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"Delilah, please don't walk away from me? Don't hate me?" He fel back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, looking so forlorn that I wanted to race into his arms, to comfort him. But he didn't want me. Or maybe he did, but felt too guilty over wanting space from the emotional side of us.
"You know," I said slowly, "you have my permission to sleep with other women, if that's what you need." He had agreed to an open relationship; maybe we could stil make this work.
But as he slowly sat up, I saw the flush creeping up his cheeks. "Can't you understand? I don't necessarily want to sleep with anybody else. It's that I can't handle thinking about anyone else's feelings until I know what my own feelings are."
Don't say it . . . don't say you want to break up. Please, let me hold on to the possibility that we'll be okay for one more day . . . but am I ready to wait for you? I love you, but am I truly in love with you? I thought so . . . but am I wrong?
He turned a bleak face to me and held out his arms. I sank into his embrace, gently kissing his eyes, his nose, his lips. He slid his arms around me and pul ed me to him, parting my lips with his tongue as he kissed me deep and long and dark.
I slid my hands over his chest, and he let me unbutton his shirt. As he slipped out of his jacket, then his pants and shirt, I drank in the sight. Chase was my first love, but it was time to grow, to move on, to explore what waited for me in the future. And truly, if I was to bear the Autumn Lord's child someday and Chase was stil with me, how would he handle that? How could any man who hadn't grown up in my world?
Chase pushed my robe back, and I let it slip to the ground. The scent of skunk seemed to fade, or perhaps I was growing used to it. Chase didn't mention it, and as I stepped out of my chemise and stood there, naked in the dim light of the candle, he reached out and ran his fingertips over my body, over my breasts, over my stomach. I shivered, quickening to his touch.
His body stil bore the scars of where he'd been injured--and they were fierce and stil red, long gashes where the Tregarts had savaged him. I knelt by his side, kissed the markings, gently let my tears fal on them and bathe them.
I couldn't help it. I blurted out, "If we could have only given you the Nectar of Life before you were hurt. If we could have gone through the ritual. Would it have made any difference?"
Chase knelt beside me and took me in his arms again. "Delilah, I love you--I do. But so many things have happened, and I feel like everything I believed or knew has been turned upside down. I have a thousand years to think about my mistakes now. Even with the proper rituals, I think we'd stil be here, together in this moment, facing the same issue."
I slid onto his lap, sitting there, feeling him press against me. He wanted me, that much I knew, but his expressions waged war on his face. I could feel it in the way he touched me.
"You've never talked about this, but when Karvanak held you captive, what happened to you, Chase? Could that have something to do with al of this?"
I'd never broached the subject before, but as I gazed into his eyes, I thought it was time to tread on sacred ground.
Chase slowly said, "Karvanak tortured me, yes. He knows how to avoid leaving marks. No one would ever know if they were to examine my body. And I'l never tel anybody what ful y happened. Not even you. But he couldn't break me. And you know why?"
"Why?"
"The thought that you and your sisters were so bravely facing an evil like him--and far worse--made me strong. I kept thinking, If they can go through this, I can. But my need for time and space comes from more than the Nectar of Life. More than Karvanak. Even more than the fact that I can't stand the idea that you might get hurt. Or caught. Or kil ed. The mark you wear on your forehead . . ."
He gently reached out and ran his finger over the tattoo on my forehead, then gently traced the ones on my arms. "These mean you belong to someone else--someone who wil always and forever come first. Someone I can't ever hope to compare to or to stand up to. And now that my psychic side is opening up, I can feel him there. I can feel him in your aura, and I can't compete with that. You belong to the gods, Delilah. You never belonged to me. I've only been borrowing you."
His honesty--his brutal, gentle honesty--overwhelmed me, and I burst into tears. "I don't want to let go, but I can hear it in your voice. You're leaving me."
"I'm leaving you before you have to leave me. I think it's easier this way." He kissed me then, kissed away my tears, kissed me into forgetting the pain, kissed me until I couldn't stand the tension but slid onto his lap, straddling him. We made love with desperate urgency, but even as his warm flesh fil ed me, even as I tried to capture and hold every single feeling, I could feel him slipping away from me.
And as I rode him, loving at first and then angry because we were ending, I channeled my sorrow and tears into the act. My heart was breaking, yet al along, I knew this would happen. Furious at the inevitability of my life, I came when he did, came with tears instead of joy, came sobbing his name, even as he clenched my waist and groaned.
After, there was nothing much to say. I stared mutely at him, wondering what to do next. Chase solved the problem for me.
"I have to get back to HQ. I've got to get some sleep. I wish I could stay but--" His words were awkward but gentle.
"Don't," I said, scuffing the floor. I wanted a shower, wanted to wash away the memory of the night. "Don't say it."
He rubbed his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Do you hate me?"
Shaking my head, I could only shrug. "How can I hate you? You didn't screw up this time, Johnson. You told me what you needed. You were honest. I hate what's happening, but I can't . . . I can't hate you. You're Chase. "
He dressed as I wrapped a towel around myself. "Delilah--maybe things wil work out in a way we don't expect. Maybe in the future . . . when I get my head together . . ." Pausing, he stopped himself. "I'm kidding myself. I'm not going to ask you to wait for me. That's just wrong, when neither one of us knows what's going to happen."
I shrugged, resigned. "I belong to the Autumn Lord. You're right; eventual y, he's going to summon me and get me with his child. Until the day you can live with that, we don't stand a chance. But if you can live with that . . ."
He bit his lip, then let out a long sigh. "I can't. I know myself. I'm sorry, but I can't. I'd always feel second-best."
Ducking my head, I nodded. "Yeah, and true or not--and it's not--that's not fair to you. Then I guess it's over."
With a sniffle, he quietly said, "Usual y the woman says this, but . . . can we stil be friends? And Delilah . . . when you find someone else . . . I'l be happy for you."
