a rigid wall. He sank into me with an inhuman groan, thrusting once, so hard and deep, a flash of stars crossed my mind, my VS awakening to the pulse of Jude’s body connecting with mine. Needing to hold on, I reached above my head and gripped the wooden slats of the bed, knowing Jude wanted to drive at a hard pace. I remembered our honeymoon. He was gentle when I needed it. And now he needed hard and raw and unrestrained. I would give that to him.
“Go on,” I said. “Don’t hold back.”
The recognition shone bright. He raised his torso above me, pelvis settling hard between my legs. I crossed my ankles at the small of his back, readying for the ride. He drew out and slammed in once, holding himself in a rock-solid line, hissing out a vulgar epithet. Like I cared. He could curse to his heart’s content. The fact that he wanted me this much made me pliant and willing to do anything for him.
His head fell back a little, his eyes slipped closed, and Jude took me the way he wanted. It wasn’t a mindless thrusting, pistoning like a machine. No. It was a sensuous roll of his spine, pounding hard at the end, like the sensual beast he was. He nudged his knees wider, stretching my thighs farther apart, and pumped with punishing speed. I gripped the slats to hold my body in place. Our bodies met with such force, I grunted with every thrust. So did Jude. A rivulet of sweat ran down the valley of his abdomen.
The bond that so often pulled us together tightened like twine being wound to a taut line. Our breaths quickened, hearts raced and bodies met in a coalescence of sweat and heat and need. The union that was forged before he left, when we became man and wife, strengthened tenfold as I lay beneath him and let him show me with his body how desperately he needed me.
He shifted angles, lower and closer, so that his chest brushed against my nipples with each thrust and his pelvis rubbed deliciously against my core as he slammed inside me. An unexpected swelling built again.
Moaning louder, I reached for that bright spot once more.
“Yes,
mon coeur
…come with me,” he whispered with the heavy French accent he used only when that term of endearment slipped from his lips.
When I climaxed, I screamed loud enough that if we’d had neighbors, they would’ve thought someone had been murdered. Jude stilled, pressing his pelvis hard as he spent inside me. If I wasn’t pregnant already, I would’ve been then.
Pregnant. He didn’t know. Not yet.
He collapsed beside me, both of us just staring at each other and panting. He smiled—that great big Jude smile that made everything melt inside. He reached over and swept my hair off my face, brushing his thumb across my cheekbone.
“I’ve missed you too,
mon coeur
.” Serious, grave, heavy words. “And I’ll never let you go again.” His amber-gold eyes sparked with new fire. “Never.”
Chapter Twenty-One
We lay there for a long time afterward, saying nothing, just staring at each other. And smiling.
“What happened when you woke up? Did you just…remember?” I asked, rolling onto my side and tucking a hand beneath my cheek.
“It was like I awoke from a long dream. I knew who I was, knew where I was. I remembered George and Uriel coming here. I knew them, and yet they were still strangers to me. I knew that it must be you in the shower, because we’d been here alone.”
“And did you remember thinking me a stranger?”
He propped up on his elbow. With one finger, he swept a lock of my damp hair away from my face, trailing his finger down my cheek to my jaw. “I remember thinking you were beautiful and magnetic and somehow familiar to me. Also that I’d been somewhere horrible and ugly and shouldn’t get too close to you.”
I pushed up into a sitting position, bringing the covers with me. “Why not get close to me?”
“I don’t know.”
He sat up and swiveled out of bed, walking to the dresser, where he rummaged and found some gray sweatpants. He did know, but was evading the question. He thought himself dirty or soiled somehow from what had happened to him in the underworld. I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and slipped out of bed. If he didn’t want to face what happened there yet, I sure as hell wasn’t going to force the issue.
“I’m hungry,” I said, slipping on a pair of flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt. “Are you?”
“Definitely.”
I was actually starving. I had made a chicken and sausage gumbo two weeks ago and frozen it in servings for two in hopes of Jude’s return. I hadn’t heated any yet, because I wanted to see the joy in his eyes when he recognized a favorite dish I’d made especially for him. Until today, he didn’t know me or his life before.
