CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Erotic images rushed through Sterling’s mind as Becca walked toward him, anticipation for the moment this gorgeous, sweet, yet incredibly sexy woman would touch him. She stopped in front of him, her gaze lifting to his, simmering heat expanding between them. He swayed slightly, then silently reprimanded himself, despite the very male, very caveman-like desire to reach for her and say “mine.” He knew that wasn’t the right move. Just as he had known what to order for her at that restaurant, she didn’t feel she had choices, like she was spinning out of control. Well, she was going to have them with him. Whatever she wanted, she needed—he wanted and needed.
Slowly, her lashes lowered as she pressed her palm to his chest. It was soft, cool—a contrast to the fire licking at his limbs, spiraling between them. She splayed her fingers, flexing them against his skin before trailing one finger downward to his lower abdomen, and then flattened her hand on his skin again with the promise she wasn’t going to stop there. And man, oh man, did his cock know it. He was standing at attention, thrumming with anticipation, his heart pounding in his ears.
Her fingers walked a path downward to the base of his erection, and then she caressed straight to the tip. His cock jerked instantly with the pleasure.
Becca sucked in a breath and tried to pull her hand away, her eyes seeking his. And before he could stop himself, he stole a little piece of that control he’d vowed to relinquish to her. His hand closed around hers, wrapping her fingers around his cock. “Don’t stop,” he ordered, barely recognizing the husky voice as his own.
Her teeth scraped her bottom lip, and he all but moaned. Lust licked at his limbs like a four-alarm fire. That soft, amber gaze of hers so often full of innocent uncertainty flickered to his face, innocence no longer there. Instead, her eyes shimmered with a combination of desire and hesitation. And then, blessed be, her hand tightened around him.
“Oh yeah, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely, releasing her hand, allowing her that freedom of choice, as long as it involved her hand on his cock.
“You like that?” she asked, more teasing than confirming.
“Just to be clear,” he said, his voice gravely and affected. “You pretty much can do anything you want to me…and I’ll like it. Aside from the use of teeth, that is.” Amending quickly, he added, “If used in limited capacity, of course, teeth can be kind of sexy and remain on the table for acceptable use. And being a scientist and all, I know you have an experimental instinct. Feel free to go with that. Just let it ride.”
She laughed, loosening her grip on him, teasing him with her fingers. “I’ve never known anyone quite like you before, Sterling.”
“Ditto to you, sugarplum,” he managed, despite her voice strumming along his nerve endings like a musical aphrodisiac, helping her hand kill him with lust. Oh yeah. He was going to die if he didn’t feel the wet heat of her body wrapped around him in the real near future.
Her smile widened, her hand working him mercilessly, pumping him. She had control all right. He had a love-hate thing about that too. He wanted to take control and rip off her clothes. Her, naked, now.
“I should probably tell you,” she said softly, her lashes lowering, her gaze hot as she watched her hand exploring his cock. “My experimenting has been limited to a lab.”
Hell yes. He loved that. “Baby, it turns me on just thinking about being the guy that changes that.” He closed his hand around hers again, around the pulsing heat of his erection, moving their hands together, moving his hips in rhythm. “The idea of being the one to make you wetter and hotter than any other man ever has—you feel how turned on it makes me?”
Her chin jerked upward, her expression registering shock. “You’re outrageously bold.”
“You like it,” he said. “And if you don’t get naked soon, I’m going to do it for you.”
“I’m not ready yet,” she said, smiling. Soft. Sexy. Playful. And then she went to her knees. Holy crap and thank you Lord. She was going to put that sweet little mouth on him. “I’ll need to do some research before undressing,” she said, staring up at him, his cock jutted out mere inches from her lips. She closed her hand around the base of his shaft. “Tell me. How does this feel?” She touched the tip of it with her tongue. He moaned with the sensation. “I’ll take that as a ‘good.’” She drew the head into her mouth and then rolled her tongue around him. “And that?”
“Good,” he said. She arched a brow. “Do it again, and I’ll judge better.”
