She couldn’t hold back the sounds, she couldn’t hold back the loss of control. The ability to restrain herself, to rein in the sensations that pierced her, that urged her to give herself to him, all of herself to him, was gone.
It wasn’t mating heat. It wasn’t just the pleasure. It wasn’t the fear of her loss of independence or the fear of the loss of herself. It was the man. The Breed. It was the pleasure she had instinctively known was coming amplified by his insistence that he build on it. That he force her deeper into the blaze, that he brush her hair back from her neck, lick over the too-sensitive wound, then slanting his head, his canines pierced it once again.
Diane erupted into a release so blinding, so burning hot she lost her breath. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t cry out his name. She could only hold on as ecstasy exploded over and over as she felt the barb extend, felt it vibrating inside her, pushing over another blazing edge of sensation that only amplified the release.
She was a creature of pure, sensual sensation.
She was lost in him. Lost in a feeling that locked them together more firmly than the barb locking them together. Held her tighter to him than any bonds, either natural or man-made, ever could.
Clenching, spilling her release to his, her pu**y rippled around the penetration of his c**k and the locking bliss of the barb. The sensations, the release that seemed to never end, then the clenching, pleasure-pain of her womb contracting as her vagina milked the flesh locked inside her, was overwhelming.
As it slowly eased, ever so slowly gave her back her breath, Diane found herself slumped over the back of the chair, fighting to breathe, each intake of air harsh and overloud. Lawe shuddered behind her, his cheek against her shoulder, his breathing as labored, his hands kneading her hips as she felt his c**k still throbbing inside her, though without the iron-hard strength it had possessed previously.
She was exhausted, drowsy, sated.
Limp, her eyes closed, she wanted to stay there until the world righted itself, until there was no need for protection, no danger to haunt them. She wanted to hide forever, right here, just like this, locked in his hold, shuddering with sensations too overwhelming to fight and too heated to conflict.
She wanted to ignore the world outside, ignore the problems she knew would rise between them again, and she wanted to ignore her inability to settle for what she should take rather than what she didn’t know if she could live without.
“I love you, Diane,” he whispered behind her, causing her breath to still for precious seconds at the declaration. “If there has been anything, or anyone, I have ever loved in my life, then it’s you. To the point that if something happened to you, then I would cease to exist alongside you.”
Tears filled her eyes.
She didn’t want to hear this.
She didn’t want to face this. Not yet, not until she had a handle on her own emotions, a handle on the decisions she knew she had to make.
“And I know you love me.” He kissed her shoulder gently. “I can feel that love, I can smell it when you forget to watch your emotions, to hide them from me. Just as I can feel your pain and your indecision.” Another kiss at the base of her neck, a gentle lick over the tender wound he had inflicted once again. “If I could give you what you need to survive, then I would, in a heartbeat,” he whispered, his tone deepening, becoming rougher with regret. “If I could do that one thing for you, and still live with the fear, then as God is my witness, I would.”
But he couldn’t.
The message was there, and Diane heard it loud and clear.
“If I thought I could survive without it, then I would,” she said, keeping her own voice soft as her breathing hitched on a sob. “If I could, Lawe, I would, just for you.” And the first tear slipped from her eyes. “Because I love you so much it breaks my heart. You break my heart . . . daily.”
Her eyes closed as she fought back more tears, feeling him withdraw from her, that bond breaking as his c**k eased through tender tissue then slipped from her entirely.
As he helped her to her feet, Diane stepped back, knowing what he would have done, and knowing she couldn’t bear it. Her hand lifted in an instinctive gesture, palm held out, in a silent denial.
She couldn’t bear it if he did as he had before. Cleaning her so gently, and with such obvious enjoyment, did something to her that made it harder each time to fight against his need to protect her.
“I’m going to shower.” Her voice was rough, from her tears, from the cries that had been torn from her as the pleasure exploded around her. “I need to think.”
“What’s there to think about?” he stared down at her, his expression dark and forbidding as he watched her. “We can’t deny what we have, Diane. The mating heat won’t allow it.”
She gave her head a hard shake. “Later, Lawe. We’ll fight about his later. After we’ve found what we came looking for, after Gideon has been neutralized. Give me that much at least.”
“And if I can’t?” The question was voiced harshly, as though the words were torn from the very soul of the creature that lived inside him. “If I can’t let you do this, Diane, then what?”
She felt tormented, tortured. As though the pain that lived inside her soul was raking at her with jagged claws.
What would she do if he didn’t allow her to finish this? If he didn’t stand beside her rather than in front of her and let her find the three individuals who were once injected with the same, or very similar, serum that her niece had been injected with? If she didn’t learn from them what had happened to those who had died from the injections and the facts surrounding those deaths?
Could she live with the failure?
“If you love me,” she whispered painfully. “If you really love me as you say you do, Lawe, then you’ll stand by me.” The tears she battled edged closer to winning the war when another ran down her cheek. “Because you know I won’t be able to bear it any other way.”
He may as well lock her in a cage, she thought, as she moved quickly to the bathroom and the shower she so desperately needed. She needed the escape worse, though. The few precious moments she could steal to think, to weigh her options and consider the future. Because the time was coming when she wouldn’t be able to run any longer. The time was coming when she wouldn’t be able to hide anymore.