Dawn’s Awakening (17 page)

Seth watched her flounce back into her room as Elizabeth followed, and he turned to Dash. Dash was staring back at the door, his jaw clenched as a growl rumbled in his throat. Seth could see the frustration brewing in the Wolf Breed and felt a flare of male sympathy. Cassie was a gorgeous young woman and her unique Breed traits made her both an asset and a weakness to the Breed community.

“What’s going on?” he asked the other man.

Dash shook his head, his expression concerned. “She went out on the balcony earlier after I warned her not to. She never ignores those warnings, until now. I heard her cry out and jerked her inside. She’s been acting strange ever since.”

Strange with Cassie could be terrifying to others, Seth thought. The girl was strange in and of herself.

He pushed his fingers through his hair and shook his head. Hell, he could barely think right now. Exhaustion and arousal were weighing down on him, and his control was shaky as hell.

“My suite should be clean by now.” He sighed. “I’m going to catch a few hours’ sleep. We’ve delayed meetings until tomorrow, but tonight’s party is still scheduled and I’ll need some rest to face the questions there from the board members.”

“I’ve taken Dawn off the protective detail.” Dash surprised him with the announcement.

Seth tightened his jaw. “She’s leaving?” It would be for the best, for both of them.

“No, she’s not. She won’t be on detail, she’ll be on your ass. She sleeps in your room, eats where you eat, goes where you go. She’s your shadow.”

Every cell in Seth’s body screamed hallelujah, while his mind seemed blank in shock. His shadow? There wasn’t a chance in hell he could keep his hands off her if he allowed that.

Dawn, at his beck and call? At his back every second? In his bed and close enough to touch anytime he needed to touch her, anytime he wanted to pull her against him?

“No,” he snapped.

He’d spend every moment of his time buried inside her and begging her to let him touch her just a little bit more. Hell, he’d kill them both with his lust if he had a chance. And God help his soul if he managed to trigger the memories inside her.

That was his nightmare. That was the demon that rode his back even when he had her in his arms.

“Fine.” Dash shrugged, his gaze hard, determined. “But you can be the one to throw her out of the room. She has her orders, and besides that, she’s your mate. She’s a danger to herself if she’s anywhere but at your side. Don’t underestimate that part of her that’s claimed you, Seth. The woman might be hesitant, but trust me, the animal that shares her soul won’t let her do anything else. Hurting the woman won’t change it, but you could end up destroying someone that so far has managed to survive despite others’ attempts to destroy her. Tread warily, my friend. I’d hate to see you fuck up here.”

“And I’m getting damned tired of these riddles and half warnings,” Seth growled. “There’s not a damned one of you facing what I have to face. Do you have any fucking idea how much that woman means to me, Dash? Do you think I walked away because it was what I wanted to do? That I left her alone because I didn’t crave her with everything in my soul and not just with my body?”

“I don’t know,” Dash said quietly, glancing to the door that opened into the hall. “Maybe it’s something she needed to know though.”

Seth swung around to the doorway, and something in his chest, his heart, melted, burned. She was staring at him, her lips parted, innocent, so fucking innocent her eyes were shining with it as she stared back at him. She looked like a woman in love, filled with hope, terrified to believe that anything could be hers, let alone the man she was staring at.

He knew that look, he knew it, because sometimes he felt it within himself. The hope that she could be his, one day, someday in the future, the prayer that the woman inside her could fill those parts of his life that were so empty.

He snapped his teeth together, furious at being manipulated as he had been. Dash would have known she was on her way up, known she would be there to hear every word. And there he stood, his soul bared to her, and every measure he had taken to protect her lying at his feet in the dust.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

He was too damned tired for this. Breed mating heat and the symptoms of age delay served him well during board meetings and all-night negotiations against younger, up-and-coming tycoons, but it wasn’t doing a damned thing to aid his control and his strength where one tiny Breed female was concerned.

As he watched, the look slowly eased from her face and it became smooth, her expression curiously bland. Shaking his head at the look, he strode to the door, gripped her arm and pulled her with him.

“At least I’ll know you’re not out there hip deep in fucking bullets and looking for blood to spill,” he snarled.

