Wrath: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2 (36 page)

“No! I—”

“I think you need to spend the evening determining how long you’re going to punish me for Gretta’s indiscretions and lies.” I squeezed passed him and went to the bedroom to grab one of his T-shirts and a clean pair of underwear. I’d shower before I left.

He walked up behind me and laid a hand softly on my arm just above my elbow. Heat spread through my wounded hand and up the arm, through the shoulder and across to my heart.

“Stop, Hellion.”

“No, Maddy. You had your say, now I’ll have mine. You asked how long I’d punish you for Gretta’s indiscretions, and the first thing that popped into my head was a denial. I know that’s not right, but it’s the truth. But you want to know the second thing I thought?”

I shrugged and stayed facing the wall. “If it will help you sleep better.”

“I thought to myself, ‘I’ll keep it up as long as you keep punishing me for Bahlin’s mistakes’.“ He gripped my arm and stopped me from storming out. “Now who has a statement to make by walking out?” he whispered, bending close to my ear. “Be careful how you answer.”

“Fuck. You. Careful enough for you?” I ground out between clenched teeth. “Get your hands off me.”

“And here’s where we differ, Maddy. I walk away, whereas you strike out
then
walk away. So if you want to leave things on such a note, go on with yourself.” He let go of my arm and stepped back.

I stood there shaking with rage and some other emotion I didn’t want to examine too closely for fear it would look like anguish. Hellion was right, and I knew he was right. “What kind of relationship can we possibly hope to have if we can’t get beyond our collective pasts?” I asked, finding myself chilled. I refused to turn around and meet Hellion’s gaze. His arm slithered around my waist, winding its way up the front of my T-shirt and cupping my breast. I laughed but it sounded more like a strangled sob. “This has never been the hard part, Hellion.” I tried to dislodge him but he was stuck to me like a barnacle to a boardwalk.

He pulled me close to him and bent to whisper in my ear. “No, this has been disturbingly easy for you, Maddy, you who has never been casual in her lusts. I think that’s part of what bothers you about me.”

Tears burned my eyes and I blinked furiously. “Yeah,” I said through the chokehold my emotions had on me.

“I punish you to keep you from getting any closer. You punish me to keep me from getting close at all.” His voice sounded as strangled as mine, and I realized we’d reached a pivotal point in our fledgling relationship much sooner than either of us had anticipated we would.

“So we’re screwed…” I started to say, and he tightened his hand on my breast and made me involuntarily arch my back.

“Oh no,
grá mo chroí
, we’re no’ screwed.” The heavy, emotional brogue rolled off his tongue and danced across my skin only to be followed by his tender lips. “No, no’ screwed. Yeh said yeh love me, an’ I believe yeh. I hope yeh’ll believe me when I tell yeh the same, an’ that yeh’ve shamed me. Yeh deserve better’n I’ve given, Maddy. We’ll start tonight teh let go o’ the ghosts, living and dead, who haunt our dreams. Because yeh’re mine as much as I’m yehrs,
a mhuirnín
. An’ I’m all yehrs.” He hugged me tight to his front, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Yeh’ll stop this business o’ believin’ we’re doomed too.”

I nodded, a strange and unexpected feeling of genuine relief clutching at my heart and mind. I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I’d expected him to leave me, and sooner rather than later.

Sighing deeply, Hellion closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m no’ yehr da, Maddy, and I’m definitely no’ Bahlin. I need yeh to accept me as
me
, no’ overlay me with the sins of my predecessors.” He lifted his head slightly and opened his eyes to see if I was listening. He stared at me, deep and hard, and I smiled tentatively.

Wise man, Hellion
. He’d recognized what I’d been doing all along when I, myself, hadn’t completely understood it. I was blaming him for the men I’d loved who had left me, one by death and the other by choice; one involuntarily and one voluntarily. And I’d not forgiven either of them. In this single moment he had helped me see it while offering me a chance to change my behavior instead of bailing on me. My parents would have loved him, and the thought that they’d never meet him just slayed me.

His head cocked to the side and he said, “There’s a look of shock and sadness on yehr face. What’re yeh thinking,
an duine dorcha
.”

