Her second exchange. So close. Only one more and she walked fully in his world. She would not be able to be comfortable without him close, but he was in her mind and she had determination. Absolute determination. His lady wouldn’t hesitate to place herself in an uncomfortable situation, or sacrifice herself for someone she loved. She loved her family and she didn’t consider Fane a part of that—yet.
Enough, he said softly, and inserted his hand between her mouth and the laceration he had made over his pulse.
To distract her as his body healed, and because there was nothing else he wanted more, he tipped her face up to his and took her mouth. Her tongue tangled with his and hot spikes of desire pierced deep. Her hand slid under his shirt to find warm skin. The feel of her palms moving over him, her body pressing close, was every bit as amazing and wonderful as the first time he touched her. Kissed her. Felt her skin and the silk of her hair. He would always have this sense of wonder that she could be real. That she would catch fire from his kiss and burn hotter than he had ever imagined a woman would do.
Behind her, he waved a hand. She had said she wouldn’t have sex with him again without a decent bed. He provided her with one, all the while kissing her. Her mouth was sheer magic. He could kiss her for hours and never get enough.
Fane walked her backward until the back of her knees hit the mattress. “Your bed, hän sívamak, just as you requested. You have only to ask and it is yours.”
Trixie blinked at him, confused. Dazed. Coming out from under the dark veil he’d woven around her. His mouth found hers again before she could make it all the way to the surface. He loved the bemused look on her face. In her eyes. The innocence there. He’d given his woman her first orgasm. He intended to try for many. He wanted that for her.
She deserved more than she ever allowed herself and it was up to him to give her everything she’d ever dreamt about. The trouble was, Trixie didn’t dream for herself. She had had big dreams for her daughter and she’d worked day and night sweeping floors and cleaning offices and eventually toilets in bars in order to get off the street before her baby was born. She worked until she had the money for a small room in a boardinghouse and then worked harder to get them out of that and into an apartment.
The more Fane looked into her mind and her memories, the more he admired and respected her. This woman had a will of steel. She had likely passed that legacy on to her daughter and granddaughters. She made her own way in the world and didn’t ask anything of anyone. And she was his. This amazing woman who loved her family and made her way in the world without her own dreams. Saving them for her girls.
Fane kissed her again. Long. Hard. Over and over. Wanting her to get what was building so strong in him. That respect. That admiration. The fact that he was going to uncover every secret dream, the ones she didn’t even know she had, and give them to her because his lady deserved them.
“A bed?” she murmured into his mouth, her dark eyes looking around her.
As Fane took her down he removed their clothes, needing to be skin to skin. She didn’t protest; in fact, her hands swept over him, stroking caresses.
“I like your body,” she confessed. Blurted it out and then looked shocked.
He lifted his head and looked down at her. Smiling. Because how could he not smile when she said things like that to him? When she obviously meant them? He liked the way her gaze moved over him. Over his face. His body. Her hands smoothed over his chest and then began to journey down toward his groin. His entire body tightened.
“Thank you, beloved. I am more than pleased that you like the way I look.”
“I do. A lot. I have to remind myself you’re real. I don’t think I could dream up a man as gorgeous as you are.”
She moved under him, clearly trying to squirm away from his scrutiny. He caught her thoughts. She was old. Too curvy in a world where curves on a woman weren’t appreciated anymore. Although she’d always made certain to take care of herself, to stay fit and to look her best, she didn’t want him to see her body.
Fane was going to change that. Right now. “You are truly beautiful, Trixie, such a beautiful woman.” He caught both of her wrists and lifted them up above her head, stretching her arms out, pinning both wrists to the mattress easily with one hand. The action lifted her breasts perfectly, tempting him. He stared down at her. Hungry. He let her see that hunger. Possessive. He let her see that, too.
“Fane.” She whispered his name on a protest, her eyes sliding from his. Shaking her head. “I can’t.”
“You can. For me.” He bent down and took her mouth again. Letting her taste the need in him. “I cannot convince you with words, hän sívamak, so let me show you with my body. Let me show you my need of you. My hunger for you. Only you. There is no other woman in my world and there never will be. Only you.”
Trixie closed her eyes, trying to shut out the honesty on his face. In his eyes. That stark, raw hunger had been her undoing earlier. He’d taken her body and then he left her. And then . . .
“Beloved. Stop.” He bent his head again and pressed kisses to each eyelid and then trailed more down her face. “Open your eyes and look at me so you know I speak the truth. I cannot lie to my lifemate.”
She couldn’t stop herself. His voice was so compelling to her that she had to open her eyes. His eyes were so beautiful. Like twin sapphires. She had never considered that she would find a man like him so attractive. He was just so big. Scary big. She’d never let men frighten her, because she was her girls’ protection, but if she was being strictly honest with herself, Fane was a very scary man. Not in the demonic, terrifying way that Aleksei was, but she had learned over the years to read people, and her Fane was definitely a man you wouldn’t want to cross.
She moistened her lips. Swallowed hard. She didn’t protest but just looked him straight in the eye, her heart beating fast. She hadn’t realized she was genuinely hurt over the way he’d left her so abruptly. She had wanted something different. She needed something different. She wasn’t certain what that was, but she felt abandoned by him. She couldn’t move her hands because he had pinned her wrists above her head, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. She’d felt exposed and vulnerable earlier, so raw, and he’d cut her deeply.
Fane groaned softly. “I have to explain to you. I did not want to leave you, Trixie. I had no choice. I could not allow the hunger of the ancients to escalate. They had to be fed. They were dangerous. Far too dangerous. They are predators, and they have grown even more so as each rising passes and they are caught in this endless nightmare. I am what stands between them and the world. Now, because he has completed his bond with his lifemate, I have Aleksei to aid me. I could not take any chances, not even for you, as much as I wanted to stay and comfort you.”
She squirmed a little at that. She didn’t need comfort. She was a grown woman, capable of taking care of herself. It didn’t help that she felt tears burning behind her eyelids. She had wept in an alley when she was a child. She had wept in a hospital room when she’d lost her daughter. She refused—refused—to weep for a man who had used her body and left her.
“You are not listening to what I am saying to you.”
She winced at the mild rebuke in his voice. She was listening, she just didn’t want to hear. She didn’t want to take that chance. She couldn’t have him. Couldn’t take him home and keep him. She had no idea what to do with him and she hated that she was lying there in her sixty-year-old body, exposed and vulnerable, and he was so fit and perfect. It wasn’t right. She couldn’t be anyone’s lifemate. She couldn’t be their entire world. She needed to go home and close her doors and shut out the world.
Fane made a sound deep in his throat, a growling rumble that vibrated through her body, sending damp heat between her legs. His gaze, so hot as it moved over her body, sent a spasm to her sex and blood rushing hotly straight to that same, special place. It shouldn’t be so difficult to resist him. She was strong. She had a will of iron. She knew she did, but she couldn’t stop the way her body melted and needed and craved him.
Before she could protest, he dipped his head to slide his face along hers. It was such a benign movement, and yet at the feeling of his shadowed jaw sliding along her cheek, her heart accelerated and she felt a melting sensation in the pit of her stomach. He licked her ear, tracing the shell and then dipping along the path to her throat. The burn between her legs grew hotter.
Fane kissed her throat, a mere brushing of his lips, but it felt as if he was worshiping her. He pressed another kiss into the little indentation at her sternum. Butterflies took flight in her stomach. His hand stroked over her, claiming her body.