Dweller on the Threshold (34 page)

Shivers danced over my skin when the air conditioning kicked in. The glitter of Phro’s eyes caught my attention as she winked into sight. I wanted to ask her questions but I was so damned tired. I didn’t bother looking for Fred. He’d disappeared again during the fight.

My gaze shifted to Elsa. Exhausted tears burn the back of my eyes. She was so still. I knew then that I’d give my very soul to see her returned to normal. “I’ll get you back,” I whispered, tucking my hand under my cheek on the pillow. “I promise.”

I must have finally slept because I startled awake when a hand touched my side. I stiffened, ready to jump when I recognized the male shower-fresh scent of Nikolos. Instantly, my body relaxed. “What’s wrong?” My murmur sounded loud in the quiet of the night. I shifted, the sheets whispering over my legs.

He was silent for what felt like forever before he released a breath. “I needed to be with you.”

My belly fluttered and I blushed, glad it was dark. “How did you get in?”

He chuckled softly. “I’ve been alive for centuries. There isn’t a lock I can’t pick.” His big body settled down behind me on the bed. He pulled me close, tucking an arm around my waist and burying his nose in my hair.

I opened my mouth to ask why he’d broken in but he tightened his arm and pushed my hair aside to lay his lips on my neck. Instant heat flared in my lower body and I clamped my legs together. “Nikolos?”

“I won’t pull away this time. I think we need each other.”

“I wasn’t going to argue,” I whispered, turning in his arms to kiss his chin. “What about your chest? That wound looked really bad.”

“Blythe helped me again. It’s fine.”

It could be. I’d noticed the healing process sped up every time Blythe worked magic. “I don’t want to do this with my sister lying right there and my spirit guide watching from the corner of the room.”

He lifted his head. In the stream of moonlight coming in through a slit in the curtains, I could see him squinting in Phro’s direction.

A throaty laugh floated our way. “Don’t stop on my account.”

Nikolos cursed under his breath and dropped his head on the pillow.

“Uh uh, no.” I sat up, turned toward the goddess. She made herself glow. Probably so I could see the wicked gleam in her eyes. “Do me a favor. Watch my sister. I’m going to his room.”

She opened her mouth, probably to argue, but instead just closed it and nodded. A soft smile played along the corners of her lips.

I stood. I knew Nikolos was grinning when I saw the white of his teeth in the moonlight.

For a man who moved with grace, his scramble off the bed lacked it entirely. Nervous laughter bubbled in my throat, so I hurried to follow him out the door before I realized what I’d just agreed to do. The air was thankfully cooler than it had been earlier. I sucked it deeply into my lungs, hoping it would cool my nerves. I looked up at the night sky—so beautiful tonight without clouds to cover the glowing moon and stars.

When Nikolos took my hand and tugged me into his dark cool room, I forgot why I was nervous. When he pulled my body close to his I forgot my own name.

I reached up to undo the tie holding his braid and scuttled my fingers through his hair until it spilled about his head and over my hands. I couldn’t see it. I didn’t want the bright florescent hotel lights but I did want to see him better, so walked around him to flip on the bathroom light. I left the door open a couple of inches.

“We could have moonlight instead,” he said, his deep voice causing ripples of pleasure to skitter up my spine.

“And risk having the witch and the Doob spy? I don’t think so.”

His teeth flashed in the near darkness as he stalked across the room in a determined stride that made my skin tingle. My breasts felt suddenly heavy, my body going instantly wet. I tried to suck in a deep breath and it turned to a gasp of pleasure when he swung me up and carried me to the bed. He set me on the edge then gently pushed me back until I was leaning on my elbows, my legs over the side.

I’d slept in a white T-shirt and red underwear and my face colored when I realized I’d walked outside between our rooms like that without a thought. He knelt in front of me and the light from the bathroom reflected in his dark eyes. He ran his gaze over my legs before his hands followed. His palms slid warmly over my knees and around to the insides of my thighs.

