Allie's War Season Four (164 page)

“I don’t give a fuck about sorry,” I warned him, my voice still bordering on cold, despite the tears running down my face. “I want to know you’re going to try. We have to learn to trust each other again, Revik...” I felt my jaw harden, even as tears once more blinded me. “No more going behind each other’s backs. No more lying...no more ‘handling’ each other...” Realizing I was talking to myself as much as him, I felt my jaw clench more. “...I’ll go see Yumi, too. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. But we’re not going to do this. I don’t want a marriage like this. I don’t want Lily to see us doing this to each other. Power tripping with each other...getting each other off instead of really being together...”

When I could see again, I saw a denser understanding in his eyes.

He nodded once he saw me looking at him, and his pain worsened.

That time, it felt mostly like separation pain, but I still felt flickers of the other, of what I’d picked up on as he remembered his time in San Francisco. Even as I thought it, he closed his eyes, fighting to move his body under me, but not really succeeding.

I felt his muscles soften, even as he let out a low groan.

“Gods, Allie...” He fell silent. I felt him fighting what he wanted to say.

“What?” I said, my voice harder again. “Do you want me to hit you? What do you want, Revik? I need you to fucking tell me...”

He shook his head.

His pain flared at my words though, and I found myself watching his face, seeing the conflict in his expression. Something I could see there brought my own separation pain back in a heated flood. Rather than asking him again, I slid down his body, half climbing down him so that I could balance on his thighs. He gave a low groan when I started unhooking his belt, but he could still only lie there, looking up at the ceiling, his eyes half-lidded as he fought to move under me again.

I felt that fear slide through him again, even as he let out another groan.

I had my mouth on him then, and he lay there, breathing hard, exhaling in a series of softer groans. I stopped long enough to tug his pants further down his legs, but I still hadn’t let go of any part of his light. When I sat up enough for him to focus on my face, his eyes had changed again...turning not soft but even more predatory. I felt pain ripple through his light, that time accompanied by images, by a flood of information he no longer seemed to be controlling at all. I bit my lip as I read it off his light, jealous still, but more turned on than jealous at that point.

He’d heard me about making love, too. I could feel it.

I also realized this wasn’t going to be soft, any more than the night before had been soft, but maybe he wouldn’t be performing, either.

Maybe he wouldn’t be lying to me.

He continued showing me things, even as the thought skirted through my mind, things I imagined that he’d done that had turned him on...I couldn’t even tell how much it was memory at that point, versus pure fantasy or some combination. He seemed unable to control it, whatever it was, like I’d unleashed a kind of involuntary confession caused by what I was doing to his light, or maybe what had finally broken open between us the night before.

I could see my face there, too, even memories with me that couldn’t be memories.

I slid my light deeper into his, pulling on him, winding into structures I found until he let out another groan, showing me more, even as he fought to move under me. I saw Dalejem in one of those and slapped him, hard on the chest, doing it before I knew I meant to, but that only turned him on more. I put more light into my tongue and lips as I went back to working over his cock, and his light spiraled out of control, even as he began talking to me, using some language I didn’t know. He broke out in thickly accented English a few seconds later, although he remained barely coherent, even when I could make out his words.

“Allie...gods...Allie, please. Please...please...”

He couldn’t seem to find more words, although I felt him struggle with it briefly, trying to speak. I kept my mouth on him and he groaned again, fighting to move, to reach for me, even as he spoke to me in what sounded like Russian. He switched back to English, but I couldn’t tell how aware he was at that point. His eyes looked glassed.

“Allie...don’t leave me again. Please...” He let out another gasp, still unable to move. “Gods, Allie. Allie...please. Remember that first time? Remember?”

I felt a flicker of real memory that time, and instantly knew what he meant.

I found myself seeing it again, too. I remembered him in front of that fireplace in the Himalayas, and pain caught in my throat and chest. He’d begged me to put my mouth on him, not long after we’d started to get weird from sex...so maybe after the second or third time. He begged me, even though I’d been the one to offer it, but once I started he kept stopping me, too. He’d been half out of his head, arranging his body and mine so he could watch me, telling me how long he’d fantasized about me doing that to him...stopping me so he could fuck me before begging me to do it again. He lost control somewhere in that, maybe for real, maybe for the first time. He’d lost control and it remained lost for hours.

Looking at him now, remembering, I realized he’d gotten off more on watching me than from the actual sensations.

“I remember,” I murmured, kissing him just below his navel.

“I love you,” he said. “Allie...I adore you. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...about what I did. I know I’ve been blaming you...”

I shook my head. “I don’t want you to be sorry.”

“Please,” he begged. “Please...promise me. Promise me you won’t leave again. You don’t have to do this....we don’t have to do any of this. No matter what happens with us, I won’t go near anyone else again...I swear to the gods, Allie...just don’t leave me...”

Ignoring his words, I started again, and he let out another groan, fighting to say more.

I didn’t need him to, though.

I didn’t want his goddamned guilt. Anyway, I wasn’t doing this to humor him.

I wasn’t servicing him, either.

