Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred (19 page)

Read Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred Online

Authors: Lynn Viehl

Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Fiction

BOOK: Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred
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“No breaks, Charlotte,” he said in a low, rough tone she’d never before heard him use. “We have to finish this right now.” He lowered his voice and his head, murmuring the rest against her ear. “Because the moment you’re better, my beautiful darling, the very second you’ll have me, I’m going to put myself inside you, and make love to you, and not stop until we’re both too tired to move.
That
is what I want.”
Oh, she liked him this way: so hungry for her that he forgot his pretty manners. He was gripping her wrists, so she nudged him with her shoulder until he lifted his head. She saw the frustration in his eyes, and recalled something he’d mentioned earlier. “How long has it been for you?”
“Years.”
She smiled. “Then you should get a move on,
mío
.”
His hand held her face as he covered her mouth with his, taking away the soreness and rawness as he healed the split in her bottom lip. From there he followed the curve of her lip and then the line of her jaw, soothing away the soreness and creating a deeper, more immediate ache.
There was so much of him to touch and explore that Charlie couldn’t wait for him to finish. As soon as he let go of her wrists she had her hands in his hair. It looked baby-soft but felt thick and heavy, a snare for her fingers. Each strand caught the light and held it captive, glittering like something spun by an enchanted fairy-tale creature.
He rubbed his head against her hand, a low sound rumbling from his chest as she worked her fingertips against his scalp. “That feels good.”
“So do you.” Charlie admired his eyes. The amber lashes framing them didn’t curl, but spiked down over the darkness of his irises. This close she could see tiny starbursts around his pupils, so pale a silver they could be easily mistaken for reflected lights. “Finished yet?”
“Almost.” He bent his head to her shoulder, first kissing away the pain and then following the curve up to her neck with the velvet stroke of his tongue.
Charlie worked her hands down his broad back, finding the edge of the towel he’d tucked around his hips and loosening it until she could tug it away. The last barrier gone, she pulled him over on top of her, arching up into him, wanting to feel him everywhere, from the wide vault of his chest rubbing against her aching breasts to the sculpted columns of his legs gliding against the tense muscles all along her thighs and calves.
“Charlotte.” He pushed his fingers under her, lifting her bottom as he settled himself between her thighs. His hands were shaking now, and as soon as the rigid shaft of his penis touched her, he felt the liquid heat of her arousal and groaned. “I was going to try to take this slow.”
“It’s been years, right?” Was she breathless, digging her nails into his shoulders, and twisting under him like a shameless, greedy thing? It seemed she was. “Try slow next week.”
Samuel lifted her again, reaching down between their bodies to position himself before tightening his buttocks. As she felt the delicious press of his cock head parting her folds, she braced her heels and moved with him, welcoming that first slow breach and the steady penetration that followed. He filled her until the stretching ache made her gasp, and then held himself inside her, his jaw tight and his breath warm on her lips.
He was asking her something, and she was so absorbed by the way they had melded together that she’d gone deaf. She looped an arm around his strong neck, bringing his mouth across that last inch separating their faces and nipping his bottom lip.
“Next week,” he muttered, gathering her up as he answered her gentle bite with a hungry, soul-wrenching kiss.
Samuel’s hips recoiled, and she clenched against the drag of his steady withdrawal, aching to hold on and savor the thrill of being completed by his flesh in hers. Last night she’d climaxed rubbing against him and only imagining how it would feel; now she knew and it was so much more, the incredible heat and power of him rolling through her as he stroked back in. And how amazing it felt, the taking and giving, the softness of her sex swelling around him as he worked his shaft deeper, the muscles of his back knotting and growing slick with sweat under her hands.
Charlie had her hands in his hair again when he took his lips from hers, and bowed her back, offering her breast. As he sucked at her he pushed in hard and fast, startling a cry from her; he added to the torment by cupping the flushed globe and kneading it in time to the tugging pull of his mouth. She bucked beneath him, shocked soundless by the sudden explosion of her orgasm, and then he was taking her like a wild man, driving into her as she shuddered and refusing to let her come down, his fingers gliding down over her belly to work her clit as he brought her over again.
The room spun and time blurred as she came a third time, his name spilling from her lips as she shuddered under him, and Samuel’s big frame shook, but instead of coming he tried to draw out of her completely.
Instinctively Charlie knew what he meant to do. “No.” She clamped her legs around him, pushing herself against him. “I need all of you.”
That sent Samuel into a frenzy, and he clamped his hands on her buttocks, jerking her up and holding her there as he gave her the last hard, uneven strokes before he went deep and stilled. She felt his semen pulsing and spreading inside her body, warm and thick, and curled her arms around his shoulders to hold him as he buried his face in her hair.
They lay like that until Samuel murmured something and rolled onto his side, still keeping her pressed against him. Sweat streaked the sides of his face, and as she smoothed back his hair he trailed a line of kisses over her brow.
“I know why you grow your hair long.” She made rings of it around her fingers. “Cutting it makes your barber feel like a butcher.”
“Findley trims it for me every morning,” he told her as he rolled onto his side to run his hand down her arm. “It grows very fast, sometimes as much as twelve inches in a day. So does my beard.” He frowned as he touched his jaw, over which dark gold stubble was just beginning to show. “At least, it did before we were brought here.”
“The beard was interesting,
mío
, but I like you better without it.” A strange tenderness welled inside her as she rested a hand on his hip. “So what do you think of all this?”
He propped himself up on one elbow. “Trying slow actually may have to wait until next month. Possibly Christmas. And you?”
“I need to sleep with more cripples.” She laughed as he scowled and tickled her. “All right, ex-cripples.”
Samuel bent his head to hers, and Charlie’s gaze wandered, coming to an abrupt stop at the glint of a lens. Like all the others in the room, it was aimed directly at the bed.
They’d forgotten about the cameras.
As she closed her eyes to enjoy Samuel’s kiss, Charlie lifted her hand from the back of his neck and extended her middle finger.
Chapter 10
 