She did, and silently, he commanded. Suck me deeper. His hand went to her head, the words lodged in his throat as he reminded himself he’d vowed to give her choice and control. Ah, but she seemed to know what he wanted. She drew him deeper and deeper, a sliding motion up and down his length that had his hips pumping again, which felt damn good, until a sudden thought slid into clarity.
She was hiding from her own pleasure, from the vulnerability of losing herself to that need. That’s why she wasn’t naked. That’s why she was on her knees. And he was letting her. Selfishly taking what she offered by convincing himself he was giving her freedom of choice, when what she needed was freedom all right. Freedom from pain, fears…inhibitions.
With forced willpower he eased Becca away and went down on his knees in front of her. “What are you doing?” she asked, instant confusion clouding her lovely eyes, uncertainty flickering in her face.
“Kissing you,” he said, pulling her close, one hand twining into her silky mass of raven hair, the other sliding up her back, molding her closer, pressing her soft curves and full breasts against him.
Sterling kissed her like he was making love to her, using his tongue to caress, coax, and yes—to heck with handing over control—demand. He took his time, seducing, making love to her with his mouth. And when he thought for certain he’d kissed away her insecurity, he vowed, “I’m going to make you come. And then come again. And then come some more.” He pulled on her shirt hem and tugged it over her head, her bra quickly following. “Say and do all kinds of things to make you call me outrageous and make sure you love every one of them.”
His gaze raked hungrily over her bare upper body. Her breasts weren’t large, but they were high and full, the perfect size for his hand. “You’re beautiful,” he said. “I love your nipples.” He played with one of them, tweaked it. “All rosy pink and plump. Perfect for my mouth.”
“Sterling!” Becca said. “Do you say whatever comes to mind?”
“You have a problem with me telling you I love your nipples?” he asked, molding her breast to his palm and kneading.
“No,” she said softly.
“Good,” he said, dipping his head down and lapping one with his tongue, his arm still supporting her from behind. One lick, nip, and yes, bite, at a time. His teeth scraped her nipple, and she moaned with pleasure. “That’s how you use teeth properly,” he declared proudly before kissing her again. “Damn, I like how you taste.” He kissed her again. “All hot and sticky sweet.” He took her down on the carpeted floor. “I want to know how the rest of you tastes.”
He pressed his mouth to her neck, her collarbone, those hot little nipples again, and continued to travel, until his tongue dipped into her navel. Her flat, sexy tummy quivered with the touch.
It didn’t take him any time to strip away the rest of her clothes. He kissed his way from her ankle up to her knee, and then gently nudged her legs farther apart.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he said. “Open for me.”
She raised to her elbows. “Sterling,” she whispered, nervous energy pouring off of her.
His hands slid up her thighs. “This is where you lie back down and enjoy this as much as I’m going to.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.” He slid his fingers along her core, and she moaned. “See how good that feels.” He caressed her some more, coaxing another moan, his gaze meeting hers as he continued to touch her, intentionally pushing her to let go of her inhibitions. “You’re so hot and wet. Just the way I like you.”
She fell backward, sighing in an admission of defeat, giving herself to him. A smile touched his lips, one born of satisfaction, of conquest. His fingers explored, playing with her like a kid would a new toy, discovering hidden secrets—triggers that made her moan, sigh again, arch her back.
When she looked at him with bedroom eyes that begged him to take her, he gave them both the ultimate reward, the pot of gold, almost as good as having that hot, wet heat wrapped around his cock. His tongue lapped at her swollen clit, and she arched into him, breasts high in the air, fingers digging into the carpet. He suckled and caressed with a tongue experienced in such devilish acts, but never so eager to perform. Expertly he used his fingers to stroke and caress, to drive her to the edge, then he took her to a shuddering climax that had her muscles milking his fingers, the sweet honey of her release pouring around them.
She gasped with the impact as the moment faded, her gaze bouncing off his in a red-faced flush of embarrassment as she turned her head away.
“Oh no,” he said. “Don’t even think about it.”
He reached for her and in one easy move sat up against the wall and pulled her on top of him, his cock pressed to her backside, swollen and pulsing.
