Rebel (14 page)

“Apparently. You know, Miss Mary, it seems to me we have an interest in common. We both want
to find out who’s trying to hurt the Source. I have a suggestion.”

“I won’t like it.”

“No, you probably won’t. I think we should work together to find out who’s endangering Allie.”

“No.”

He looked at her averted face, trying to gauge her reaction. “Really? I would have thought your concerns were strong enough that you would use any weapon you could.”

“Not you. I work best on my own,” she said in a tight, defensive voice.

Defensive was good—it meant he was getting to her. But then, he knew that. “So do I, usually. But we’d each bring particular strengths to an investigation if we decided to work together. You should let me help.”

“Over my dead body.”

The thought startled him. The very possibility of it was both real and deeply disturbing. If her vision had stopped someone from doing harm to the Source and her unborn child, then the next logical step for that someone would be to get rid of whoever or whatever had gotten in his way. Namely, Martha.

“You might be in danger,” he said abruptly.

She laughed at that. “Hardly. No one thinks I’m any real threat to their plans. It was sheer luck I happened to stop the attack on Allie. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

“Stop it.” His words were cold and clipped.

She looked up at him, confused, pulling the robe more tightly around her. She smelled of the ocean, a clean smell, and he wanted to lick the salt from her skin. She smelled of flowers, and determination. She smelled of the rich, sweet blood that pumped so fiercely in her veins, and he wanted her badly enough to forget about everything if she gave him even the slightest sign.

It was a good thing she never would. “You and I both know that your visions have saved more than one life,” he went on. “No prophet or seer I’ve known has ever had exact knowledge. Why do you think cards and runes appeared? They weren’t for everyday use, as they are now. They were used by genuine oracles to help explain their shadowy dreams.”

“So you’re telling me I should invest in a pack of tarot cards?” she drawled, daring to mock him. Few ever did—he was usually the one who taunted and mocked. He looked at her with annoyance and admiration.

“I’m telling you not to beat yourself up. No one likes a martyr.”

She froze. So much for getting her to help him. “Go fuck yourself.”

He didn’t come up with the obvious rejoinder. They both knew he wanted to fuck her, and by even using the word she’d brought it out into the open.
“I guess that means you won’t be helping me investigate.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said, starting to move away from him.

Although they were headed in the same direction, he decided to give her a break. Give her time to think about it. “If you change your mind, all you have to do is knock on my door.”

“Go to hell!”

He thought of the Dark City, the cold, empty grayness of the place, and grimaced. “Been there, done that,” he murmured. “Think about it.”

She didn’t grace him with a backward glance.

I
WAS SHIVERING BY THE TIME
I reached my room, the sodden nightgown flapping against my legs. I went straight into my small bathroom and stripped everything off, stepping beneath the hot spray of the shower with a sigh of relief. I seemed to take forever to stop shaking, and I leaned my forehead against the tile, letting the water beat down on me, washing away my tension.

Had I been wrong to dismiss his suggestion so quickly? Maybe I should follow the old advice to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He was the logical suspect in any plot to hurt Allie’s baby, and I knew instinctively that the assault had been against the unborn child, not Allie herself. He was the newcomer, the snake in our garden. He was so obvious that he ought to be discounted.

But life wasn’t one of Allie’s mystery novels.
Sometimes the most obvious answer was the right one.

He wanted to work with me to find the culprit. I could laugh at the very idea. Wanted to trick me, more likely. But knowing that, wouldn’t I be in the perfect position to discover exactly what his mysterious agenda was? It would give me access to him that wasn’t based on his totally specious attempts to get me into bed.

At least, I assumed they were specious. Thinking about that was a bad idea, but once I started, it was hard to stop it. Once more I could taste his mouth. Feel the unmistakable hardness between his legs.

That meant nothing. He was male, and I remembered what men were like. Even angelic ones. He would gladly take me to bed, and it would mean nothing more to him than eating a sandwich, a way to assuage another hunger.

But if we had something else to concentrate on, he’d leave me alone. Presumably. There was no guarantee, and he seemed to take a particular delight in trying to unsettle me; but if he really wanted something from me, I could make him behave.

