Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (85 page)

“You deserve answers, Maggie. I know you do. I’m not asking you to just forget everything that happened in the past, but I’m telling you, somewhere deep inside me, I know it wasn’t a random thing. I left for a reason. And some instinct I can’t even identify is telling me that I did it to protect you.”

He rested his forehead against hers. The smell of her skin filled him with calm while at the same time, it woke up his senses, making him want to taste. “Tell me about us, Maggie,” he said softly. “Help me remember what changed me.”

“I don’t know if I can. We married so fast—”

“Why?”

“Because waiting seemed redundant. I’d never felt anything like it before. You made me feel wanted—not just physically,” she said, glancing up and quickly away, but not before he saw the heat in her eyes. “There was that, though. We were good together in ... Well, you know.”

Not as much as he wanted to, but he let her go on at her own pace, content for the moment to be so near. To touch her.

“You let me be a part of your family.”

“What about your family?”

“My parents died when I was in college. We’d never been that close, though. They were both academics. My dad studied ancient civilizations and my mother, women’s issues. They traveled all over the world. Sometimes they took me, but even then they were off to their presentations and faculty socials. Even when I was with them, they left me behind.”

He heard the soft hitch in her voice and understood things she didn’t say. He’d wondered why such a young and beautiful woman would have given herself so freely to a man saddled with two children and a crazy ex-wife. Now he knew. Sam had included her. Or so she’d thought ... His leaving must have felt like the ultimate betrayal.

“I loved them,” she said, almost defensively. As if he’d insisted otherwise.

“I know.”

“I didn’t realize I had so many abandonment issues, until you. First you made me feel whole. Then you ripped me apart.” She looked up at him. Into him.

“I don’t want to be a stranger anymore, Maggie.”

“You think it’s that easy?”

“It could be.”

He stared into her eyes, watching them widen. She licked her lips nervously and caught her breath as a soft groan escaped him. Waiting for her to push him away, he slid his hands down her shoulders and around to her back. Instead, she stood very still, hardly breathing. He was aware of the quiet house, the hours they had until the children would be home from school.

“I died that day in the hospital,” he said.

“I know,” she whispered. “The doctors told me that they’d brought you back.”

He nodded, that hard feeling inside swelling. He should walk away, now, before he did more damage than he already had. But she smelled so sweet, felt so good, and his need for her had become so great.

Now that he stood on the edge of what he wanted, though, he could see clearly to the other side. How could this end, but badly? Maggie had endured too much already.

“I’m sorry,” he said, uncertain if he was apologizing for what he meant to do or what he’d already done.

“Don’t be,” she said. “It’s not ... you’re different, now, and I’m still trying to figure it all out. But the first words you spoke were for me and I can’t forget that. If you tell me you meant it, that this isn’t some game ...”

He could hardly breathe, hardly think, but didn’t require either. She needed a pledge, a promise and he wanted her to have it so badly that he found the words on his lips, refusing to be held back.

“It’s not a game, Maggie.”

She shook her head, but her gaze had fixed on his mouth and he took the chance before she changed her mind. Her lips were soft and silky. Against his, they felt like nothing he’d imagined and everything he’d imagined. There were no memories of this in Sam’s banks and he was glad for that. He wanted this experience for his own. Sensations shot through him in sharp, hot waves, a torrent of passion and lightning.

She made a soft sound of surrender in her throat, murmured something that sounded like,
I’m a fool,
and then her arms twined around his neck and she kissed him back.

The feel of her; the smell of her, the sweet intoxicating scent ... All of it filled him, pushed out the vestiges of the man Sam had been, overwhelmed the foundation of the Reaper inside, and forced them both into the moment that was now. Here.
Her
. Him.

Maggie tugged at his shirt, pulling it free of his jeans, then took his hand, leading him up the stairs and into the bedroom she’d banned him from. The door closed behind them. She locked it.

