Nightshine

“It’s not just warm.” She crossed her arms over her bare breasts. “What you’re doing is making me hot. Understand?”



He bent down and kissed her bottom lip. “Should I stop?”



“If you do, mío,” she said, her voice wry, “then I will be rushing you into sex.”



He turned his head to put his tongue to her palm, and felt a dark satisfaction when she shivered. “Hold that thought for a little longer, honey.”



Samuel turned her head to one side to have a better look at the uneven ring of contusions left by the guard’s brutal hand. As he stroked his fingertips over them, they seemed to come apart, ugly beads falling from a broken necklace. He deliberately cupped her throat with his hand, and when he lifted his palm the bruises were gone.



“It seems I don’t have to kiss you to make it better.” He studied his hand. “Touching works just as well.”



Charlotte looked up at him. “Can you do both?”



Her question made him go still. “That might not be wise.”



Charlie knew healing wasn’t supposed to be an erotic experience. She’d monitored enough patients to know that at best it was a tedious, pain-racked process. While she didn’t understand how Sam had acquired an ability that bypassed all that, or why, she wanted more. In fact, she wanted everything she could get, and since they’d agreed to become lovers, he should have been happy to give it to her.



Unless he’s been lying.



He’d told her that he found her attractive, and yet now, when she asked for more, it had turned him off. Since they were both naked on a bed with nothing between them but a towel, it had to be something he was feeling, something she wouldn’t be able to know for sure until after sunset.



Samuel was an educated, courteous man with exquisite manners. However he felt, he’d never insult her. And what had he called it, having sex with her?



The path of least resistance.



“It’s not what you want. That’s all you have to say.” Charlotte sat up and reached for the sheet to cover herself. “We’ll take a break now, and later—”



He yanked the sheet away from her, and was on top of her so fast she didn’t have time to inhale.



“No breaks, Charlotte,” he said in a low, rough tone she’d never before heard him use. “We have to finish this right now.” He lowered his voice and his head, murmuring the rest against her ear. “Because the moment you’re better, my beautiful darling, the very second you’ll have me, I’m going to put myself inside you, and make love to you, and not stop until we’re both too tired to move. That is what I want.”



Oh, she liked him this way: so hungry for her that he forgot his pretty manners. He was gripping her wrists, so she nudged him with her shoulder until he lifted his head. She saw the frustration in his eyes, and recalled something he’d mentioned earlier. “How long has it been for you?”



“Years.”



She smiled. “Then you should get a move on, mío.”



His hand held her face as he covered her mouth with his, taking away the soreness and rawness as he healed the split in her bottom lip. From there he followed the curve of her lip and then the line of her jaw, soothing away the soreness and creating a deeper, more immediate ache.



There was so much of him to touch and explore that Charlie couldn’t wait for him to finish. As soon as he let go of her wrists she had her hands in his hair. It looked baby-soft but felt thick and heavy, a snare for her fingers. Each strand caught the light and held it captive, glittering like something spun by an enchanted fairy-tale creature.



He rubbed his head against her hand, a low sound rumbling from his chest as she worked her fingertips against his scalp. “That feels good.”



“So do you.” Charlie admired his eyes. The amber lashes framing them didn’t curl, but spiked down over the darkness of his irises. This close she could see tiny starbursts around his pupils, so pale a silver they could be easily mistaken for reflected lights. “Finished yet?”



“Almost.” He bent his head to her shoulder, first kissing away the pain and then following the curve up to her neck with the velvet stroke of his tongue.



Charlie worked her hands down his broad back, finding the edge of the towel he’d tucked around his hips and loosening it until she could tug it away. The last barrier gone, she pulled him over on top of her, arching up into him, wanting to feel him everywhere, from the wide vault of his chest rubbing against her aching breasts to the sculpted columns of his legs gliding against the tense muscles all along her thighs and calves.



“Charlotte.” He pushed his fingers under her, lifting her bottom as he settled himself between her thighs. His hands were shaking now, and as soon as the rigid shaft of his penis touched her, he felt the liquid heat of her arousal and groaned. “I was going to try to take this slow.”



“It’s been years, right?” Was she breathless, digging her nails into his shoulders, and twisting under him like a shameless, greedy thing? It seemed she was. “Try slow next week.”



