Reaper's Dark Kiss (13 page)

He couldn’t be this close. He couldn’t stand it. Sky was asleep. He slipped her head to a pillow and eased off the bed.

Immediately awake, Sky propped herself on her elbows, head to one side. “What’s wrong?”

Trying to let off excess heat, Julian was almost panting. “I have work to do,” he said. “You rest.”

She sat up on the edge of the bed, suspicious. “What could you be hiding this time?”

He’d promised to tell Sky the truth. A reaper didn’t break his word. He’d tell her as much as he could. “I don’t think I can be with you and not mark you. That wouldn’t be right. You’d be bonded to me.” He made himself look away from her hard nipples. “Go back to sleep.”

Sky leaned into Julian. She ran light fingers over his belly, trailed slow kisses after her touch, and asked, “Why?”

Chapter Eighteen

Julian pressed his lips together and willed his fangs to recede. “It’s not right to mark you without you knowing what it means,” he said.

“So tell me.” Sky kissed just above Julian’s navel, her warm lips lingering. “I’m a good listener.”

“You’d be mine,” Julian said. “You’d have a mark, a…” He hissed at the feel of Sky’s probing tongue. “A tattoo that could only come from me.”

Kissing his belly, her tongue licking solid, molded muscle, Sky said, “I like tattoos.”

“No,” he said, shivering. “It’s not like that. By our laws, I have to ask you in front of a witness, get your consent.”

“Will there be a witness when you rip off my clothes?”

“Sky, don’t—”

She traced her lips over the outline of Julian’s hard cock through his jeans. “When you sink so deep inside me I’ll never want it to stop, who’ll be there?”

No one would be there. There’d just be naked writhing bodies, skin on skin. No. There would be more. For the first time in his long eternity, Julian felt lifetimes of loneliness lift. He was with his Forever Mate, and he loved her. That love was alive, drawing them together, stronger than any instinct he’d ever felt. “You’re enough to make me fight through a whole army for one kiss.”

She looked up at him, serious for a moment. “Can you mark me”—she brushed her lips between his legs—“like this?”

“No,” Julian said. “Not like that.”

Sky trailed a nail down the teeth of his zipper. The metal vibrated against his swollen cock.

“Sky.” Julian gasped. “You’re torturing me.”

“I am?” She kissed lower. “This is for all those questions you wouldn’t answer.” She moved her lips even lower. “And this is for not telling me you had fangs that feel so good.”

The beast in Julian rose. A snarl of need thrummed through every nerve. He fell back, out of Sky’s easy reach. But she went all the way to her knees and came after him.

“Last October,” Sky said, kissing between Julian’s thighs, “I did a story on a hot-dog-eating contest. I had to be in it, compete, get a feel for it.” She unbuttoned Julian’s jeans.

“I’ll buy you a hot dog sometime,” Julian choked out.

“You know how you eat a lot of hot dogs fast?” She slid his zipper down.

Julian groaned. “Sky—”

“You learn to control your gag reflex. I learned really good.”

He should have stopped her, should have moved too fast for Sky to follow. But her lips felt so good, and Julian wanted her so badly, it was impossible to do what he knew he should. He tangled his fingers in Sky’s soft curls. He moaned through clenched teeth as she took the length of his heavy cock between her soft lips.

Her desire was without words. Sky tilted her head back and offered him her throat. Their eyes met. Julian tried to hold back. But Sky grabbed his hands, locked her fingers between his.

It was their first time getting to know each other’s rhythms. As he stroked into Sky’s mouth, nothing mattered but the bliss on her face, the soft feel of her breasts, the sweet touch of her lips tight around him.

The beast in him purred, spreading pleasure through Julian in heated waves. A delicious pressure built in his throbbing cock. He pumped his hips in and out, taking her mouth in long, slow strokes. He caressed her face, learning the smooth feel of her. She was relentless, drawing him deeper each time, forcing groans of pleasure from him.

She pulled away and licked him, her face buried between his legs, her hands resting on the ripples and ridges of his belly. The scent of her desire filled Julian. He curled his hands into fists. It was all he could do not to toss Sky on his bed and take her in one smooth thrust.

Kissing his clenched fists, she said, “Did I tell you I won the contest?” With a wicked laugh, she took him into her mouth again but didn’t move. She held him there, not touching him. Their only connection was him inside her mouth.

