CHAPTER 40
Wallowa Mountains, Oregon
Within three hours, they were safe at the compound in the Wallowa Mountains. Christan hadn’t given her time to change her mind. He’d tossed her clothes from the closet to the bed with male efficiency, and Lexi hadn’t bothered to complain. She’d simply refolded everything and filled a suitcase. Marge assured her that the cottage would be closed up and the food donated to the food bank, while Arsen called ahead to the chef. A light meal was waiting at the main lodge when they arrived. But neither Christan nor Lexi felt hungry. Lights and temperature controls for each cabin could be accessed through smart phones, and when Christan tugged her by the hand and they walked along the path, she could see the warm glow of welcome through the trees.
Snow still covered the ground. The moon was high and the sky was clear. Christan wrapped his arms around her waist and held her close as they counted the first five stars twinkling to life in the sky.
“Why did we start this tradition?” Lexi asked, gripping his wrists, burying her fingers to escape the cold.
He kissed the top of her head. “You wanted something we could share no matter where I might be.”
“Did you leave often?”
“Yes.” His arms tightened. “It was not unusual for men to leave during those centuries. There was always a war somewhere.”
“When did we do it?” she asked, with drowsy curiosity. “What lifetime was it, when we came up with the tradition?”
“The first.”
“And each lifetime after that?”
“For some reason, cara, it was always your idea. It was how I knew.”
“Who I was?”
“That some part of you remembered who I was.”
Lexi shivered, and gently, he urged her up the three small steps to the cottage porch, led her through the door. While he stopped to wipe up the snow they’d tracked in, Lexi glanced around. The cabin was as perfect as she remembered. A fire was blazing in the fireplace. The glass jar filled with pine cones now had fairy lights and created a magical glow. She picked up the mohair throw she’d folded over the end of the couch the day she left.
“It’s lovely.”
“Arsen didn’t change anything—other than adding the lights to the pine cones,” Christan said with male uncertainty. “I think those are new.”
“It’s perfect.” Lexi walked closer to the fire, awkward now they were alone. “How long do you think the snow will last?”
“I’m not a weather man, cara,” he teased, tossing the towel aside. Lexi shifted beneath his gentle amusement, studying the smooth round rocks that framed the fireplace.
“I’d just forgotten, that’s all. How cold snow can be.”
She felt him step behind her, let him loosen her fingers where she clutched her coat like a virginal bride.
“Are you having a moment of doubt, cara?”
“I can’t really go back, can I?”
“No.”
“I mean, even though Arsen virtually rebuilt my cottage, I could still tell.”
“I knew you would.” His fingers slipped under her hair, stroked across her nape, moving lower to ease the tension from her upper back. “Someday, maybe you can have another cottage.”
“Yes. Someday.” She tipped her head forward but he had already moved away. She missed his touch immediately.
“Would you like me to leave?”
Her heart clenched. “No.”
Slowly, she turned to face him, studying the unyielding power he held in check, waiting. She remembered the way she loved him. Had always loved him. She was lost, with no words she could say that would break this moment of sharpened awareness. The distance that remained between them, that sense of separation, hit her with a fierceness that was both helpless and tender.
She held out her hand.
“Please.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” He walked toward her, sliding his big hand from her shoulder down her arm to close around her hand, lacing their fingers.
“I have something to show you.”
The bathroom was exactly how she remembered, but this time there were candles on every surface. He led her through the door and flicked a tiny flame to each wick as she watched. The breath caught in her throat. He stood behind her. She could feel his heat as he gently held her shoulders, no more, just held her, as if he was afraid she would disintegrate if he held too tightly. And maybe he was, afraid as she had been afraid, of losing something so elusive. His eyes were fiercely tense when she turned to face him.
“I’m sorry. I need to tell you, I shouldn’t have walked away from you.”
“I understood. The immortal world can be hard to understand.”
She shook her head. “Not then. Not because of Seattle. That was wrong, too. I’m talking about when I was Gemma and I walked away.”
His eyes had darkened and one corner of his mouth moved up, but not in humor. “I thought you were you, now,” he said. “Don’t apologize for the past.”
There were tears in her eyes. “I must. Because if I had been me then, I wouldn’t have walked away. Not from your rage. From what I saw in your eyes. I would have held you. Loved you. I wouldn’t have given up on us.” His entire body tensed, and she was suddenly afraid. “Will you touch me?”
