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The orgasm barreled down on him, and he roared once more, a sound that caught her passionate cries and carried them in waves around the dressing room.
When at last the moment of ecstasy dimmed, he began to come back to himself.
He looked down at Emma and saw that tears spilled from her eyes. He froze in place. “Did I hurt you?”
“No. Oh, God, no, it was just so unbelievable. Truly, Vaughn, it was more than perfect.”
Relief flooded him. “For a minute there—”
“You didn’t hurt me. I’m just overcome. I swear you took me to the center of the universe and back. Though now I’m convinced you just spoiled me the rest of my life for any other man.”
He looked down at her, seeing her as if for the first time. She was his kind of woman. He would have been drawn to her outside of Five Bridges before his alter.
But he couldn’t pretend their world didn’t exist. He’d become a creature he despised, not-human-anymore, and she was a witch.
He pulled out of her, a sense of loss piercing him so hard, he couldn’t look at Emma any longer. Visions of his sister’s abduction filled his head, only this time, he saw Emma being taken from him.
He couldn’t do this, not with her, not with anyone.
“Vaughn, wait.” She grabbed at his arm as he moved away, but he didn’t want her to see him like this.
He wasn’t even sure what h
e was feeling, but it felt like death all over again.
~ ~ ~
Emma cupped herself between her thighs. Sex was always messy without a condom.
She saw the discarded towels. Half rolling off the bench, she grabbed one and jammed it against her sex.
She lowered herself to sit on the carpet of the dressing room for a couple of minutes, trying to collect herself. She knew why Vaughn had left her so abruptly. She was feeling it as well, how close the sex had brought them. It almost felt as though they’d bonded in some mysterious way.
But she knew his suffering, that he hated being an alter vampire almost as much as she despised being a witch. She also suspected that thoughts of Beth had overtaken him. Vaughn considered her abduction the greatest failure of his life. He was a proud man. Not being able to protect his sister had crushed him.
And there wasn’t anything she could do. Beth had been taken to Elegance Territory and had probably been used up in one of the sex clubs, her body buried afterward in the desert somewhere.
When Vaughn had said he had nothing to give, he’d meant it.
The truth was, as much as she felt for Vaughn, how tender her heart had become toward him, she didn’t want a commitment either. Max’s death had ruined something inside her as well, and she doubted she’d ever feel differently.
When she heard the shower running, she rose to her feet, left the dressing room and headed across her bedroom to the bathroom. Reaching the threshold, she was going to tell him not to worry, that she had no expectations. But that’s when she saw him, palms flat on the tile wall of the shower stall, his head bent beneath the stream of water, shoulders slumped.
Tears started to her eyes.
She didn’t ask permission to join him. She simply padded her way across the bathroom floor, tossed her towel on the floor near the laundry hamper, then entered the shower.
She moved in behind him and slid her arms around his waist. She held him as tight as she could.
“Don’t.” But his voice broke.
“Fuck that, Vaughn. We’re here right now and it’s enough.”
“It’s not enough. Emma, how could I have found you now, in this hellhole we’ve come to, when we’ve got a goddam madman after us?”
He turned, breaking her hold on his waist. But she threw herself against his chest and his arms surrounded her in a strong embrace. She wept. She hadn’t expected Vaughn to care, not really. Or to feel anything that matched her own heart. I feel the same way. I just found you. And now—
And now—