When Julian couldn’t stand any more, he slowly started moving his hips, feeling his beast rise. He threw his head back and felt his hips moving, pistoning in a way he couldn’t control anymore. He tried to pull away, but Sky grabbed his hands, holding him near. Then he was groaning loudly as he emptied himself into her willing mouth.

Mine
, his beast purred.
Take her.

Breathing hard, he reached for Sky, meaning to ravage her. But she eased back. “No,” she said. “Not until after we have a witness, right?”

It was more complicated than that. Even knowing that, only his warrior’s discipline kept Julian from seducing Sky until she begged for what he was desperate to give her. He turned away and went to his wardrobe to change his jeans. “I can’t let you go, Sky. Even if this didn’t happen, I can’t.” He couldn’t tell her about the haeze, but he could tell her that much.

The Crypt’s staff must have known he had a mortal female in his room. A silver decanter of wine and two copper goblets had been left on a corner of his desk. He poured wine and brought it to Sky. She’d waited on the edge of the bed while he changed. He ran his fingers through her hair, down her cheeks, and then he crouched before her and took her free hand in his. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Remember what you promised in the alley?” Sky was staring down into the wine, tracing the rim of the goblet with her thumb.

“That I wouldn’t let death take me from you?”

She nodded. “If you ever do, Julian, I’ll be really mad.” She gave a weak laugh, but when she looked at him, there were tears in her eyes. “Okay?”

Sky was taking the biggest risk she’d ever taken in her life. She was letting someone in. Julian knew how much it took for her to do that. He’d fought beside elite guardsmen who thought nothing of giving up their lives in a fight. Ounce for ounce of courage and guts, Sky was as brave as any of them at this moment, and he loved her for it.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said, getting to his feet. “I want you to see my world.”

* * * *

Sky had never done anything like what she’d just done with Julian. It wasn’t her first time, but she’d never wanted a man as much as she wanted him. Something was drawing her to him, something big and powerful, a magnet the size of the Empire State Building.

They were in a curving tunnel and Julian was on his knees. A low grunt from him was followed by the sound of stone sliding over stone.

“What are you doing?” Sky asked.

“Unlocking a back door.”

A part of the wall slid back, and she was looking into a cavern with a roof so high, it seemed like a blue-black sky. Julian waved her ahead of him and closed the stone wall behind them with a nod. The cavern was filled with blue-green light, as if they were underwater. “Where are we?” Sky said.

“Kind of like our version of the botanical gardens.” Julian moved through slanting columns of purplish light, a distant look on his face.

Sky passed her hand through a beam of light. It was strangely cool. “Why aren’t you burning?”

Pointing up, Julian said, “It’s filtered sunlight. Special glass. No UV.”

Impatiens, daisies, violets, and other flowers Sky couldn’t name painted swaths of color beside cobblestone paths. They twisted between improbably tall trees. Casually dressed people walked the paths in pairs or small groups. She noticed many of them had the harried look of travelers on a long trip. High overhead, panes of colored glass—green, blue, purple—shed light.

“I never noticed glass in the sidewalks,” Sky said.

Julian laughed. “They do it with mirrors somehow, hidden under your world.”

Groans of unmistakable pleasure came from under a tree so big it could have sheltered a house. Sky turned to Julian, a question in her eyes.

“It’s different with us,” he said, giving Sky a look that made her sure he was thinking about hot dogs. “We don’t hide it when we enjoy each other.”

Heat rushed to Sky’s cheeks, and to other parts of her too. She let Julian lead her down a winding path. They moved almost in step, Julian wrapped in his thoughts. Giving him time, Sky took in the wide ledges that ran around the cavern. They were balconies that jutted out at odd angles and went up as far as she could see.

“Marek can’t consent to me marking you until this thing with Vandar is done,” Julian said. “If I ask him now, he’d have to deny me to avoid starting a war between the Creed and the Dominion. And he could never reverse his decision.”

Sky thought back to the alley. She shuddered. Vandar had looked at her as if he were starving and she was a gourmet entrée.

“With the binder signed, I can’t bond with you unless I—” Julian stopped and looked up at the jagged rows of balconies as if he’d lost something. “I can’t bond with you. Vandar won’t forgive me for claiming you,” he said. “I’d walk across the Sahara at noon for you, but life with me won’t be easy.”

