Immortally Ever After (17 page)

God, I’d missed this. I knew just how he liked it. I held him tight, ran my hand down the underside. I used the other to grasp his balls. His cock lurched and he groaned, lifting me, pinning me back against the sandy rock as he shoved his cock into me.

Sweet Jesus. I gasped as he filled me completely. He wrapped a fisted hand behind my shoulders, hissing as he worked me hard. I wrapped my legs around his hips, his other hand clutching my ass as he rode me.

There was no holding back. No flowers or songs or poetry. He took me with pure, unleashed need. He pinned me against the wall with his rock-hard cock.

Pure shining lust surged through me. God, what I would give to own this. To have him be mine.

Our breathing was shallow. Our gasps echoing off the walls of the chamber.

Pleasure swamped me. He was here. Now. “Mine.” I nipped him on the shoulder, on the ear, ground my mouth in that sweet spot under his chin as he pumped furiously.

The pleasure built. My entire body sang with the need to have him. To fuck him. To take him all in and to be with this man the most elemental way possible.

“I want you to come,” I hissed. “Come inside me.”

His breath caught. I was so close. “Come,” I urged, gasping, shaking as I exploded around him. I felt him grow even harder inside me, he groaned my name and his powerful body shuddered as he shot his hot seed inside me.

chapter fifteen

We stayed in the desert cave for the rest of the afternoon, which gave Galen time to make love to me twice more. I should have said no, or at least reined him in and not let him go down on me for that blissful lust-soaked hour, because truly—nothing had changed.

Leta had an excuse for her wild animal side.

Me? Not so much.

It wasn’t that I didn’t love Galen. I did. But we were both at the mercy of the gods. He was going back to war and he was going to break my heart.

Now was the time for damage control. Or at least some sanity.

If I could only find it.

Presently, I was laid out on top of him, too content to move. But damn it, when did I ever do anything for myself?

I only wanted a few more minutes. Then I’d be a sane person and never touch him again.

His large hand caressed my back in lazy circles. “What are you doing tomorrow?” His chest rumbled under my cheek.

I tried to think. I’d asked off for something. My breath caught. “Oh, frick. I have Medusa’s baby shower.” Guilt pricked at me when I realized I hadn’t even thought of a gift. In all fairness, I’d had a few things on my mind.

His hand stilled. “Where?”

“Her place.” What did the invite say? “The Isle of Wrath and Pain.” Come to think of it, a gift was the least of my problems.

He stiffened underneath me. “I’ll take you.”

I rose up on my forearm, bracing it on his massive chest. His jaw was set, his expression inviting absolutely no debate. Not that I didn’t appreciate the gesture, but, “Don’t you have enough on your plate?”

His brow knitted. “You’re my girlfriend. There’s no way in hell I’d let you go out there by yourself.”

I sat up. His gaze caught my breasts and I quickly covered them with my hands. “I’m not your girlfriend. I’m not your anything,” I clarified, realizing how terrible it sounded since we’d just spent half the day making love.

His eyes narrowed. Oh, I’d pissed him off. Good.

“I love you,” he said, as if it were a contact sport.

Of all the … “I love you too,” I said, standing, “but that doesn’t mean we’re in a relationship.”

“Then what the hell does it mean?” He rose to his feet as I tried desperately to find my pants.

You’re screwing this up,
a part of me screamed. The other part of me realized that it did no good to live in a fantasyland, especially where Galen was concerned.

“You said it yourself,” I reminded him, navigating the uneven rock floor of the cave, locating my scrubs, dragging them on. “Your job is with your unit. There is no way you’re not going back eventually.” Then on to the next assignment, and the next.

I spotted my underwear on the ground by his flight suit and grabbed it, stuffing it in my pocket. “Admit it. You’re going to ditch me—us—the minute you think any of those security checks or background checks or whatever you go through is going to expose me.”

He glared at me. He was naked, frustrated, and unable to say a word. Because I was right.

We needed to stop the debate. Right now. It wouldn’t do either of us any good to want what we could never have.

“Think of it this way.” He advanced on me and I found myself backing up a step. Two. Until I felt the warm rock wall against my back. “We’re almost through the prophecies. You have your bronze weapon.”