As she had been for ten years. Oh yeah, he’d kept up with her, and the resulting nightmares had left his guts cramped with terror.

“But I dodge bullets and spill blood so well,” she pointed out with wide-eyed, obviously false innocence and a flash of bitterness.

“No doubt.” His mouth thinned with displeasure. “And I guess you think that’s going to work for me if I take you to my bed?” He pushed her into the sitting room, dragged her past the newly cleaned carpet and into the bedroom, where he secured the doors and turned to face her. “Do you think for one damned minute I’ll tolerate you running around the world being shot at? Risking your life and mine?”

“You act like I enjoy it.” Where had the bitterness in her eyes come from? He had never seen that. He had seen mocking amusement, anger, but never regret and bitterness like this.

“Don’t you? Dammit, Dawn, every Breed in Sanctuary is terrified of you.”

“Of course they are.” She rolled her eyes mockingly then. “I practice on them. They never know when a roof will fall in on them or when they’ll get caught in a trap I laid for them.” She shrugged. “I’m sneaky like that. It comes from being so short.”

Short his ass.

“You’re like fucking dynamite. A little bit goes a long way.”

Amusement replaced the bitterness. For a second, just a second, her eyes sparkled with it, before they dimmed and she became solemn once again.

“Look, I get that you’re not all about this mating thing with me.” Desperate levity filled her expression. The smart-ass was making a comeback because the woman couldn’t bear to be hurt again. “And I can handle it, really. But I’d at least like to see you keep breathing. Even if you do have a habit of fucking other women when I’m not around.”

“Dammit, it wasn’t like that.” He reached out for her, then jerked his hands back, clenching them. “I didn’t think there was a chance for us, Dawn. If I had, for even a second, things would have been different.”

“And of course you didn’t think to ask me.” She lifted her shoulders as though it didn’t matter, when he knew it did. “Just as you never ask me now. You just keep playing the martyred male, Seth. It hangs so well on you.”

He was hurting her and he knew it. She could feel and smell his regret, his hesitancy in taking her. They were going to have to talk, he knew it, and he hated it. Because he knew it was the last barrier to accepting all of it. Hell, he’d already accepted it; he just needed her to know, to understand. It hadn’t been a lack of love—it had been an excess of love.

“Tell you what.” She cocked that shapely hip again, propped her hand on it and arched a brow. “You just contemplate this to hell and back, and I’ll go shower. I smell like blood and sweat, and frankly, I don’t sleep so well when I stink.”

Oh yes, the smart-ass was back. Dawn was pissed off and she didn’t hide it really well. His lips almost twitched. He would never have to worry about whether or not she was angry with him—he would know it by her flippant speech and total disregard for his male pride. Or what pride he would have left, because once he had her, he knew he would be on her ass 24/7, eager for more.

He watched, slowly shaking his head as she turned and stalked to the bathroom, the door slamming behind her.

No one will be there when Dawn wakes up. Cassie had said those words, and now Seth knew why the need to refute them had risen in his head. Because he intended to be right there, beside her, holding her, no matter what she awoke to.

She had come to him so many times, and he had turned her away. He had stayed away when he should have fought for her. He had left her alone when she needed to be held.

And now he had no choice but to go to her, and he prayed she didn’t reject him. He prayed because, suddenly, life looked very bleak without her.

Dawn adjusted the shower to a temperature as hot as she could stand and, naked, stepped beneath the stinging spray of three separate shower heads.

For pity’s sake, who needed three shower heads in one shower? It defied explanation. Just as the emotions rising inside her defied explanation. She felt like crying. She wanted to lay her head against the shower wall and sob, but Dawn hardly ever cried. Not when she was hurt, not when she was angry, not when friends died or when they walked away.

She hadn’t fallen to the floor with the screams welling inside her when she learned her mate wasn’t her mate, and she didn’t let the need hovering inside her now escape.

Because she wanted to pray. And if Dawn didn’t cry, she certainly didn’t pray. Why pray to a God that had deserted her? That hadn’t heard her screams as a child, and hadn’t heeded her tears? She believed in His existence, but unlike other Breeds, she didn’t believe He agreed with theirs.

