AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He let out a long sigh. "During the past month, I've been thinking about so many things. I need to take some time. Get to know myself now that this has happened. Now that I've got far longer than another forty or fifty years to spend with my own company. I need space and time to adjust to . . . wel , my new life."
I didn't like where this was going. The expression drained off my face. "You want to break up? Are you sure there's no one else?"
He stroked my cheek, smiling sadly. "I haven't cheated on you; I haven't lied to you. There's no one else. I just honestly don't think I can cope with any relationship right now and deal with everything else, too. For now, I need space."
Boom. Godzil a hit dead center, and I toppled like Tokyo.
I forced myself to stare at the floor. If I stared at the floor, then I'd be okay. "When you say for now . . . "
"I mean for now. For however long it takes me to come to grips with this. Maybe I'l wake up tomorrow and be okay. Maybe it wil take twenty years.
Forty. I don't know. I'm so confused. I love you--please know that--but there's so much . . ." He trailed off, and I held up my hand.
"No. Don't say it. Don't even try to explain right now. I need to process this." I walked over to my closet, where I retrieved my favorite terrycloth robe. Not giving a damn about the scent of skunk, I slid it over the chemise, suddenly feeling shy. As I turned back to stare at Chase, the look in his eyes told me just how close he was to running scared. I could see it on his face; I could feel it in his silent plea for understanding.
"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.