Shoving her loose hair away from her face, he told her, “We don’t do embarrassment, you and I. We are just getting started, sweetheart, just cracking the door on a long night that’ll never end.”
“Sterling—”
He kissed her, silently telling her what words already had, then met her gaze and said, “That was fucking beautiful—just like you are. Understand?”
She kissed him. Slid that sweet little tongue right into his mouth and took him like he planned to do her.
His hands went to her hips as he shifted her weight. She obeyed the command, the one that said—let me the fuck in before I die—and her hands went to his shoulders, anchoring herself to take him.
He nudged open her feminine lips and eased his shaft inside her, intending to go slow, but she didn’t seem to agree. Becca slid down him in one fast, hard move that sent the head of his cock driving into her core. A blast of pleasure rocketed through him with such force it about shot his heart out of his chest.
They connected, intimately joined like their minds had been. And when she pulled back, searching his face, he knew she felt it too, the undeniable bond between them. Intense. Consuming. Seconds passed, their bodies smoldering, unfamiliar emotion expanding in his chest. This woman was doing something to him, taking him over, reaching right inside him and touching his soul. And all he could think was how much he wanted her to keep doing it.
His hands settled on her waist, pressing her down, swiveling his hips, urging her to move with him. A slow, sultry dance of lusty need started. She braced herself on his shoulders, her breasts bouncing with each pump and thrust. He palmed them, kneading, molding. Then he pulled her nipples between his fingers so that each movement of her body applied just the right amount of erotic pressure on the sensitive peaks. She rewarded him with soft sounds of pleasure.
He watched her face, the way her lips parted, her brows dipped. Passion colored her ivory perfect skin. She was fucking beautiful, just as he’d told her she was, and in a way he’d never thought a woman could be. She did it for him. She was the beginning, the middle, and the end.
She gasped and buried her face in his shoulder. He pressed her close, pressed deep inside her as she moved in a frenzied rush that said she was on the edge…about to come. And he took her there, took them there, pumping hard and fast, molding her closer and tighter, until she stiffened in a moan a second before her body grabbed a hold of his cock and spasmed around him.
Somewhere in the near distance, a shattering sound splintered through the air. A glass, no two, maybe three, shattered with her orgasm. He didn’t care, and she didn’t seem to either. She clung to him, and he pulled her down hard on his shaft, thrusting into her one more long, hard time. With a low, guttural groan, he exploded, spilling his seed inside her, seeing nothing but the black place in his mind that exploded in the colors of pleasure.
Long seconds later, they collapsed against each other, and he could have held her like that forever. She ran her fingers through his chest hair and leaned back to stare at him, sudden awareness rushing over her features. “I think I broke something when I…”
He arched a brow. “Came? Had an orgasm? Rocked my world?”
She flattened her hands on his chest. “You love to make me blush, don’t you?”
His lips curved, and he ran his knuckles along her cheek, right where the flush of red appeared. “You’re very pretty when you blush.”
“Thank you,” she said shyly, like there was any reason to be shy with him at this point. Damn, she was adorable and sexy.
“I loved making you so hot you shattered glass,” he confessed. “It’s good for a guy’s ego. But if it really bothers you, we can try that whole anchor thing. You need to practice controlling your reactions.” He wiggled an eyebrow. “We can use orgasm as practice. But I do have to ask. Are you using me for sex? Because, you know, if you are, I can live with it. I just want to know.” Oddly, what started as a joke left him hungry for an answer, his insides twisted in a knot, waiting.
“I’m dying, Sterling,” she said, suddenly serious. “Of course, I’m using you for sex.”
His heart splintered in a thousand pieces with those words, and he framed her face with his hands. God, how he’d hoped they were Lifebonds, that he would save her that easily. But he wasn’t giving up, and he wouldn’t let her give up. “You are not going to die,” he said. “I won’t let you.”
“That,” she whispered, “is just outrageous, and please just stop bringing this up.” Anger filtered into her voice. “Saying it…that you can save me…is mean.” She pushed away from him, trying to get up.
