New Blood (43 page)

Mihai had stared, but his stare never made her feel like this, all fuzzy and anxious. Mihai's stare had frightened her. Until it just made her go numb. She didn't want to go numb now.

The wildness inside her stirred. It came from that part of her that touched magic. The part of her untouched self that had never been broken, the part of her soul she'd hidden from the thieves who had invaded her body to steal all the bits of her they'd shattered. It was the part of her that had stood up to Szabo and made her bargain. And now it wanted Jax. It wanted to tangle in that wildness she saw in his eyes.

That part of her was strong—and yet so infinitely fragile. She wanted to wrap it up and hide it away again, safe.

But this was
Jax
. Jax, who watched her with untamed eyes, freed from his own brokenness, with depths she might never reach, but wanted, suddenly, to explore. This was Jax, who would never hurt her, whose hands trembled where they rested at her waist. Jax, who—though wounded himself in much the same way—fought to heal the damage those others had done to her.

He was watching her face again, his expression neutral, perhaps even cautious. Amanusa was sick to death of caution. “Look at me,” she said, and opened her unbuttoned nightgown. She shrugged it off her shoulders, peeled her arms from the sleeves.

Jax looked. His mouth opened and his tongue took a quick trip across his lush lower lip before he
cleared his throat. “You're beautiful.” His voice held a delicious roughness.

“I'm not.” The damned blush started at her waist, where the nightgown pooled over Jax's hands. Or did it go all the way down? Amanusa didn't want to know.

“You are,” Jax insisted. “Is a lily any less beautiful because it isn't a rose?”

“I'm too tall and broad-shouldered, and my breasts are too small.”

“Stop arguing with me.” Amusement danced in Jax's voice, sparkled in his eyes. “You're just the right size to match me. Any shorter, and we'd both get terrible cramps in our necks. And if you're the proper height, then your shoulders cannot be any less broad or they wouldn't match the rest of you.”

He moved closer, touching his chest to her bare back, matching himself to her. “I'm still taller. My shoulders are broader. And as for your breasts . . .”

Amanusa held her breath as he shook his hands free of her piled-up gown. It hung there at her hips as, with great care, he closed his big, long-fingered hands over her naked breasts.

“Look there,” he whispered in her ear. “A perfect fit.”

Breath sighed out of her as she stared at his hands so gently cradling her breasts. It made her whole body feel . . . anxious. As anxious as her breasts had felt before, as they still did. No—more anxious than they felt, because now Jax touched her breasts, eased some of their anxiety. But not all of it. She still wanted
more
.

Amanusa slid her hands over Jax's, pressing them
more firmly against her eager flesh. She leaned back into him, needing the support for her jelly knees. Jax caught his breath, then brushed aside her hair with his nose to open his mouth over the column of her neck and suck lightly. Amanusa cried out as sensation flashed lightning-fast from Jax's mouth to her breasts to that place between her legs.

“Look,” he whispered. “See how beautiful you are. See how magnificent you are. See yourself with my eyes.”

Magic stirred, and suddenly—she didn't look through his eyes, but she could sense Jax. She could tell how good her breasts felt to his hands, how her hair brushed his shoulders and caressed his stomach, how even her smell intoxicated him. She felt beautiful to Jax.

He groaned, his head falling forward. He opened his mouth over her shoulder, licking it first, then suckling once more. He flattened his palms over her breasts, rubbing them in little circles that made her nipples tingle and the lightning spark again. Amanusa felt her nipples pucker against her hands, but her hands were over Jax's. His hands were on her breasts.

She tried to pull back, to give Jax the privacy of his mind, but he . . . grabbed hold. Shared the sensations with her. For half a moment, she wondered if he should be able to do that, but the sensations swelled in a wild raging flood and swept her thoughts away like so much rubbish.

He moved to the other shoulder, licking, sucking, kissing. Amanusa shook with the pleasure of it. Then, carrying her hand along, he slid one hand down her
stomach. The other plucked lightly at her nipples, making her want to hurry his downward journey. But he seemed determined to prove this was no race, for he took his leisurely time, stroking his fingers over every inch of her skin, capturing her fingers when they slid down to twine with his, circling her navel before delving in.

