Darkness Bound (31 page)

He smoothed back her hair and smiled. “I was thinking about team business—it always intrudes.” A lie could be excused under the circumstances. “We are considering taking new members from Belgium. It’s a big decision.” He bent to kiss her cheek but she captured his face and made sure the kiss was long and arousing.

“I’m pushy,” she said. “Did I tell you that yet?”

“Must have missed it.” Many small, seeking kisses resulted in Leigh’s pushing aside the sheet and sitting up to wind her arms around his neck.

He drew her naked body to him.

“Mmm.” She rested her forehead on his mouth. “Well, I am. And for now it’s all about me, wild man. My satisfaction. My pleasure. I don’t know how I got so lucky, but you’ve turned me into an insatiable sex maniac.”

Holding her away to see her face, he laughed. “I did that? Maybe you were already. Maybe you’re the one who’s corrupting me.”

“I was only joking about being selfish,” she said, dropping a quick kiss low on his abdomen. “It’s all about both of us.”

Niles’s belly tensed painfully. She knelt beside him and he stroked her body. Tenderness and desire made uncomfortable partners for a man already fighting a war with himself. He was ready to make love to her again.

“How do you feel?” He chafed his thumbs up and down at her waist.

“Incredible. How do you feel?”

“Even better than incredible.” Holding her to him, he searched for traces of blood and found none. “I have to ask you this, Leigh. You passed out for a while. Did I hurt you?”

Her fine brows drew down and she sucked in her cheeks. “I understand now,” she said and moved like quicksilver to sit astride his thighs. Her position meant that it would take very little for him to be inside her again.

“I don’t think you should do that.” He took uneven breaths. “I really don’t.”

“I’m staying right here. Unless I’m causing you horrible pain, please stop telling me what to do.”

What did you say to a comment like that except, “You’re in charge.”

“Good thing you realize that.” She shifted slightly and half-closed her eyes. “You are, well… I think you are really blessed in some areas. It hardly seems fair to other men, but there you are. You’ve got it, and I’ve got you. End of subject.”

He couldn’t allow her to laugh her way out of every tense moment. “Have I hurt you? A straight answer, please.”

Rubbing his chest, she thought before answering. “You shocked me. You made me feel like I’ve never felt before and I want a lot more of what that was. My body wasn’t ready. I thought it was, but how could it have been? When I passed out I felt myself going but it wasn’t from pain. I was overcome.”

She took his penis in both of her hands and looked at it from several angles.

He didn’t know whether to yell or just show her what the object of her interest was for—again. “What are… what are you doing?”

“Admiring this,” she said but her smirk slipped and she buried her face in his chest. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, too, Niles. But I love you and that comes first. I
don’t think I know how to deal with this happening to me. I never expected to fall in love again.”

He bore the word “again,” glad in a way that she could speak easily of Chris.

“There’s something we should do,” he said. “Just you and I alone here. Then it’ll be time to call the team together. We have several members who choose to live alone and more distant from the rest of us. They will come later.”

“I don’t want anyone to come.” She looked horrified. “I don’t have any clothes.”

“I’ll lend you some.”

“Very nice. Let me introduce you to my mate; she’s the one in the flannel shirt and work boots.”

Niles stretched her gently on the bed again and lay beside her. He made sure not one inch of her body was covered by anything. “Too bad they don’t get to see you like this, but if they did I’d have to kill them afterward.”

“Niles!”

“We’ll deal with the clothes.” He rolled half over her and they kissed, rocking their mouths together, nipping, reaching deep. Niles started touching her, running his hands all over her. And Leigh matched his every move.

With a pillow pulled beneath her back, thrusting her breasts toward him, he took a very long time using his mouth, and the stubble on his jaw, to arouse her to the breaking point.

Leigh arched her back and moaned.

He kissed and licked her nipples until she showed signs of dissolving into a frenzy and he gave her relief.

Her stomach, the insides of her thighs, the still swollen parts of her that had received him, nothing went unattended.

“Off!” With as big a push as she could muster, she shoved at his chest and he drew back with a surprised yelp. “On your stomach.”

She moved and he lay prone, his arms spread and his legs relaxed, until she started her own minute torture.

Niles hung on through nips to his neck, full kisses to the sides of his body, and more nips and kisses over his buttocks. He enjoyed the way she started at his ankles and ran her tongue up each leg.

But when she went between his legs to nuzzle beneath his penis, Leigh was no longer in control of anything.

He whipped around to restrain her.

Every nerve, sinew, and muscle in his body was rigid, but the hands he cradled her with revealed none of the fight he was having with his desire to overpower her. And neither did his face reveal anything.

“Make love to me again,” she said softly.

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

Her smile was dreamy. “I’m ready.”

They were so wet this time it was easier to slip in slowly and rotate without pulling at her.

