Masks of a Tiger (12 page)

She grabbed his hair and
pulled his head up, stilling the frantic movement of his hands.

"It's okay. You
didn't hurt me."

His relieved loud exhale
of
 
pent
up
breath raised her fringe, and she giggled. Such a light-hearted sound, so at
odds with the situation they were in, that his own lips twitched in answer.

"I'm sorry. I
haven't lost control like that in ages."

"Do you want to talk
about it?" The whispered question hung between them, and
Grisha
suppressed a curse. No, he didn’t want to fucking
talk about it. What he wanted, needed to do, was lose himself in her delectable
body, to finally dispel the last remnants of his old life, but he owed her an
explanation.

"I mean, you don't
have to, but I recognize a nightmare when I see one." Her voice was so low
he had to strain to hear her, and the pain behind those words made his soul
ache anew for the woman in his arms. Seemed they both carried secrets, and they
would have to open up to each other.
Now seemed as good a
time as any.
He willed his hardening prick to behave and sat them both
up, so that their backs rested against the headboard.

"Why
would you recognize this kind of nightmare, sweetheart?"

She tensed in his arms,
and his tiger whined his distress. Their eyes connected, and
Grisha
cupped her face and kissed her nose.

"I tell you mine if
you tell me yours?" She smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood, but a
shadow ran across her face, and he could sense her withdrawing into her
protective shell. He would let her for now. Perhaps, once she heard his story,
she would be more willing to share hers?

"You asked me
earlier, whether it hurts when I shift?" She nodded, and some of the
tension went out of her. He smiled at her and laced his fingers with hers.

"It doesn't now,
but the first time I shifted …
da
…
it hurt like
hell." She squeezed his hand and scooted closer to him. The subconscious
gesture soothed the old hurt and gave him the strength to continue.

"I had no idea what
was happening to my body. I was just a little boy, a very confused little boy,
whose body was changing into a monster."

He smiled at her
outraged gasp in response.

"You're not a
monster! How could you ever think that? And surely your parents would have told
you what you are?"

"I'm sure
Mama
would have done, had she had any
idea that shifters even existed. My father left her before she even knew she
was pregnant with me. And he never told her he was a shifter."

"What a
bastard
!" Righteous indignation
came off his little tigress in waves, and the invisible burden of his past
lifted off him in one fell swoop.

"That would be a
pretty accurate assessment, though
Mama
never
blamed him."

Her exasperated,
"Harrumph," made him smile.

"Then she's a
better woman than me. I'd have hunted him down and strung his useless balls up
on a piece of string for the birds to pick apart."

Grisha
laughed in
genuine amusement, and her eyes narrowed in disgust.

"Seriously, tell me
you didn't let him get away with that! And how did you find out what you were
in the end?"

"I eventually told
Mama.
We figured it out together. It was
an interesting time in my life. After her death, I went a bit crazy."
Neeve
squeezed his hand again, and a lone tear rolled down
her cheek. She seemed tense again, and
Grisha
knew
that he would have to get her to talk about her own past. It clearly had a far
too strong hold on her still. He continued his tale.

"I did hunt him
down, but it was too late to get any answers out of him. He'd died the year
before, having pissed off one too many people. They didn't string his balls up
for the birds, but it came close." She scooted closer still, and he opened
his arms. She wrapped herself around his torso with a small sigh and dropped a
kiss on his chest, right above his heart.
Grisha
sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the feel and scent of her,
the connection between them heating his blood.

"I spare you the
details, but it was perhaps for the best. I was in a pretty fragile mental
state as it was. Killing my own father might have just finished me off."

He knew the minute the
words left his mouth that it had been the wrong thing to say. She gulped in a
breath, and her body went rigid as every muscle locked. She pushed against his
chest, and he could feel the wetness of her tears soaking his skin.

"Tell me about it,
sweetheart. What happened to you?"

"I … I can't.
You'll hate me." Her voice was a mere whisper, and he tightened his hold
on her.

"I could never hate
you, sweetheart. Tell me, please. Trust me."

****

The growled words
settled straight in her bruised heart, and
Neeve
knew
she had no choice but to continue. He had trusted her with his past, so the
least she could do was share her own demons with him. Who knew
Grisha
carried such burdens behind the polished façade he
showed to the world? His at times halting confession hadn't been the carefully
controlled speech of the playboy Dom she'd thought him to be. When she'd woken
up next to him, she'd been terrified. Half shifted he seemed completely out of
control. She'd recognized the agonized screams for what they were: a tortured
soul caught in the midst of a terrifying nightmare that had proven to be all
too real. How many times had she herself woken up, covered in sweat, heart
pounding in her chest, skin clammy? If she were a shifter no doubt she, too,
would have shifted in her dreams.
 
Her
heart ached for the terrified little boy he must have been, back then. But she
was glad, oh so very glad, he had not killed his own father. That brought with
it nightmares no amount of therapy could ever erase.

She risked a peek up at
his dark features, and the quiet understanding and acceptance in his eyes
soothed some of her anxieties. He ran one of his hands slowly up and down her
spine, the touch of his calloused hand reassuring and arousing in equal
measures. She wanted him again, and judging by the force of his erection
nudging her thigh he wanted her just as fiercely. There was something so life
affirming and elemental about sex. And sex with this man was something else
entirely.

"Just tell me,
sweetheart. I know there was a fire, and I assume that's where your fascination
with fire comes from? But tell me the rest,
Neeve
.
Tell me your story, my love."

The endearment brought
new tears to her eyes, and she hastily blinked them away. Of course he would
know about the fire. A man with his connections would have had her checked out.
Had she not done the same to him?