He stood back, leaned against the wall and she felt his power warm and soft against her skin.
“No,” she said, slowly pulling the sweater and the lacy camisole beneath it over her head, dropping the clothes beside her feet and kicking them to a corner. She was naked from the waist up, her hair—a shaft of sunlight in winter—sliding like a silken curtain across her breasts. “Will you touch me with your hands? Really touch me?”
He hesitated. She slid her fingers down, released the zipper from her jeans, pushed them along with her panties over her hips to the floor, kicked them aside, too. It was just the two of them and this moment, where they either reached for each other or they didn’t. She waited.
He removed his shirt and she saw the pagan tattoo move beneath his skin, felt the answering tingle at her wrist. He was so frighteningly beautiful, totally male. The muscles of his chest, the tight stomach, narrow hips—she watched his hands slide to the jeans, unfasten the button. With quick movements he was naked, his erection hard. The remembered strength made her shift restlessly.
“Cara,” he said as he reached her. He traced his fingers lightly across her cheek and down her throat, then brushed aside her hair to cup her breast. “Why do you ask me to touch you?”
“I have to know, Christan.”
“What do you have to know?”
“If it was real.”
“It’s real,” he whispered.
“Are you sure?”
“You are my heart, cara.” He reached behind her to turn on the shower. Multiple shower heads filled the glass enclosure and he backed her beneath the flow, soft as rain. Water, so warm against her head and shoulders as he stood in front of her. He reached for the bottle of lemon scented shampoo. His hands undid her, the feel of his fingers caressing every part of her scalp, her temples, her nape, tilting her head back to expose her throat as he rinsed her hair. She caught her breath, mesmerized by this immortal who touched her with such sensitivity that liquid fire ran through her veins. There would never be another male for her, and she wanted to do the same for him. She took the bottle, dragged her nails from the crown of his head to his nape until, with a shudder he took her lips and they kissed while soap slid slick across their bodies and swirled at their feet.
“I love you,” she said against his throat.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad, because sometimes I’m not good at it.”
“What are you not good at, cara?”
“Loving you,” she whispered as she caressed the ridges of muscle across his chest, the body built by centuries of combat in an immortal war she barely understood. She craved touching him, feeding the hunger that inflamed her to the point where she would dare to do things she would do with no other: say things, ask for his touch with words as well as her hands. Water flowed between them as she touched him, teased his stomach, luxuriating in the intimacy of arousing him as he did her.
“No one could love me better,” he said, as his hands moved over every curve of her shoulders, but it was more of a seduction, leisurely as he worked his way to her breasts. When they were swollen and aching he found her waist, slid those talented fingers to places lower while she pressed her mouth against the amber tattoos and lightly bit the flesh. There was no soap now, only warm water and the feel of him, the taste and heat.
She needed this pleasure, the comfort only Christan could provide after so many months trying to exist without him. He was so much a part of her she didn’t doubt that bond in blood had turned them into one. How permanent it was she had no idea, but while this lasted, while the alchemy held fast, she would hold him safe in her heart.
“Did you have other lovers while I was between lifetimes?” she asked as she nipped across his chest.
“None that I recall,” he said, pushing aside her wet hair and kissing the sensitive skin along the curve of her throat.
“You had some?”
“Did you not kiss boys while I wasn’t looking?”
“That’s different,” she argued, using her teeth against his shoulder. There had only been one or two boys she’d been serious about, one who actually became a lover but for such a short time he hardly counted. “I didn’t know you existed then, but you didn’t have the excuse.”
“You were gone a very long time between lifetimes, cara,” he teased.
She used the tip of her tongue to trace one of the tattoos she knew was particularly sensitive. “I suppose you have a point. I can’t really expect you to remain celibate for so long, but now things are different.”
“How different?” he asked, bending to touch her nipple with his teeth. “Because you are you now?”
“Yes, and I don’t share.”
He tugged gently. “Neither do I.”
“So for as long as this lasts—”
“It will last.”
“We stay monogamous, no other lovers.”
“We made a bond with blood—I would need to kill your lovers now.” A shudder as he lifted her thigh and wrapped it around his waist. “The Calata worries enough about the messes I leave behind. You wouldn’t want me to get into trouble, would you?”
