Flamebound (2 page)

I sink down a little so that I'm resting against him, his erection hot and hard where it nestles against my sex. He groans a little, tilts his hips so that the tip of his cock is resting right against my clit and starts to move slowly, deliciously, against me.

Seconds later, his lips close over my nipple. I gasp, arch into him, and he bites down just hard enough to send pleasure shooting through every nerve ending in my body. He laves the little hurt with his tongue, then does it again. And again.

That's all it takes to send me over the edge I'm never very far from when Declan's around. My body trembles, convulses, and I cry out, hold on to him even more tightly. He kisses and soothes me through the surprisingly intense orgasm even as he shifts to find the spot that will take me higher. I come again, screaming, head thrown back and breasts thrust up like some ancient pagan sacrifice.

Declan accepts the offering, his mouth closing over first one nipple, then the other as he prolongs my climax until I'm a sweaty, shuddering mess. Only then does he let the primal need inside him loose.

Dropping to his knees, he slides me gently onto the exercise mat. Strips my pants from me. Does the same to his own. Then he's rolling me over onto my knees.

Wrapping an arm around my waist.

Pulling me back against him with less finesse than he's ever shown before.

Thrusting into me from behind.

It's primitive and possessive and perfect—so perfect that I climax again within seconds. Declan groans, his hands clamping down on my hips to hold me in place as he moves slow and deep inside me. Over and over and over again.

Eventually I cry out. My body is on fire, every nerve ending I have alight with so much pleasure that I can't breathe, can't think, can't function. There are no boundaries, no lines, nothing that tells me where I stop and he begins. It's exhilarating and terrifying and absolutely unstoppable.

His power rises up, calls to mine, and I couldn't stop my magic from answering even if I wanted to. My power flashes out of me, slams into his in a mingling so intense that I feel it in my soul.

Declan gasps, his hands tightening on my hips as if he needs to anchor himself, and I know he feels it, too. Desperate, delirious, but determined to take him over the edge with me this time, I reach back, grab onto the firm muscles of his ass and pull him forward, hard, so that he slams—fast and deep—inside me.

He curses, then lets go in a potent flash of light and love. He pours himself into me and it sends me into one last climax, this one more powerful than those that came before because he's with me every step of the way.

W
hen it's over, Declan sags against me. His chest pressed to my back. His face resting against my shoulder. His body wrapped around mine.

I love it. Love the way he surrounds me, the way I feel him in every cell, every molecule of my body. Love even more the intimacy of being held so closely by the man I know I'm falling for.

I don't move, afraid to break the spell, and for long seconds neither does he. But eventually our skin grows sticky with dried sweat and the first fingers of dawn begin to creep through the wide, uncurtained picture window that makes up one whole wall of this place.

“I need to get to work.” I should have left already. I was tired last night, and eager to see Declan, so I left without prepping the dough for the snickerdoodle cookies. It needs to be done soon or there will be a lot of disappointed customers this morning. The cookies are one of my biggest sellers.

“I know.” He presses a soft kiss between my shoulder blades. “I'm sorry. You said you wanted to talk.”

He helps me up and for a moment, just a moment, I get another glimpse of the vulnerability in his eyes. It's such an unfamiliar look for him that, like before, it takes me a moment to realize what it is. When I do, my heart melts just a little more. So often I feel like I'm the only one blundering around without a clue. Like Declan has all the answers to this mysterious connection we share while I don't have an inkling. It's nice to know that, steep as the learning curve is for me, I'm not in this alone.

“It's fine,” I tell him as I head for the shower. “We can talk later.”

I pretend, even to myself, that I'm not relieved at the reprieve. But I am. The last thing I want to do right now is fight with Declan, but I know that it's brewing. That it's just a matter of time before we have a knock-down-drag-out over the ACW.

He follows me down the hall to his bedroom, which is empty save the huge bed in the center of the room. The messed-up sheets and bloodred comforter pooled on the floor are testament to the fact that Declan and I didn't get much sleep last night. Not that I care. Being loved by him is worth any sleep I might lose out on.

“Are you sure? We can talk in the shower.” The vulnerability is gone, replaced by a wicked gleam I know all too well.

I slap a hand on his chest, shove him away when he would have reached for me. “Dude, I know what your definition of shower is and it has very little to do with actually getting clean. I'm late. Plus, Austin's in the middle of a drought—”

“Which is why showering together is such a brilliant idea. We should do our part to conserve.”