I parted my legs instinctively as my head tilted back. Warm lips touched the inside of my right thigh. I choked on a deep breath and my legs began to quiver.

A soft, masculine chuckle sent air brushing over me before his tongue warmed the tender skin there. He kissed and licked up my thigh, then stopped to press his lips to that sensitive strip of skin where my leg met my pelvis—just under the edge of my underwear.

I moaned and shifted, feeling as if fire pumped in my veins instead of blood. The light from the bathroom bathed him as he stood and leaned over me. His hands gathered the hem of my T-shirt before he tugged. I came up enough off the bed to let him pull the shirt from my body.

He stepped to the side and I knew he did so to look at me in the streaming bathroom light. I didn’t worry about what he saw because I felt the intensity of his desire burning in the air between us. I felt his eyes on my breasts and I knew that unlike my one previous boyfriend, he didn’t find them too small. His gaze stroked over my belly and stopped at my bright red underwear. He hooked a finger under each side and slid them down my legs before tossing them over his shoulder. He softly touched the sore skin around my thigh, concern showing on his face. “It’s okay,” I whispered. It didn’t hurt as much as I would have thought. My hand hurt worse but I didn’t give a shit at this point. Blythe had given me something for the pain. Something that hadn’t fogged my brain.

For that, I was thankful because I didn’t want to miss a second of this. But I also realized why he was being so gentle—why he held himself back. Knowing he had wounds too made that okay for me. This time.

A part of me really, really hoped there would be another time.

I held my breath and heard more than saw him shudder before his hands began tearing at his own clothes. I didn’t help. I was suffering a slight attack of nerves and felt my hands trembling. I quickly scooted back until I was fully on the bed and not relying on my one good hand to hold me up.

Muscles flexed in the light as he dropped his shirt and stepped from the shorts he’d worn to bed. I didn’t know for sure what had changed his mind about being with me—why he’d come for me tonight—but in that moment I didn’t care. The scars that decorated his chest were muted in this light, but the white bandage on it gave me pause. We should really be resting.

But I wanted him so much I ached. That ache had spread over my body until it throbbed with an intensity I’d never felt. I bent my legs to try and alleviate the pressure and heard a deep groan rumble from Nikolos as he put his knee on the bed and came up to lean over me. His mouth met mine, tongue going deep. He tasted faintly of toothpaste and coffee.

He pulled back. “You smell sweet. Always sweet—like honey. I’ve been hungry since we met.” His breath whispered over my mouth before his lips came back.

“Damn bees,” I whispered.

“No, it’s you. Just you.”

I brought my arms up and speared my fingers into his hair, moaning as it slid around my hands and slipped silkily over my cheeks. He’d shaved so the whiskers were gone and I rubbed my mouth back and forth over his before sucking his bottom lip into my mouth.

He propped himself on one hand and ran the other over my chin, down my throat and around to cup my shoulder before going even farther down. He gently rubbed his thumb over my nipple and I could feel it bead against his skin. He cupped my breast, softly kneading. I writhed on the bed as fire licked across my belly. I lifted my knee to slide my leg along his and felt a shudder rack his big body as the hard, hot length of him slid along my stomach.

“I’m trying to take this slowly,” he murmured against my cheek. “It’s been a long time for me.” He whispered kisses over my chin and neck as he stroked his hand down my belly and between my legs.

I sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a low moan as his fingers slipped down and into me. I shifted my legs again, restless now with the heat screaming along my nerves.

“We’ll do slow next time,” I said, barely able to carry words on my breath.

Nikolos left me long enough to get a condom before he crawled back on top of me. He moved his hair aside so it didn’t block the light. Something in his eyes reached deep into my heart and squeezed, and I felt it. Felt the inevitable slide into love. I’d been hovering on the edge of it since seeing that damned painting in his bedroom. Yet, I didn’t want to drop all my emotional shields with him because of those trapped souls. In the next instant, he tucked me beneath his body and put our mouths together in a way that made it feel as if we’d be connected forever. All the air left my lungs. I wrapped my legs around his waist and sucked on his tongue, loving the groan that ripped from his throat as his body slid full and hard into mine.