“Yes. It’s been lovely.”

He ignored my sarcasm.

He pinched his fingers together. “We are this close and you want to cut and run.”

“Close?” I wanted to laugh. Or perhaps cry. It didn’t matter. “We don’t know what the prophecies are going to be. It could take the oracle a day, a week, or a goddamned decade to come up with the next one.”

He held his hands out. “And what are you doing in the meantime?” Like I was supposed to jump him.

Well, in case he hadn’t noticed, “In the meantime, I’ve got an ER full of burn victims and a kamikaze dragon on my hands.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“Then don’t talk like it’s a fucking walk in the park.”

“Hey, I know this doesn’t look good. Every day is hard. I get that. But you know what? You and me? We’re all we’ve got.” He drew close enough to kiss. “One of these days, you’re going to have to learn to trust that.”

I twisted away from him, toward my shoes, my sanity. “You make it sound so easy.” Well, it wasn’t. And we were not in control. “It could take the next fifty years to complete these prophecies.” If we even survived that long. “And at what cost?”

He was pissed. I could see I was frustrating the hell out of him. Tough. I couldn’t make things easy just because he wanted them that way.

“What if you’re wrong?” he demanded.

I gave him my best level stare. “What if you are?” I sighed, dug a hand through my messy hair. I had to get out of here. “I’m going to Medusa’s on my own tomorrow.”

He frowned. “No you’re not.”

It wasn’t his choice. It was mine. “You’re not invited. She’s sending transportation for one.” Me. “I don’t need you.”

He wasn’t buying it. Shit.

His face was deadly. His voice rough. “Because right here. Just now didn’t mean anything.”

“It can’t,” I said simply.

He cringed like I’d delivered a physical blow. “We need each other, Petra, we always have. I never wanted to fight this war. I did it because it was my duty. But this? What we’re fighting for—what we have between us—this is worth dying a hundred times over.” He towered over me, as if he expected me to say something. To make it right. But I didn’t know how. “How long are you going to punish me?” His frustration, his anger, his sadness radiated from him.

“It’s not about that.”

His expression went cold. “Then I don’t know what else to say to you.”

We dressed in silence. His movements were jerky. Mine resigned, accepting.

I wasn’t going to kill myself trying to have what was impossible. It was the most sane decision I’d made all day.

So why didn’t I feel even the remotest slice of peace?

*   *   *

When we left the cave, we saw Marc and Leta a short distance away. The two dragons had resumed their human form and sat out on a rock, naked, in deep conversation. They had obviously found some kind of common ground.

Maybe she’d try not to go bat crazy and attack him all the time. And he’d try to help her control her dragon impulses.

If only it were that easy.

Galen raised a hand, and Marc nodded.

My ex had it handled. For now, at least.

And so, we moved on.

Galen walked me back to my tent and stopped at the door.

“When I left you, I did it because I had to, not because I stopped loving you.”

“Fine,” I said, voice wavering. “Perfect.”

He didn’t even look back as he walked away.

*   *   *

I changed clothes because let’s face it—I could use some new underwear. Then I headed over to see if I could lend an extra set of hands. Rodger was working a double for me. The least I could do was lighten some of the load.

Recovery was still jammed. Over half of our patients were burn victims, and those kinds of cases took time, even for immortals. Most of them would never fully recover. And if they did, they’d carry the scars for the rest of their lives, however long or short that might be.

It was so wrong, such a waste.

Peace would come too late for these soldiers, if it ever came at all. There would be no happy endings. No joyful homecomings.

At least I was giving the rest of the staff a break.

“My name is Dr. Robichaud,” I said to the soldier in bed 15B. Private Kenny Jones. Suffering from third-degree burns to more than twenty percent of his body, as well as inhalation injuries. He was pale, his fingers twitchy. His chart said he was from Pensacola.

“Hey, I’m from New Orleans,” I told him. “We’re practically neighbors.” He let out a choke that could have been a laugh or an acknowledgment. “Don’t talk,” I said quickly. We’d intubated him to drain fluid off his lungs. I smiled, as if I were sharing a joke rather than listening to him choke on his own fluids. “You just get to listen to me.”