I turned off the water, warm at last, and grabbed a fluffy bath sheet, wrapping it around me before I headed back into my bedroom. I was exhausted, but if I lay down with my hair wet, it would turn into a ridiculous mass of curls. I should look for the strip
of toweling I wrapped around my head in a mostly useless effort to tame them, but even that seemed too much effort. I dragged myself to the bed and lay down, the towel still wrapped securely around me. A moment later, I slept.

A moment later than that, I dreamed.

Come to me
. The sound of his voice on the wind, but I had sense enough not to move. Even as the bed sagged beneath his weight I didn’t move, and he was looking down at me now, his eyes moving over my body. I was completely naked beneath his gaze, and I wanted to cover myself. Not my breasts and pubic area, but my scars. I wrapped my arms around myself. His hands were hard as he pulled them away, exposing me to his steady gaze.

He moved then, and his breath was hot against my skin, his long hair drifting against me, his hands on my arms, holding me still. And then his mouth touched my skin, and I wanted to weep.

It was no erotic kiss, no arousing tease of my suddenly tight breasts. It was a soft, sweet kiss against the place where the claws had bitten deep into my flesh, where the scar puckered in such an ugly way. A kiss, a benediction, followed by another, and then another, as his mouth traced the brutal line of scarring, then moved on to the next one, and I was weeping beneath my tightly closed lids.

He said nothing, but I heard his thoughts anyway.
You shouldn’t be ashamed of these scars,
his voice said in my dream.
They’re a badge of honor.

His hands slid down my arms, catching my hips as he kissed my torn skin, and I didn’t even think about what he was doing, so lost in the blessed magic of his mouth. Until he paused at the end of the last trail, and I realized where he was, his face resting against my belly, before he caught my thighs and slowly drew my legs apart.

I knew I shouldn’t let him, but his voice in my head was soft and soothing.
Let me,
he whispered.
I’ll take care of you. Let me love you.

Love me? That was impossible. Further proof that this was nothing but a fantasy, and it wasn’t even Cain but some wonderful, dreamlike variant. Even in a dream I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this, but his coaxing voice soothed me, and I opened for him, for the shock of his mouth between my legs, his tongue, touching me, tasting me, licking me.

His fingers flexed, caressing my thighs as he held me still, and I knew I should reach down and push his head away from me. Grab his long hair in my fist and yank.

I didn’t want to. I wanted his mouth on me, his tongue, wanted the strange feelings swirling through my body; and when he released his hold on my thighs I didn’t try to close them, simply arched up against him, wanting more.

The touch of his fingers was a cool shock, but nothing compared to the sensation as he slid one inside me, and I heard my soft cry with distant surprise. It was . . . strange. Good. Pushing into me as his tongue slid over me, and I was suddenly filled with the most astonishing need.

“More.” I didn’t recognize the raw, needy whisper, but I could feel the strange delight of his laugh against my clitoris, and then his teeth, delicately, as he withdrew his long finger and then pushed two inside.

I shattered immediately, my voice hoarse as I cried out. “Don’t . . .

“Don’t . . . stop.”

He didn’t, pushing me over that hill and then dragging me up another, higher, steeper, and I knew the plummet into darkness would be terrifying, and I knew I couldn’t—wouldn’t—fight him. I wanted this. In the private darkness of my dreams, I wanted everything, because nothing was real. There would be nothing in the morning but the faint shiver of remembrance. Remembrance of things that had never happened.

He moved up and breathed in my ear as I lay, sated and languorous in the aftermath.
Do you want me?
he whispered.
Or was that enough for you?

How in the world could I have said what I did? Except that it was a dream, and I knew that I really
said nothing. It wasn’t my voice on the dark night air, saying, “I want you. Show me.”

He moved over me, lying between my legs, and for the first time I felt him hard against me, the thick swell rubbing up and down my sensitized flesh, and I climaxed again, so fast it shocked me. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh or to cry.

“I’m pathetic,” I said in the darkness.

