He looked at me and I could tell he knew I’d finally put it all together. “The High Council member of the offending group.”
“So if Brylanna had been guilty…” I couldn’t finish the thought.
“Then I’d have had to kill my own sister.”
Shakespeare couldn’t have done better than this, I thought. I kissed his back through his T-shirt and I squeezed him tight. “I’m sorry I didn’t understand that. I would have sorted her out on my own.”
“No, don’t hold back with me, Maddy. If I have any chance of breaking the prophecy I’m going to need all of you, my love: your trust, your heart, your faith, your confidences and more.”
That he would put so much of his blind faith in me was terrifying, but he was asking nothing more of me than he was willing to give himself. I nodded against his back, too choked up to answer him, though what strong emotion was most responsible for my mute condition was open for debate.
I hated myself for asking, but a morbid part of my mind demanded an answer. “Do you think we’d survive your having to kill your own sister if I handed down a death sentence for her?”
Bahlin didn’t answer. Instead he twisted out of my grasp and walked to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. Water ran for several moments before it shut off and, eventually, he came out. He’d rinsed his face and a few of the shorter hairs at his temples curled where they’d been splashed. He stopped ten feet from me and shook his head.
My stomach plummeted, and I involuntarily grabbed it.
Standing straighter and setting his shoulders, Bahlin finally answered the lingering question. “I don’t know how I could kill her. She’s my baby sister. If you handed down a death sentence for her…if the crime was heinous…” He drew a hand across his lips. “I’d do it, but I don’t know how we’d survive it, Maddy. It would be there, between us, forever.”
I nodded, swallowed hard and tried to come up with something to say that would offer reassurance to us both. Unfortunately, my mind was nothing but a great, big, cavernous void of white noise.
Bahlin closed the distance between us and reached for my hand. “Back to our temporary drawing board?”
“Who should we do next?” I asked, releasing him and turning for the table. Before I was fully faced away from Bahlin, he grabbed my arm and spun me back to him so hard that I lost my balance and stumbled into him. His arms crushed me to him, and I grunted at the force of his embrace. He dipped his head to mine, whispering against my lips, “I’ll no’ take yeh to bed, Maddy, because yeh asked me not to, but I’ll make yeh wish I had.” And then he closed the distance.
He devoured my mouth with a combination of nibbling kisses that left me straining against him and rough, tongue-delving assaults that left me almost struggling to break free. He was relentless. I pulled my arms free and he let me, snaking them up his chest and grabbing fistfuls of hair and yanking him closer to me. He grunted with pain but continued his onslaught, and I groaned into him mouth. He breathed into me and his breath was searing, lighting me up from the inside and seeming to set my soul ablaze. I wrapped a leg around his and ground my pelvis into his thigh, panting and begging and whimpering all at once. I wanted him flat on his back. I wanted him stretching me to breaking. I wanted… I just wanted.
He broke the kiss and disentangled us despite my best efforts to crawl up his front. “Maddy?” he asked and I opened my eyes to look at him, lust glazing my vision. “You’re sending mixed messages, love. I’m about ten seconds from throwing you to the floor and ravaging you, despite your earlier wishes, and I don’t think you’d be complaining. Come on now, pet. Tell me what you want with a clear head.”
I looked at him, and my mind’s haze lingered. I wanted him. I wanted him, wanted him. But this wasn’t slow. Hell, I’d nearly been screaming, “Warp speed ahead,” just seconds ago while looking for Bahlin’s thruster with my whole body. It wasn’t fair. I stepped back and had to clear my throat, twice, before I could put together an apology.
“I’m sorry, Bahlin. I truly am. I know it’s not fair to you,