Haunted by Your Touch (16 page)

Seconds later, the latch in Tabby’s hand clicked. She blinked and pushed the door open. “How did you do that?”

He shook his head, sensing they weren’t the only people here and praying Mathias wasn’t already hot on their tails.

“Quiet. We’re not alone,” he whispered. “Let’s go.”

Raiden led them away from the nearby encroachers, tiptoeing up the stairs with Tabby’s hand in his. Once they’d started up the stairs, she squeezed his hand. He turned to her.

“This is familiar,” she whispered with an unblinking stare. “I remember being here.”

He took her shoulders in his grasp. “Do you remember exactly how to reach your father’s office?”

She frowned, as if trying to sort through her memories. “I’ll try. I know we walked up several flights of stairs, through a big brown door.
There was a reception area with lots of colorful tiles…”

For all he knew, every floor looked that way, but he smiled encouragingly. “We’ll keep going and see if anything looks right to you.”

They ascended another flight of stairs. When they peered out the door from the stairwell to the offices, she shook her head. They repeated the process with the same results. On the fourth floor, she nodded emphatically.

“My father’s office was on the other side of the fountain, near the tiles shaped like the rune for Truth, a giant Y-looking symbol.”

She raced across the floor before he could stop her. Thankfully, the building’s other occupants, whoever they were, hadn’t come this way—yet. Raiden prayed it remained thus. He needed to keep Tabitha safe, help her protect the tree her father had been willing to die for, then get her out of his life. Because God help him, with every moment he stayed near her, Raiden wanted nothing more than to grab her, kiss her, remember every perfect, lush curve, retrace them with his hands, his mouth. Keep her close always.

She tiptoed across the tiled floor quietly, then reached for the door. Raiden closed the space between
them with a blink and clapped his hand over hers, staying her.

“Let me,” he demanded. He sensed no one inside… but he couldn’t be too careful where Tabby was concerned.

She stepped aside. “Be careful. Please.”

And just like that, she undid his good intentions of keeping his distance. Even when he was a bastard to her, she goddamn cared. How was a man who’d never known genuine feelings supposed to do without them once he’d found them? It would be like living without sunlight.

Was he doing the right thing in letting her go?

For a moment, Raiden closed his eyes and sorted through the cacophony in his head, which was clashing with all the clatter in his heart. But at the end of the day, he still didn’t know if he was capable of caring for one woman for the rest of his life. Was it fair to risk her to try and learn to love? No. He’d be putting his own desire for her above her safety. Mathias or the Anarki could kill him tomorrow and leave her mateless and mourning. Or she could become a target in her own right.

He would have to accept that as much as he desired Tabby above all others, he would be
doing her a disservice to let her believe they had a future.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. “Is someone inside?”

Her questions brought him out of his reverie. “No.”

Raiden shoved the door open to reveal a fairly standard, if outdated, office. A clunky desk with a fake wood-grain top and chrome legs. A phone. Empty file folders. A picture frame. A plant, curiously alive.

“Does this look familiar?” he asked her.

But when he turned, she was rushing into the room and lifting the picture frame. Tears filled her eyes, ran down her cheeks. “Daddy and Mum. Winston and James. I can’t believe they’re truly gone.”

Looking so lost and alone, Tabby met his gaze across the room. Raiden couldn’t stand it; he closed the distance between them and grabbed her up in his arms.

Tabitha felt Raiden’s strong arms encircle her protectively. Like a life preserver in a sea of drowning grief, he alone kept her afloat.

She shoved aside the ugly thought that he’d soon leave her.

Wiping her tears away with impatient hands, she pushed out of his embrace. “Sorry. I know we don’t have time for this now. We should look in the desk—”

Raiden didn’t let her move more than a meter away. “You’ve suffered an incredible loss, Tabby.”

“Tabi
tha
,” she reminded him through gritted teeth.

He stifled a curse. “And you’ve been so strong since the attack. If you need to lean on me, do.”

And what, he would be here for her? She studied him, trying to discern the answer. But she
couldn’t. His face appeared like granite, ungiving. Yet his blue eyes radiated warmth, life. The picture of compassion. Would he be here for her today? If today, why not tomorrow?

