“Too much?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
“Perfect,” she managed to gasp out. She kept her eyes closed, as he’d demanded. Not because of his order, but because his fangs were still out. There was a slight slur to his words.
Those fangs scared her as much as they aroused her. She’d seen the harm they could do, ripping through flesh and bone, but also wondered about the pleasure they could bring. Every time she wondered, she shivered.
Hell, even now she shivered. If he was hungry, she was going to feed him, she decided. After this massage, she would owe him a kidney, anyway. Because, oh, sweet mercy, nothing had ever felt this good. Not even grinding on top of him—in her fantasy and in reality—and that had felt like heaven.
Okay, so, maybe the grinding had felt just as good.
He worked on her calves for over an hour, and by the time he moved up to her thighs, she stopped trying to conceal her breasts and scars. Why should she? He’d already seen them and had claimed to find them exquisite. Her arms slid to the ground, useless. God, the man’s hands were magic.
Magic. Yes. Somehow, he was using magic. Warmth flowed from his skin and into hers, an unnatural warmth, a drugging warmth, intoxicating her, stealing into her muscles, her bones, until every part of her was tingling—and his property. Oh, yes. Whatever he touched instantly became his, existing for him and only him.
When his knuckles brushed the edge of her panties, every nerve ending she possessed roared to sudden life, reaching for him. Soon she was panting, groaning, trying to anticipate his next move. At her knee, he rubbed, then stroked up, gliding along her thigh, sweeping over—yes, there, please there, almost, almost—only to pause, not quite stroking where she most needed, before reaching for her other thigh. She had to bite her lip to cut off her plaintive cries for more.
If he would prolong the contact, angle it just a little, she could climax. Oh, God. If she climaxed from this…it would be embarrassing.
The massage continued. And really, who cared about being embarrassed? She didn’t. When would he brush across her panties again? She tensed, waiting, hoping, so damn eager. Her entire body vibrated. Even the air in her lungs began to heat. But time ticked by, and his motions became a little jerky as he kneaded the knots, never offering such wantonness again.
“Distract me,” she said. Otherwise, she just might beg him for a happy ending. Something she couldn’t allow herself to do. He said they would mate soon. Which meant, now was not the time. Or was she supposed to beg? Before, in the bedroom, he’d said, Not until you beg me. Was that what he wanted now? What he expected? To work her into a frenzy and hear her plead? Well, she would—
“Distract you how?” he asked, surprising her.
Okay, so begging wasn’t on the menu. Astonished with herself, she fought a wave of disappointment. “Tell me a story.”
He stilled. “A story?”
“Yes.” She cracked open her eyelids and added, “Whatever you do, don’t stop massaging!”
His lips twitched despite the tension radiating from him, something she found endearing. Most likely amusement had not been a part of his life for a while, yet he seemed to enjoy her. As she enjoyed him.
“A story about what?” he asked. He remained between her splayed legs, with her knees bent and framing him.
“I don’t know. Your family, maybe.” The second she said the words, she wanted to snatch them back. She remembered the passage from the book. He did not recall his past. His memory—
“I have two brothers and a sister,” he said, and stopped breathing.
A moment passed, then another. His fangs slid back inside his mouth, disappearing. Shock and pain replaced the desire and joviality in his expression.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, even though she knew the answer. Or thought she did. He needed to speak, to release. Something she had learned—and maybe discarded—in her therapy sessions. But just because she hadn’t tried it, didn’t mean he should not.
“I didn’t remember my siblings until just now. I suspected, but…I have two brothers and a sister. Right now I know, know, they are real.” There was a challenging note in his voice, as if he expected her to argue.
“They’re real,” she agreed.
He grimaced, nodded. “At last I can see them in my mind. I just can’t recall their names. When I try, my head nearly explodes with pain.”
“Pain?”
“A courtesy of the healer.”
“Oh, Nicolai. I am so sorry.” To know you had a family and to be unable to recall the past you shared, well, that was a true torture, and far worse than not knowing they existed at all. For months, Jane had survived only on her memories. “Ease away from thinking about their names and describe what you see.” Perhaps, when he relaxed, his mind focused on one portion of his past, other memories would follow more easily.