I went about lighting the stove and plunking the frozen block into a pot. I stood over the stove and stirred the gumbo as it melted, the center still a frozen chunk. The rice was nearly done on the back burner.
Bare-chested but wearing sweatpants—dry ones, that was—Jude wrapped his arms around my waist, cradling me close as he nuzzled into my hair. I dropped the spoon, and it nearly disappeared into the gumbo, the silver edge just above the roux.
“Jude. I can’t concentrate when you do that. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Yes.” Trailing his mouth down my neck, he kissed, then bit the sensitive skin.
I let my head fall back against his shoulder, reveling in the seductive power of this man. My man. My Jude had come back to me. Such a glorious feeling, I never wanted to do anything else but this.
One of his hands roamed down over my hip, squeezed, then slipped underneath my T-shirt, skimming over my ribs to cup my breast. He sucked on that tender spot I loved on the slope between shoulder and neck, making me needy for him again.
“I love it when you do that,” I said.
“What? This?” He palmed my breast and squeezed my nipple gently between thumb and forefinger.
I exhaled on a sigh. That wasn’t what I was referring to, but my mind fogged. “Yeah.” I swear, I lost brain cells every time Jude touched me. I grabbed the wrist of his hand still flat against my abdomen and guided him under my T-shirt.
“Genevieve,” he whispered with a groan, cupping both breasts and teasing my nipples into tight peaks. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”
Music to my ears. “Then don’t.” I arched my back, brushing my bum against his hard ridge. Then my stomach growled so loudly, Mira chirped from her bed atop the cabinet.
Jude slid his hands out of my shirt and turned me around. A scintillating smile creased his face. He brushed his lips against mine and planted a sweet kiss there. “Food,” he said. “Then a shower.”
“Yes. Maybe separate showers, so we can actually get clean.”
He chuckled. “Or maybe a dirty shower, then a clean shower.”
Teasing Jude was back. I laughed, my heart so full, I thought it would burst. “But you really need to do something about this.” I brushed my fingertips along his scruffy chin. “This scruff has become more of a beard.”
I hadn’t shaved him again, not since that first night I’d brought him home. Whenever he woke up, I didn’t think it wise to approach him with a razor, afraid he’d think I meant him harm.
“Whatever my queen commands.”
“Stop it.”
A sizzle and splat drew our attention back to the stove. The gumbo was bubbling. “I’ve got it. Go sit.”
He sat in a dining room chair just as Mira hopped down from her little nest and landed on her favorite chair back. She clicked sweetly at Jude. I’d already scooped the rice and gumbo in two bowls and sliced a piece of French bread for us both. As I carried the bowls over and set them down on the table, I watched Jude’s unwavering gaze on Mira.
“You don’t remember her, then?” I asked.
“Actually,” he said, taking a small chunk of bread and holding it out to her. She nipped and gulped it down heartily, making a cooing sort of sound I hadn’t heard before. Flirting. Go figure. “I do remember her. I even remember seeing her when I was in a dark place, in Erebus.”
He must be gaining some memories of his time there. I didn’t want to resurrect that ugliness. Not just yet.
“Do you remember me telling you who she is? How I got her?”
He glanced from Mira to me, then back to Mira. “She’s your spawn, isn’t she?”
I smiled and scooped a spoonful of gumbo into my mouth. I truly was starting to get light-headed and needed sustenance. Fast.
“When did she come to you?” he asked, turning his attention to his own bowl.
I took another bite before answering. “The night you were taken by Lethe.”
I felt his attention rest heavily on me, but I dipped a piece of my bread in the dark roux and bit off a chunk. “I was overwhelmed with grief, Jude. As you can imagine. And I thought I’d be taken away by it all, when I felt a warmth unlike any other. And she came right out of my chest, a burning orb of white before transforming into this magical creature. She has helped me so much since then. You just don’t know.”