He held onto her. “Becca—”
“Don’t,” she said. “Let me up.”
He pulled her close and buried his face in her neck, inhaling her soft scent. “No. I won’t.” Instead, he pushed to his feet and carried her to that hot bath she wanted. After that, he’d feed her and take her to his bed. And if she wanted to argue, he had no problem showing her who was in control.
If he pretended it was him instead of her, maybe she would believe him.
Sabrina sighed with the sweet bliss of satisfaction as Iceman rolled off of her and sat up on the edge of the bed, disposing of the condom. He insisted on using one even though she’d told him she was on the pill and disease free.
He didn’t want “babies” he said, disdain in his voice. Like she did? She’d seen how her mama had been tied to the house and babies, while Daddy ran around with women like…well, her.
Sabrina wasn’t stupid like her mother. She knew the way to a man’s heart was his dick, not a houseful of screaming kids. She knew how to keep a man like Iceman—a man who was all about power and pleasure.
She rolled onto her stomach and pressed her hand to her chin, watching as Iceman poured himself his standard, after-sex Scotch. She kept the bar stocked for him—an easy enough task when you worked for a casino and lived in one too. Satisfaction—all forms. Any way he liked it. That was what she gave him. That was what he gave her in his arrogant, bossy kind of way. But that was okay. Those things made her hot. She didn’t want a pansy-ass bringing her flowers and kissing her feet.
“So what are we going to do about Tad?” she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Get rid of him,” he said. “Lure him where we want him and then take him out. And while Rebecca Burns would be a prize we will continue to pursue, we aren’t waiting for her. We deal with Tad now. And as much as I’d like to hold him captive and pick his brain about Adam’s operation, I’ll shoot the bastard and throw him to the bottom of a river if necessary.”
“Good,” she said quickly. She liked a jealous man, though she liked Tad’s rough, forceful approach. His talents were quite extensive. “It was like he came out of nowhere at the restaurant.”
“Indeed, it was,” he said, downing his drink and grabbing his pants from the floor. He glanced at his watch.
She eyed his ass while he did. It was nice and tight, a fine specimen. She didn’t want him to cover it. “Don’t leave, sugar,” she said. “I’ve not had my fill of you yet.”
He zipped his dress pants. “I’m going to look at the security feed. Try and figure out how Tad surprised us. I don’t like surprises like you do.”
Sabrina pushed to her feet and pulled on a sheer pink robe. “You liked it when I hid under your desk and blew you while you talked to your secretary.”
He cut her a look. “And I warned you not to do it again.”
To feel in control. Check. She got that. But she also knew he didn’t mean it. “When can we get rid of Tad?” she asked as she walked him to the door.
He turned and leaned against the frame, crossing his arms in front of his broad chest. “What are you willing to do to get rid of him?”
An uneasy feeling fluttered in her stomach. “What did you have in mind?”
Iceman stared at her, his eyes steely cold, like ICE, and then pulled her roughly against him. “Play the same sex games you do with me,” he said. “Seduce him in a location that will leave him distracted and exposed so that I can kill him before he escapes.”
She could barely believe her ears. “You want me to let that man touch me again?”
“I want you to help me destroy him,” he said, pulling her close, rough—his voice sharp. “Do you want to please me, Sabrina?”
“I’d rather please you in bed, not in someone else’s,” she said. That was how this worked. The woman who drove the man of power, who “made” him in ways no one else ever could.
“But you’ll do it,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
It felt like a heavy weight was crushing her chest. “Yes.”
A slow smile lifted his lips before he crushed her mouth with a kiss that ravished her and tasted of greed. But not for her, she realized, for power. She was nothing but a token in a game. He left her a few seconds later, set her away from himself without another word, nor a look behind.
He’d asked her to let Tad touch her again. Told her, ordered her, expected her to “do” Tad to please him.
Sabrina leaned on the door and slid down its surface. Her eyes prickled—tears! No. No. No. She balled her fists, half-growling, half-shouting into the room. She was not her mother. She would not cry over a man, especially not one who was using her, because no man who cared about her would ask her to do what Iceman had.
