I hear the front door open and close and I call, "Any update?"
It had only been ten or so minutes since Lyde left. I had been typing a response to Bonny's latest update regarding the campaign and her approaching visit, but I have yet to send it, and when Lyde doesn't answer, I look away from my proofreading. "Lyde?"
I stand from the table when David enters the archway. Little cuts and developing bruises sprinkle his skin, and I notice white gauze on the base of his neck. He's been patched up-Nicodra aimed there with purpose. My head goes nauseous at the thought. All of his marks and scrapes bring me to ball my hands into tight fists, pushing my anger out that way. My eyes scan over him. My lip quivers.
"Nicodra is dead?" I ask, forcing down my need to run to him, to cling and cry and thank the Goddess for sparing my love.
David nods. "He is," he says plainly, holding back things himself. "I hope you can forgive me."
"You want my forgiveness? For what?"
"For leaving when you begged me not to."
I hear the back doors in the kitchen-Helena leaving.
I roll my lips together then bite down to distract from the tidal waves thrashing around behind my eyes and in my chest. "It's fine," I hardly manage. "You promised you would do something to help Aurora if you could."
David peers to the side. "I heard you scream after me. It tore me to pieces, Brigette, to hear you... I'm sorry."
"I thought you were going to die. You could have. Imagine if our roles were reversed and you had to watch me walk out that door."
"I can't," he admits. "Even if I knew I could do it, you didn't. And I don't want you to resent me for going anyway."
"Resent you?" A frown flashes on my face. "I thought I was going to throw myself off the cliff. I-I was waiting there, on the edge."
David furrows his brow and bites down, his whole being tensing.
"I waited and waited for the bond to break, so when it didn't I let Lyde take me back here. I would have done it," I breathe, "because I meant it when I said I couldn't live without you. And I wasn't scared of dying; I just didn't want you to. I didn't want our time together to be over so soon."
David comes around the table. "All of those things we haven't done," I murmur. He envelopes me and caresses my cheek, kissing me fully, pulling away just to look at my face. "I want to be strong for you. I-If you tell me I shouldn't be scared, then I want to trust you, but I need you to understand that I'll never be able to do so if it concerns your life. I'll always be scared of losing you."
He kisses me again, tasting me, making my breath hitch. His body presses flush with mine, his scraped up, fight-ridden body with wounds I want to lick, to cure and never see again. His fingers disappear in my hair, and when his mouth leaves mine once more I almost stomp my foot.
"I love you," David tells me, an inch from my face. "I love you so deeply that I would burn the world to the ground... if anything happened to you. I'll always be scared of losing you, Brigette."
My eyes search his like the night sky, jumping from star to star. "I wanted to tell you before you left. That I love you."
I can barely get the last word out before his lips crash to mine and that animalistic need drags in my core. He holds me and grabs me with a roughness that still lingers from the battle, but I don't care. His hands bring up my shirt and I grin at his urgency to touch me, to see me and convince himself that he is not dead. He is the victor, but maybe that hasn't set in yet.
David's mouth leaves mine as he pulls my pajama shirt over my head, tousling my hair and fueling my fire. He shoves the chairs out of our way to sit me on the table, and once I'm placed, he reaches under my arms to unclasp my bra.
"Pease," I say before he tears the thing from me. "I need you. I need to be as close to you as I can."
His hands clamp against the table on either side of my thighs. I comb my fingers into his hair, and he looks at my pink cheeks and longing eyes. The clasp to my bra has been undone, and it rests against me, rising with the in and out of my breath. "I'm yours," I murmur, running my hands around the back of his neck, "and I'm stronger than you think."
His finger hooks around the apex of my bra and guides it off. I move my arms through the straps so he can rid of it, but I beckon the removal of his shirt as well. David steps back and lifts it off, revealing another patch of gauze, a larger patch taped to his side. I gasp and he says, "It's not so bad."
"Are there more?" I ask. "Please, tell me that's it."
He turns around and discloses another patch on his back, across his left shoulder blade. I whimper and lift it up, finding a sickening streak of torn skin, likely the result of Nicodra's claws. "Damn it, David," I breathe. "Look at you. Look what he did."
David turns back. "I got away easy."
The knuckles of his fingers trail down my neck, over my collarbone, and between my breasts as if he's admiring the smoothness, the purity. They continue down the plain of my stomach to the waistband of my shorts, making me squirm. "I want to kiss you," he says while easing to his knees.
"I want to touch you."
He peers up at me from between my legs and my hands spring to his as both grip my thighs. My mind indulgences in the memories of the last time he kissed me, and I run my bottom lip through my teeth.