Didn’t Julian know Sky would be with him no matter what? She couldn’t let him beat himself up like this. “How about a trailer?” she said.

He looked down at her, sidetracked. “A what?”

“Like in the movies. A minipreview.” She pointed to a far corner of the garden. “Race you to the tree. You get there first, I take off one piece of clothing. Your choice.”

“What if you get there first?”

“You strip.”

“You only take off one thing, but I get naked?”

Good. His mind was off wars and the Dominion. “What?” she said, hands on her hips. “Afraid I’ll win?”

“We have a saying,” Julian said, moving toward her. “Don’t count out gold your blood can’t pay for.”

“I can pay for a lot,” Sky said and took off running.

* * * *

Julian let the woman who would one day have his children get halfway across the gardens before he chased her down. He caught Sky around her waist and lifted them straight up.

She let out a surprised cry and tried to turn, but Julian held on tightly to keep her from slipping in his grip. “That better be you,” she said.

“Yeah, it better be,” Julian said. “Because if anyone else grabbed you off the ground like that, I’d go after them.”

As Julian flew higher, the paths dissolved into a giant labyrinth. He landed on the lowest viewing gallery, about eleven stories up. There were no rails. He landed well away from the edge and set Sky down, watching her. “Good?”

Sky took a step back, then two, then three. Terror flared in her eyes. Her heartbeat was quick, out of rhythm.

“Sky, the edge is right behind you.”

She spread her arms out to the side, palms up. “I’m not a coward,” she said. Then she let herself drop into the yawning emptiness behind her.

Julian was after her in a second. He caught Sky and flew them back to the ledge. “What the hell, Sky?”

“Immersion therapy,” she said, sitting on the ledge, legs hanging down. She leaned back on her hands. “You just banished the ghost of a hit man.”

“What ghost?”

But Sky went on as if she hadn’t heard Julian. “I knew you wouldn’t let me fall. Now I’m not scared of heights anymore.” She grinned at him. “Thanks.”

Julian stared at her, nearly openmouthed. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“I don’t know.” She gave Julian a smile that was slow seduction. “What else can you do?”

A woman had never seduced Julian with the dare in Sky’s eyes. He was irresistibly caught up in her, and he loved every second. He went down on one knee. “You sure you can pay for all that gold your mouth’s shoveling out?”

Leaning deliciously close, surrounding Julian with her sensually warm scent, Sky said, “You sure you can deliver?”

That was nearly more than Julian could take. Resisting his beast’s urge to strip Sky and mount her there in the open, Julian rose to his feet. Standing under a jutting rock ledge, his face hidden from light, he said, “I haven’t asked you the way I should.”

“If the question is can you take me to a deserted island and make mad love to me in the waves, my answer’s ‘when?’”

Julian’s beast growled with unbearable need. For a time, he didn’t trust himself to speak. Feeling as calm as he ever would before he made Sky his own, he somersaulted over the edge and came to a hovering stop in front of her. He looked into her eyes. “Will you be mine, SkyLynne Jordan?”

From below came sounds. Dripping water, people talking in quiet tones, echoes of footsteps, all of it unimportant as desperate seconds dragged by like lonely years. Sounds came from below. A hush fell around them, closing them in a world ruled by two hearts, one that beat quickly and one that was waking for the first time.

When Sky murmured her answer, Julian missed it. “What?” he said.

“For a while,” Sky said. “I’ll be yours for a while.”

The beast in Julian snarled.

Forever.

“Awhile?” Julian repeated. “How long, do you think?”

Leaning into Julian, Sky said, “I could live one more sunrise without you.” She let out a slow breath against his neck. “But you know what?”

Julian touched his mouth to Sky’s. “Tell me.”

“I don’t want to. I’ll be yours for as long as there’s sunrise.”

Speaking words he never thought he’d hear himself say, Julian said, “I claim the right to mark thee as my own.”

As if guided by some instinct, Sky leaned her head to one side, baring her throat, inviting Julian. He let his fangs come out and gave himself to the temptation that was Sky. He drank only a moment, then healed the pinprick wounds with a kiss. Julian let himself drift up, and came down behind Sky, pulling her close. With her firm backside settled against his groin, he let his legs dangle beside hers and held her.