She shook her head and washed her hair quickly before tipping her head back to rinse the soap from her hair. As her head lifted, her eyes jerked open, and her lips parted on a gasp.

The shower door was open and Seth was stepping into the spray of water. Powerful muscles rippled beneath his flesh, and standing out from his body, thickly veined, the crest dark and furiously engorged, his cock demanded her attention.

A light mat of hair covered his chest and arrowed down his abs. It sprinkled over his arms, thighs and legs, and as she watched he slowly soaked the cloth he held in his hand and soaped it with a bar of sweet-smelling soap that he held in his hand.

“Ten years ago,” he said, “I started collecting soaps for you. There were about half a dozen before I was led to believe that you didn’t want me, that you wouldn’t want me. But somehow, the habit held. There are over two dozen now. Several are quite unique, one-of-a-kind scents just awaiting your approval before the soap makers I found create more of what you enjoy.”

Her lips parted in surprise as he carefully set the creamy bar on an inset shelf.

“This one I found in Morocco.” He stepped forward and laid the cloth at her neck before beginning to wash her. “There’s just the lightest touch of sandalwood, though it’s often used just for men. Once I described you, the soap maker thought perhaps a scent that denotes male and female would be appropriate. A combination of us both.”

Dawn almost swayed as she stared up at his face, fascinated by this information, by the gentleness and the heat in his expression.

“The scent is simply Dawn,” he said softly. “The soap maker said it would hold the scent of a new day. Fresh and renewed, and touched by fire.”

And that was how it smelled. Not flowery or strong or even musky. Just clean and warm as it frothed with thick, rich bubbles.

“I think I like this one,” he told her, his voice harsh despite its gentleness. “It does smell like you, Dawn. Like both of us, combined.”

She stood, shell-shocked, as he soaped her from neck to ankle. The thick, scented lather clung to her skin and filled the steamy interior of the shower with the scent of a new day and a heated male. Like the smell of Seth last night, his need flowing from him, wrapping around her and heating her all the way through her pores.

He washed her stomach with slow, sensual strokes. He parted her thighs and her breath caught in her throat as he washed her there. Washed her thoroughly, then cupped water and rinsed her with all the anticipation and reverence of a boy opening a Christmas present.

“What are you doing?” she finally managed to whisper, uncertain how to respond, or what she should do.

“I’m seducing you, Dawn.” He leaned forward and kissed her thighs, pausing to inhale the scent of her as she felt the juices slowly building on the sensitive folds of her sex. “Every woman should be seduced her first time with a lover. Gentled. Eased. Pleasured.”

She shook her head at the sight of the water running through his hair, where her hands should be.

“But it’s not the first time,” she forced herself to remind him. “I’m not a virgin, Seth. You know I’m not.”

He had seen the discs, he had seen what they did to her. Not just once. More than once before her escape with Callan.

He touched his lips to the top of her mound then, and she shivered with the pleasure before his head lifted and he stared up at her, his gaze dominant, possessive.

“You’re wrong, Dawn,” he said then. “You are a virgin. Sweetly innocent, untouched by a lover’s hands. All your pleasure is mine, isn’t it? Your passion for me, your need for me. You are a virgin, sweetheart, more than you’ll ever know.”

She blinked back at him in confusion as he rose, towering over her, to turn her. The spray from the front shower washed the soap from her body as he began to lather her back. And that was even more sensual. She couldn’t see him; she could only feel him. Feel the suds gathering on her, caressing her even as his hands caressed her, stroking her flesh, delicately massaging her muscles.

“Once, I was in Russia,” he murmured at her ear. “It was colder than I could ever imagine cold, and there I was, standing on the balcony of my hotel looking out at this pristine, gorgeous snow-covered forest. And I imagined you there, sharing that with me. The next morning I went out and found a soap maker. And I requested that scent for you. The scent of the forest at evening, of those first rays of the moon striking the snow. When I use that soap on you, I’m going to be buried inside you. So you can feel the heat that snow holds trapped. Deep within the earth, burning and waiting for spring. That’s what I’m going to be, Dawn, that fire burning inside you as I bathe you with the scent of snow.”