True Colors

Chapter Six

Sacrifice

Gideon stared at the woman in his arms. She was so gorgeous it took his breath. He had thought her beauty was understated and intelligent, but right at that moment she was so flagrant with color and voluptuousness he could only gaze at her in passionate awe.

Her cocoa-and-cream skin turned a deep rich gold in the light of the fire, and her vivid eyes shone blue and green. Those fabulous gold-tipped corkscrew curls spilled extravagantly over his hands, and her pale yellow nightgown moved like silk against his overheated skin. Her breasts were full and generous, and the dark areola of her erect nipples pushed against the thin material.

He imagined watching her grow older, a pale sprinkling of frost touching those curls, the laugh lines growing at the corners of her eyes and that delicate, sensitive mouth. The images in his imagination drew him at a fundamental level. She could only become lovelier to him as he grew to know her with the intimacy of the passing years.

He bent his head and caressed the slender arc of her golden neck with his lips. He felt the sigh of pleasure that shuddered through her, the sexy shift of her body molding to fit his, and oh holy gods, he was the one who did that to her, great hulking brute that he was. The wonder of it closed his throat.

He knew too much about how to kill and hardly anything about how to live in peace. Hell, he hardly knew how to stay indoors for any length of time. She was too good for him, too refined. She put cloth napkins on her table, read books of poetry, and taught small children. The quilts she created were works of art that nurtured the soul.

He put bullets in clips to load his guns, and read files on unsolved crimes and treatises on war. He taught recruits how to wait, how to obey orders, and how to kill, and he played chess because it was a battle of wits that kept his mind sharp.

He put his forehead to her breast. His hands fisted in her nightgown.

He needed to come home but he didn’t know how. He hadn’t even known where home was until he looked in her face for the first time. He needed to be welcomed, but he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

She had fled her bedroom and her nightmare with a look of surprised horror. But he knew the nightmare she’d had. That nightmare was an old acquaintance of his. The details might change, along with the faces of the victims, but the story remained the same. It was a tale of a fire so dark it burned the soul black.

He was that nightmare for some people.

She stroked his hair. “Gideon?”

Christ, now he was responsible for putting that uncertainty in her voice, right at the time when she should be drenched in the knowledge of how lovely, how desirable he found her. He struggled to tell her something, anything, to let her know it could never be anything wrong with her. It was all about what was wrong with him.

He whispered, “I want to be a good man.”

Her hands stilled. Then she brought them under his jaw to coax his head up. She searched his expression, her beautiful gaze troubled. “Why would you think you’re not a good man?” she asked in a gentle voice.

“I’ve spent almost a hundred years in the army,” he said, his voice strangled. “I’ve seen things. I’ve done things you can’t imagine. I don’t ever want you to be able to imagine them. You deserve someone so much better than me, someone finer who knows how to live your life.”

“How do you know you’re not that man?” she asked. She reached up to kiss him, the delicate curve of her lips caressing his. “The heart has its reasons, remember?”

A tremor ran through his body. “You don’t know, you don’t understand.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” she told him.

Alice stroked his face and passed a hand down the broad expanse of his back, trying to soothe him. This was the same distress that shook through him earlier at the dining table. It was hard to watch him suffer, especially when she wasn’t sure he realized how much he was hurting. “I can’t possibly understand.”

“I chose it,” he said. “I thrived in the army. I was good at it.”

He would have been. She could see it. Strong, responsible, stable, reliable as the earth. He would have been the first in battle and the last to pull out, and the need for all of that would have been so self-evident to him, he never would have seen it as sacrifice. True nobility never recognized itself.

She might have acknowledged him as her mate yesterday, but it was in that moment that she fell in love with him.

She said, “I am a person of faith, Gideon. It got rocked a little yesterday, but it is back on solid ground now. I do not believe that we would be mates without also being right for each other. The fates or the gods, or whomever it was that created the Wyr to be what we are, would not have been so cruel.”

He muttered, “I don’t have your faith. Not after all the atrocities and ugliness I’ve seen. Wickedness and inequities exist; nightmares are real. And the gods allow all of it.” He met her gaze. “But I do know one thing—you’re the purest gift I’ve ever been given, and I’ll do anything to keep you safe and be worthy of you.” He closed his eyes and turned his face into her palm.

She bit her lip. She could almost see the barrier that surrounded him. He wanted and needed to be with her, but somehow he was still closed off, and she knew she had not quite gotten through to him, not all the way, not yet.

Maybe it would just take time to let the reality of what had happened to them sink in. But maybe…

“You’ve got to remember, we met when I was having a really off day,” she told him. “Because most of the time I’m actually a bit of a shit, too.”

His startled gaze snapped up to hers, twin aquamarines frozen in the firelight. She flicked a finger at his nose and rolled her hips at him.

The corners of his sexy mouth began to curl up. He came on top of her more fully, and she parted her legs, knees bent to cradle him with her whole body. It was so good to feel him grip her by one thigh and anchor her down that she moistened for him in a liquid gush. The heavy length of his cock lay against her entrance. He pressed at the place where she was so sensitive she could feel his erection pulse, and she knew in that moment the invisible barrier was gone and he was right there with her, body and soul.