The glaze of pain faded from his eyes, and the corners of his lips quirked up once more. He dug into her muscles with more ferocity. “My youngest brother, just a boy, has green eyes and hair several shades lighter than yours. I see him chasing after me, and that makes me happy.”
“I bet he looked up to you,” she said to encourage him. “I had an older sister, and I was always chasing after her, desperate to play with her and her friends.”
“Yes.” Nicolai’s eyes widened, but he was looking beyond her, to a place she couldn’t fathom. “Yes, he did look up to me. To all of us. And we loved him. He was sweetness and innocence rolled into a mischievous package. I—I see us standing together, smiling, a unicorn prancing in front of us.” A real unicorn. Jane wanted details—like, had they saddled the creature and ridden it around?—but didn’t want to interrupt the flow of Nicolai’s recollection. “What about your other brother?”
“He is younger, as well, though very close to my age.” He paused, as if searching his mind for validation. He nodded. “They are all younger than me. Even my darling sister.”
“And what are these other siblings like?”
“My sister has her golden head bent over a spell book. I try to convince her to leave with me, as I must visit the market, but she refuses. She wants to stay, has too much to do. She works too hard, wants to please too many people. And he, the brother closest to my age, has black hair, like mine, and he’s hunting in the forest, racing alongside the wolves.”
The bookworm and the warrior, huh? “You are the dictator, I bet,” she said with a smile. “And the youngest is the sweetheart.”
“Micah is a sweetheart, yes.” His eyes widened, a trace of pain returning. “Micah. Yes, that’s his name. I wonder where he is, where they all are, what they’re doing.”
“You’ll remember, just like you remembered Micah’s name. And maybe you don’t need a healer to do this. These memories came back without her.”
“Maybe they came back because of you.” Nicolai’s gaze returned to her. He caught sight of her encouraging smile and licked his lips, his expression changing yet again. From wistful to heated, his cheeks flushing, his fangs peeking out. Little beads of sweat popped up on his brow.
“Me?” The rising sun cast muted, golden rays over their camp. Though he remained in the shadows, his bronzed skin seemed to glow. His eyes swirled, liquid silver, hypnotizing her.
“Yes. You are the only change in my life,” he said. His attention moved to her breasts, and her nipples pearled for him, as if desperate to please him. “Mine,” he added, reminding her of the beast he had become inside the palace.
This time, the beast delighted her.
The tingling reignited, more intense and spreading quickly. She might have moaned. Might have lifted her hips, seeking more of his heat. Hard to tell, because her thoughts were so consumed with what she wanted, needed, from him.
“You keep saying that.” And she kept hoping it was true. But they’d made no promises to each other, had only stated their desire for each other.
And really, despite his earlier shout that she would stay with him, she had no idea how much longer they would be together. An hour? A week? A year? They were literally from two different worlds, and she could return as suddenly as she’d appeared.
“Mine,” he said more forcefully, perhaps sensing her doubts.
“What do you mean by that? Explain.”
“Want you. No secret of that. You want me, too.”
God, those short, abrupt sentences were sexy as hell. As if his mind was locked on one thought—pleasure—and nothing could penetrate his determination to have it. With her and only her.
But…could she truly satisfy him? More than being from two different worlds, they were completely different people. One, there was his abuse. Would the things she wanted to do to him freak him out? Maybe, maybe not. Nothing had so far. Two, he clearly knew his way around a female body.
Odette and Laila had been willing to enslave him to experience the joy of his body. Jane knew her way around one man’s. She knew what he had liked, but had no idea what another male might long for.
Her previous relationship had lasted three years, ending with her accident. Not because of him. Spencer had wanted to stick by her side. She had pushed him away, too grief stricken to deal with him or anyone. And the plain fact was, she had no longer desired him. Not in any way. She had tried, she really had, to make herself want him again. She had planned a date night, with every intention of seducing him. Yet, even the thought of kissing him had made her sick and she had sent him home directly after dinner.
So, the fact was, while she and Spencer had done everything lovers could do, she’d didn’t have any other experience. None. In school, she’d been far younger than her classmates, so no one had wanted her. After that, she’d been too busy. Spencer was the first man to distract her enough to start something.
The lack hadn’t bothered her before. There’d been no time to consider it, not even when she had been grinding on top of Nicolai. She’d been too busy trying to figure out what had happened to her, trying to survive her sudden appearance here.