Iceman was no better than Tad, she realized. They were both using her to get to each other, to gain power and control. That was the greed she’d tasted on Iceman’s lips.
Damn it, she wasn’t her mother. She wasn’t stupid and blind. If she was going to survive this, she had to look out for herself. She inhaled. Iceman had a plan. Well, so did she.
A simple bathroom of white tile and silver accessories surrounded Becca as she lounged in a tub of hot water, waiting for Sterling to return from the kitchen. Bubbles, manufactured from shampoo out of desperation and irrational shyness, covered the top of the shoulder-deep water, her legs stretched out in front of her, head against the wall.
It didn’t matter that she’d just spent hours making love to Sterling in every gymnastic position she’d thought possible, and some she wouldn’t have believed possible, until he’d proven otherwise. Bottom line, she still felt shy in the aftermath. Emotionally, more than physically, but somehow the bubbles provided a security blanket, an extra layer to protect her, while she tried to understand what she was feeling.
She’d never done the kinds of things with a man she’d done with Sterling. Sex had been stiff and uncomfortable—an awkward, hopeful attempt to find pleasure that had always come up short of expectations. Never the all-consuming physical bliss she’d shared with Sterling that had managed one minute to be darkly erotic, the next, playful and filled with laughter.
Becca sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, where emotion welled in a tight ball. She’d thought living a little was a smart move, a natural move, a way of facing death. The truth was living made you crave life. And Sterling made her realize how little she’d really lived.
All of a sudden, Becca felt an odd tingling at the back of her neck. “What the heck?” she murmured, running her hand over her neck, under the bottom of her hair where the water had dampened it.
“Something wrong?” Sterling asked, appearing in the doorway in nothing but jeans—unbuttoned and hanging low on lean hips—and holding a glass of wine.
“No,” she said, realizing the tingling sensation had gone away. “Nothing.”
He sauntered forward, lithe male, with his ever-present, casual façade that never quite hid the lethal soldier beneath the surface. Her mouth watered and not because of the wine. It was all about the man. His hair was rumpled, sexy. Thick, light blond, always a bit wild—it fit him. And his body, what a body! Every time she inspected it, she found another place she wanted to lick.
She’d never thought such a thing about another man. Well—not that she knew. What woman hadn’t had that kind of thought about her preferred Hollywood hunk—a Brad Pitt or George Clooney. But that was a safe fantasy a girl knew would never come true. This was Sterling, a man she had licked in quite a few places, but apparently, not enough places to satisfy her urges.
He sat down on the toilet seat and offered her the wine. “I bought this when I got the Chinese food. Thought it might help you relax.”
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the glass, thinking how incredibly thoughtful that was. “Aren’t you going to have some?”
“Nah,” he said. “I don’t drink. Never acquired a taste for it. Besides, GTECHs are immune to the effects anyway.”
Surprised, she sipped her wine and studied him over the rim of her glass. Dry, but a bit sweet. Perfect. A treat—just like the bath. “Surely a Texas boy like yourself—in the army to boot—has a beer here or there?”
“I slug one down for appearance’s sake when I need to,” he said. “But that’s about it.” He motioned with his chin. “How’s the bath?”
Something flickered in her mind, a shadowy image—an emotional response to drinking that was his, not hers. “Why don’t you drink?” she asked, ignoring his question, fragments of his emotions, a piece of a memory, splintering in her head. Unidentifiable, but for one question that came to her. “Who close to you was an alcoholic?”
His expression darkened. “Exactly how much did you get out of my head while you were in there? Because so far I got Chinese food preferences on you. That’s not much.”
She was pretty sure he’d managed a few of her fantasies as well and put them to good use while they were making love, but she wasn’t about to say that. Instead, she indicated her glass. “And apparently my preference for certain wines.”
“A far cry from the huge bombshells you keep pulling out of my head.” A hint of tightness in his words. Tension etched his jaw line, a raw discomfort in him she’d never seen before.
