Six

What is it about seeing blood that makes a wound hurt all at once?

A noise that isn’t entirely human squeaks from my throat and Ares immediately clues in that it’s not because I’m still in post-orgasm bliss.

“What is wrong?” he asks brusquely and I point in the general direction of my foot as blood drains into the water with a plop.

A dizzy sick wave unfurls in my head and my stomach at the same time and it’s a toss-up whether I’m going to pass out or throw up.

“This is your gig, right?” I mutter hoarsely. “Can’t you fix me?”

His brows draw together. “You are requesting me to heal you? I cannot.”

The dizziness starts affecting my vision and I go into a long tunnel. I wonder how fast a person can bleed to death. Rationally, I know the cut isn’t that deep and is likely bleeding so profusely because of my pounding pulse.

This is not a situation that calls for rationality. “Can’t or won’t?”

“I am physically able but unwilling.” The mulish set of his jaw puts a fine point on the statement.

Oh, really? There’s more than one way to skin a cat and he’s still mostly man despite being wrapped up in an alien shell. Slyly, I bat my eyes in his general direction. “Not even for me? I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Not even for you.”

Wow. So no interest in what I planned to offer? The nuances must have gotten lost in translation if he didn’t clue in that I meant I’d perform sexual favors in exchange. I open my mouth to be a lot more graphic in my description when the pain really sets in, making my back teeth grind together. Forget a blow job. Given the mood I’m in, he’s probably right to pass.

“I’m starting to think you made up all that healing nonsense,” I grouse instead. “You probably can’t do it.”

Blandly, he stares at me. “You cannot goad me into healing.”

Walked into that one. My evil eye doesn’t disintegrate him into a pile of ash no matter how hard I will it. Dang it, how did he see through me so easily?

“That’s it? You’re just going to let me bleed?” In response, he wads up his shirt and presses it to the wound. “Ow! Careful. It hurts.”

My feelings are now as wounded as my foot. So he can make me all better but refuses to. How’s that for crappy husband material? The glow from my orgasm has completely faded and I almost can’t remember what his mouth feels like on my lady parts. Almost.

“Pressure will stop the bleeding,” he tells me calmly. “What would you have done if you had been in the company of a human?”

I glare at him because logic does not fly with me when I’m hurt and he’s being stubborn. “I’m not, though. You’re here and you can fix me. This is how relationships work. You sacrifice for your significant other.”

With a scowl, he dabs at the wound and as the T-shirt soaks up the blood, the cut doesn’t look as bad. Not that I’m admitting anything of the sort. We’re talking principle and I’m standing on mine.

“Perhaps you are the one who might sacrifice,” he says. “Healing is shameful, yet you would require me to do so? This is not meaningful to me.”

Ugh. I cross my arms over my still-bared breasts and take a deep breath so I can attack that complete misconception appropriately. And then I catch a glint in his gaze that’s not stubbornness but something else.

Vulnerability. It clips me sideways.

“You really don’t like to heal?” I ask softly, gauging the answer for myself as he shakes his head. But still. There are big moral questions at stake here, my own needs aside. “It’s a valuable skill to have. You can help people. What’s wrong with that?”

He’s not even considering the greater good, and I sense that he needs to be pressed on this. That we were meant to be together for exactly this reason, so I can help him accept who he’s become. What better goal in a relationship can there be?

“I am a soldier,” he says and the fierce undertone sets me back. “They experimented on me, ruined my life. Instead of being given a skill that would increase my worth to the military, I became a…nursemaid. Why should I wish to use the ability I was accidentally given?”

Okay. It’s dirty pool to make your point so eloquently. “I don’t know! I don’t have special powers. But maybe you should be considering that you got them for a reason. To help people.”

His expression closes in. “I am an abomination. There can be no good in what I have become.”

“Because you’re not trying very hard to see the benefit.”

Frustrated, I try to yank on my bikini bottom, which is made ten times more difficult due to the fact that Ares is still holding his shirt against the gash in my flesh. I can’t pull away or I’ll start bleeding again. I worm my butt around on the ground searching for a position that will work and almost topple over but he patiently rebalances me with his one free hand, then helps me get dressed, all without the T-shirt budging one iota from my wound.

Even though he is clearly unhappy with me, his touch is gentle and it wrenches loose a tear. He tracks it with his gaze as it rolls down my cheek.

“Can we disagree and still find meaning?” he asks me quietly.

