Visions of Skyfire (28 page)

He stalked across the room, grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a fierce embrace. “I only wish I could kill them again. That they touched you tears at me, Teresa. That I left you alone rips my soul to shreds.”

Teresa reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t. Don’t take what they did and make it a part of us. It’s not. They were evil and now they’re dead and that’s the end of it.”

He lifted his head to look down at her. She watched him search her features, looking for further assurance that she was all right. Unharmed. She understood his need and shared it. She wanted the chance to feel alive and safe. She had survived—she’d fought back and won. Her mate had been there when she needed him. And now, she wanted him.

“Kiss me, Rune.”

He did. Tenderly. And that one brief touch of his mouth roused the insistent clamoring need inside her. She pushed her hips against him and felt his erection pressing back. She groaned and swiveled her hips, feeding the fires inside her. “I need you.”

“After—” He looked down at her and shook his head. “Teresa, wait. Take a shower. Rest. Then if you still—”

“I opened myself to the magic, Rune, and if I were stronger, I’d have been better able to fight those men off. Being with you increases my strength—and I need your touch.”

She grabbed one of his hands and moved it down, down across her bare skin to the very heart of her. Then she pressed his palm to her heated core and sighed at the first contact. She was hot and wet and so ready every nerve ending in her body was screaming for release.

“Ah, God …” he groaned, sliding his hand over her sensitive skin, caressing that bud of desire until she let her head fall back on a sigh of bliss. He delved first one finger, then two, into her depths and she rocked on his hand, pumping her hips as she sought release.

He gave it to her.

Teresa lifted her face to his and through passion-glazed eyes, she watched as he lowered his mouth to hers. That first brush of his lips lit up her insides and when his tongue dove into her mouth, she met each caress eagerly. Tongues tangling in a wild dance of desire, their breath mingled as their bodies went up in flames.

The moonlight magic simmered inside her, pushing her on, harder, faster. This was what she had needed from the moment she began her spell. She moved her hips on his hand, felt his fingers stroking her inner muscles, his thumb caressing her core, and it still wasn’t enough. She wanted to be filled by him. She wanted him so deeply embedded inside her that he would never be entirely apart from her again. She wanted his brand on her skin, his cock in her body, his seed filling her womb.

“Rune, I need you. I need to feel you. Now. Oh, God,
now.
”

“Take this first,” he told her, and she lost herself in the swirling gray of his eyes.

She groaned his name and continued to move against his hand as tiny, shuddering explosions discharged inside her. When that orgasm ended, though, the fire was still there. Still burning, raging out of control. Calling down the moon had opened her body, her mind, her soul to the magic that only Rune could complete.
“More.”

Teresa shrugged out of his coat, then pushed at him, tearing at his clothes until he snapped his fingers and got rid of his own clothing and what was left of hers as well.

“You’re trembling, Teresa,” he said, still stroking her core with steady, driving thrusts of his fingers.

“It’s the moon,” she whispered, reaching down to curl her fingers around his hard, thick erection. “It filled me, lit me up and left me so hungry for you, I don’t think I’ll ever get my fill.”

He hissed in a breath and held completely still as she used both of her hands to hold him, stroke him, cup him. Tiny sparks flew from her fingertips and danced across his skin, increasing the heat of her touch, intensifying each caress. He groaned and Teresa smiled with anticipation as his hunger grew to match her own.

“I want you in me,” she whispered, suddenly squeezing both hands around his erection, dropping to her knees to take the tip of it into her mouth.

“Damn it, Teresa!” His voice was a snarl of barely leashed passion.

She looked up at him and smiled, loving what she could do to this man. This amazingly strong, fierce warrior. Keeping her gaze fixed on his, she took him deeper into her mouth, letting her tongue and teeth scrape across his sensitive skin until his massive body trembled with the force of his own self-control.

But she didn’t want him controlled.

And in the next instant, she got exactly what she wanted.