“I only had a feeling,” she said gently. “Nothing more. I didn’t see this part of your past.” She softened her voice. “I promise. And I didn’t mean to be nosy. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” She hesitated. “If you want to, though, now or later, you can.”
He ran a hand through his hair then let out a harsh breath. “Oh well, hell. It was my grandmother, but you know, she did rehab, and she died ten years sober. I don’t know how, out of all my memories, you picked one this ancient.”
“It must be a building block of your life,” she said. “Something that defines you and stays with you, consciously or unconsciously, always.”
One of those splinters of memory glinting in her mind. “Wait. You don’t think she got sober because you went away, do you? That you made her an alcoholic?”
“That was part of the deal when I joined the military,” he said. “They cleaned up my grandmother, and I enlisted. So yeah, she got sober because I went away. Losing your kid and raising your kid’s kid isn’t easy. She did the best she could. I made sure I did my best by her. I went away and gave her a chance at a real life.”
“What do you mean that was part of the deal when you joined?”
He kicked back against the toilet seat, one foot on his knee. “I was in knee-deep shit at the time. Hacked a top-secret government computer program for cash. Told myself it was to get money for her rehab, but it was really about, you know, proving I wasn’t a loser.” He grimaced. “Which, ironically, made me a loser because I got busted, and by the way, that’s why I stood you up that day we met at the library. They showed up at my house, and that was that. I was gone. I don’t even know how the army intervened. My dad was a Special Ops guy—covert on the highest level. I still don’t know what he did, but whatever it was, it apparently made them want me too.”
“Or maybe it was your ability to hack that program,” she said. “How’d you learn to do that?”
“Self-taught. I have a mind for it. And you’re right. The army wanted that skill, and they’ve put it to use many times over the years.”
“What did your grandmother say about you enlisting?”
“She was in a drunken stupor,” he said. “I told them to clean her up and tell her I was dead. Never saw her again after that day. Not until she was in a casket.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Which was harder than I thought it was going to be.”
Becca knew why—knew it to her core. “Because she was all you had left.” Facing death, she had been feeling very alone, but in life, she had always felt loved. There had always been lots of unconditional love. Sterling didn’t have that in his life.
“Yeah,” he said softly, his gaze settling on the floor a minute. “Hadn’t seen her in years, but knowing she was gone, it rattled me. But it was the right decision going into the army. It was where I belonged. Now I belong with the Renegades, trying to make the army and this country what it once was. Safe and free. The best place on earth.” He tilted his head, studying her. “I’ve told you my deep, dark secret. Your turn to talk.”
She sipped her wine. “What do you want to know?”
“When did you plan to tell your mother about your cancer?”
Sideswiped by that question, her chest tightened. Why she hadn’t seen that one coming, she didn’t know. The answer weighed as heavy on her tongue as her worry about her mother. But he’d been honest with her; he’d opened up about a part of his life she was certain he didn’t talk about. He was right. It was her turn.
“Never,” she said, and laughed without humor.
His brow arched. “And now?”
She set the wine on the side of the tub. “What do I tell her now? I have no idea.”
“You mean you have an excuse to avoid that conversation, and you’re taking it.”
She hugged her knees tighter and rested her chin on top of them. “Now who’s digging around in whose head?”
“I don’t have to dig around in your head to know that,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. You should call her.”
“And say what?” she asked. “Hey Mom, I was dying of cancer, but good news, now that I’m drinking alien DNA, I might live to become an evil monster like the source of that DNA. Thought I might say hi before that happened.”
“You’re not—”
She raised a dripping wet hand stop sign fashion. “Instead of you telling me what I want to hear—Becca, you’re not going to die, or Becca, you’re not going to turn into a monster—why don’t you stop teasing me with the prospect of food. Let me get out of here, and let’s heat up that Chinese food.”
He pushed off the seat and squatted down in front of her. “Becca,” he said roughly. “Turn around, and let me see your neck.”
She sucked in a breath, knowing what he was looking for—the Lifebond mark that could save her life. A mixture of hope and dread filled her. She wanted life, but she didn’t want pity or obligation from him.