Well, that just spears me right through the heart. Ares is extending an olive branch with style and reminding me that I can’t railroad him at the same time. Who’s the expert in this thing called marriage again?

I nod and a couple more tears fall. “Yeah. It’s just a stupid fight. Normally I would recommend a lot of make up sex to get us through it. But I really just want to go to bed.”

He nods and sweeps me up into arms without asking, standing easily like I weigh nothing. Since my heart is fluttering a mile a minute and I’m in danger of swooning, I don’t argue. He carries me to the car in what is pretty much the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me.

Fortunately, the cut is on my left foot so I can still drive. Ares doesn’t have a driver’s license yet, which shoots to the top of my to-do list. When we get home, he helps me climb the stairs and with more tenderness than I would have credited, strips me out of my bikini and redresses me in pajamas, then bandages my foot a hell of a lot better than I could have. All while making me feel as if I’m made of glass and he fears breaking me. I have never been treated so carefully.

It’s not sexy. I don’t want to do wicked things to him, but I do want to curl up in his arms on the couch and let him stroke my hair, and for whatever reason, he seems fine with that.

“Do you forgive me for not healing you?” he asks once I’m settled and I’m positive that his lips are in my hair along with his fingers, pressing gentle, conciliatory kisses against my head.

My heart dissolves into a little puddle of goo. “Ares. Come on.”

How am I supposed to answer that? It’s an unfair question that rearranges all of my insides into something I don’t understand, and on top of that, he’s doing a bang up job of smoothing things over after our first fight. What kind of crap is that? He’s supposed to be a slave to my desires, eager to please and a hell of a lot more pliable.

I have to give up that ghost. He’s not like Eros. I got the moody, conflicted, completely stubborn alien who turns out to be sweet and nurturing when the situation calls for it. Does he even know that his drive to heal goes far deeper than simply to knit cut skin back together?

His question takes on new meaning as I glance up at him. He doesn’t like the rift between us and he wants to fix it. Not by doing what he knows I want but by asking me to concede that what I want is too hard for him…and that he needs me to be okay with that.

This is where the rubber meets the road, the place I get to in more relationships than I care to remember, and I never concede.

I want this time to be different. It needs to be different. We’re married and I can be better.

“It’s okay,” I tell him and his arms tighten around me. “I…forgive you.”

I have never uttered those words out loud. Has anyone? Isn’t forgiveness something you just kind of do and never really talk about?

“Gratzi,” he says sincerely and I can tell it means a lot to him that I said the words, which is odd for a guy who’s a little bit language challenged.

But I like Ares exactly the way he is. It’s a bit of a revelation, considering I was listing all his faults two seconds ago. The trick is that they aren’t flaws. He’s just not a cookie cutter alien, and I think I’m finally on track to accepting that.

Now that my expectations are one hundred percent reset, I’m ready to tackle this thing called marriage. My jaw cracks with my yawn. Tomorrow. My foot hurts anyway and I should spend some time thinking about how to give Ares what he truly needs in this relationship instead of what I dictate that he needs.

“I’m ready to go to bed. To sleep,” I stress in case he had some amorous intentions floating around after seeing me at literally at my worst. Looks like my wedding night of bliss will be put on hold.

He gathers me up and takes me into the bedroom, arranging me on the wrong side of the bed with quick, sure movements and then shocks me by stripping down to his boxer briefs. I am hurt, not dead, so I watch brazenly, my mouth watering. My husband is gorgeously made which thrills me more than it should, except I’m shallow and not ashamed of it. I appreciated his body earlier at the hot springs but this is a far more intimate setting with much tighter fitting apparel.

Maybe I’m the one with amorous intentions.

But then he slides beneath the covers and settles me back into his arms as if we’d never left the couch. Only I’m a lot more aware of how much of his skin is against mine. And how hard his erection is against my butt.

I’m not really sure how sleeping is supposed to occur when I’m this aware that I have an almost naked man—alien, but who’s counting?—in my bed.

His fingers stroke my side and I think it’s supposed to be comforting but his touch is electric. I arch against him as my core ignites and I flatten his palm against my skin, skating it downward toward my panties. Ares is a quick study and keeps going, thank God, stealing beneath the waistband, fingers questing until they hit my center.

Oh, God yes does he know how to touch me. He murmurs in my ear in the most erotic combination of Italian and what’s probably his native language but could be German, not that I care because he slides one thick finger inside me. I gasp, my hips bucking against his hand, seeking release from the sensuous pressure building inside.