I pulled my mouth away to gasp, the pleasure making my eyes roll up before I closed them. I arched my back and felt his growl as his mouth went to my neck. He sucked on my flesh. I thrust my hips up to take him deeper, while tightening my fingers on back.

He began to move then, sliding deep into my body and pulling almost all the way out only to go even deeper again and again. I tightened my arms around his shoulders and held on, instinctively moving with him. He reached down to wrap one hand around my hip before he slid it around to cup my ass and angle his body so he rubbed against me with each movement as he sped up.

The pleasure didn’t give warning—it just splintered me into a million sensitive pieces and I screamed and shuddered. He went taut again, his muscles bunching before a hoarse shout erupted from his throat.

We held on, riding this thing out together.

The shudders had lessened and my limbs had gone to jelly when I opened my eyes. He slid off of me and to the side, tucking me in close, his breathing labored. A fine sheen of sweat made his skin look shiny and slick in the light from the bathroom.

My throat was dry as I stared at his body and tried to make sense of the maelstrom of emotions suddenly tearing up my chest. I should be basking in the glow.
Only basking
. Quick or not, this was the best sex I’d ever had. I had a feeling we could only get better at this.

But instead, my heart had started to race, my hands closed into fists. Something wasn’t right because in that last moment of ecstasy, I’d felt a magical shifting. Like some sort of shield had come down when Nikolos lost control.

I tried to peel into the dimension around him and hit a wall—as I had in his store.

Nikolos had warded himself.

“Okay?” he whispered, sliding his hand over my stomach to cup my hip. He chuckled. “That was quicker than I liked.”

I bit my lip. I wanted to ask about the ward and I wanted to
not
ask about it—wanted to just roll into his body to sleep. Be held in a man’s strong arms for a little while and forget what awaited us out there in the dark. But I couldn’t stop the unease spilling into my heart and I couldn’t stop my trust from leaking out of it. I knew that if I asked him about this now, he wouldn’t tell me the truth. To have him lie to me here, in bed…it would kill me.

But there was something I could ask. “That first night at Elsa’s… why did you leave after seeing my ankh?”

He tensed for a brief instant then relaxed before rolling onto his back. “My first wife wore one—like mine. I’ve never seen ones like ours anywhere else… and hers was lost when a Dweller Demon took her body.”

Regret and shared pain washed over me. I hadn’t realized that had happened to her. I turned and hugged him close, too sorry for words. For him and for me because there could be nothing between us if what I suspected was true. “Don’t think about it. Not right now.” Tightening his arms, he kissed my shoulder. “Stay.”

I held him, let him hold me…a long time. I listened to his breathing slow and I waited. Waited until I was sure he was asleep. Then, I tried to peel the dimensions around him again. I couldn’t help it.
I had to know
. Sweat popped out on my forehead as I kept myself as still as possible and pulled at the shimmery air around him. Just like the ward in his store, it took effort, felt like I was trying to pry apart super glued sheets of metal. It was just as much a struggle to keep still.

When I managed to break through, my entire world just shifted.

Nikolos was warding his body. There was one of those thick silvery-looking watery layers about him.
A body ward
. I’d only heard of them before.

As I stared, a small glowing ball of light was sucked into that mass of souls around him. I closed my eyes when it screamed.

In that instant, I understood something that had been nagging at me this entire time. His presence here in Florida when the whole world had been his home—his life here, when this is where the Dweller returned. Not coincidence at all.

He’d warded himself to keep the truth from me. I hadn’t thought he’d known what those trapped souls represented. Had held onto the belief that maybe they were a mass of all his war victims. While a part of me knew he was probably a soul eater of some sort, I really had believed he was unaware of it. But he was using magic to keep me from knowing. I’d watched a soul—one he hadn’t taken himself—get sucked into that trap around him.