“Don’t do this,” she said. “The odds are next to zero.” Yet she remembered the tingling on her neck, and there was no denying the passion between them was nothing she’d felt with any other man.
“We have to know,” he said, his jaw set in determination.
She’d learned a few details in Zodius City about Lifebonding. “The mark appears during sex, and the female feels pain. No pain. No mark.”
He fixed her in a steely stare. “Turn around.”
With a chill inside her as cold as that first drop of ICE hitting her throat every day, she did as he bid. Turned around and lifted her hair with her free hand. Seconds ticked by before he kissed her neck, intimate, a caress. Goose bumps slid down her back, warmth replacing the chill. Was it possible there really was a mark? Could it be? Hiding the anxiety darting through her, Becca slowly turned around, butterflies attacking her stomach.
Tenderness rushed over his face as he reached out and ran his knuckles down her cheek, tenderness etched with sadness. “I’m insanely, wildly crazy about you.”
The butterflies turned to a hard knot. “There’s no mark,” she said, her throat constricting with the words. The tingling she’d felt had been nothing.
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Becca—”
“Don’t,” she said, knowing he was about to apologize because he couldn’t save her life. Exactly everything she didn’t want to hear from him. Besides she wasn’t thinking about some miracle cure. She was thinking about not being Sterling’s Lifebond, about how some other woman was out there, some woman who belonged to him, and him to her.
Uncertainly swirled in his gaze, and he looked as if he might say more. Finally, he simply offered, “I’ll go heat up the food while you get dressed.”
He didn’t give her time to respond, not that she was sure she could have found her voice for the emotion lodged in her throat anyway. He was on his feet and gone in an instant.
She sat there a few seconds, the water chilling, and part of her with it. She wasn’t Sterling’s Lifebond, but she was falling for him. She cared about him, exactly why it wasn’t fair to get involved with him, to burden someone with the pain of loss. It was a cross one should bear on one’s own. To do otherwise was selfish.
Becca stepped out of the tub and grabbed the fluffy, white towel hanging on the rack and wrapped it around herself. Suddenly, that tingling sensation on her neck started again.
An instant later, Sterling appeared in the doorway, and when he did the sensation faded, almost as if it were warning her of his presence. She shook herself mentally and tried to act unaffected. But hadn’t she heard Lifebonds had some sort of sensory ability to know when the other was near?
Surprising her, Sterling held her Burberry travel bag, the one her father had given her as a college graduation gift. “This is the bag Cassandra picked up for you. I thought you might want it.” He winked and headed off again, and she knew he was trying to keep things light.
Becca would have delighted at having her bag, if not for the funny feeling at the back of her neck. She bit her lip and shut the door, then bent down and looked inside the bag, finding her makeup pouch.
She pulled out a handheld compact, turned to the mirror, and held up her hair. She gaped at what she saw—two faint circles, one inside the other, a good three inches wide at any angle. A tattoo that wasn’t a tattoo had appeared out of nowhere clearly after Sterling had checked.
Becca turned to the sink and pressed her hands to the counter, her heart pounding like a drum, echoing in her ears. It couldn’t be. “Oh God,” she whispered and squeezed her eyes shut. When the lamp had shattered during orgasm—she’d blacked out in that moment of both pain and pleasure that must have been the Lifebonding process.
A mixture of elation and guilt filled her. With a blood exchange, Sterling could save her life. Her stomach twisted in knots, and emotion balled in her chest. If she died, he died. God, please let that be only if they did the blood exchange. What if the ICE somehow did something to her, something that would hurt him? He wouldn’t consider the possibility and let her run tests. He’d feel obligated to save her. He’d insist. And sure, Sterling wanted her. He desired her, but bound for life was a big deal. It was like marriage without a divorce court.
She pressed her hand to her stomach, willing it to calm, and made a decision. She wasn’t going to tell him about the Lifebonding mark.
As long as she and Sterling avoided a blood exchange, there was no reason he had to know about the mark on her neck. So long as he never knew, there would be no guilt or obligation. This was a secret she planned to take to her deathbed—alone.