Her body screaming with anxiety, Amanusa twisted her head and bit down on Jax's ear. Just a quick, sharp nip before licking over the bite. He jumped, which she expected, but she didn't expect his hips to surge against her bottom, or his passion to surge into her through the magic of her blood in his veins. She burned, hotter, wilder than before, and she bit him again, sharper.

He moved his ear out of reach. “Easy, love.” His amusement made her want to bite his other ear. “Patience is a virtue.”

“Jax,” she moaned. Or was it a whimper? She
wanted
.

She tightened her grip on his hand and tried to shove it lower, to that oh-so-anxious part of her. For a moment, he resisted, then gave in to her urging.

“Whatever you want, you know I'll give it to you,” he said into her ear.

“I don't know what I want, exactly. I just, I—”

“Shhh—” He slid his hand lower and lower, toward that part of her that . . . Why would it be anxious? Why would she be damp there when she'd never been before, except after—after—

Jax shushed her again. He caught her ear in his teeth, catching her attention with the gentle nip. “Look at me, Amanusa.
At me
. Think about me. Think about
us, here together. It's me touching you. You have hold of my hands. You can stop them. You can move them where you like. Whatever you want, love.”

Love
. He'd called her that more than once tonight. It was just a word, the way he used it, like Mihai had called her “dearest.” But she liked hearing it anyway.

“All right?” He kissed beneath her ear.

She nodded, and Jax slipped their hands beneath the precariously balanced edge of her nightgown to touch the pale curls hiding her sex. The gown slipped, caught briefly on her bottom, then on his wrist, before it slid slowly down to crumple around her feet.

“Beautiful,” he whispered. “Magnificent.”

He combed his fingers through the crisp blond hair over her mound until she relaxed again—as much as the anxiety would let her. This was Jax. He wouldn't grab. Wouldn't gouge or pinch or twist. He would—oh heavens—he would make her feel good. She didn't know how, but he said it was possible for her to find pleasure in the act and she trusted him to show her.

The gentle stroke of his fingers felt good already and he hadn't gone beyond the surface. Slowly, gradually, he pressed harder, just where she felt the most anxious, and it felt even better. Better than she'd thought possible, and yet the anxiety still gripped her, still feared—no, wanted. It wanted and she didn't know what it wanted, except
more
.

She saw herself in the mirror, head thrown back, body arched against Jax, her breasts thrust high as she strained for
something
. She let go of Jax's hand on her breast and reached up to grab a handful of his
hair, but she didn't tug on it. She needed his face where it was, where she could see it in the mirror, for it was his face she focused on.

She needed to see his face—his green-blue forest-lake eyes and his wide, mobile, full-lipped mouth. His rough-carved features and hard-set jaw. Jax.
Her
Jax.

His finger slipped, plunged between her netherlips and touched something, a nubbin that sent pleasure vibrating through her. She cried out, Jax's cry echoing hers. He stroked over the nubbin—a thing she'd never known existed though the body was her own—and it happened again. Intense pleasure built higher and higher, drawing her up onto her toes as she reached for it.

“Jax.”
Her hand convulsed in his hair, her eyes wild and frantic.

Another stroke and another, and time froze for an endless, ecstatic moment. Then the pleasure exploded, cascading through her in astonishing waves.

“Amanusa!” Jax's body echoed the arc of hers and he pulled her tight against him as his hips thrust into her bottom.

She could feel his cock throbbing inside his trousers as he spent, but more importantly, she could feel his pleasure, feel that same explosive peak as it blasted through him. It made her cry out again.

He staggered. He caught himself, then caught hold of her, swinging her around and out of her crumpled nightdress to collapse together on the big wingback chair to one side. They gasped for breath, Amanusa sprawled as much over the chair as over Jax. After a while, he stirred, lifted her more properly onto his
lap and settled straight in the chair rather than twisted to one side. He tipped his head forward so Amanusa could put her arm behind it, across his shoulders. She nestled in, her naked breasts plumped against his bare torso.