I snort. “Yeah, right. There's not enough water in the state for the games you like to play. You're on your own.” I close the door on him, then lean back against it for a second to give my legs a chance to steady. As I do, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My skin is flushed, my eyes dancing, and there's a huge smile on my face.

It's a good look for me—beats the hell out of the bruised and battered one I was sporting for a while. Not that I don't still have bruises. I do, but thanks to time and Declan's ministrations, they've faded to almost nothing.

I don't look at them, don't bring the darkness into this one perfect moment. Being with Declan makes me happy, something I couldn't have imagined saying even two weeks ago. But he does. He makes me really, really happy and that's enough for now. Whatever this is between us, while intense and over the top, feels good and right—especially since the rest of my life is pretty much a disaster right now.

But I know it won't last. Not Declan, but the joy bubbling up inside me. It can't, not with the darkness that lives inside both of us. Not with the twisted maze of lies and danger that stretches before us. Between us.

I flip on the shower, brush my teeth as I wait for the water to warm. Tell myself that I need to enjoy every moment we have together before the evil intrudes. After all, these stolen days in Declan's arms are more than I ever thought I'd get when I was lying on that stage waiting to die. As long as I have him beside me, I can handle whatever comes next.

With that thought firmly in mind, I make my way toward the shower. But before I can set foot inside it, Declan is there—warm and naked, and suddenly I want nothing more than to crawl back into bed with all six and a half feet of him. And when he wraps his arms around me from behind, pulls me against his broad, hard chest, I can't do anything but melt.

At least until he puts his mouth to my ear and murmurs, “Let's talk. Is everything okay?”

The warmth leaves me in a rush. We need to have this conversation—I know we do. But I don't want to do it now. Not when I'm still loose and sated from our incredible lovemaking. And not when I want to savor the sweetness and the joy that springs up so unexpectedly between us for just a few minutes.

I'm not a coward, though, and I can't walk away from this conversation. I let Declan distract me earlier, just as I have every day since I've been out of the hospital. But that stops now. I need answers and he's the only one who can give them to me.

“What—” My voice breaks, so I clear my throat. Take a breath. Then try again. “What are you planning on doing?”

“I need to make some phone calls, deal with the wrap-up of the tour. Usually all that's done a week after the tour finishes, but I've been a little busy the last few days.”

Taking care of me.
That's not what he said, but it's what he meant. My cheeks flush with embarrassment. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take you away—”

“Don't,” he tells me, right before he bends down and takes my mouth in a searing kiss. “Don't you dare apologize for what those bastards did to you.”

“I'm not apologizing for
that
. But I am sorry I've taken up so much of your time when you need to be doing other stuff.”

He stares at me for long seconds. “You just don't get it, do you? Even after everything we've been through, you don't understand how much you mean to me.”

I don't. But I know how much he matters to me, and the thought of anything happening to him because of me, because of our relationship, cuts like a knife.

Again, I think about running away. About heading into work without ever having this discussion. I've put it off long enough, though, and it's not good for either one of us to live in this kind of limbo where we're uncertain of each other's thoughts and intentions.

“When I asked what you were going to do, I didn't mean today,” I tell him. “I was talking about the ACW. What your plans are regarding them?”

His eyes turn cold, flat, hard in an instant. “They need to pay.”

The conviction in his voice is absolute, and it's exactly what I was afraid of. “What are you planning?”

“Right now?” He quirks a brow. “Nothing.”

I nearly sag in relief. Thank the goddess he's being reasonable. I know how angry he is, but going after the ACW is suicide. Besides, I'm not ready to fight the war that such a move would invoke. Right now, I have more than enough on my plate just trying to get used to Declan and my new powers.

“You look shocked,” he tells me.

“I am. I thought you'd be more . . . difficult about this.”

“Difficult? Why would I be difficult?”

He's going for innocent, but all of a sudden I don't trust the look on his face or the shadows in his eyes.

“Declan, you can't . . .”

“Can't what?” Those eyes narrow.

I swallow nervously. Even after everything we've shared, it still overwhelms me to have all that gorgeous intensity focused so completely on me. “The Council is too strong. You need to let what happened to me go.”

“Let it go?” He doesn't bother to hide the incredulity in his tone. “You think I'm just going to let it go?”

He steps away from me to pace the long, narrow length of the bathroom. Though I know it's stupid, I feel immediately bereft without his warmth wrapped around me.