I want him naked. The pain in my foot is easily ignorable at this point, so I twist out of my panties and T-shirt without losing the momentum. Our mouths collide and the kiss explodes, tongues tangling as we both seek more and more contact.

My hands go to the waistband of his boxer briefs and push, stripping him so fast that I scarcely have time to think about what’s happening, but then Ares is fully, gloriously bared. My lungs seize and I can’t do anything but stare at him. The long, hard length jutting from the juncture of his thighs is way too much for me.

I am up to the challenge. I cannot wait to taste him.

With that in mind, I grab his shoulders and roll him to his back, scooting down until I’m even with the goods, then treat him to one solid lick. He growls and circles his hips, which is a huge turn on. All at once, he pushes into my mouth, clearly impatient. I take most of him but even my mouth is not that big, so I do the best I can to pleasure him with some extra tongue action until we’re both thrashing with need.

He breaks first, pulling from between my lips with a tortured exhale. “Not this way.”

Fair enough. I’m game to let him come whatever way works for him, though I’m totally fine with the tit for tat since he went down on me earlier, before the infamous foot incident.

“What way then?” I blink coquettishly, curious if aliens have some kinky preferences that I don’t know about. I might be game for that too. The way he’s making me feel at this moment, odds are good I wouldn’t say no to much of anything.

In response, he flips me back on the mattress and covers me with his delicious body. Missionary style then. Unorthodox. But okay.

His mouth coasts up my throat, setting my flesh on fire as he works his way north. The kiss, when it comes, shatters my soul, winding through me with spark and light until my body is nothing but sensation. This position is far better than I would have imagined.

I’m so far gone I barely hear the rustle of packaging but finally I register that he’s rolling on a condom. Somehow. Not sure where he found extra-large alien sized ones but I appreciate that he’s on the ball. And then I don’t think at all as he pushes up one of my knees to widen me, then pierces me to the core in one swift thrust.

Gasping out his name, I tense up at the searing, beautiful fullness. He pauses to let me acclimate. I needed that and tell him thank you with a thousand non-verbal cues that he accepts with a small smile.

And then the onslaught begins.

Ares makes love with his whole being and there’s so much of him that my body can’t help but respond. It’s intense how he watches me as he pushes in and out, powerful how my blood starts to sing with heat. He has moves that I’ve never experienced before and a command of his body that is unparalleled—he knows how to use it, how to wring pleasure from me, how to drive me into the heavens with nothing more than a shimmy of his hips.

This position is my favorite. Ever. Of all time.

I lose all sense of time and place. There is no part of me that Ares doesn’t touch and I only register some of it in the physical sense. He’s inside me, winnowing beneath my skin to take up residence. I’m full to the brim and still I want more because it’s that good.

He slides a hand under my butt and grips it, lifting me half off the mattress as he increases the pace. Dear God. I only thought I was at the height of bliss, but this new angle steals my breath. I’m coming apart at the seams, spreading wide to take even more of him.

He’s murmuring in Italian again, which I doubt he even realizes he does when he gets lost in me, and it’s heady to listen to. I affect him. That’s a kick.

The combination of Ares and his pretty words tumble me over the cliff and my core bursts with rippling heat in a spectacular climax. I go blind for a minute as the release grips my entire body. It’s so deep and so extreme because he’s still huge and hard inside me, demanding that my body answer.

He picks up his pace, chasing his release in kind and I wrap my legs around him, cradling him until he comes with a growl, his features relaxing in bliss. I could get used to this view. He’s so rarely anything other than controlled.

As he unwinds, he gathers me into his embrace and I go willingly, rolling with him into a tight knot of bodies. In this position, I can easily touch him all over so I take full advantage, running my hands down his back, letting my fingertips learn each nick and scar that marks him as a warrior.

Funny, I don’t think of him that way. But clearly he thinks of himself as a soldier, and it’s part of his identity, even to the point of branding his skin. He wears the evidence of his former profession twenty-four seven and I’m ashamed to admit I have not considered how this reminder might make him feel.

I don’t think of his feelings much at all. I am a terrible wife.

Ares doesn’t seem to notice, placing little feathery kisses along my hairline as he absently runs a fingertip up and down my spine. His eyes drift closed and I have to follow suit, though I’m still stuck back on how I can be better. For him. He deserves to have someone treat him well and that someone should be his wife first and foremost.