He mutters, "After," then yanks my body closer, beckoning me to lay back. My head crams with thoughts of his body as he sheds my shorts and my underwear. His lips and his tongue tease along my inner thighs, and I feel my abs clench, my lower half pooling with blood. The chandelier hangs right above me, but my eyes soon flutter closed when he ends my torture.
The light of the chandelier dances on the inside of my eyelids, and I feel like something won. The stronger Alpha stole the fight and has come home to enjoy his prize, to forget his pain as he feasts on my body. My back arches and I can't help but slide away, so he grabs me and holds me in place, harder than before. One hand strays but I soon feel his fingers tease me, driving out further noise from my lips when they thrust into me. I lift my head and shoot my arms out, bracing myself. I gasp his name again and again.
The chandelier is all I see when my neck stretches open and my head pours back. I want him. "Please, David."
"Tell me what you want," he says, still moving his fingers.
"I want you," I gasp, "inside of me."
He finishes me off, and I am unable to hold in my cries. My skin warms and colors with hints of shyness as I swirl and drift back to earth, but he lifts me and I stare at him in my daze. He kisses me and I scoot to the edge of the table, sliding off only to unbutton his pants. He leaves my lips and glances down at my guilty hands. Before I can get to the zipper, he takes one of my hands and keeps it in his own, and with the other, he places it against him as he did before. My lips part as I feel him over the thick material, wanting so deeply, knowing how bad I yearn as well.
He leans to my mouth, tilts his head to get to me. He leaves a kiss on the corner, and I say, "Do you want me?"
"Very badly," he grunts. I turn my head when he tries to kiss me, and he swiftly grabs my jaw, making me look. I slide my hand into his pants, feeling him entirely and shuddering at the thought of...
David grips my wrist. "Upstairs."
"Is that where your precautions are?"
He throws me over his shoulder, making me yelp. Despite his plethora of wounds, he carries me up the stairs and I become even more aware of my nudity. But it's different now than in the woods. We're home, we're safe, and his expressions-he's going to make love to me.
The bedroom doors are already open. David carries me to the foot of the bed, then he sits me down. I cross my arms and scrunch my brow, pretending to not like his treating me like a sack of potatoes, but David changes. He strokes my cheek, then walks around to the nightstand. I situate myself higher on the bed, my heart thumping heavily. I watch as he grabs one shiny packet. His precautions. It's strange because they don't feel like ours.
I roll my head the opposite way. The sound of his pants, the rip of the packet-it's all background noise. My limbs lay sprawled along with my hair. The comforter plums around me, molding to me, and it shifts when David climbs on top of me.
"You tell me if you want me to stop, okay?" He says, his voice the way it sounds in my dreams.
"Okay," I murmur, my head still turned, my cheek still pressed to the blankets. It's a single moment with myself, like a look in a mirror to remember who I am.
His fingers pinch my chin and connect our gazes. "If you changed your mind-"
"I didn't. I want you-I want to."
He studies my face then kisses me, slowly. I respond and press into it, opening my mouth. But we don't kiss for long. He adjusts himself and I breathe into my lungs, filling myself with air. I feel him against me. Then he pushes in, not like fingers. I glance down in response to the discomfort, knowing from when I felt him, that every bit of myself would feel full.
He sighs in relief, and suddenly my pain is not so bad. I look over his face and I see it, his pleasure, and a part of me surfaces that I haven't recognized until now; the part of me that would hurt for him to not hurt. And he's gentle, steady, patient. He moves with care, and soon my pleasure seeps through, intertwined with my discomfort in a way I've never experienced.
There's something about the controlled weight of his body on top of mine. The more he pushes down on me, the more intimate it feels. He moves with the need to decompress, and I'm more than willing to be his sponge, to soak up his agony and exchange it for ecstasy.
His fingers toy with me as he thrusts, and I unravel again, wrapping my legs around him. He kisses my flushed neck and comes undone himself, pushing and breathing against my skin. His groans gratify me.
And afterward, when he's discarding of his precautions, and I'm alone on our bed, I long for him to hold me. I recall the dream I had on the plane, the one where my body felt used; an ache like a bruise. I think about being a woman because I feel womanly, because I relate such things to my body and how he sees it and how he adores it. And I apologize to myself, but I love how he loves me.
We fall asleep tangled together like vines in a garden, and David doesn't let go. He doesn't leave me in the morning as I'm dreaming, and I wake in that same embrace, smiling in a sleepy haze, knowing he's a man of his word. And the first thing I say when I notice his opening eyes is, "I love you."
And the first thing he says is, "Say it again."