EnemyMine (12 page)

Why did it feel as though he’d seriously screwed with fate?

Chapter Seven

The doctor inspected the wound on her head, flashed a light
in her eyes and gave Mary the all clear. He told her she could take a bath and
wash her hair so long as she rinsed carefully and avoided contact with the
sutures. The word bath made her insides quiver. It would feel so good to sink
into a pool of hot water and relax for the first time in days. She agreed to be
extra careful and left Emory in the bedroom as she carried her bag into the
bathroom, eager to start filling the large tub. She felt repulsive, sweaty and
gross. Her hair had become sticky and tangled and she was pretty sure she was
starting to stink.

Yuck.

After she pulled clean pajamas and underwear from her bag,
she went to the tub, turned the faucets and got the water good and hot. Steam
quickly filled the room, encasing her in warmth. After sliding out of her
T-shirt and underwear, she rushed to the bathtub. The water was just right—a
slight burn before her skin adjusted. She rested back at the head of the tub,
closing her eyes.

“Mary?” Emory’s voice had her lurching upright, wrapping her
arms over her breasts.

“Yeah?” Excited tingles spread through her tummy down to her
sex. He sounded so gruff—so incredibly sexy—when he said her name like that.

“Doc said I should help you wash your hair. He doesn’t want
to risk any bleeding.”

“Oh.” The doctor hadn’t said anything to her about it.
Likely he’d known she’d argue.

“I won’t take advantage.” He chuckled. “Difficult as it
might be, I can be a gentleman.”

She lifted her legs to her chest and slid her arms around
her knees. Emory didn’t have to tell her he was capable of being a gentleman.
She already knew he was. Still, it didn’t stop the wisps of electricity that
traveled through her body. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as her nipples
hardened into points and her pussy became wet. They’d started something they
hadn’t been able to finish earlier, something she knew Emory had every
intention of seeing through to the end. Glancing down, she figured she was
covered well enough. The water came to her chest and her knees prevented him
from seeing her breasts.

“Okay.” She managed to force the word out, although her
voice sounded strained.

He laughed again and the sound made her heart race and her
pulse quicken. His footsteps sounded like drums as he walked toward the
bathroom, warning her he was almost there, nearly at the finish line. When the
bathroom door swung inward she held her breath and stared ahead, unable to look
in his direction.

Damn her self-awareness. She wasn’t brave enough to glance
at Emory when he strode by the tub, walked to a shelf and retrieved shampoo.
She buried her nails in her hands, trying to stop the fuzzy feeling coming over
her, mortified at how erect her nipples were and how much they ached. Then of
course there was the throbbing coming from down below, beating like a hammer.

She jerked as though she’d been hit when he touched her
shoulder. Instantly she felt like a ninny. “I’m sorry,” she blurted and started
babbling. “I didn’t mean to jump. I knew you were there. I’m just nervous and—”

“Mary.” Emory moved from the back of the tub, kneeling
beside it, and placed a finger over her lips. “It’s okay. No need to
apologize.” When she met his eyes and nodded, he lowered his hand. “Just sit
back and relax. This isn’t torture.”

Then he smiled.

The effect it had on her was mind-blowing, breaking down the
walls she tried to erect around herself. A wrecking ball would have been weak
in comparison, hitting the surface but unable to crack the barriers existing on
the inside. Seeing his gorgeous eyes shining, the color glorious amber,
combined with his stunning face…

I’m a goner.

“I’m going to grab a few things to make this easier,” he
murmured, as though he could read her thoughts.

Although he was gone in a flash, she still felt him in the
room, could actually sense him in a weird way. The fire in her bloodstream only
burned hotter, making the steaming water more of an annoyance now than a
luxury. Once he had everything he needed Emory instructed her to lean back. She
did and he carefully lifted her hair off her back and shoulders, keeping it
from touching the water. When she was settled he started carefully combing
through the strands, the sensation finally allowing her to sag against the back
of the tub and close her eyes.

“I’ve always loved your hair. It’s so soft and long.”