“Care to expound on that statement?” he murmured.

They had so much to learn about each other. The barrier would probably come back. It might take a long time for it to go completely. But for now, she opened her mouth to lick at his lips. “Nah,” she said, as she gave him a small grin. “I think you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

The crow’s feet lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. He bent his head and ran his lips lightly along the skin of her neck, as he whispered, “I can hardly wait.”

The warm, moist exhalation of his breath on her sensitized skin was a caress all its own. It had the same effect as touching a match to kindling. Her body flashed hot as if a sheet of flame had doused her, and the hunger she felt for him was so ravening she shook from it. Oh gods, it was stronger than anything she had ever felt before. This feeling was so huge it threatened to swallow her whole.

She’d had lovers. Only a few, but they were enough that she thought she knew what she was about. She tried to brace herself, to hold on to some kind of rational thought or expectation. The first time with a new lover was never all that great. She’d always had to urge them to slow down. They needed time to get to know each other’s likes and dislikes before their lovemaking would get really good, and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest if he—if he wasn’t all that sensually gifted because he was so very fine, just so damn perfect in every other—

He took her nightgown by the neckline and tore it off her. Then he fell on her like a starving man on a feast. His entire tremendous body was ridged with all the heavy muscles held taut, and the look on his face was so desperate and raw that tears sprang to her eyes. His head arrowed down to her breasts, and he licked and suckled at her nipples until they jutted wet and distended, unbearably sensitive nubs of flesh. He moved from one to the other, as he stroked a big hand along the inside of her thighs and teased the private opening of her cleft with shaking fingers. She felt herself moisten further for him until his hand was soaked with her pleasure.

She touched him everywhere she could reach, with her mouth and her hands, arching up to rub her torso along the muscled length of his. He was breathing hard and whining low at the back of his throat, a barely discernible sound that nevertheless caught at her and pulled her outside of herself. When she groped between them to grip the heavy, hard shaft of his penis, he froze with a groan.

She looked into his pale, burning gaze as she fingered his erection, learning him by touch. His skin was flushed dark, the bones of his face clenched. Her hands were shaking, too. He felt huge to her, the length of his cock thick, ridged with veins and capped with a broad head with velvet soft skin. They both looked down the space between their bodies. Her slender legs were splayed wide for him, her delicate flesh plump, moist and inviting.

The emptiness at that juncture became a spike of need. She tugged on him gently, letting her hand stroke along the length of him. “Come inside,” she whispered. “We can go slow some other time.”

He shook his head, his breath coming in short hard pants, even as his hips pumped a slow grind that thrust his cock into her fist. “Not too fast. Not— God!”

The agonized pleasure that crossed his face as she massaged him was the most exquisite thing she’d ever seen. Her need spiked higher, hotter. She was so empty she hurt. She sucked air and struggled to articulate. “Gideon, please.”

He met her gaze quickly. “Does it ache, sweetheart?”

His desperation had not gone. He held it in check, and the tenderness and heat in his eyes made the easy swell of her tears spill over. She nodded jerkily.

He bent and nuzzled at her breast, and whispered, “I’ll make it better.”

He pulled his penis out of her hand. “No,” she said, and she twisted to try to take hold of him again.

He avoided her grasp and moved down to settle between her legs. She propped herself on one elbow and took him by the arm, trying to urge him up again. He bit the heel of her hand in a quick stinging nip. “Stop that.”

“You won’t listen,” she gasped. “Get back here already.”

He growled. “Don’t make me pin you down.”

Wait, did she hear that right?

They both froze. He looked unutterably gorgeous, unapologetic, mischievous and half feral, poised as he was with his broad shoulders between her thighs. Stunned passion pulsed and she blazed with heat all over again.

She said, “You better not.”

His eyes narrowed. He looked down her body and licked his lips. “Or what?”

It could have been a fun game to play but then her hungry clitoris throbbed so hard her knees drew up in reaction, and she lost all composure. She whimpered, “I don’t know.”

His hands snaked out, faster than sight. He gripped her by the insides of her knees and yanked her legs as wide as they could go. The shock of the movement, the sense of extreme vulnerability, was such that she emitted a shaking groan.

Then his head dove down. He put his mouth on her and she went downright nuclear. He licked and suckled at the stiff little nubbin cloaked by the folds of her private flesh. His mouth was so sure and confident, so urgent yet gentle, that her knees tried to draw up again, but those big hard hands of his encompassed her knees and held her wide open for his ravishment.

The pleasure was insane. It was too much to take. She flung out her hands in a blind search for something, anything to hold on to as he drove her body into a sharp crescendo. She felt the climax roaring toward her and then it slammed into her body with such intensity her torso arched off the floor and noise broke out of her, a high, thin, out-of-control scream of incredulity.

