“Tell me the earliest memory of being afraid.”
His voice was too gentle for her to stand. Her heart melted. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want a connection other than sex. He was too . . . everything. He was too dominant. Too scary. Too capable of losing his temper.
She moistened her lips. Her mother had a terrible temper and she threw tantrums. “I was very young.” She tried to pull up the memory. When had it first started? She had never thought to go back and figure that out. “My mother was very over the top emotionally. She would fly into a rage, kicking, hitting, throwing things, and then five minutes later be laughing and kissing us.”
That was so true. She never knew what mood her mother was going to be in. “Her tantrums never bothered my brother or sister or my father.” She fell silent.
“But they upset you, and that made you feel as if you were wrong to feel afraid.”
She nodded slowly. “When I was really little she got mad at me for breaking one of her favorite vases. I didn’t mean to. I was running and I bumped it and one of the pieces cut me. It hurt and I started crying. She was furious and she started throwing things. Breaking them all around me. Glass rained down. I couldn’t move. I was so afraid, and I got cut on my arms and my legs and feet. She suddenly snatched me up and ran into the bathroom with me and then my dad was there. I didn’t tell him what she did, because he would have smiled, shrugged and said, ‘That’s your mother, the drama queen.’”
“O köd belső,” Aleksei swore. “Your father does not want to meet me. What kind of man allows his woman to behave in such a way? It is no wonder you are afraid of becoming what you are.”
“And you,” she whispered. “You have no problems expressing your anger.”
He stroked his hand over her hair. “Do you think that I would ever harm you? We are fully bonded. I am beyond the temptation of darkness.”
“You’re very scary, Aleksei. And you have a temper.” That seemed a mild way to express the fury that could overtake him.
“That is so,” he agreed calmly. “I will definitely get angry over things, and you will learn to be all right with that. What I will not do is throw things at you or our children. If you are punished for something, I will make certain in the end, you are all right with your punishment and with me.”
She couldn’t help the shiver that went through her body. “Punishment? I’m a grown woman. Men do not punish women anymore. That went out a century or two ago.” She was a little wrong with her math, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t going to have this man think he could treat her like a child.
He lifted his head toward her ear. His tongue stroked and his teeth caught her earlobe and tugged. “But then I am not a modern man. My lifemate does not run wild nor does she run over me. You are my woman and you have given yourself to me. You will live in my world with me. There will be no more mistakes such as betraying me with another man.”
Gabrielle winced when he delivered the full body blow. She’d tried to make up for her mistake. She had done everything she knew how to do and even forced herself to do things she had no clue about, just to make this man realize she hadn’t betrayed him on purpose. She wasn’t that kind of person. She tried to sit up, to pull away from him, but his arms locked her to him, preventing movement.
She turned her face away from him. She had no idea what she was doing there. With him. Clearly she didn’t belong there, either. She wasn’t human. She wasn’t Carpathian. She wasn’t even fully in her own family—the one she’d been born into. She didn’t fit anywhere. The dawn was looking better and better.
He growled. His hand spanned her throat. “Do. Not. Even. Think. That. Not ever.” He bit out each word. Snarled it. His eyes held a kind of fury. “You will fight for our relationship. You gave me your word. Is your word no good? Tell me now. Tell me now and I will end this for both of us.”
She knew she should never have tried to give even a part of herself away to him. If she’d just kept it to sex, she could handle it. She loved sex with him. Not her brain, but her body. She couldn’t help it. She melted when he touched or kissed her. But this, this other, she didn’t have the strength anymore to keep losing bits and pieces of herself.
Aleksei’s fingers tightened around Gabrielle’s throat. Her pulse beat into his palm. “Look at me,” he hissed.
She would not harm herself. He didn’t care about himself, but she was his lifemate and would have his protection from everything. Everybody. Even herself. He would go into her mind if she didn’t back down. He had been careful of her wishes, giving her the time to purge the other man from her mind, but he would have to go back on his word if she continued thinking such blasphemy. They were fully bonded. She was his. Body. Mind. Soul. And heart. She just hadn’t accepted it yet. But she would.
“Gabrielle,” he hissed again.
She might have been more afraid when he used the word punishment. She might have been genuinely indignant, but at the same time, he was buried deep in her body and he felt the scorching liquid heat of her body’s reaction to his dominance. She was made for him. She needed to learn to trust him and relax in his care. He wouldn’t let anything hurt her, but she had to come to terms with being a Carpathian. Being a lifemate. Being the lifemate of an ancient who had skated too close to the edge of madness and was left with demons.
She did the most unexpected thing. She brought her hands down and framed his face. Her fingers moved, featherlight, over his rough features. She traced his eyebrows, his eyes, his bone structure, down his jaw, over his nose, and settled on his mouth.
“I won’t go back on my word, Aleksei,” she said. “But no matter how angry you get, no matter how many times you throw what I did in my face, I can’t change it. I did it. I betrayed you. I didn’t mean to do it, but I still did. I accept that. And I accept who you are. I have lived a certain way and I’m going to make more mistakes because I don’t know the rules of your world. But I won’t go back on my word.”
He hadn’t realized his belly was tied into a thousand knots until he heard her affirmation. He believed her. She was confused. Afraid. And miserable. But she wouldn’t leave him. Not by seeking the dawn.
He had hurt her. He felt her flinch when he’d brought up her betrayal. He hadn’t meant to be so petty as to fling that in her face. Not again. He’d tasted fear when he read her features. She was not adept at hiding her thoughts and clearly she contemplated meeting the dawn. He hadn’t known fear for so long he hadn’t even recognized the emotion when it first crept into his body and then took over.
“A relationship is about trust, Gabrielle,” he said softly, his lips moving against the pads of her fingers. He curled his tongue around one and sucked it into the heat of his mouth. He began to glide gently in and out of her. “We will start small. One thing at a time. Let me inside you a bit at a time so you understand I am not taking you over. You take pieces of me when you want or need them. When you feel you can process them without panicking. Do you think you can do that?”
She moistened her lips, her gaze clinging to him. Already her body moved to ride his, her hips rising and falling with the rhythm he set. He could see the beauty of her pleasure already pushing the fear from her eyes.
He caught her hair in both hands, fists tightening. “Taste me, kislány, remember how good it was. Your hunger is beating at me, and I want this for you. This small step. I do not want to take the triumph from you. Take what belongs to you, Gabrielle.”
She swallowed, ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth, and he knew she felt her teeth slide into place. His voice was a sinful temptation—he’d made certain of that—but there was no compulsion. He wanted her to see that she could do this. Be Carpathian. Open the earth. Feed herself. Be a woman who could be self-sufficient. She wouldn’t need anyone—not even him—to do those things for her. She needed to feel powerful in her own right. He wanted that for her, and this small thing—a huge obstacle to her—would start her on that path.
You can do this, kislány, I know you can. Kiss your way down to my chest. Ride me while you taste my skin. While you feel my heart beat. While you hear my blood calling to yours.