She didn’t respond, relaxing as he continued brushing the
tangles away. After several minutes he helped her recline in the bathtub to wet
the strands, avoiding the stitched area on her temple. She’d considered his
view, knew he could see all of her, but she felt so good she didn’t care.

He helped her sit upright when the strands were wet, then he
leaned her back in the tub. The he started shampooing her scalp, working his
way through the long locks. Who knew it would feel so good to have someone else
clean your hair? This was nothing like visits to the local beauty shop where
the woman scrubbed her head roughly, patted it dry and threw a towel over the
mess she’d created.

This was… It was…

Seduction.

“Now we need to rinse this out.” Emory’s voice was gravelly,
a heavy whisper near her head. “Sit up and lean back.”

He held her head when she did as he asked, keeping her
injury above water. She heard an odd scrape and realized Emory had brought a
glass with him to help rinse out the shampoo. Over and over he dipped the glass
into the water and poured the contents over her hair. In the area near her
stitches he used a cloth, cleaning away any bubbles, a look of absolute
concentration on his face.

“There you go.” He grinned again and swept his lips over her
nose. “All better?”

“Oh yeah.” She sighed and lifted her head, grasping the
sides of the bathtub.

Thankfully her modesty wasn’t put into question. Emory
started cleaning up the clutter around him, returning things to their proper
places. She wondered if he’d considered doing something more, thought about him
lowering his mouth to hers and kissing her like he had before. The idea was one
of which her body approved. The hovering flush spread over her, heating her
from the inside out.

Trying to keep her thoughts away from sex, she sat up and
reached for her hair. Squeezing the strands, she tried to get out as much water
as possible. Her hair was slow to dry so it was important to wring it out
several times if she didn’t want to spend thirty minutes with a blow dryer.

A low, horrifying growl rent the air and Mary froze. Her
heart went from racing to pounding, fear kicking in, taking her back to a time
when the slightest misstep could bring hell raining down upon her. Unable to
prevent herself, she peered over her shoulder. Emory was studying her back and
his eyes—
oh dear God, his eyes
—were the brightest shade of yellow she’d
ever seen.

“Emory?”

“Who?” The word was more of a sound—a snarl.

“Calm down, please.” She kept her voice smooth and calm,
motions slow and nonthreatening. “What do you mean, who?”

His unexpected movement had her crying out, fear impossible
to beat back. He was gentle when he grasped her shoulder and faced her forward
so that she had to look straight ahead. The lightest whisper of a fingertip
over her back revealed the source of his fury and she closed her eyes.

Sometimes—during moments like these when she let the world
around her fall away—she forgot they were there.

“You undressed me,” she whispered, ashamed of the
crisscrossed scars on her skin. She hated how ugly they looked, how they would
always serve as a reminder of what she’d endured. “You had to have seen them.”

“Ava took care of you.” The deep, terrifying rasp when he
spoke was gone. Now he sounded almost sad. “I didn’t want to take advantage of
the situation. I wanted to respect your privacy.” He stopped over one of the
worst scars—the one that had bled through the stitching and ruined so many of
her shirts. “She should have told me. She should have
warned
me.”

“She probably felt it was my story to tell.” And it was not
a story she wanted to revisit, even if she knew she had to. “Elijah punished me
shortly after I freed a group of shifters from the storage building behind his
house. He felt a cane would make the best impression.”

Emory’s finger stopped moving. “You did
what
?”

She turned so that she could see his face. He looked so
furious, as though he wanted to knock the hell out of something.

“It didn’t take me long to put two and two together. I knew
what my uncle was doing and I refused to be a part of it. I snuck down to the
building one day and released the shifters he had caged.”

“And you stayed?” He was angry again. “Why the hell didn’t
you run?”

“I couldn’t. The shifters I let go didn’t trust me so they
forced me inside one of the cages before they left.” She skimmed her fingertips
over Emory’s jaw, directly over the area where the muscles were drawn tight.
Drudging up events they couldn’t change wouldn’t do either of them any favors.
She needed to soothe Emory, not provoke his anger. “It’s over and done. I’ll
never go back. I did what I had to do and I got out.”