Still he worried, but only until Leigh took charge of the pace and they fused, crying out fulfilled. Niles could have slid against her forever but finally she slowed, gasping, clinging to him.

Soaked in sweat they lay together and he couldn’t stay awake.

Leigh’s eyes opened slowly at first, then wide when she remembered everything. Niles wasn’t beside her. “Niles!”

“I’m here.” He came from a far wall of the cavern, a
fairly small box shaped like a leather trunk in his hands. “Are you ready?”

She frowned and inclined her head. Like her, Niles was still naked, but she felt completely comfortable.

“Will you allow yourself to be sealed to me?”

What had that meant? “I guess.”

“You guess?” He sat beside her again and opened the box. Inside was a round, black stone burner over which a tiny bowl of the same stone was suspended. He lit a candle beneath the bowl and put a piece of purple material from a silk bag into the bowl itself. Very quickly, the light beneath the bowl melted its contents to a smooth, violet-colored pool.

“Wax?” Leigh asked.

He blinked, thinking. “Not wax, although I suppose the word seal might suggest that. It’s a dye, an ancient dye. I would like to use this seal.” He lifted a slender black stone stylus, like a fountain pen with a flat end where the tip would be. It had been beside the bowl and burner in the little chest. Niles showed her the blunt end where a round insignia had been worked deep into a gold inset. “See how small this is?” he said. “It will burn you for a moment, but only a moment. If you want to do this, you will let me seal your hand and then you will seal mine. This is the way we have joined with our mates throughout time.”

Excitement made her jumpy. She wanted it, but she didn’t fool herself that it was likely to be easily undone if she changed her mind.

Leigh held out her left hand.

Without comment, Niles set that hand on her thigh again and took her right hand. He dipped the seal into the hot dye and pressed it into the center of her palm.

She winced but didn’t make a sound.

“You are my lifelong mate,” he said and gave her the seal.

Leigh cringed at the thought of burning him, but still she repeated his process. “You are my lifelong mate.”

He pressed their palms together, entwining their fingers, and closed his eyes. Then he rested his cheek on her shoulder and folded her into a warm embrace.

He sat back and placed their right hands side by side. Their palms held matching circular wounds, tinged the color of gentian violet. Within the circles Leigh saw the simple shape of a knot.

They held each other again and Leigh never wanted to let go.

“We have to see the others,” Niles said after a while. “I will call them.”

“I have no clothes!” Leigh grappled with a sheet.

He stood up and pulled the sheet away. “With a little help I’ve made sure you do have clothes.” He went to the doors and they opened inward. A bag stood there, and so did Skillywidden, who leaped into the chamber and stretched herself out on the bed. Instantly she closed her eyes.

“Is that because she’s tired,” Leigh said, “or shocked?”

“That isn’t something we’re ever going to know. See what you can find in there.”

She looked into the bag. “It’s not mine. Where did it come from?”

“Will it work?”

An emerald green sweater with buttons at the shoulder and soft silk pants of the same color were her size. The bra and panties lower inside the bag also seemed to have
been supplied with only her in mind. Soft green suede boots that ruckled at the ankles, and personal items to make her feel completely comfortable were there, too—nothing had been forgotten.

Since Niles had already pulled on his jeans, she got dressed quickly and held out her arms for his opinion.

“Perfect. No one would know you hadn’t tried everything on in a shop.”

“I’ll have to pay someone for these.”

“I already have.” He smiled at her.

“Sally got them, didn’t she?”

“I have to keep some of my secrets. The team is on its way.”

Of course, she had forgotten how fast werehounds could travel. Niles almost laughed at the bemused expression on Leigh’s face when they walked into the cabin’s living room and four very large men waited there, all standing, all appearing uncomfortable. Sean, Ethan, Campion, and Innes. They were an impressive group.

One by one the men came forward and stood in front of Leigh. Each repeated much the same phrase: “I am happy to meet our leader’s mate. I owe you my loyalty always.”

When it was Sean’s turn he couldn’t keep the delight from his face and he actually kissed Leigh’s hand. He gave his promise and added, “You’ve become Niles’s echo. All you have to do is ask for something and we will comply just as we would for him.”

“Okay, back to your posts,” Niles said, but each of the men smiled broadly.

Leigh stood at the window, marveling at the persis
tence of the snow. It must be very deep in places. But why should she care? She had everything she needed.

“It’s dawn,” she told Niles. “Just about.”

“You must be hungry,” he said.

She didn’t get to answer before the phone rang. Niles answered then offered it to her with a smile. “It’s for you.”

“Idiot man,” a woman’s voice said. “I wanted to talk to him, too. This is Sally. Do you remember the woman at the used book shop—Phoebe Harris?”

“Yes.”

“She wants to see you right now and so do I. There was an attempt to snatch her. She has a broken arm and Dr. Saul is on his way to deal with it.”