Goddess in the Middle (18 page)

Amity’s fingers rooted around in the perfectly packed compartments. Every item had a place in one of the many bins and slots and, after a few seconds, she pulled a white tube from the depths.

She shot Rom a quick glance, which he interpreted to mean watch the door because she was about to do her healing.

He felt the pull along his
arus
as she smoothed whatever was in that tube onto Perrin’s back. The cream was thick and white and Perrin visibly relaxed as Amity spread it, talking all the time. Telling Perrin how much better her skin looked, how much better Perrin looked in general.

Amity’s voice felt just as smooth to his ears as the cream must have felt on Perrin’s skin. His body unclenched as he relaxed into the chair next to the door. His
arus
rose as Amity began to apply her magic.

Warmth suffused the room, though it never became hot. He didn’t think anyone else would’ve noticed unless they had a hint of magic in their blood.

Maybe he was just hypersensitive to her magic. Then again, maybe the heat wasn’t related to her healing at all.

He watched Amity’s hands, slim and elegant. Then his gaze moved up her arm to her neck, where he’d bitten her last night. He remembered the sound she’d made as he’d licked at the hurt, remembered the feel of her pussy tightening around him.

Lust rose, thick and powerful, as memories flooded his mind. He no longer saw the two women in front of him, he only saw Amity. Naked and crying out for him and Remy to fuck her.

He wanted her. So much, he could barely breathe. And that was fucking dangerous to their health.

Snapping to attention, he forced himself to drag his gaze away from her, stare out the window, at the door, at the wall. Anywhere but at her.

Wanting her could go nowhere. He and Remy had enough shit to deal with without adding consort to a goddess to the list.

Might as well call a spade a spade and just say fuck buddies. Consort was too civilized. At least for them.

Glancing at the clock, he realized he’d been sitting here for more than an hour. His gaze shot to Amity, who had given up any pretense of hiding what she was really doing to Perrin.

Her hands glowed that bright, eerie blue and her eyes had closed. Glancing over his shoulder to check that the door to the exam room was closed, he stood and headed over to the bed.

The closer he got, the more he realized Amity didn’t look good. Her skin looked flushed.

No, not flushed. She looked burned. As if she’d stood in front of a hot fire for too long.

Or she’d taken some of Perrin’s injury onto herself. He looked at the other woman’s back. The scars, or at least what he could see of the scars, were noticeably better.

Like really fucking noticeable.

He reached for Amity’s arm but stopped just before he touched her.

Perrin seemed to have fallen asleep, but if she hadn’t and turned around, how freaked out would she be if she saw Amity?

And what would Amity do if he startled her? Would it damage either her or Perrin?

Still, he had to stop her. Amity looked pale beneath the red tinge to her skin and close to passing out.

“Amity.” He kept his voice low, his tone as even as he could, considering he felt frantic enough to howl.

She didn’t respond, didn’t look as if she’d heard him. And her hands began to shake.

“Amity!”

Her eyes fluttered but she didn’t open them, almost as if she couldn’t. As if she were locked into the power of the healing spell and couldn’t get out.

Fear tightened his guts into knots. What the hell should he do?

Moving behind her, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, enfolding her against him. The heat radiating from her body scared the shit out of him. She felt like she might spontaneously combust.

Putting his mouth against her ear, he tried to keep the fear out of his voice. “Amity. You’ve got to stop. You’re going to hurt yourself. Come back to me.”

He put a hard command in his tone and felt her shudder against him. “Amity. Stop.
Now
.”

She gasped and her hands fell to her sides, the glow fading away in a matter of seconds. But the burn marks on her face remained.

Vaffanculo
. He should have known she healed by taking the hurt into herself.

When she’d healed him and Rom, she’d taken their pain, taken their
wounds
. He wanted to pound the walls. He wanted to tell her she was
never
to do it again. Yeah, he was being an idiot. He didn’t care.

Damn it, she was a goddess. She was the goddamn goddess of healing. This is what she did. What she’d been doing for millennia.