You’re irresistible,
he said, and lifted his hips, reaching down to position himself against me, and I wanted, needed, to feel him inside me, feel the push and shove and throb and wash of it all over me, and I arched up, waiting for the thick slide.

When it came, it was better than anything I had ever felt in my life, hard and silken, pushing inside me with such slow care that I wanted to scream. Yet I knew I couldn’t hurry him—even without touching him, I knew he was far bigger than . . . The very thought was disloyal. A hard thrust would have hurt me, no matter how much I wanted it, and once more I felt tears well in the corners of my eyes.

And then he was inside me, and I was so impossibly full that I couldn’t move as warmth wrapped around my breasts, my skin tingling with an absurd, breathless tension that was equal parts discomfort and delight. His mouth was at my neck, licking, and I shivered. This was going to happen this time, and I would let it. This was a dream, and I
was safe. I could fly with the fantasy, and no one would know.

He pulled out, carefully, and pushed back in, and I shifted, trying to adjust to his size. I was momentarily annoyed with myself. Why couldn’t I arrange my fantasies better than this, at least conjuring a man of more modest proportions? I wanted this done—I wanted my climax and I wanted him to leave.

But the dream Cain wasn’t about to leave me alone. He moved too damned slowly as I began to adjust to him, taking him with no more discomfort, and when he finally thrust so deep inside that I knew I could take no more, I felt another small climax consume me. I sank back, ready to let him ride it out. I was finished.

No you don’t,
he whispered against my skin. He moved, still hard inside me, and I let myself ride on the tide of it, languorous, lazy, undemanding, until the burn began once more, the sweet little tingles of an emerging response.
No,
I thought.
Impossible.

Yes,
he said, putting his mouth against my ear, trailing it down the side of my neck as he thrust, steadily, hard, and I was slick with response, covered with a film of sweat, and I began to tremble as I felt his mouth against me. I closed my eyes, letting him play at my fast-beating pulse, felt his tongue lick me and stab at the base of my neck, and I arched against him, needy all over again, balancing on the edge of something I was afraid to face.

His teeth nipped at me, and I jerked with pleasure. He couldn’t take my blood; he wouldn’t dare. I wasn’t his mate—it would kill him. But we could play at this game in a dream, and it wouldn’t matter. I had nothing to fear from an act that had previously frightened me.

It didn’t frighten me now. The tension was building so high it was almost pain, and I needed a release that I couldn’t understand. I slid my arms around his neck, threading my fingers through his long hair, caressing him. I needed him to explode inside me; I needed him to suck at my throat and drink from me. Him inside me, me inside him. It called to me, demanding. I wanted to feed him, on such a primal level that it made me shake even more. I wanted to give everything to him, let him find his pleasure in my flesh, until there was nothing left of me.

“Take me,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “Take all of me.” And I moved, baring my neck to him.

He thrust, so deep and hard that it was a kind of pleasure-pain that had me teetering on the very edge. And when I felt his bite sink deep into my throat, I went over, lost in the pulsing of my blood into his mouth, the pulsing of his semen inside me. Lost, forever, until, as I wanted, there was nothing left.

I sat up, alone in the darkness, sweating, shaking. It had happened again. The towel had come off
while I slept and thrashed; my covers were on the floor. My entire body tingled, and I carefully ran my hands over my skin, uncertain whether there had been other, actual hands on me. My fingers skimmed my small breasts, my nipples so hard they hurt. I traced the first scar, almost tenderly, down over my belly, then touched myself between my legs, shivering at the sensation. I was wet, of course. Swollen. But no one else’s hands had been there. No one’s cock had slid inside. No one had sunk his teeth into the soft base of my neck.

I had learned how to pleasure myself. That was between me and my body, and I could bring myself to climax in a quick and efficient manner. I traced the soft curls, thinking I might wipe out the memory of the dream with my own hands. But no. I was going to empty my mind, think of nothing at all, and go back to sleep.

I rolled onto my stomach, but the feel of the rumpled sheets against my breasts, my flesh, was a stimulation I couldn’t bear. I turned onto my side, wrapping myself into a tight ball, willing myself to sleep. And this time there were no dreams.