“They don't get to do whatever they want. They don't get to play with people's lives—with
your
life—and get away with it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don't know yet,” he says in a harsh voice barely above a whisper. “But I'll tell you what I want to do. I want to rip them all apart. To kill every Councilor—in as bloody and as terrible a way as possible—for what they did to you. I want to shred the whole fucking lot of them, make examples of them so that no one, ever, thinks it's okay to come after you again.

“But I can't do that. Not now, not when you're in Austin. Because the only thing I want more than their blood is your safety. And this”—he gestures to the bruises still evident on my skin—“isn't safe. I would never do something that would double back on you. Never do anything that could make you suffer the way this has.”

I hear what he's saying—of course I do, because I feel exactly the same way about him. But I also hear what he isn't saying. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Knowing that if I wasn't around, you would kill every single one of them?”

“What do you want from me?” He's snarling now. “They
raped
you. They
tortured
you. They had every intention of
killing
you. And what? I'm just supposed to let that go? Let them get away with it?”

He whirls away from me, slams a fist into the wall. Pulls it back and does the same thing a second and a third time, until his fingers are swollen, his knuckles bruised and bloody. And still the rage pours off him.

He thrusts his uninjured hand into my hair, tightens his fingers into a fist and pulls me close, so close that I can see the silver flecks in his eyes. Feel the heat pouring off him. So close that we're breathing the same air.

Part of me wants to stop pushing. To bury my head some more and pray that it all goes away. But even I'm smart enough to know that's not going to work.

Gathering my courage, I take a deep breath. Close my eyes. And ask again. “What are you going to do?” Because he has a plan. I know he does.

He doesn't answer, which only makes me more concerned. “Damn it, Declan. Don't shut me out—you owe me that much. What are you thinking?”

In lieu of answering, he reaches for me. Pulls me into his arms. Then thrusts me away so that he can glide his fingers over my rib cage, my shoulder, the undersides of my breasts.

It takes me a minute to figure out what he's doing, that he's tracing each of the bruises and cuts I still bear from eight nights ago, when Kyle had me strapped to a table in some macabre offering to the sickness inside him and those he worked for. He presses kisses on them all—even ones that have faded or disappeared completely. He knows each and every one of them, and for the first time, I understand just how destroyed Declan is by what was done to me.

“Living like this, for revenge, isn't healthy.” I brush my lips across his forehead.

“It's healthier than eating myself up every minute of the goddamn day, thinking that they're going to get away with what they did.”

“They aren't going to get away with it. Kyle is—”

“Already dead. He just doesn't know it yet.”

Horror seizes me, cold and all-consuming. “What did you do?”

“What needed to be done. He'll never stand trial for what he did, never get the chance to walk away from it.”

I don't want to believe what he's telling me. “Then why all the safeguards? Why didn't you just let the ACW have him?”

The look he gives me is pure magic, dark and mystical and filled with unimaginable power. “And give them even a small modicum of peace of mind? Not going to happen.”

I think of all the magic I know of, and all the magic I still don't understand. There are spells to do what Declan is suggesting—slow, insidious things that creep through the bloodstream and destroy a person from the inside out. I don't know how they work, have never given them much thought before as they are dark magic. Not black magic, not blood magic, but almost.

It shouldn't come as a surprise. I've known Declan walks the thin and shadowy line between white and black magic. But this, what he's talking about, is so close to stepping over that line that it might as well not exist.

My stomach cramps and for a second I'm certain that I'm going to puke. Panic, fear, even disgust well up inside me as I think about what he's done, what he will continue to do.

I don't want this.

Don't want to know this dark and driven side of Declan.

Don't want to understand the things he's willing to do and the lines he's willing to cross because of the shadowy rules he lives by.

“They've spent centuries fucking around with me, and that's fine. I'm used to it. But they will
never
touch you again.” The words ring with conviction even though they're devoid of emotion. Or maybe because of it.

A hot and angry Declan is dangerous. A cold, emotionless one is terrifying. Not to mention deadly.

“You can't go up against the Council on your own.”

He can't pit himself against the ACW; he just can't. Declan is powerful—terrifyingly so—but what he's talking about is suicide, even for him.

“Declan, I'm serious. That's treason. They'll kill you—if you're lucky—and hold you up as an example for every witch, wizard and warlock in existence of what happens to people who cross the ACW.”

“For that to happen, there would have to be some Council members left alive. I'm not planning on that being the case.”

Dear sweet goddess.
“You think you can kill them all?”

“I'm
going
to kill them all.”

“That's crazy, Declan! Even
you
aren't strong enough for that. Once they figure out what you're going to do, they'll do whatever it takes to stop you.”