And every instinct in him wanted to forbid her from harming herself ever again. Yeah. Idiot wasn’t strong enough.

“Amity. Can you hear me?”

He felt her body moving as she breathed, uneven and rough. Was she going into shock? What the hell would he do if she passed out?

She felt so slight in his arms—

Wait. He knew one way for her to gain strength. Except there was no way he was bending her over and taking her here.

On the bed, the woman made a sound like a sigh and shifted. He froze, trying to figure out what the hell to do if she turned over and saw Amity. What the hell would he tell her?

But Perrin fell silent again. Asleep.

Rom had never felt such a sense of relief.

Checking to make sure the door was still closed tight, he gathered Amity in his arms and took the few steps to the chair in the corner. Sitting on the edge, he settled Amity on his lap.

Then he attempted to pull himself together before he lost it and started kissing her, trying to force some of his strength back into her.

He wanted her to open her eyes and smile at him, tell him she was fine. Staring down at her, he realized the scarring on her face looked a little better.

Relief wanted to crash through the fear, but he kept it at bay. He and Remy hadn’t kept themselves alive all these years by leaping to conclusions.

So he kept watching her, taking his eyes off of her only for brief seconds. Luckily, this section of the hospital didn’t seem to be busy on a Sunday. There were no patient rooms, only exam rooms and offices.

But their luck wouldn’t hold out for long. Sooner or later, a nurse, a doctor, someone would come through that door and want to know what the hell was going on.

His wolf wanted to say fuck it and take Amity home. The human part wanted that too, but at least he was smart enough not to act on the wolf’s instincts. Besides, Amity would skin him if they left Perrin alone.

After a few more minutes, he sensed a change in her scent. She shifted in his arms. Her ass brushed against his thighs and kick-started his libido.

Relief. That’s all it was. He couldn’t want to fuck her just because she had started to come around. What kind of asshole would that make him?

Good thing Remy wasn’t around to read his thoughts and possibly answer that question.

“Amity, hey. You gotta wake up, babe.”

“Rom?” She curled against his chest, putting one hand on his shoulder while the other found its way under his suit jacket to rest against his hip. “So tired.”

“I’m sure you are, but you can’t sleep now. We have to get you out of here.”

“Out of where?”

“Out of this exam room.”

Her nose crinkled as she grimaced, and he tried not to want to lick along her lips before he sank his tongue into her mouth and kissed the hell out of her.

“Why are we—” Her eyes shot open and she drew in a sharp breath. His arms tightened around her so she wouldn’t make a sudden move and make him lose his grip on her. “Oh my… What happened?”

He had to force his jaw to unclench to get the words out. “I’m not sure. You need to tell me. What the—” No. Couldn’t go there. Couldn’t say that. “You looked like you were going to pass out. And it looked to me like you were developing her injuries. Tell me that wasn’t what was happening.”

She didn’t answer and her gaze slid away to look at Perrin. “Has she woken?”

Gods damn, he was gonna develop lockjaw at this rate. He reached for patience, something he was normally good at attaining. Today, not so much.

His gut kept tying itself in knots when he thought about the pain she must have endured.

“No. She didn’t.” He made sure he kept his tone even but she was empathic. Of course, she knew he was upset. Okay, maybe pissed off would be a better way to describe what he felt.

She stiffened and began to draw away from him.

“Put me down, Rom. I’m fine now.”

But she wasn’t. He felt the tightness in her body and saw the lines around her mouth. Yeah, that could be anger but he hadn’t seen her angry yet, so he was betting on pain.

And he wasn’t doing anything to help her. In fact, he was adding to her stress.

Shit
. With an effort, he wrestled his inner asshole back where it belonged—stuffed in a deep, dark hole—and maneuvered her around so she was sitting on the bed and not on him. He didn’t want to accidentally hurt her.

“No, you’re not fine.”

She huffed but it sounded weak. “I just need a few minutes to rest. Then we can send Perrin home and go back to my office. I’ll have to wait a little while before I see the boy—”

“Hell no. Not happening today.”