He reached down, yanked her up against him, then tossed her onto the bed. He was on her in a heartbeat, his huge body covering hers, weighing her down on the bed. She felt the cool glide of the bedspread beneath her heated skin. She felt the hard, muscular planes of his sculpted body atop her and shivered in response. His erection was so close to her center. So near to entering her.

She lifted both legs, gripping the backs of her knees with her hands as she parted her thighs to his gaze. His eyes locked on her and she felt even hotter with him looking at her, naked and vulnerable to him. “Rune, I’ve been waiting. I can’t wait anymore.”

“Neither can I.” He lifted her hips off the bed, positioned himself and then drove deep inside her.

On that first, hard thrust, Teresa gasped in satisfaction. He filled her as completely as the moon magic had. She was overflowing with what he meant to her. What he could do to her. What he made her feel. He had saved her. He had
always
saved her. She felt it. And the connection between them burned even more brightly.

“Again. God, again.” She groaned the words and let go of her knees as he positioned her legs across his shoulders.

She was high off the bed now and she didn’t care. This way he could go even deeper inside. In this position, she could take him more completely within her than she ever had before and that was what she wanted. Needed. With a hunger that wouldn’t be satiated.

His powerful hips moved against her, claiming her over and over again. He went deep and then deeper still. He rocked into and out of her body like a man possessed and she shared that passion. She reached up, running her fingers across the branding tattoo that was burning into his flesh right before her eyes. She felt the sting on her own skin and knew that she too was being marked more indelibly.

Teresa grabbed hold of his upper arms, digging her fingernails into his skin to hold on tightly. He drove into her relentlessly, furiously. Tension peaked inside her, tightening, coiling into a spring that shivered on the edge of explosion, and still he pushed her.

She was hungry for it, wanted it all, needed it all. When he pulled her legs off his shoulders and then yanked her up to sit on his lap, Teresa went gladly. Now it was she who set the rhythm and she deliberately slowed it down, to torture both of them with the caress of skin against skin.

He kissed her, taking her mouth with his until she was left gasping for air that wouldn’t come. And while his tongue entwined with hers, he set his hands at her hips and moved her faster, quickening their pace.

She was panting now, staring into his eyes, feeling the sweep of release encroach ever faster and still it wasn’t enough. Suddenly he pulled free of her body, as if he’d heard her frantic thoughts. Tossing her onto the mattress, he flipped her over as he had once before and Teresa sighed,
“Yes …”

Lifting her hips for his entrance, he pushed inside and Teresa held on to the headboard, bracing herself for each of his heavy strokes. She took him in and released him, feeding the need, feeding the fever clawing at her. Mystical energy pooled inside her, streamed from her body to his and as he reached beneath her to tweak and pull at her nipples, her body shattered.

She screamed his name, and shaking with the tremendous force of her release, she was barely aware of his own shout moments later as he emptied all that he was into her keeping.

Chapter 48

“I
remembered,” she said, what felt like hours later.

Rune was dazzled by his witch, his body humming with completion and yet already hungering for more. Would he ever have enough of his mate? Would there ever be a time when he didn’t want her more than his next breath?

Shaking his head, he pulled out of his own thoughts and shifted on the pillow to look at her. “What?”

Teresa snaked one arm across his chest and he held her there, needing that connection. “I said I remembered. I did that moon spell and …” She blew out a breath. “It was like somebody opened a floodgate. Pictures, memories crashed into my mind and I couldn’t stand up to the onslaught. It was … terrifying.”

His hand tightened on her arm when she might have pulled away. This was what they had been waiting and hoping for. The return of her memories. Now she could tap the knowledge they would need to complete their journey of atonement.

The bed was rumpled beneath them. A light burned from the small bathroom and the draperies in the main room were closed, sealing them off from the world. They were alone with the past, and the future was no more than a hazy specter hanging just out of reach.

“Tell me,” he whispered, stroking his fingers along her arm in a comforting caress. “What did you remember?”