Samuel lifted her again, reaching down between their bodies to position himself before tightening his buttocks. As she felt the delicious press of his cock head parting her folds, she braced her heels and moved with him, welcoming that first slow breach and the steady penetration that followed. He filled her until the stretching ache made her gasp, and then held himself inside her, his jaw tight and his breath warm on her lips.



He was asking her something, and she was so absorbed by the way they had melded together that she’d gone deaf. She looped an arm around his strong neck, bringing his mouth across that last inch separating their faces and nipping his bottom lip.



“Next week,” he muttered, gathering her up as he answered her gentle bite with a hungry, soul-wrenching kiss.



Samuel’s hips recoiled, and she clenched against the drag of his steady withdrawal, aching to hold on and savor the thrill of being completed by his flesh in hers. Last night she’d climaxed rubbing against him and only imagining how it would feel; now she knew and it was so much more, the incredible heat and power of him rolling through her as he stroked back in. And how amazing it felt, the taking and giving, the softness of her sex swelling around him as he worked his shaft deeper, the muscles of his back knotting and growing slick with sweat under her hands.



Charlie had her hands in his hair again when he took his lips from hers, and bowed her back, offering her breast. As he sucked at her he pushed in hard and fast, startling a cry from her; he added to the torment by cupping the flushed globe and kneading it in time to the tugging pull of his mouth. She bucked beneath him, shocked soundless by the sudden explosion of her orgasm, and then he was taking her like a wild man, driving into her as she shuddered and refusing to let her come down, his fingers gliding down over her belly to work her clit as he brought her over again.



The room spun and time blurred as she came a third time, his name spilling from her lips as she shuddered under him, and Samuel’s big frame shook, but instead of coming he tried to draw out of her completely.



Instinctively Charlie knew what he meant to do. “No.” She clamped her legs around him, pushing herself against him. “I need all of you.”



That sent Samuel into a frenzy, and he clamped his hands on her buttocks, jerking her up and holding her there as he gave her the last hard, uneven strokes before he went deep and stilled. She felt his semen pulsing and spreading inside her body, warm and thick, and curled her arms around his shoulders to hold him as he buried his face in her hair.



They lay like that until Samuel murmured something and rolled onto his side, still keeping her pressed against him. Sweat streaked the sides of his face, and as she smoothed back his hair he trailed a line of kisses over her brow.



“I know why you grow your hair long.” She made rings of it around her fingers. “Cutting it makes your barber feel like a butcher.”



“Findley trims it for me every morning,” he told her as he rolled onto his side to run his hand down her arm. “It grows very fast, sometimes as much as twelve inches in a day. So does my beard.” He frowned as he touched his jaw, over which dark gold stubble was just beginning to show. “At least, it did before we were brought here.”



“The beard was interesting, mío, but I like you better without it.” A strange tenderness welled inside her as she rested a hand on his hip. “So what do you think of all this?”



He propped himself up on one elbow. “Trying slow actually may have to wait until next month. Possibly Christmas. And you?”



“I need to sleep with more cripples.” She laughed as he scowled and tickled her. “All right, ex-cripples.”



Samuel bent his head to hers, and Charlie’s gaze wandered, coming to an abrupt stop at the glint of a lens. Like all the others in the room, it was aimed directly at the bed.



They’d forgotten about the cameras.



As she closed her eyes to enjoy Samuel’s kiss, Charlie lifted her hand from the back of his neck and extended her middle finger.



Chapter 10



In the kitchen of her home, Tlemi set out what she would prepare for their midday meal: mangoes, smoked fish, and some of the herbed flatbread Xochi had learned how to bake. After watching the Americans she had no appetite, but if she didn’t feed Colotl, he would forget to eat, as he did so often now.



This place was making them all sick, not in body, but in spirit.



Living on the island had once made Tlemi feel as if she had come to paradise. Before they had been brought here, all they had ever known had been the darkness of the master’s domain. Tlemi’s oldest memories were of long, moonlit nights playing with Colotl and the other children in the gardens while the abuelas had tended the flowers or gathered fruit under the braziers. When the roosters crowed they were brought inside and sent to sleep in the cool, dark rooms in the lower levels.



As she began slicing the mango, Tlemi remembered the delighted laughter that had spilled from her lips when she and Colotl had risen from their bed to watch their first sunrise on the island.