Okay, maybe he hadn’t stuffed the asshole down far enough. Still, he wasn’t going to let her hurt herself again. Not today. He couldn’t take it.

He stood directly in front of her, staring down at her pale face, knowing she couldn’t take any more today either. Goddess or not, she was still a woman who needed someone to look out for her right now.

Not that she thought so, apparently. She glared at him, her narrowed eyes glittering, her beautiful mouth set in a tight line. If he’d been a good Etruscan, he would’ve bowed his head and given her whatever she wanted.

Good thing for her, he wasn’t a slave to devotion.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he just stared down at her until her eyes widened.

When he wrapped one hand around her nape, bent down and kissed her, he tasted astonishment on her lips. And on the heels of that, a fast-building heat. He let that heat sink in, let it take him under. Not far enough to be dangerous, just for Amity to gain a little strength. And for an ache to begin burning in his gut.

When he pulled away, he saw that her cheeks had regained a little of their normal color and the haze had cleared from her eyes. Relief made him almost light-headed.

Fuck. Just… fuck.

Seconds ticked by as she stared up at him and he tried not to want to pick her up and carry her back to her office where he could close the door and pin her up against the wall.

Her office had no windows except for one on the outside wall that looked out onto a small courtyard. They could lock the door…

The thought wouldn’t let him go now that it was stuck there.

He wanted to feel her naked body under his, her pussy stretched around his cock, sucking him in, holding him tight.

He felt the blood begin to travel south, his cock twitching and filling.

Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face because Amity’s gaze dropped to his lips and hers parted to draw in a deeper breath.

Lust filled the air between them. Her gaze shot back to his and she held out her hand.

He didn’t hesitate to take it, pulling her to her feet. Her head barely came to his shoulder. The lushness of her femininity struck him, the lush curves of her breasts and hips. He wanted to get his hand on those curves; his desire was a palpable force that she had to be able to sense.

Amity didn’t say anything as she dropped his hand. He forced himself not to grab for her, which would have been extremely embarrassing because she only wanted to check on her patient.

Perrin slept, her breathing slow and deep, no hint of distress.

His gaze snapped back to Amity’s. Her chin lifted and her mouth firmed, as if daring him to say something. He practically had to bite his tongue not to.

“I’ll wait outside for you.”

It took Amity fifteen minutes to emerge with a visibly rested and still scarred Perrin, who nodded at him before walking away as she promised Amity she’d set up her next appointment for Monday.

Finally, Amity turned to him, her expression coolly professional.

What the hell?

“I’m so glad you were able to see how well those bindings are working,” Amity said. “Why don’t you let me buy you a cup of coffee and we can talk a little more.”

Hell no, he didn’t want coffee and he opened his mouth to say so before he realized two female medical staff stood at the desk at the end of the hall.

“Sure, I’d love some coffee.”

As they walked past the desk, Amity stopped for a few minutes to type something into one of the computers while he continued to the end of the hall to give her some privacy. He pulled out his phone to check his email and messages. It wasn’t like he couldn’t hear everything the women were saying, anyway.

“Whoa, Amity, who’s the hottie? I’d love to get him alone in an exam room for a few minutes.”

“You know, I’ve got a few scars. Maybe he’d like to show me his products.”

“Damn, he’s biteable.”

He nearly choked on a shocked laugh. Holy hell, they talked about him like he was a lion on display in a zoo cage. It almost made him turn and tell them he could hear them, though he’d never embarrass them like that.

“The man definitely knows how to wear a suit,” Amity said. “All he needs is the hat.”

The women didn’t bother to keep their laughter to a low level. They didn’t think he could hear them so they figured he had no idea what they were laughing about.

“High praise coming from you, Amity.”

She knew he could hear her, so he knew her next words were deliberate. “Yes, I do have a thing for men in suits, though… I’d love to see him out of it.”

That set the women off again. And made his cock throb. He hoped like hell they didn’t look below his waist.

“Wouldn’t we all. Damn, he’s got a nice ass.”

He didn’t know whether to be shocked or grateful. And he refused to blush, even though he felt the heat below the surface of his skin.