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He felt her emotions as well, mostly that she was caught up in the feel-good of sex. Her breathing had evened out and her fingers worked his, stroking him gently, a very affectionate movement.
“Marius, the way you caught my neck in your mouth was incredible. I want you to know that. I don’t know what it did, but I had these sensations rippling through my body, straight between my legs because of it. I definitely want to do that again.”
He shifted slightly, angling once more, and bit her in the same place, giving her neck a soft shake.
She giggled and his cock jerked. She moaned. “I want to stay like this forever. Just like this. I love the feel of you still connected to me.”
He released her neck and reclined his head off to the side of hers once more, half on her arm, half on the pillow. He could get used to this—a thought that sent a shard of anxiety moving through him.
“What is it?” she asked.
He decided to be honest with her. “I keep having a powerful desire to beg you to stay with me, but I know it can’t work for so many reasons, most of which you already know.”
“And some come from me.” She released a heavy sigh. “I want to face you to have this conversation. Can we do that?”
He nodded, then disengaged, pulling from her slowly. He hadn’t wanted to, but she was right: The moment required some talk.
As he shifted off her, he would have left the bed to fetch her a washcloth, she but she caught his arm. “Don’t go yet.” She tugged him back to her so that this time, he lay on top of her face to face.
She caressed his face and leaned up to kiss him. He responded, kissing her back.
She rested her head on the pillow. “I wish we could keep doing this, Marius, stay together forever. Part of me feels so strange about being here now, as though I can’t imagine ever leaving. Yet I’ve only been here a couple of days. I fault the intensity of what we’ve been through for that, as though we’ve lived together for a hundred years.”
“I feel the same way.” But the situation felt deeper than that, something he couldn’t explain. “I keep thinking about how drawn you are to the tablets and our ancient language, to all that we are as a society.”
“But don’t you see? That’s because I’m an anthropologist.”
“Are you sure it isn’t more than that?”
She held his gaze, searching his eyes. “I honestly don’t know.” She looked away from him, but this time her eyes didn’t flit around. Instead, it was as though she was searching deep within herself. Finally, she said, “Can we visit the refugees tomorrow night? The ones that Gabriel had his men rescue?”
At that, he laughed and shook his head.
“What?” She seemed genuinely surprised.
“Well, for one thing, we were talking about the unique aspects of our relationship including how drawn we are to each other, and suddenly you want to visit with the refugees.”
She smiled sheepishly. “Oh, I can see how you would think that. But here’s where my mind went. I know that for me everything shifted when you originally took me through the Dark Cave system. The plight of all those women supported my decision to stay. The longer I’m with you, the more I want to stay, so I think I need more data to help me understand my relationship with you and how I might fit into your world here. Does that make any sense at all?”
Marius hated just how much his heart soared with even a hint that Shayna might stay. Yet at the exact same moment, the other powerful reality of his life flowed through him in a painful agonizing wave. He shifted, rolling onto his back to lie next to her.
She leaned up on her elbow to look at him. “Marius, what is it? I don’t understand. I was talking about seeing the refugees and the next moment that horrible guilt is on you again. I wish like anything that you’d tell me the whole story. I feel that you’ve held on to something for a long time, and you need to let it go. What happened that you feel as though your life must only be about making war, about battling Daniel and his kind? Won’t you tell me?”
He stared into her eyes. He wanted to tell her the truth, but he knew it would change things forever, even ruin what he had with her right in this moment. If she knew the truth, she’d walk out the door and never look back. He settled his arm over his forehead, partially shading his eyes. Yet he had to tell her something; he owed her that much.
“I won’t go into the specifics, but I will tell you this.” He felt how quiet she’d fallen, almost reverent. “I betrayed my brothers in the worst way possible.”
When? How?
Her questions hit his mind like swiftly thrown daggers. He moved his arm to his side and stared at her. “Shayna, I just told you I didn’t want to talk about this in detail.”
She clamped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. The questions slipped so fast through my head that I must have shifted into telepathy without thinking. Pretend I didn’t ask. And you know how I am with the questions.”
He nodded and settled into the pillows. “I think that’s all I can tell you, but that’s the guilt you keep feeling and it’s the main reason I’ve fought as hard as I have. I’ve been trying to make up for this for the past four hundred years.”
“Do your brothers know?”
“Of course they know. They were punished for what I told Daniel.”