She shifted until she was lying on top of him, skin to skin, her eyes locked with his. “Everything,” she admitted. “I remembered every lifetime in bits and pieces that shattered around my mind like a puzzle that had been shaken and dropped.” She frowned, bit her bottom lip and said, “I saw me as Serena. And I saw you—how angry you were with her—
me
—and I didn’t blame you. My God, Rune, how did you stand me? Why did you love me? I was like the bitch queen of the universe.”

A reluctant smile curved his mouth as he listened to her berate herself for what couldn’t be changed. He lifted one hand and smoothed her hair back from her cheek. So soft. Her skin. Her hair. Everything about her was satin covering steel. She was stronger than she knew and he was all too aware that she was going to need all of that strength and more in the coming days.

“You weren’t as bad as all that,” he said quietly, though his memories were sharper than hers and clearer on the many times in their shared past when this witch had torn the unbeating heart from his chest.

She dropped her forehead to his chest and murmured, “Yes, I was. I lied to you. I turned on you when you needed me. Time and again, I let you—
myself—
down, and it worries me.”

“Why?” He tipped her chin up with his fingers, until she was looking into his eyes again. “Why does the past worry you so? It is merely a tool we will use to carve a future.”

“You say that, but you don’t really believe it.”

“Teresa—”

“No. It bothers me for the same reason that you don’t trust me,” she said, then spoke again quickly when he opened his mouth to argue. “I understand now why you don’t. Why you can’t. And damn it, Rune, even I don’t trust me now. What if I haven’t grown enough? What if in all those lifetimes, I still haven’t learned what I needed to? What if I fuck this up for both of us?”

“You will not,” he said, rolling with her until she was beneath him on the bed and he had braced himself over her. He caught her gaze with his and willed her to believe him. “This is our time. Together, we will do this. The past can’t touch us now.”

“It can influence us, though,” she argued, running her fingertips across the lightning bolts carving a jagged circle around his left nipple and winding their way beneath his arm. “You know that.”

“Yes. But its influence is only as strong as you allow it to be.” He cupped her face in his palm. “Do you want to succeed in this quest, Teresa? Do you
want
to put right what once went wrong?”

“Of course I do, but—”

“No.” He bent his head to her and kissed her hard and deep. When he broke away, he said, “If you want it badly enough, it will happen. The past changes nothing unless you allow it to.”

“What about your trust in me?” she whispered, with a sad shake of her head. “Our past keeps you from taking that one last step and you know it. So how can we even think to ignore what came before?”

“I … care for you,” he told her, though he knew it wasn’t what she longed to hear. But in spite of everything he had just said, he knew that his distrust still had a grip on him. That the past lived and breathed in the dark corners of his heart and mind. He couldn’t bring himself to take a leap of faith for her, but that was his lack, not hers. “I am your mate. I will be with you on every step of this journey. I will help you to solve the riddle and I will be with you when you return the black silver to Wales.”

“But …”

“Let it be enough, Teresa,” he said softly. “For both of us, here and now, let it be enough.”

Grief had etched itself into her eyes, but she nodded, accepting the limitations he felt within himself. Lowering his head, he took her branded nipple into his mouth and swirled his tongue across the sensitive tip. She held him there, her fingers spearing through his hair.

“You taste of moonlight,” he whispered against her skin. “Moonlight and magic.” Raising his gaze to hers, he saw the flare of desire spark again within her and answered it with a smile. “My witch. My mate. You are in my soul, Teresa.”

“As you are in mine,” she confessed on a sigh. “Rune, when you appeared in that tower of fire tonight, I’d never seen anything more magnificent in my life.”

“I felt your pain. Your fear,” he said and thumped one hand hard against his chest. “Here. Inside me, raw and bleeding. I knew you needed me and nothing could have kept me away.”

Her fingers moved over the mating brand on his chest again as if she could somehow soothe the ache that lingered there. “I should have waited for you, to do the moon spell. I know that. But once it started, Rune, I couldn’t stop it.”

Frowning slightly, he asked, “What do you mean?”