I shoved the images of what Ditrini had done to me out of my mind, even as I felt Revik react more violently with his light. Jealousy snaked through him in intense waves, although I could tell he knew he’d pushed me into seeing those images in the first place. I understood Revik’s feelings there, at least, the warring impulses and wanting and anger and where most of it came from. His jealousy overpowered me briefly, even as more of those images hit at my aleimi. I could feel which images he reacted to the most, though.

Pausing, I focused back on his face, making my voice toneless.

“Do you want me to bring someone else in here?” I said.

His pain worsened. I felt him trying to control it, felt the fear woven in, along with a denser jealousy.

“No,” he said.

“You don’t? Don’t bullshit me, Revik.”

“No. No, Allie...”

“What if I told you I wanted that?” I said.

Conflict rippled once more through his light. I felt him fighting me openly again. Fear seemed to drive it that time, but the fear had so much pain in it, I let out an involuntary gasp, sliding my fingers into his hair. After a few more minutes of massaging him, he lay almost still once more, gasping out each breath, his light pulling on mine, asking me...

“Please,” he groaned. “Allie, please...no one else...”

Relaxing somewhat, I nodded, watching his face. When he felt my acquiescence, I felt his relief, pooling around me in a denser warmth. Love lived there, a pulling, dense affection, a wanting that now felt more open...not quite trusting, but less afraid.

“Please,” he murmured. “Please don’t ask me to watch that...I can’t handle it, Allie.”

I nodded, swallowing. Meeting his gaze, I said, “What if I didn’t mean me? What if I wanted to watch you with someone, instead?”

His body tensed under me. I felt that fear again, sliding through his light. I felt him trying to read me, felt jealousy wind through me, and realized that was mostly his, too. I showed him what I meant, and he let out a low groan, tensing again, maybe because he couldn’t move.

“Is that what you want?” he said.

I felt my chest tighten. I knew we were trying to be honest, but I honestly wasn’t sure if I really wanted that. I think some part of me was turned on by the idea, but the reality of it would be totally different.

“Just oral?” he asked me, pressing the point.

He really wanted to know.

I felt my skin heat, even as I looked at him. “Would you?”

His pain worsened. “Fuck.” He closed his eyes. I felt him fighting it, feeling a trap in either response, even as his body responded to the idea. Somehow it reassured me that I felt the same conflict on him as I did on me: desire in the abstract but misgivings and wariness around the reality. After another pause, he gave a low gasp.

“Maybe,” he said. He looked up at me, his eyes dense once more, but holding a lot of pain. “Maybe,” he repeated. “...But not now, Allie. Not yet. I don’t want to do that with you yet.”

I nodded. That time, it was me who felt relieved.

I felt the pain in him worsen, even as he felt my reaction to his words. The fact that I’d asked him continued to reverberate somewhere in his light, both threatening him and turning him on. I felt the same push-pull around wanting physical pain and not wanting it, wanting me to control him but fearing the vulnerability...hating the vulnerability almost, since it threw him back into being a child once more, the ward of his uncle.

So we would do it this way first, I thought to myself.

We would evoke the feeling, without fully going there.

I felt him agree, even as his relief grew more intense.

“Allie,” he said. It felt like he wanted to say more, but again, he stopped.

I watched as he fought to pull it back, to control his light. Somehow, it reminded me again of our first night together in that cabin, meaning the first time we’d had sex, when he’d still been unsure about how I saw him. When he’d been afraid of saying the wrong thing, of scaring me.

I’d already felt some of it, though.

Enough to feel some jealousy of my own.

I wasn’t the first girlfriend of his to ask him that question, or who had gotten turned on at the idea of watching Revik with other people. I probably wasn’t even the third, or fourth...or tenth girlfriend with whom he’d had some variation of this conversation.

“Not girlfriend,” he said, fighting my light again, even as he fought with his voice. “...Wife. You’re my wife, Allie...you’re not my fucking
girlfriend...”

I looked down at him, meeting his gaze, but I didn’t answer.

I felt his pain worsen as I got up off him, standing over him on the bed, still watching his face, watching his chest heave in uneven breaths through the open shirt. He closed his eyes as he watched me, longer than a blink, but those eyes looked predatory again, flickering between that and frustration as he watched me look at him. His black hair stood up around his head, even as his narrow mouth hardened as he studied my face.

Shit. He was sexy as hell.

I really got what he meant about loving that and hating it at the same time.

Looking at him, it was easy to imagine how others had seen him...how some of them still saw him, especially when I wasn’t around. How Dalejem saw him. I realized I wanted to know more about that, too, but I also didn’t want to know at all.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling like maybe it was finally time for us to get into all of that shit, if only to finally get over it.

As he looked up at me with those colorless, glass-like eyes, all I felt was that want in his light, the pain sliding through his chest as he fought to control himself, to keep from revealing too much to me about what he wanted and why. I’d taken his pants most of the way off, and looking at him now, I had a sudden urge to handcuff him to the bed, the way he had me...only to really do it, as in all four limbs, so he couldn’t move. Maybe start by spending a few hours getting him over his hang-ups around how I gave head since I got back from China.

Then maybe spending a few more convincing him he had to be honest with me, or I would make his life really damned miserable until he was.

Maybe he even heard me, because I felt his pain intensify again.

He let out another low groan, watching me.

Reading me, too, I was reasonably sure, since so much of my light wrapped into his.