Private Jones was lucky. He was a wereleopard and shifters—feline shifters in particular—didn’t usually make it this far with half their lungs burned out. He closed his eyes, nodding, listening as I made small talk about home while I worked to send him back into battle.

This man’s life as he knew it—at home in the deep south, surrounded by his family and his tribe—that was over. War had taken it from him and he’d never be the same. We could play “normal” all we wanted. But some scars never heal.

And no amount of zippedy-do-dah “look to the future” bullshit was going to change that.

I glanced up from my patient, down the rows of beds crowding either side of the long recovery tent. These soldiers deserved some privacy, or at least a quiet place to suffer. But we were at capacity. I didn’t know what we’d do if we got another influx of wounded.

Rodger nudged in next to me when I was back at the sink washing up. “How’d it go with Leta?”

The ward had grown quiet for the night, the patients settling in as best they could. I kept my voice down and gave Rodger the short version on how Marc had dominated Leta, and how they seemed to be connecting.

“Good.” He blew out his breath, like we’d dodged a bullet. Which we had. “Now how did it go with Galen?”

I dropped the soap.

Rodger fished it out of the bottom of the sink. “You’re right. You don’t have any business going near him.” He scrubbed the bar over his brawny arms. “It would only end with you whimpering and me trying to pick up the pieces.”

Actually, it had ended in a screaming orgasm, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. I rinsed and grabbed for a towel.

Rodger shook his head. “I mean, you obviously love the guy. Why torture yourself?” He glanced at me. “See? You have that look again. It was bad enough the first time,” he muttered under his breath.

“I’m fine,” I said, tossing him the towel.

He glanced at me. “All I’m saying is you need a clear head right now.”

Then he needed to stop talking about sex.

He tossed the towel in the laundry barrel. “Otherwise, we really are fucked.”

Case in point.

“I’m not going to be around anyway,” I said, changing the subject. “Medusa’s shower is tomorrow.” That would at least give me a day to clear my head.

“Right,” Rodger said, smiling for the first time. He had retrieved part of the invite and set it up on his desk. The stone hearts amused him. “Did she ever say what kind of ‘transport’ she was sending?”

“No.” Nerves clawed at me. “I’m just supposed to wait by the tar pit tomorrow.” Maybe this journey would kill me. It would at least put me out of my misery.

We walked up to the front to pick up our new charts. “What are you going to give her?” he asked.

“I have no idea.” What did a gorgon expect when she was expecting? “It’s not like she’s registered at Babies ‘R’ Us.”

“You should have been shopping before now.”

“Where? At the PX?” At that rate, I’d be buying her shower shoes and stale Fruit Stripe gum.

“Maybe you can make her something.”

He had to be kidding. “Have you seen me make anything in the last seven years?”

Rodger snorted. “I haven’t even seen you make your bed.”

“Maybe I’ll get called away on an emergency,” I said, leaning against the nurses’ station, glancing out at our patient load. It’s not as if they didn’t need me here.

Rodger dug through the charts. “You can’t skip. You RSVP’d.”

“No, you did.”

Holly barged past me. “Out of my way.” She took the charts from Rodger. “Stop it. These are done. We’re all caught up, if you can believe that.”

I strained my eyes to see down into the pools of darkness settling over the unit. “Who’s on night?”

She glanced down the row of beds. “Thaïs and Marius.”

“Dang.” I knew it was late, but, “Marius is on already?”

“Has been for hours,” Holly replied. “You really do need to get out more.”

I could say the same about her. Rodger and I signed out, and headed for home.

A harsh wind blew in from the desert, buffeting the flames of the torches. “I really should make my excuses for tomorrow.” No good could come of a trip out to the Isle of Wrath and Pain.

Rodger dug his hands into his pockets. “You will not. It’s one day out of your life. I’ll even help you find a present.”

I breathed in the tang of torch fuel and desert dust. “I am not getting her anything Star Wars.”

“Girls like Star Wars.”

“Rodger,” I snapped. But really, what was the use? I didn’t have anything to give her. The entirety of my worldly possessions consisted of uniforms, books, and my shower kit. And she wasn’t getting any of my books. Not that she’d appreciate them anyway.