Because he pitied her, not loved her. God, what a bitter pill to swallow.

“I’ll be fine.”

But she lied. Her hands shook as she set the picture down on the desk. She didn’t quite manage to balance it, and the metal frame clattered onto the desktop. Sadness and frustration crashed down on her as the loss struck her all over again. Angry tears flooded her eyes, poured onto her cheeks.

Raiden cursed, grabbing her by the shoulders. “That’s it. I admit that I’ve been a bastard, and I’m probably the last person in the world you want comforting you. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to watch you bleed inside and do nothing. Don’t shut me out if you need to cry.”

She did need it. Tabitha hated to admit it, but shoving all her shock and grief down for the past day had finally caught up with her. But if she burdened him more, he’d only leave faster. He wanted nothing to do with emotion or commitment, and taking advantage of his momentary
compassion would only hurt more when he left.

She looked down, tried to hide her crumbling expression from him. Raiden was having none of that.

As the first sob wracked her, he lifted her chin and stared into her tear-filled eyes. Tabitha averted her gaze, but she knew he saw right through her.

Raiden knew her so damn well. Knew her… and simply didn’t love her the way she loved him.

With a curse, Raiden crushed her against his chest. The steady beat of his heart under her ear was both a joy and a sorrow. Needing Raiden too much to push him away, Tabitha clung to him, throwing her arms around his neck and burrowing closer.

“Raiden…”

A moment later, he brushed the tears from her face and cupped her cheeks, his blue gaze penetrating hers, open and full of a thousand emotions.

Tabitha caught her breath. She’d seen Raiden with many expressions, but in nearly every one, the windows to his soul had been closed to her. Hot, challenging, alluring, yes. But never revealing, stark. Haunted. Like now.

He lowered his head, slowly, so that she could stop him at any time. But stopping him was the last thing she wanted. Her heart thumped so hard that it threatened to beat out of her chest.

Raiden did this every time he touched her. She couldn’t absorb the rush of feelings and sensations quickly enough. He always took her to a new place, and she knew, even without a wizard’s mating instinct, that he was the mate of her heart.

Too bad that he lacked the instinct—or love—to believe she was his mate as well.

The first brush of his lips over hers pushed those thoughts aside. He lingered, breathed, urged her to open. Then he waited until she was breathless, on her tiptoes, silently begging as she grabbed his shoulders and pressed closer. Suddenly, he was deep inside her mouth, stealing her sanity, reclaiming her soul. That familiar taste of his haunted her, so male. So Raiden. So irresistible.

With a moan, she opened more to his kiss, and he sampled gently… yet took in that subtly commanding way of his.

Unable to remember why she shouldn’t, Tabitha ran her fingers over the hard breadth of his shoulders, caressed her way across his chest.
Raiden gripped her hips and pressed closer, demanding. He was so solid—in every way. He was her something to hang on to. Her safe harbor in a raging sea.

“I’m here, Tabby,” he murmured against her lips. “I’ll help you. I’ll keep you safe.”

Before she could object, his lips lowered to her neck. She gasped at the electric sensation of his breath feathering over her sensitive skin, his lips claiming the flesh he’d claimed so many times before… but with a new urgency she’d never sensed. A new possessiveness. She rolled her head to the side, allowing him all the access to her that he craved.

One hand left her hip to caress its way up her waist, her rib cage, the sensitive side of her breast. When she gasped into his ear, he murmured, “That’s it, Tabby. Don’t do anything but feel me. Let me take your pain and give you pleasure.”

Impossible
. She’d be leaning on him too much. He wouldn’t be here later when she needed him and realized that she’d never learned to cope with her grief on her own. But his thumb trailed over her puckered nipple. Her entire body pinged with tingles and need at that one touch, and she arched his way.

Suddenly, he was nuzzling that nipple right through her shirt… even as his hands rose to her buttons and began to undo them, one slow unfastening after another, measured with a seductive cadence. Mere seconds later, they were all open and the only thing between him and her breasts was a flimsy lace bra.

“Raiden…,” she breathed. “We shouldn’t.”

“There’s no one on this side of the building. You need someone to hold you as much as I want to.”

