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t.” At the foot of her king-size bed, he bent and laid her with extreme gentleness on the turquoise satin quilt, what he’d said he’d picked to reflect her eyes, hovering over her with arms planted on both sides of her head. “If it bothers you, I’ll stop.”
She had two options. Surge up, clamp him with her arms and legs, bring him on top of her and risk a repeat of most nights since they’d come here, ending with her sated yet more frustrated than ever, and with this conversation aborted. Or resist the compulsion of his lure and her lust, and insist on getting answers. Once and for all.
She rose to her elbows, making him unfold to his full height. She almost swooned back again at the sight of him looming over her, oh so visibly aroused and crackling with hunger.
It was experience saying it would go nowhere that made her sit up. He kneeled in front of her, opening her legs and pressing between them. She knew that position by heart by now. According to him he’d become addicted to her taste. And at the first sign of weakening, he’d have her naked and in the throes of one orgasm after another. Like most nights he’d tire her out with too much pleasure. And then she’d wake up to find herself alone.
Not tonight. She pushed back against him when he tried to prostrate her in front of him. “Can you? Stop? I was just thinking that it has developed into some sort of obsession.”
“No, it hasn’t.” He leaned back, so tall that even on his knees his eyes were level with hers, combed the luxurious ebony silk that had fallen over his forehead back in a self-deprecating move. “Developed, I mean. It has always been one.”
“Why? Why did you do it? Why did you watch us all these years?”
Solemnity came into his eyes again, making them even more compelling. “Because I needed to make sure you were okay.”
“And when you realized I wasn’t, as evidenced by the fact that I couldn’t move on, why didn’t you do something about it? Wasn’t that the whole point of watching me?”
His lips twisted on what looked like self-contempt. “I should have done something about it.”
She fought the urge to catch those lips that had owned her every inch and pleasured her beyond coherence. “But you didn’t. Want to tell me what stopped you?”
He lowered his eyes, escaping her beseeching ones. “Whatever it was, I should have found another way to be with you. It’s yet another thing I will never forgive myself for.”
Knowing she’d get no answer from him on this point, she tried another tack. “You only came back when our lives were at stake, so it’s clear you wouldn’t have come for anything less. So why didn’t you move on?”
With each question he looked as if he would have preferred if she tore off his nails instead. But there was something else with this one. It was as if he’d never actually put the reason into words, even to himself.
Then he finally raised his eyes, and what she saw there almost knocked her flat on her back. “Because as long as you didn’t find someone else, I considered that you were still with me.”
A tremor started in her deepest recesses, one of searing, incredulous hope. “So if I’d moved on, you would have, too?”
“I very much doubt I would have. I had no way of finding out before I was with you, but I’ve since discovered that I’m monogamous.”
He was monogamous. There’d be only one woman for him. Her.
This was too huge. Too...everything.
Unable to hold back anymore, she surged forward, hugged all she could of him in trembling arms. “You must be part wolf as I always suspected.”
He kissed the top of her head, then dragged his lips against her hair, down her forehead, her cheeks. “It’s very likely.” He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, and she saw the feral danger simmering in them. “But if you had moved on, I would have come back just to take that other man apart.”
Delight swirled inside her at his possessiveness. “Now that’s not wolf-like. That’s pure dog-in-the-manger.”
“I know. That sounds really messed up.” His eyes sobered, making her almost cry out in dismay. She’d meant it teasingly. But it was clear he was ready with self-recriminations. Taking her arms off him in utmost care, he stood up. “It is messed up. I am.”
Every nerve firing in alarm at the turn this conversation had suddenly taken, she scrambled up. “Is this what you really believe?”
He squeezed his nape in a punishing grip. “It’s a fact.”
She swept a hand across his chest, almost afraid he’d push it away. He didn’t. Instead, he leaned into her touch as if he couldn’t help himself, letting out a tortured groan.
Breath hitching with emotion, she unlocked his viselike hold on his neck and caressed it. “And does this fact have something to do with why you left, why you stayed away?”
“It does.” An expression she’d never seen before, a tortured, defeated one, came into his eyes. “I thought you were better off not being anywhere near me.”
She reached up and pressed a kiss on his stiffened lips, needing to absorb his distress. “And it didn’t occur to you to let me have a say in what I thought was better for me?”
He growled in self-disgust and stepped away from her. “Just look what you did after I left you. You should have hated me, should have gotten over me. You didn’t. We both know if I’d given you a choice, you would have wanted to be with me even if it destroyed you.”
