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Ethan had given me breath, and now he took it away again.
He moved toward me, eyes silver and shining, and captured my waist, pulling me toward him. He engulfed me in a kiss, magic rising as passion grew between us. Ethan wasted no time, claiming me as his own, claiming my body as his. He attacked with passion, using his body as a weapon - the long fingers that roused me to the line between pain and pleasure, the lips that tortured and tempted, the eyes that watched as he pushed me higher, until my body was aflame and pleasure blossomed through me.
I screamed his name, but Ethan didn't concede the victory. He pushed farther, twined my legs around his waist, burying himself inside me, and dropping his head to the nape of my neck to stifle his guttural moan.
"Merit," he whispered, teeth against my sensitive skin.
Ethan found his rhythm, challenging me to rise again, to give up rational thought for feeling, for pure and unbound sensation.
His speed quickened, his breath hitching, his fingers clenched in my skin as he sought his own pleasure, my name on his lips when he found it, grasping me like he couldn't bear to let go again.
For a moment, time stopped, and we lay together in the bath, candlelight dancing around us. And then I was airborne as Ethan lifted me from the water. He wrapped me in satin, heat steaming from our bodies, my eyes wide, my skin passion-flushed.
He placed me on the bed and tucked me into the cloud of soft and cool sheets, then lay down beside me. We held hands as the sun rose, pushing us under.
-
When the sun rose, we fell asleep in sensual bliss.
But when the sun fell again, we awoke in sloppy abandon.
We lay on our backs, sprawled sideways across the bed. The blankets were tangled around Ethan's feet, and I'd slept with a hand across his face.
Ethan nibbled at my finger to wake me. I pulled my hand back, lest it become vampire breakfast. "Sorry about that. I was out."
"Evidently," he said, sitting up and arching an eyebrow at our positions. "Did we wrestle during the day?"
"Not that I recall," I said, reaching over to pick up pillows from the floor. "Maybe we're having day terrors."
"God forbid," Ethan said. "The night terrors are bad enough."
"Speaking of," I said, "any riot developments while we were asleep?"
Ethan groaned. "To business already, Sentinel? So much for, 'Good morning, Liege. I love you, Liege.'" He managed a remarkably bad imitation of my voice, then feigned sweeping hair over his shoulder.
"I don't do that."
"You do," he said, grinning. "But my larger point still stands."
I rolled my eyes but sat up, sheet strategically around my br**sts, and smiled at him. "Good morning, Liege," I said in a husky voice. "I love you, Liege."
"That's more like it," he said, then snatched up his phone from the nightstand and scanned it. He might not have appreciated the abrupt change of subject, but he knew my question was a legit one.
"Nothing new," he answered after a moment. "They're still cleaning up Wicker Park. There should be plenty for you to peruse tonight."
"Fortunate for the rioters they didn't make their way to Little Red. That wouldn't have gone well for them with Gabriel in residence."
"I imagine you're right," Ethan said. "The shifters avoid drama when they can, but they are not afraid to face a foe head-on. It would have been bad for the humans and, in the aftermath, the Pack. Violence, in my experience, only begets more violence."
I picked up his free hand and ran a finger over his knuckles, noting the scars that mottled the skin there. Ethan had been a soldier in his human life, and the scars might have come from his military service. As quickly as we healed, some scars remained. The pucker on his chest where a stake had punctured his heart was evidence of that.
"Is the city heading toward something?" I wondered aloud.
He stilled. "You feel it, too?"
His response shocked and scared me. He was supposed to say my question was silly. Overreactive, even. That he didn't dismiss the feeling only validated it, and I found I didn't want my paranoia to be validated.
"It feels like things are building to a head," he said. "The pressure rising. I don't know when the inevitable explosion will occur, and I'm not sure who will be involved, but there seems little doubt the violence will continue to rise. We have asked humans to put up with much. Celina. Tate. Mallory. And they've demonstrated they will not go gently into that good night forever."
"They certainly weren't going gently in Wicker Park last night."
"No," he agreed. "And perhaps we are being overly pessimistic. Perhaps Wicker Park was an isolated incident. Perhaps the tide has not turned completely, and will not turn at all. But if it does . . ."
He didn't finish the thought, which didn't need finishing at any rate. Humans had a long and bloodied history of destroying perceived enemies, even if the perception was only that.
"I hate to bring up another unpleasant subject," he said, "but there's an administrative matter we should attend to."
"Administrative?"
Ethan reached out and pulled a cream linen envelope from his nightstand. "I didn't want to mention this last night, given what you'd been through." He handed the envelope to me. "Open it."
Curious, but also nervous - he was building this up quite a bit - I slid a finger beneath the envelope's flap and pulled out a card in the same thick, cream-colored stock.
It was an invitation to dinner at my parents' house.
For both of us.
I made a low whistle. My family and I weren't close, owing largely to the tense relationship between my father and me. He was controlling and manipulative; I was the rebel daughter he hadn't quite wanted. He was also the reason, at least indirectly, that I'd been made a vampire, and without my consent.
On the other hand, I'd promised my father that I'd visit my older brother, Robert, and it would be nice to see my sister, Charlotte, and her brood again.
Still. Dinner at my parents' house? With Ethan? That would mean a lot of Merit eyes on our relationship.
Ethan, who'd been silent while I mulled over the invite, tapped it with a finger. "What do you think?"
"I'm not entirely sure." I glanced over at him. "Dinner at my parents' would be two hours of pure and unmitigated discomfort."
"Because you and your father have a history?"
"And because they'll probably spend the evening dissecting our relationship."
"I believe that only makes them human, darling."