“I want you so much that that I can hardly breathe,” he said, that hint of accent that only appeared at rare times adding a husky rasp to his voice. “I’ve been thinking about this since I opened my eyes. Since I came to life.”

There were more words he should say, feelings begging for a voice, but the swamp of emotion made speaking an impossible feat.

He took her face in his hands, kissing her like this life that he’d never expected to have depended on the breath he stole from her. She tugged at his shirt once more and he stepped back only long enough to strip it off.

Her eyes molten, her pulse beating away at her throat, she stared at his bare chest with a hunger that threatened to consume him. His hands were big and clumsy as he gently pulled her shirt over her head when he wanted to rip it off. He dropped it on the floor and simply stared at the perfection he’d unveiled. Her skin was as smooth as alabaster, flawlessly beautiful. A bra the same shade as her skin held her breasts in an embrace of lace and satin. He touched one gently, groaning at the weight, the softness. He bent his head and covered it with his mouth, sucking the hard nipple, letting the lace rasp against his tongue, acting on instinct he didn’t question.

“Take it off,” he asked, his voice so deep it throbbed against the quiet.

She arched back, hands meeting between her shoulder blades as she unfastened the bra and shrugged it off. The stretchy pants came next without him even asking. She stood before him in dainty pearlescent panties and his body went up in flames.

He’d never imagined that just looking at someone could make him feel so many things. He wanted to take; he wanted to give. He wanted to stroke, to bite, to kiss, to lick ... to worship.

He lifted her up and turned her, laying her out on the bed so he could follow her down to the soft mattress. Her body yielded to his and the perfection in the feeling wrenched another groan from him. She was beautiful, inside and out. He kissed her deeply, trying to slow his racing his heart. Trying to experience each second, but everything came at him at once. The sensations, the passion, the desire to please her.

He had her in bed, where he’d wanted her from the start, and he needed her like he’d never needed anything before. She was gloriously naked and in his arms, where he felt she’d always belonged. But fear suddenly crept in. He’d never done this before and though he’d managed to toe the line between human and Reaper, he knew in a deep place that had been growing since the moment he’d opened his eyes, the time had come.

Reaper or human? He couldn’t be both.

One came without the heavy burden of emotion, of mortality, of humanity.

The other came with Maggie.

“Sam?” she murmured.

“Say my name again,” he whispered against her lips, into her mouth. And when she spoke his name, he took it inside and made it his own.

From this moment on, there was no turning back. He would fight the Beyond if they came for him. The old Sam had become a fading pulse inside him that wouldn’t survive on its own, but the new Sam combined them both and was strong, able. He would use that strength to protect the things Sam had loved. Only death would take him away.

Maggie need never know what he was or what he’d been, not when the lie would keep her safe. Not when the truth might turn her away from him.

His expression must have conveyed at least some of what he was thinking, though there was no way Maggie could truly understand what it meant. She stared at him with those big round eyes, and he kissed her again to dispel the concern that had suddenly appeared.

He trailed his hands over her body, imbued by commitment if not experience, and she flexed languidly, bowing to the force of his passion. He felt her beneath the skin, in his blood stream, to the bone. With long, lazy kisses, he worked his way down her body, learning her like an intricate language he longed to speak. She made a sound of anticipation when he reached her hip bone, the soft belly between them, the apex of her thighs.

“I’m not ... I don’t think ...”

Whatever she wasn’t, whatever she didn’t think, became a whisper as he sealed his mouth over her sex, losing himself in the intimacy of kissing her just there. Of the way her body went boneless and her fingers clenched the covers, her feet arching to tip-toe. He kissed and sucked and lost himself in her sounds and scent, ignoring his own body as he tuned into hers. High, breathless sounds came from her lips. She rose up on elbows, watching him as he learned her body.

“Oh,” she said when he sealed his lips over her again. “
Oh.”

He felt the storm building within her, slipped two fingers inside to feel the tension and heat of it. She came with a soft shout that stiffened every muscle in both of their bodies. He rode the orgasm with her, feeling it crank his own excitement into something wondrous and painful.