“That’s new. What does it mean?” I asked softly.

“My dark one. Yehr hair, Maddy, and sometimes yehr soul.” He reached out to stroke my head, soothing the area where the murderer had taken his liberty with me.

“I’m thinking I’m guilty of all the things you said.” I held up a hand to stop his interruption. “I never looked at it directly or intentionally because I felt like it would hurt too badly. But in only a few moments, you laid it all out in front of me, and I’m suddenly looking at it, and I’m not dying or crumbling. It feels like I should thank you.” I laid my good hand on his arm and followed it by turning toward him. Our bodies touched, nearly head to toe, my injured hand long forgotten as I laid it across his heart. Tilting my head back, I looked at him, taking in the masculine beauty that defined his face.

“Tell me,” he said with great tenderness, “tell me like yeh mean it,
mo chroí
.”

“I love you, Hellion Markalon,” I said, the glowing ember of love coaxed to flame.

“Spend yehr life with me, Madeleine. Be mine, now and always. Marry me, and let me call yeh my own.” He dipped his head toward me and our lips brushed together. The tenderness of the moment gave way to passions and lusts we never had a hard time conjuring.

This is why he kept his distance during the discussion
, I mused,
so that we said what needed to be said instead of falling back on this, the thing we do so well
. Thinking became increasingly difficult as he nipped at my neck, and I groaned at the searing heat that flowed seemingly straight to the crux of my thighs.

“What the hell are you
doing
?” I panted.

He laughed ominously and said, “Just earning another Boy Scout badge, my love.” He bent and secured his arms under my ass cheeks and lifted, turning me around and setting me on the counter.

“Somehow I don’t think they’re teaching this to the little guys,” I gasped as he laid his hands on my lower back and pulled me to the edge of the counter. Everywhere he touched me seemed to draw a hot, lingering line to my center. “Why haven’t you done this before?” I asked in a quivering voice.

Nestling himself between my legs, he grasped my chin and tilted it up for another kiss. Just before our lips made contact, so close that his brushed mine as he spoke, he said, “Because I didna want yeh to run, my fair Madeleine.” His tongue licked out along my bottom lip, and I instinctively opened my mouth. He nibbled at my lips, coaxing me into the kiss, before using his undeniable skills to lay ruin to what little self-control I had left. Being such a tall man, Hellion had had the counters in his bathroom custom built so they were as tall as those in most kitchens. Convenient, really, in that when he pulled me forward I was now at groin level with him. Convenient for whom? Definitely me.

He rocked against me so that I rode the ridge of his erection gently, moaning as he shifted this way and that, always touching me with his hands so the feel of nearly unbearable heat never left my core. He hissed as the temperature saturated his pants and he shuddered against me, his rhythmic motions interrupted as our passions had us moving in different directions, each seeking to move against the other but at such different angles that nothing was being accomplished. And I
wanted
something accomplished. I wanted it badly.

I pushed against him with my good hand and slid off the counter. Hellion watched me with hungry, heavy-lidded eyes as I landed lightly on the floor, and my legs wobbled slightly. My head hurt where my hair had been pulled out, and I reached up with my good hand to rub my scalp before heading into the bedroom. I stopped to turn back and say something undoubtedly provocative to my lover only to find him inches away, stalking me as I headed toward the bed.

My breathing hitched as I thought of all the things he could do with this newly displayed skill of his, but one came to mind that would be mutually pleasurable.

“Do you trust me?” I asked, my voice sounding loud in the silent room.

“With my life.”

“Heat up my mouth,” I whispered, and his eyes flared.

“Gods above, you’re trying my control! This is supposed to be for you, love—about you. You don’t have to—”

“Heat. It. Up.” I ran my tongue over my upper lip, and his breath caught as he watched the tip of my tongue touch the bow of my upper lip. Suddenly I felt as if I’d just sipped a cup of extremely hot coffee. I bent forward and flicked my tongue over his nipple, and I felt rather than saw his stomach and pecs clench.

