Soulceress (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 2) (27 page)

“Nay. I’m fine. Better than I’ve been, well, ever, really. But you doona seem all right.”

“I’m fine. You should go rest. Just to make sure.” She turned back to the window.

Warren was behind her in two strides, his hands gently gripping her arms. “Wait. You’ve been acting strangely. Distant ever since the night we kissed.”

“Nothing is wrong. We’re fine.” She looked up at him and nodded encouragingly. “Go rest, Warren.”
 

But she didn’t pull out of his arms. Just being close to her made his heart speed up. Made something in his mind settle. If he’d had a soul, he’d have said something settled there as well.

She was afraid. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how different her life was from his. Similar in that they were both loners. But he’d chosen his lifestyle. She hadn’t. Not from the time she was a child and had been made an outcast at school because of what she was, and not now. He’d at least grown up within his clan, knew what it was like to be part of something.

All she’d known was rejection by the people she thought were her friends and the boy she thought she loved. He hadn’t helped that by being an ass to her for a decade. Though she presented a tough front to the world, one in which she was happy with her life, the reality was bloody depressing. She thought so too, or she wouldn’t be avoiding him after admitting that she knew she was an outcast. He was getting under her shell, figuring out the real Esha she kept hidden from the world, and she didn’t like it.

He turned her around to face him, then reached up and brushed a swath of hair back from her face. Though she scowled, she leaned into his hand almost imperceptibly.

“We’re friends, Esha.”

“I don’t really know how to
be
around friends. I’ve Ana, but what you and I have is very different.”

“Aye,” he said huskily. “I’d say that what I feel for you is more than friendship.”

She shrugged and looked away. “Sex? Sure. There’s that. I’ve wanted you for ages. Now you finally want me back, and frankly, I’m not entirely sure what to do about it.”

Just sex? Far from it. She was becoming the light in his dark world. The only one who saw who he really was, yet kept coming back. “You’re running.”
From me.
 

“No.” She shook her head sharply.

“Then you’re afraid.”

“Of what?” Her voice challenged him.

“You’re afraid of being close to another person.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Everyone wants to be close to someone. I just don’t want to be close to you.”

“That’s a lie. You’re too clever for lies.”

His gaze ensnared hers until he was all she could see. He
was
what she wanted, had been for years, and now he wanted her back. And it terrified her. He’d asked her what she was afraid of. She was afraid of him. Of his taking her up to the sun like Icarus’s wings, then dropping her. Which he inevitably would, because someone like him wouldn’t stay with someone like her. They were from two different worlds.
 

The thought gave her the strength to tear herself from his arms, to stride across the room. But not to leave. She couldn’t bear to, because even though it hurt to be so close and yet so impossibly far from what she wanted, she couldn’t break away. So she walked to the other window to give them space, to see what he would say.

But he didn’t speak. Instead, she felt the heat and hardness of him at her back. One big hand was braced against the glass. So strong, with the scars to prove it, yet so beautiful. She wanted to reach up and touch it. She clenched her fist instead.

“Do you no’ want to be close to someone?” His voice was rough at her ear, and the heat of his breath made her nerve endings sing all the way down her back. Though his heat and strength surrounded her, he didn’t touch her. Always so close, yet so far away.
 

“Do you?” she asked.

“Aye. I want to be close to you.”
 

She closed her eyes. “Why?” She wished she hadn’t asked, but she couldn’t help herself.
 

She moved to leave, to slip around him and out the door. As if he sensed her thoughts, he grasped her hands and pressed them against the glass at the level of her head. His hands trapped her, and the cold of the window only served to enhance the heat of him at her back.
 

“Look at me,” he said.

“What?” He’d trapped her so that she couldn’t turn. How was she supposed to look?

“Look up at the window.”

A trick of the light allowed her to see their reflection, his head above hers. Only their hands touched, and the tension of being so close to him yet so far away made her tremble.

“I want you, Esha. For your courage, your strength, your wit and humor. You’ve ensnared me.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed, as his eyes met hers in the glass.

“But I also want you for your body, for your lovely face. For the way you look at me when you think I canna see.”

She gasped. Why was he telling her these things? Could he possibly mean them?

“I’ve had a taste of you, Esha, and I canna rest until I’ve had more.”

He bent his head to her neck and dragged his lips along her skin. The contrast of soft lips and prickly stubble made goose bumps break out along her arms.

“It’s just sex,” she gasped.

He bit her once, at the slope where her neck met her shoulder, then looked up to meet her eyes in the glass once more. “You know it’s no’. And I know it’s no’. No’ after that night on Mull, when I felt you hot and wet beneath my mouth. When your cries echoed in my ears and your hands fisted in my hair.” His voice was darkly intense, his face more so.

She looked away, embarrassed. He released her hand to capture her chin, gently drawing her face back up until her eyes met his in the glass once again. She could have lowered her hand, could even have broken away and run for it, but she was caught in his spell. He returned his hand to hers, trapping her once more with nothing but a light pressure on her hands and the weight of his gaze.

“I’d do anything for that again. To make you mine in that way, when all the pretenses fall away and you’re bared to me, unable to pretend you doona care.”