He’d never known, never imagined that such an act—a mere physicality—could change him, but it had. Already, he felt different, more human than he’d thought possible. When the last wave went through her, he moved up.

In a moment, his pants were open, off, and he was braced between her spread legs. Kissing her again—he could do it forever—he pushed slowly, deeply inside her and realized that death had been a minor thing compared to this.

She gazed into his eyes as he buried himself in her body. That steady stare stripped him down while the heat of her, the soft curves of breasts and hips, reconstructed the man he would be. He thrust deep, setting a pace she matched with her hips. Her long legs wrapped around him, heels at the small of his back, arms around his neck as she opened herself to him.

He moved lower and caught one nipple between his teeth, nipping just hard enough to make her body bow. Bracing one hand over her shoulder, he raised up and slid his other hand between them, down to that point where he knew she was most sensitive, adding the seduction of fingers to the dominance of his thrusts.

He felt the tightness of her again, moved his fingers in slow insistent circles while his hips pistoned in and out. Nothing existed in the world but the need to hold her, possess her, make her cry his name. She clenched around him and came in a hot rush that reverberated through him like thunder. It took all his control to hold on as she rocked her pelvis into his, but that small, aggressive surrender destroyed him. Something had broken apart inside him, leaving him shattered as he climbed to a peak he could barely fathom. What pieces would be left when he reached the top? In a rush of heat and passion, he shot over the edge and into a climax that transformed man and Reaper, resurrecting him as a new creation, one that combined their two worlds and made them one.

After a long moment, Sam and Maggie collapsed, holding one another tight as the afternoon sun spilled through the window.

Sam—no longer the Reaper—kissed her once more, hoping to slake his thirst for her. Knowing it would take more than one time. He was deep inside her body, and even that wasn’t close enough.

Maggie lay in Sam’s arms, boneless, happy and confused. After all the months of putting herself back together again, it had taken him just a little over a week to break her down. She didn’t know whether to run for the hills or hold on tight.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, his mouth against her throat, his hands soft over her body.

“That I must be insane.”

He cupped her face and kissed her gently. “I promise you, the only thing I want to be is your husband. Please let me.”

A small laugh bubbled out. All the words he spoke were exactly the ones she needed to hear. Inside, pieces of her that had shriveled and waned, burst into life.

“Obviously, I’m not strong enough to resist you. I never was. It won’t be so easy with your daughter, though.”

“This was easy?” he teased. “I thought I was going to have to die again to get you here.”

He kissed her once more and she lost track of what she was going to say.

“I know it will take time with Lexi,” he murmured. “But I’m not going anywhere.”

“You sure about that, Sam? Because I hear something in your voice that’s full of doubt.”

He looked into her eyes. “I don’t know where I’ve been, Maggie. I guess I’m a little afraid of that.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

Her gaze was on his mouth, watching it. Wanting him to kiss her again. He was becoming very good at reading her mind and his broad hand skimmed down her ribs as his tongue stroked her lips before she opened for him. Sam had always been a considerate lover, but Sam 2.0 took it to a whole new level, one that made every nerve in her body come alive. He even tasted different—fresh and new and full of promise. The texture of his tongue excited her, the heat of his mouth drove her insane.

And his scent ... that seductive cologne, yes, but deeper than that was a spice that appealed to her in a crazy, must-have-it way. She couldn’t stop burying her face in his shoulder, his throat, along the ridged muscles of his abdomen. He gave a sharp hiss as she moved down his body, nipping at the flesh in the sloped musculature of his hips.

She took him in her mouth all at once, as much as she could, and Sam made another sound that fired all of her senses and made her want to drive him over the edge into oblivion, as he’d done to her. It made her dizzy, this power she seemed to have. It made her fierce.

His muscles clenched, thighs tight against her shoulders, long legs bracketing her body. Her hands were jealous of her lips and they joined in the sensual play, stroking him while she sealed her mouth over the silky flesh and sucked.