He didn’t say another word, just pressed reverent kisses to the swells of her breasts, his lips hovering just above the scalloped lace. Fighting him was no use. The feel of his mouth on her, his hot breaths warming her skin… it was too much. She fisted her hands into the hair at his nape and let her head fall back, opening herself to him totally.

Raiden moaned his appreciation and pushed the cup of her bra aside, exposing one mound. His thumb scraped across the sensitive surface, bringing it back to screaming life, just before his mouth followed suit.

The sensations bombarding her were instantaneous. They sucked her under, into a world of
pleasure. Tingles abounded. Her skin felt tight. She was itchy inside, restless, dying to get closer to Raiden.

After removing his trench, she attacked his sweater, pulling it over his head, baring the broad, ridged chest. The bronzed skin, brown male nipples, light dusting of pale hair, corrugated abdominals… he was pure male animal power, and Tabitha basked in the fact that she’d have him once again. All hers.

At least for now.

As his teeth scraped against her nipple, his free hand pushed her other bra cup aside. He took that nipple in his mouth as well and pinched the first with devilish fingers. The pleasure zinged from the sensitive points straight down, right between her legs, where she was wet and welcoming and so achy that she couldn’t wait much longer.

Raiden did this to her. Every time. Yes, every witch or wizard relied on sex for the majority of their energy needs, so Tabitha hadn’t made it through her thirty-six years without physical recharging. But she’d never basked in the sensations, never lingered over a lover, as she had with Raiden.

Today was no exception.

He ripped into the rest of her clothes and shoved them down her hips, falling to his knees so he could still worship her breasts whilst stripping her bare. And she let him, gladly.

Once he’d peeled away her skirts and knickers, he remained crouched, staring at the most secret part of her. He reached a finger through her slick flesh. She gasped.

“Always so wet and ready, Tabby. For me? Just for me?”

She didn’t know how to answer that question. Yes, just for him. No lover had affected her so much. But to admit that… He already knew how much she loved him, and still he wasn’t prepared to stay with her, raise their youngling together.

“Touch me,” she said instead. “I want to feel you deep inside me.”

“You will,” he murmured, coming closer, closer…

A moment later, he lifted her leg with one powerful hand, opening her to him. He licked his lips, and Tabitha’s heart stopped. As intimate as they’d ever been, Raiden had never indulged in the intimacy of tasting her. He’d kissed her, yes. But this sort of behavior was common among wizards sampling their mates… or so she’d heard.

Why was he doing this with her now?

Then his mouth latched onto her, and the answer didn’t matter. Gently, he raked his tongue through her slit, sucked the sensitive bead above into his mouth. Gentle fingers caressed her hip with hypnotic rhythm.

It didn’t take long for Tabitha’s entire body to light up. Inside, she tightened, yet expanded. Burning as she hurtled toward climax. And Raiden’s unrelenting mouth seemed hungry, insistent. Thought-robbing. The lash of his tongue against her clit generated the sort of pleasure that robbed her of sanity. Tabitha couldn’t rub two thoughts together, couldn’t find the will to do anything but plant her hands in his hair and try to absorb all the wanton sensations clawing through her.

As her body coiled up and the ache behind her little bud turned to fire, she burst out like a supernova, screaming through the most intense peak in memory. And Raiden’s powerful hands held her in place as he murmured against her sensitive flesh and lapped at her in reward.

“Raiden…” She couldn’t catch a breath, couldn’t believe the stark inferno of pleasure his touch incited.

Suddenly, he raised his lips, pressing a series
of soft kisses against her abdomen, which was just beginning to show the bump of the growing baby inside. He smiled against her skin, his palm swiping a caress across her belly. And her heart melted. Yes, he could give her pleasure unlike any other, but he could also touch her heart. This big, proud warrior cared for her and their baby somewhere in that thick skull. He was capable of love and devotion. He had to be. Surely, he couldn’t touch her like this and not be.

With that thought bouncing through her head, she let him back her onto the desk. Tabitha hissed at the feel of cold faux-wood, but didn’t finish the sound before she felt the thick stalk of his flesh pressing at her swollen folds, tucking just inside her body. That hiss became a moan as he began to press in… in… in, until he was so deep that she felt deliciously stretched and filled with him. Completed.