He held his mouth on her, steady and hot, his pale gaze drinking her in as his tongue massaged every last pulse of pleasure out of her, and the sight of him working her with such patient, sensual intent hurtled her into another one. She flew into it, hotter and harder than before, and the tendons in her neck distended as she tried to scream again but she had flown so high the air was too thin, and she couldn’t get in a breath to make any noise.

And all the time, he was whispering inside her head. Beautiful, sweetheart. You’re so beautiful. God, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I want to see you do it again.

I can’t! I-it’s too much—Gideon, PLEASE—

Then she lost the words for even telepathy. She held out both hands to him in mute entreaty. And his control broke.

He lunged up to her, guiding the head of his thick penis to her entrance with one hand even as he kissed her, his lips hard and urgent. His mouth was slick with her pleasure. She tasted him, tasted herself. An animal sound came out of her.

She was already climaxing again, her interior muscles rippling, as he slid into her all the way to the hilt, and it was so fucking perfect, she was so fucking perfect, he went on a hopscotch skip straight into the land of crazy.

He poured his own climax into her welcoming body, a helpless shuddering gush. But it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t even close to enough, it only fed his hunger. A deep growl broke from his chest. He took her by the wrists and pinned her down, and he drove into her in hard, pounding strokes, as she ate eagerly at his mouth and met every thrust of his hips with hers. He came again, and again, and each time she came with him, until at last she lay limp underneath him and he had no more to spend.

He might have slept, hands loosely clasped on her wrists. He wasn’t sure. At some point he roused to awareness enough to mutter, “Too heavy?”

His penis had softened but he was still inside her, and it was so gorgeous she didn’t want to lose the sensation. His head was pillowed in her hair. She couldn’t move her head. She couldn’t even open her eyes. She made a herculean effort to respond and managed, “Huh uh.”

His body moved in a big sigh. She could feel his pulse, strong and slow, against her breastbone. There was another time of formless drifting. Then he said, his voice gravelly with sleep, “Soon as the weather clears, I’m moving in.”

He didn’t ask, he stated. She probably should have a problem with that. Nah, she was too tired. But she did notice he held very still, as he listened for her response.

She thought she might have rug burn, and her nose itched. She slipped one of her wrists out of his lax hold so she could scratch it as she yawned. “You’d better. But we’re going to have to have a talk about how chatty you get after sex.”

Torso to torso as they were, she felt his stomach muscles clench as he burst out laughing. The husky, low sound was as gorgeous as the rest of him. He lifted his head off her hair enough so she could turn to nuzzle at him, and he covered her mouth with his in a quick, physical response. She adored how affectionate he was with her. She adored everything about him. They were going to fight and discover each other’s less attractive traits, and the thought of him moving in was frankly rather scary, but there was simply no other alternative. There hadn’t been from the moment they both acknowledged the mating shift, so she thought she might as well just go ahead and accept the changes and enjoy the ride, because it was going to be wonderful to wake up in the mornings with him in her bed, to go to sleep at night with him in her body.

Something buzzed nearby.

What was that? She didn’t have anything in the living room that buzzed. It buzzed again and Gideon lifted himself away from her body. His expression was still heavy lidded with sensuality but his gaze had turned sharp and alert. He twisted to reach for his cell phone.

He clicked it on. “Yeah.”

She watched his face grow cold and still as he listened to the deep, growly voice on the other end. Her sleepy, wondering pleasure vanished in a clench of dread.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I can bring Alice in. She would be safe at HQ and I could help with the search.”

She concentrated on the voice on the other end. A male said, “No point in doing that, son. I got plenty of people on the hunt. Just wanted to give you an update. If he’s got ’em, all he needs is one more now.”

“What about protection on the others?” Gideon asked.

The voice said, “I dispatched the first detail soon after we last talked and told them to keep a low profile so they didn’t freak anybody out any more than they already were. We’re working as goddamn fast as we can.”

She felt sickened. Oh no. No.

She had turned cold without his body heat and she felt vulnerable without her glasses on. She put them on and reached for the tangled pile of blanket to pull it around her as Gideon set the phone aside. He turned to her, the expression in his eyes grave.

“What’s happened?”

“Bayne got confirmation from the airlines,” Gideon told her. He reached out and picked her up, blanket and all, and cradled her against his chest. “The three chameleons scheduled to fly to L.A. never made it to check-in. Their seats were given last minute to three people waiting to fly standby. I know you know them, sweetheart. They’re—”

“Stewart Rogers. His mom, Leigh. Her fiancé, Jim Welch,” she whispered. She thought of the delicately boned boy, his sweet little earnest face, those serious eyes behind Coke-bottle-thick spectacles and his shy, rare smile. He took after his mother, a gentle, kind woman. Something roared in her ears. “Stewie’s in my class, Gideon. Not Stewie. Please don’t tell me that.”

He held her with his entire big body. He threw off heat like a furnace but it still wasn’t enough to drive away the killing cold.

“Sweetheart, I would give anything in the world,” Gideon said, “to be able to not tell you that.”

Somewhere outside, she could have sworn she heard the wicked wind laugh.