I
n the kitchen of her home, Tlemi set out what she would prepare for their midday meal: mangoes, smoked fish, and some of the herbed flatbread Xochi had learned how to bake. After watching the Americans she had no appetite, but if she didn’t feed Colotl, he would forget to eat, as he did so often now.
This place was making them all sick, not in body, but in spirit.
Living on the island had once made Tlemi feel as if she had come to paradise. Before they had been brought here, all they had ever known had been the darkness of the master’s domain. Tlemi’s oldest memories were of long, moonlit nights playing with Colotl and the other children in the gardens while the
abuelas
had tended the flowers or gathered fruit under the braziers. When the roosters crowed they were brought inside and sent to sleep in the cool, dark rooms in the lower levels.
As she began slicing the mango, Tlemi remembered the delighted laughter that had spilled from her lips when she and Colotl had risen from their bed to watch their first sunrise on the island.
In those early days after the master had sent them to live apart from him, they had been like little children again, running and playing and laughing with delight over each new discovery. It frightened some of the other women, but Tlemi felt she had been given all the gifts she could ever want: a beautiful home, good friends, and being Colotl’s woman. Even the price she had to pay for their new home had not weighed on her, not at first.
That had been a precious time, one that had ended brutally when the master had sent Segundo to them to explain their duties, and Mocaya had been found out.
The steward had come with his brutes and a man they had never seen before, a doctor from America. As soon as it was Mocaya’s turn to go to the seventh house and be examined, she had tried to flee. The men had run her down like a dog and dragged her back, and then the doctor sedated her, making her unable to keep her body changed as it was. That was when the secret she had been hiding had been revealed: she had been born with the body not of a woman, but of a man.
What Tlemi remembered most about that terrible day was how Segundo had smiled, just before he shot Mocaya in the head. He offered the same smile a week later when he brought Pici to Ihiyo.
Pici had cringed as Ihiyo exploded with rage, and then Segundo had pistol-whipped him into silence. As Ihiyo bled on the sands, the master’s steward had leaned over him and advised him to close his eyes while he did his duty.
Fortunately Pici was a petite, helpless girl who cried easily, and had appealed to something in Ihiyo. Or perhaps Ihiyo wanted to live more than he wanted to be with another man. Tlemi knew he didn’t close his eyes when he was with Pici, but every night, after she fell asleep, he wept for Mocaya.
Like many things she knew about their friends, Tlemi had never revealed it to them. Not even to Colotl, who had been Ihiyo’s friend since they were boys. He would have understood, but he already blamed himself for not knowing Ihiyo and Mocaya’s secret. It was why he had been so stubborn about the Americans.
“Tlemi?”
She looked over to see Colotl watching her from the doorway.
His long moonlight hair and silver eyes always seemed to glow against his brown skin, which was as dark as hers was pale. He had taken off his shirt and hung it around his neck, and from the sand still clinging to his ankles she knew he had been walking along his lines, not to check them but to think.
“You are back early.” Then, because she knew exactly why he had come to speak to her, she added, “He has seen to her.”
Some of the tension around his mouth eased. “Did she fight him?”
She shook her head, picking up the knife to finish slicing the mango. Knowing their lives depended on it, she had agreed to watch the Americans, but what she had witnessed troubled her. They were all well aware of why the master had sent them here, and if he discovered what the big man could do . . .
“Can you bring that down to the beach?” Colotl asked. “I need to check my lines.”
She nodded. Once he left, she took out a basket, placing the fruit and smoked fish in smaller containers before adding them and two of the colorful napkins Delores had embroidered.
Colotl met her on the pathway outside, taking the basket from her and lifting the lid. His eyes narrowed as soon as he saw the red napkins covered with intricate designs in black thread. “It looks very good. I’m hungry.”
“I think it will please you.” She patted his shoulder twice before walking with him to the sand. Along the way she felt the air around them go completely still, although the trees overhead still swayed gently in the breeze.
A small crab scuttled toward her toes, his front claws snapping, only to encounter something that knocked him onto his back.
“What is it?” Colotl asked as soon as the barrier was in place.
“The American man.” She shook out the big coverlet and placed it on the sand. “He has changed.”
“Changed?”
“Not like Mocaya,” she said quickly. “His gift has changed. He healed the woman’s injuries.”
Colotl stopped by one of the poles he had driven into the sand and knelt down, making a pretense of testing the fishing line knotted to it. Without looking at her, he muttered, “Did he use his blood?”
“No, he used kisses and touching. It is the gift, not the master’s curse. He lives. He walks in the sunlight. He will not turn.” Tlemi felt impatient. “You have to call the others together and tell them what he is.”
His expression turned impassive. “Why would I do this?”
“Colotl, please.” She dropped down beside him. “With the gifts he has been given, the American could help us.”
He made a bitter sound. “Why would he do that?”
“He is still like us.” When he gave her a narrow look, she sighed. “If the master had brought him into his domain, he would be our brother. What does it matter now, anyway? Here we are no different.”
“No different? We don’t even speak the same language.” He stood and began reeling in the line. As it emerged from the surf, fish caught on the hooks knotted to it began flopping.
Tlemi knew exactly how they felt.
“Pici’s time is coming. Soon,” she reminded him. “She is too small and weak. You know what will happen if she dies. They will just bring another woman, and this time I think Ihiyo will go mad.
Colotl
.” His silence made her sit down on the sand and stare at the water. “Very well. Who will dig the grave for her? You, or me?”

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