“I want to bloodbond to you—
tonight
.” Emory’s intense
stare warned her he meant exactly what he said. She tried not to tremble at the
determination in his face. “I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to take any
risks. I want to know that nothing can harm you. That you’ll be safe.”

He must have sensed the apprehension she felt because he
lowered his voice and leaned in so his breath caressed her face. “I’ll give you
everything I am. I swear it. If you trust me you’ll never have any reason to
regret it. Start a life with me, Mary. Let’s leave the past behind and create a
new future together.” Fingers twined in the wet hair at her nape so that she
had to tilt her chin to maintain eye contact. “Let me love you, angel eyes.”

Love you. Angel eyes.

Four simple words that carried so much weight.

All her reservations, all her doubts, all her fears and
uncertainties disappeared. There was nothing aside from Emory with his glowing
irises, shadowed chin and an open look of hope on his face. A look
she
was responsible for. A look that—if Ava was telling the truth—he would never
give to any other woman for the rest of his life.

Her heart fluttered in her chest. Memories of the time they
had spent together long ago surfaced. Of his gentle nature, of how attentive he
was at all times, of the way he’d looked at her as though she was something
precious to be sheltered and protected. She’d thought it was because he was
chivalrous, a gentleman existing among assholes.

Now she knew better.

All of it was for her—only for her.

Isn’t that what she’d always longed for? A family like the
one she’d lost? A chance to start over? Yes, there were sacrifices to be made,
changes she’d have to accept. But sometimes a person had to take a chance and
have faith that the risk was worth the reward.

She moved as close to him as she could, until her breasts
pressed against the tub, and put her hands on his shoulders. Her family would
never stop searching for her, but they’d never stop searching for shifters
either. She knew that without a shadow of a doubt. But with Emory at her side,
nothing seemed impossible.

Double the danger, double the fun.

“Love me.”

Water sloshed all over the floor when he lifted her from the
tub, soaking his shirt in the process. She opened her mouth to protest and he
silenced her with a deep kiss, possessing her mouth as if putting it to memory.
Slowly he lowered her to the ground, breaking their kiss just long enough to
grab a nearby towel and pat her down. Starting with her hair, he ventured lower
until he kneeled at her feet. His gaze roamed over her breasts and her stomach
and hovered on her pussy.

“I’m going to start here,” he said and palmed her mound,
sending her on her toes. “And work my way up. I’m going to make you feel so
good, sweetheart. So fucking good.”

He lifted his gaze, meeting her eyes as he stood. He was so
tall, so intimidating. Yet she’d never felt safer in her life. Placing hands at
her knees and back, he swept her into his arms. Burying her face into his
chest, she breathed him in, holding on tight as he took her from the bathroom
into the bedroom.

The time for thinking things over had passed. Emory was
going to take her, claim her as his mate and show her the pleasures she’d long
dreamed about.

And she was going to let him.

Take it slow. Take what she’s offering like the gift it
is. Don’t fuck this up.

Emory was shaking by the time he placed Mary on the bed. His
cock had been hard from the moment he saw her lithe, naked body in the bathtub,
making him envious of the water that cradled her. He knew he had to take things
slow, to get her ready. But the wolf had other ideas. The primal part of him
wanted to vanish between Mary’s thighs and lap at her honey until she screamed
his name. It wanted to force her onto her hands and knees, making her take him
from behind, starting the first mark, initiating their bond.

Fucking—hard and fast—was all the animal could think about.

Back off
, he growled at the beast.
You’ll get what
you want soon enough
.

He took a step back and reached for the back of his shirt
between his shoulder blades, slipping the material over his head. He left his
jeans on, taking things one step at a time. First he was going to show her how
good his mouth could make her feel. Then, when she was ready, he’d introduce
her to the pleasure only his cock could provide.

She backed up until her shoulders rested on the pillows.
There was no way she could have known she’d positioned herself perfectly,
resting in a way that gave him just the access he needed. He prowled to her
slowly, aware of the precise moment she became embarrassed by her nudity and
the way she was on display for him. Lifting her arms and closing her legs, she
tried to hide from him.