“Oh, I think you get into trouble without me,” she whispered, arching back, her hands clinging for balance as he bent her against his arm. His fingers stroked until she softened, felt her inner muscles opening and a soft sound rose in her throat.
“Do you feel this, cara?” he said as his fingers slid inside and he thrust hot and quick, his thumb pressing where she would burn to her core.
“Yes, Enforcer,” she said when she could breathe again, her legs trembling.
“Only my hand,” he growled. “Only my mouth and my cock. No one else.”
She was boneless when he turned off the water and wrapped her in a towel, before carrying her into the bedroom. The room glowed from the flames in the fireplace. He set her on her feet and a soft sound caught in her throat as tiny flickers of light began to fill the air, floating up to the ceiling, magical fireflies that danced and illuminated the dark like sparklers.
“For you,” he said as he pressed his lips against her shoulder.
“How can you forgive me so easily?”
Her voice was barely audible. Christan felt his heart clench so hard it hurt his chest. His wild warrior girl, who had run from him to save him. This woman who did not yet realize she was no longer mortal. Who had faced Six, and then Three, staunch in the face of power and refusing to let them control her life. Never had he experienced the terror he felt when he couldn’t find her. And yet it had been worse, when he stood in the forest, watching and knowing she didn’t want him there because of a grief and guilt she shouldn’t feel. She was not Gemma, could never be Gemma, and when he’d shifted, walked to her side, laid down, his lion’s body had been trembling. When he placed his head in her lap and waited, he’d thought his heart might stop, it was beating so hard. Until she did what she’d done once before, reached out with her hand and saved him.
He wanted to touch her now. To feel the heat build, see the need in her eyes as she reached for him. He wanted to watch as she burned until she knew no other need than the one he aroused.
He lifted her, and the light from the fireplace gilded her skin as he placed her on the bed draped in white linen. He had loved this woman—shared lifetimes with her over centuries—and still she was a mystery, an enigma just beyond his reach. He laid his heavy body beside her, claimed her mouth, felt her lips part for his invasion. His gentle hands found the sensitive areas of her body. He knew what she liked. She told him in so many ways, the soft sounds in her throat, the sensual movement of her back as she lifted herself to him. The words she whispered in the dark. He could hear her in his mind, though, hear her voice as clearly as if she spoke naturally. He would have to tell her that, but not yet, not when what she felt and needed had him throbbing and on his knees.
He left her lips to explore the erotic places that excited her, felt her immediate tense of pleasure before she shuddered into the sensations. He loved the way she draped her arms around his neck, played with a curl of his hair while her hips slid in wicked temptation. The way she would drag one soft foot languidly up his leg, then press her knee against his thigh. He explored the soft secrets she revealed until her breathing hitched and he put his mouth where his fingers had been. Loved the catch in her throat when he brought her to the edge where her muscles seized. His erection was so hard he felt the pain deep in his spine, his balls pulled up tight and throbbing. One touch from that feminine hand, even the briefest skimming of her thigh as she moved, and he would spill like an adolescent boy with his first love.
Never, in his very long life had he ever loved like this, as if there were no other sun in the sky except her sun and he would willingly burn up in the heat.
But he was at his core a warrior. An Enforcer. A fierceness drove him and he wanted her to know. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and he read the need, so hotly feminine his body clenched with anticipation. He rose up, slid his hands down her thighs and pushed her legs wide.
“Lo scelgo te,” he whispered as he entered her. “Solo tu.”
“What does that mean?” She gripped his arms as he slowly withdrew.
“It means I choose you. Only you,” he said as he pushed in again. “You are my heart.”
“And you,” she whispered, “are my soul.”
His body grew heavy and fierce, wanting her to feel the hunger in his penetration, lifting her hips higher with his large hands. Her fingers were taut against his arms and her amber eyes locked to his. She understood what this was as well as he did, a vow, a meeting of souls, a fever that would burn for an eternity. He felt every inch of her moist heat, the way her inner muscles clenched and for an instant the intensity was so profound neither of them could breathe.
“Tesoro, ti amo.” His voice was raw, and she met him as he sharpened the dance, lifting her knees and taking him in until there was no breath for talking. Only the claiming, the offering, the slick, hot joining while fireflies winked in a silver shimmer that drifted down in the room like midnight snow.