“What just happened?” Amanusa leaned her head against the wing of the chair to look to him. “I could feel you, feel what you felt. Was I supposed to do that?”

“I have heard of it being possible.” Jax struggled to assemble his shattered reality. Too many impossible things, things that should never have happened, had. He owed her information, explanations, but he had none, not even for himself. He did have truth, however, and that was the least of what he owed her. “I could feel what you felt as well, however. And that has never happened. Ever.”

But that wasn't the worst of it. The greatest impossibility— “Amanusa, when you reached climax, I—”

“I know. You climaxed too. I felt it.” She frowned at him. “I thought you couldn't do that, if I didn't—”

“I can't. Or—I couldn't. I shouldn't have been able to.” He hid his face in her shoulder, unable to look at her, to see the suspicion rise in her eyes. “I lied to you, Amanusa, when I said that I was a eunuch. I can be aroused. Yvaine allowed me that much, to rise and harden. I should have told you, I know, but—”

“You didn't want to frighten me.” She stroked his hair, pressed her lips to his head. She wasn't angry over the lie? “I understand.”

Jax held her tighter. Could a woman be any more
perfect? No wonder he loved her. “But I should not have been able to spend. I don't know how that happened. I swear I did not lie about—”

Amanusa put her hands on both sides of his head and lifted it, until he couldn't avoid her crystalline gaze. “It's all right, Jax. I'm not angry. I'm not going to punish you. I'm not Yvaine, I'm your wife. Not your owner.” She searched his face for a long moment. “Do you believe me?”

“Dear God, we are a pitiful pair.” He felt the smile in his depths, thought it reached his eyes, but couldn't bring it as far as his lips. “If you're not stumbling over your past, I'm crashing into mine. It's a wonder we're both whole and sane.”

“I'm not so sure we are.” Amanusa wrapped her arms around him and kissed his forehead as she pulled him in again for a cuddle. “Either whole or sane. But we're broken together, and we're mending what was broken, even if it might take us the rest of our lives together.”

He brushed his lips over her collarbone and let his breath sigh out, reaching for contentment. It stayed just beyond his grasp, all the unanswered questions niggling at him.

“Actually,” Amanusa said before he could ask any of them. “I'm glad it happened, that you could spend without me having to unbind anything. Even when I was still a little afraid of you—and I was never very afraid, because I never sensed any cruelty or meanness in you, even at the first. But even then, I thought it was a terrible thing to do to a man, though it was a relief to me. So I'm glad you were able to free yourself.”

“Yes, but how?” Jax sorted through his various worries, now the gears in his mind began to fit themselves together again. They all boiled down to one. “Are the bonds between us raveling? Am I—?”

Losing you?
He couldn't say it aloud, couldn't let his desperation show. Not because she would be angry or annoyed, but she might laugh. Or worse, pity him. And if they were coming apart—“Can you still use me as your servant? What will happen if you can't, if they come against you in this test and you can't access the magic we just called?”

“I won't use you, Jax. Not like Yvaine did. Never like that.” She held him tighter.

So tight, he had to turn his head to breathe. That put her rosy pink nipple right before his lips, and the temptation to put his tongue out and taste it was too great to resist. Amanusa's gasp had him tasting again, and from there, it was only a fraction's shift to pull it between his lips and—

J
AX STOOD AND
set Amanusa on her feet. “You are far too distracting for conversation when you are without clothing, and we need to know what has happened. It could be dangerous. It could indicate that the magic is coming unraveled, or worse. Put something on so I can think, and—” He looked ruefully down at his probably ruined trousers. “I'll go clean up.”

He left the room without looking back, before he
could get distracted again. He left the trousers for the hotel valet and pulled on a fresh pair of knee-length drawers, but he couldn't make himself dress further. It was still his wedding night.

He shrugged on his dressing gown—Amanusa had insisted he be fitted out with a wardrobe when they'd ordered hers—and hurried back to find Amanusa swathed again in her layers of raw silk ruffles. He hoped she'd put her nightdress on underneath it. The more layers, the more likely he'd be able to think. He'd already spent himself once, but it didn't seem to matter. It had been a very, very long time, after all.