"Yes, there was a
fire, but what you don't know is that it was me who set that fire. I was
playing with the matches, and they lit the bin. I didn't know what to do. I
wasn't allowed to play with them, and I knew mummy would tell me off, so I hid
under the stairs and … and I didn't tell anyone. By the time my parents
discovered the fire it had spread across the first floor." She pulled away
from him, certain that she would see condemnation in his eyes, and the thought
of that was her undoing. She couldn't do this.

Grisha
framed her
face with his hands and forced her to look up at him.

She swallowed past the
lump in her throat and followed his unspoken demand to continue.

"I was terrified,
and I didn't come out, even when they called me. There was a crash and mummy
screamed and then daddy pulled me out, and … God … there was so much heat and
the flames … I couldn't breathe … couldn't see." She choked on a sob, and
Grisha
pulled her on his lap, his by now so familiar scent
surrounding her, and giving her the strength to carry on.

"Daddy pushed me
out of the way, and then the hallway collapsed, and … I killed them. Don't you
see?" She tried to pull away, but
Grisha
wouldn't let her, even when she pummeled his chest, tears now falling in
earnest, as the full horrors of her past crashed down on her.

"I did. I killed
them. It was my fault they died."

Grisha
simply held
her while she howled her agony. Despite years of counseling and having been
taken in by a loving aunt, the guilt had never left her, and she doubted it
ever would.

"You were a child,
sweetheart. It was a tragic accident, nothing more, nothing less. One could
argue your parents should not have left the matches where you could get to
them."
Grisha's
deep voice broke through her
internal anguish. She'd heard all this before, but somehow, when he said it she
could almost believe him—almost. But once she told him the rest…

"But that's not
all, see. My aunt took me in, and even though she was kind, it wasn't enough. I
needed … I needed more. I needed to punish myself, don't you see. It was the
only way to make it right."

"You thought by
harming yourself you could take away the pain?"

Her chest felt too tight
to draw air into. His words were so close to the truth she could scarcely
breathe. Did he really understand?

"It did for a
little while at least.
When it all got too much.
Then
I found sex, and that helped, a little anyway. I was thirteen the first time.
He was much older, and he wasn't being gentle, but somehow that made me feel
better. And then the others..."

She couldn't continue.
She wasn't ashamed of her sexual past, not really, but admitting this to the
man she had fallen in love with, that was an entirely different matter. It was
all right for men. It never was for women. He would think her a slut.

"You did what you
had to do, sweet
Neeve
. That's all any of us can do.
But you don't have to deal with this on your own anymore. I can, I want to help
you, if you let me."

He brushed a soft kiss
across her lips. It was a mere whisper of a touch, but it ignited her blood,
and she whimpered her need for him. As though he sensed her desperation, he
deepened the kiss, and she melted against him, her hands roaming freely over
his body. He leant back, and she straddled him, needing to feel him inside her
with an almost desperate desire; and
Grisha
met her
frantic moves with his own. She groaned her frustration when he sheathed
himself and whimpered into his mouth when his cock parted her swollen nether
lips. Slightly sore still from their earlier intense session, the sting of pain
was a welcome reminder that she was alive, and for this night at least,
Grisha
was hers and hers alone. She rocked her hips, taking
him deeper with each move, harder, faster, until all was forgotten but their
bodies striving for completion together. Their joined climax had her burst into
renewed tears. She collapsed on his chest, completely spent, and completely at
ease, while he murmured Russian endearments in her ear, until she drifted off
to sleep.

Chapter
Nine

 
Neeve
woke up alone
the following morning. At least she assumed it was morning. Ink's dungeon had
no windows, but judging by the way her stomach rumbled it had to be morning.
After her “punishment” in the bath tub and her heart-wrenching self-discovery
that she had indeed fallen in love with her Black Russian,
Neeve
hadn't been able to look
Grisha
in the eye, lest he
read in hers what her heart was screaming out at him. Instead she had taken the
coward's way out and feigned exhaustion.
Grisha's
tender care had only added to the ache in her heart. He'd washed every inch of
her body and had then wrapped her up in the hugest bath towel she had ever
seen. She had not been allowed to walk. Instead he had carried her back to his
bed, patted her dry and then proceeded to give her an allover body massage that
had left her so relaxed she had fallen asleep in an instant, after he made sure
she had drunk what seemed like a gallon of water.

That gallon was
threatening to make
a reappearance
now, so
Neeve
climbed out of bed and used the bathroom. She felt
decidedly wobbly after the turn the night had taken when
Grisha
had woken up from his nightmare. Never before had she opened up to anyone in
the way she had to him.

There was movement next
door by the time she'd washed her hands and face and brushed her teeth with the
spare toothbrush she'd found. She recognized
Grisha's
deep baritone immediately, and her heart did the samba inside her chest.
 
There was the ongoing drone of something when
the door opened, and then the aroma of coffee and freshly baked bread invaded
her senses. She stopped to wrap another towel around herself, mindful of the
fact that
Grisha
did not seem to be
on his own
. Sure enough when she rounded the corner it was
to see Ink standing next to the spanking bench which seemed to have been turned
into an impromptu breakfast bar. Cherie was in the process of pouring coffee
into the four mugs placed there, and when
Neeve's
stomach rumbled again at the sight of the freshly buttered croissants they all
turned to look at her.
Neeve
froze in place unsure of
what to do. Ink crossed his arms and looked her over slowly, and
Neeve
dropped her gaze automatically, but not before she
saw the approval on
Grisha's
face and Cherie's
encouraging smile.