“Warren, I—” She broke off when he pressed himself against her back, finally,
finally
making contact. The heat and strength of him were overwhelming, just enough to snap some sense into her.

“Aye, lassie?”

She shook her head. He pressed his hands against hers, enough pressure to let her know that he’d wait for her to finish. She couldn’t keep herself from answering. “I care.”

He grinned, a brief half smile that made her heart jump, then tilted his head to press a kiss to the top of hers. “Then doona move your hands,” he said. “And doona look away.”

The command caught the breath in her lungs, and she watched, entranced, as he moved his hands along her body. Slowly, as if cherishing every inch of her.

“I love your long, beautiful neck.” His eyes held hers, almost painfully intense, as he ran a big, scarred hand down the front of her neck. His other hand gripped the side of her hip, as if to trap her because he was afraid she might run.

She was done running. She watched as he ran a broad hand down her chest to her breasts. He cupped one, gently testing the weight.
 

“They’re too—”

“Perfect. Like the rest of you. Like your strong arms.” His touch on the bared skin of her arms made her shiver, made her wish he’d touch the rest of her. He ran his hand down over her waist, slipping it beneath her shirt to rest on her stomach.

“Your skin is so soft. I want to kiss you and lick you here, teasing and torturing you for what’s to come.”

She had a vision of him on his knees, doing to her what he’d done before. Her own knees weakened, threatening to collapse, and he felt the brief shift.

“Nay. You’ll stay upright for this.” His eyes burned into hers as he spoke, compelling her to obey. To stay standing so that he could torture her some more. She could feel his strong chest against her back, the length of his thighs against hers. The steel of his cock pressed against her.
 

He wanted her. Wanted to be touching her, tasting her. The idea was thrilling, and so arousing it was all she could do to stay on her feet, desperate to see what he would do. There was something unbearably erotic about watching the two of them in the glass, watching as his fingers traced her skin and his eyes stayed rapt on hers.

His agile fingers began to undo her pants. She held her breath as he pushed them down, scared to do anything that might stop him.
 

Waiting.

Wanting.

Warren watched her in the glass, trying his damnedest not to grab her and throw her on the bed and fall on top of her like an animal. He’d accepted that she’d be the one with whom he broke his vow of celibacy—nay, delighted in it—but this wasn’t about that.

Somewhere along the line, he’d begun to truly care for her. Enough to see that she cut herself off from the world and the people in it because she expected so little of it. She expected so little for herself. He wanted her to know how badly he wanted her, and for how many reasons.

“I could watch you like this for days,” he said, as his hand returned to the juncture of her thighs. He repressed a shudder at the feel of her. “I could watch as my hands touch your body, all softness and heat. As my mouth traces across your skin, tasting you.”

“Warren,” she gasped, her head dropping back to his chest.

“Nay.” His voice was harsh. “Look up. I want to see your face as I touch you. Want you to see mine.”

She moaned, then tilted her head up until her fiery amber eyes met his. They were heavy-lidded with desire, her lush lips parted as her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. He teased her, skimming his fingertips over her pussy, letting her know what she could have, but withholding it. Just so he could watch her want him. Watch the desperate desire flash across her beautiful face and know that he’d put it there.

“You want me to touch you?” he asked.
 

She nodded.

“Where do you want me to touch you?”

Reluctance flashed across her face, just briefly. Enough to let him know that she wasn’t lost in him yet. That she still held doubts. He couldn’t bear it. He nodded at her, hoping she would answer his command.
 

“You know where,” she gasped, her eyes hot on his and her breaths coming quicker.

“Aye, lassie. I do. Now spread your legs,” he said, loving the way she so quickly obliged, toeing off her boots and kicking off her jeans.
 

When she was stripped from the waist down, her T-shirt riding just above her dark curls, he watched her eyes as he dipped his fingers into the heat of her, gently separating her folds to get to her glorious wetness.
 

“You’re so soft here. So perfect.” His voice sounded harsher to his ears, from the blood roaring through his head and the desire that clogged his throat. “So wet and slick and sweet.”

He ran his fingers in circles over her clitoris, watching in awe as her face clouded with pleasure.

“You like that.” It was more statement than question. She trembled in his arms, a woman whose strength astounded him. He moved his free hand to one of hers, holding it against the glass and not breaking eye contact.

“Tell me what you want,” he said, wanting to hear it on her lips.

“I want you inside of me.” There was no hesitation in her words, only desire.

“Here?” He teased at her entrance, pushing one finger gently inside. She nodded, and he fitted it fully inside of her. “Gods, you’re perfect. I want to be inside of you.”

“Yes.” She moaned, her eyelids fluttering with pleasure.

He smiled, then rubbed her clitoris with his thumb and pushed his finger deeper inside of her. She moved her hips in a dance that made his cock throb with desire. Unable to help himself, he began to thrust against her, marveling at the pleasure.

“Warren!” She was breathless, the color high in her cheeks. “I want more.”

“This?” He pushed another finger inside of her, marveling at the way she gripped him, and fucked her with his fingers.