“Odin’s balls, Madeleine,” he ground out through tightly clenched teeth.

“Oh, I’m not sure he’s got much use for them.” My tone was deceptively conversational as I rained kisses over his chest, running my tongue across sensitive skin only to follow by blowing on it to rapidly cool it off. I made it to the waistband of his pants and traced the outline of his cock with my thumbs, pressing under the crown and making him groan.

Unable to stand the escalating suspense, Hellion ripped his pants down and said in a choked voice, “I’ve never in my three hundred thirty-eight years had to ask a woman to suck my cock, but I’m going to… That is, if you don’t, Madeleine—”

His pleading became a choked gasp as I sucked in as much of him as I could manage. I had to push against his hips to help regulate the involuntary pumping motion, and it took me a moment to understand what he was saying as he caressed my head. His thrashed voice was pleading with me to not stop one minute and apologizing for who knew what the next. I renewed my efforts to swallow more of him, but there was only so much I could do before I simply choked. He tried to pull out of my mouth, but I was anticipating the chivalrous reaction. I grabbed him by the balls and tugged forward. His knees buckled. Only the slap of his palms on his thighs keeping him from pitching forward. He moaned, and I rolled my eyes up to find him watching me with a new franticness I’d never before seen on his face. He trembled as he held still and praised me effusively. If I hadn’t had to concentrate on what I was doing, I’d have been mightily entertained. New at this or not, I was obviously doing something right.

He tried to pull out of my mouth but I grunted and shook my head, redoubling my efforts.

“I can’t, Maddy. Oh, sweet Freyr, I can’t stop. I’m going to… I’m…” he panted. “Maddy!” he hissed harshly, but I ignored him, tightening my hold on his balls so he couldn’t pull away without pulling against my hold on them. I slipped a finger along the firm ridge behind the furry pouches, and he let out a roar. It was over in moments, and he sank to the floor in front of me and drew me into his arms.

Burying my face in his chest, I asked, “Have you ever, um, with another… That is, is this first time you’ve used your magic this way with…”

He shook his head and said, “I’d change everything and nothing in my past. ‘Everything’ because I’d love to share the joys of new experiences with you and you alone,
mo shíorghrá
. ‘Nothing’ because to change even one thing might mean I wasn’t where I needed to be to experience what you and I are building together.” He dropped a kiss to my forehead and shifted to sit by my side and draw me onto his lap. I curled up and he rested his chin on my head, causing me to jerk involuntarily. And then it hit me.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Holy shit!” I scrambled out of his lap, and he grunted in discomfort as my hand or elbow or something made contact with some soft part of his anatomy. “Sorry! Oh shit, Hellion. Get up.”

He leapt to his feet and grabbed me by the shoulders. “Maddy, slow down. What is it, love?” He pulled me into his arms and I fought him, shaking my head.

“I know how to find the murderer. He took my hair.”

Hellion just stared at me and said, “Yes. And?”

“Don’t you see? You can dematerialize with me to wherever my hair ended up and then we can leave immediately if it’s not safe.” I was rushing around the room gathering up clothes when Hellion’s arm snaked out and grabbed me around the waist, snugging me up to his body.

His voice, gentle but firm, was right next to my ear. “No, Maddy. I won’t have you go into this with some half-assed idea of what will or won’t happen.”

“You don’t understand, Hellion. This could be the simple solution to solving the cases. I can’t let another woman die—”

“Then we’ll go out with Darius and some of his people tonight, but we’ll not go blindly, following some unknown killer across the gods only know how much time and space on the hopes we catch him unaware.” He spun me around, and his face was as grave as I’d ever seen it. “I won’t risk you,
anamchara
, not for all the young women’s lives in London. I’m sorry, but no.”

“But don’t you see? The sun’s coming up. If the killer is power-bound by the night, the daytime is the best time to hunt for him,” I argued. “Darius and his people won’t be able to help us because they’re night-bound too.”

“I mean it, Maddy, when I say that there are no arguments you can make that will convince me it’s worth risking you. Understand that pushing is just going to make me push back harder. And while I admire your enthusiasm, you’re not thinking logically.”