Love Is in the Air (32 page)

“Yield.”

She hated him intensely and loved him immensely. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes. Sal lay down on her back, placing her hands over her head, hiding nothing.

When she opened them again, he stood before her naked. He didn’t flinch as she took the magnificent sight in. His physique was simple perfection. Those rippling muscles weren’t sculpted by an artificial gym workout, but by fighting off true monsters. And if she’d had any doubts of his ability to satisfy her, Sal had none now.

As he slowly, sensually climbed onto the bed then over her, she breathed him in. Wanted him in every sense of the word. Sal spread her legs, crooking one over his hip, urging him onward.

“Yield,” he growled.

Exasperated, “I couldn’t be yielding any more than this!”

His hand toyed with her nipple as he kissed the tender flesh behind her ear. “Not until you blossom.”

“What do you mean bloss—” Then Sal understood his meaning. “No. I’m ready now.”

But that smile just played across his lips. His hand found hers and urged it down. This was more like it. She reached for his excitement, but he rumbled, “Yield.”

Tyr placed her hand over her own excitement. Sal hesitated to explore herself, but he rubbed up against her, giving her just a taste of the satisfaction awaiting her.

Why was she holding back? It wasn’t like she’d never pleasured herself before, but with a man? Why would she? Wasn’t that what he was for?

Now she was supposed to do so under Tyr and his never-wavering gaze? He was going to watch every last second.

But Sal also knew that he wasn’t going to relent. Tyr and his damned prowess. It made her feel so exposed, so vulnerable.

Surprisingly, as her body felt immersed in passion, she was finding out that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Tentatively, her finger found the spot. Sal began coaxing it as Tyr turned his lips’ attention back to her breasts. She felt herself stiffen, her breaths more and more rapid. How quickly she was almost there, then Tyr’s hand found her hips.

While he moved them in rhythm to her touch, Sal felt out of control, and the moment was lost.

Frustrated, Sal let her hand fall away.

“Yield,” he murmured, still bringing her hips to bear, bringing himself so close she could imagine him inside of her. “Yield.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” she hissed.

Tyr simply put her hand back into position and made her hips rise and fall again. “Yield.”

With him over her, his lips against her skin, what else could she do but try? It felt awkward at first, but then Sal found her body responding to his help, using it, building from it.

In a flash, she realized the command didn’t mean stop or even give up control. It was more like the traffic sign. You could go, but if someone else had the right of way, you deferred to them.

There was no one she more wanted to defer to than Tyr.

Sal plunged herself into the feeling of his touch, in her own touch.

Passion whipped around them, driving her into a near frenzy.

Then she was on the edge, on that sweet, biting precipice.

“Yield,” he whispered, and Sal did.

She felt the explosion under her finger, then it coursed through her body, arching her spine, throwing her head back, releasing an excited gasp.

At the exact moment of the wave crashing, Tyr consummated their bond.

CHAPTER 115

Tyr’s entrance brought another wave. Only this time, it was tidal in force. Somehow, as the intense pleasure washed over her like surf, Sal kept rhythm with Tyr. Together they filled her with him, until he was so aroused that it must have hurt.

Taking care to give him the right of way, Sal encouraged his excitement. She felt satisfaction in his every groan, but realized it was he who was now holding back. His clenched jaw told her this had become no pleasure, but duty. A duty to continue.

Did he think she would be disappointed if he allowed himself release?

Well, it was a duty she had never given him.

She brought her lips to his ear. “Yield.”

Tyr shook his head, bringing her hips to his as he thrust, determined to pleasure her longer. Not that it didn’t feel exhilarating. Not that she couldn’t have enjoyed it for hours, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t for them, it was only for her.

“Yield,” she whispered.

He declined again, but this time she could see his lips tremble. His hand shaky under her hip.

“Yield,” she invited.

His chest moved in fits and starts. His thrusts more passion than precision.

“Yield,” she insisted.

Sal arched with Tyr as he yielded in a burst that took her as much by storm as him. They rode the fierce gale out together. As one.

When the calm finally came, both were spent. With care, Tyr egressed, but it must have used the last of his energy, as he practically fell back to the bed.

Sal wasn’t sure what she expected after their lovemaking, but him spooning her certainly hadn’t been her first guess. However, this spoon was like none other. It wasn’t meant to comfort, but to conjoin.

Tyr’s arm slid under the crook of her neck. He found her hand, entwining their fingers together. His other arm draped across her hip, with his hand caressing her breast. Their legs were so tangled that Sal wasn’t sure which were her limbs, or his. Tyr’s thumb absently kept her nipple awake as he tenderly kissed her shoulder.

Sal basked in his touch, his presence, and his love, knowing that somewhere above, Maria was smiling down upon her.

CHAPTER 116

Sal held onto the cable car handle, letting the wind tousle her hair in the early morning breeze. Her other hand held a small bag of toiletries,
male
toiletries, that she’d picked up on her way to work. Not that she didn’t love Tyr’s scent, on him and all over her, but at some point he was going to want to take a shower, and her strawberry/kiwi conditioner wasn’t going to cut it. And her powder-fresh deodorant wouldn’t do, either.

As the cable car squealed to a halt in front of the hospital, Sal waved to the driver and trotted up to the ambulance bay. If she weren’t so sore from their “yielding” all night, she might have broken out into a skip, because that’s how joyful she felt.

She’d seen women in this state before. Sal had always made fun of it, calling it a hormonal haze, but now that she was affected, she’d characterize it as a love cocoon. Nothing could penetrate her happiness.

Certainly not work. Today, she was going to find humor in the tourist-related injuries—bites after trying to pet the sea lions, spraining a hamstring trying to hike the length of the Golden Gate, and the stomachaches after trying authentic Chinese food, only to realize that when they said chicken’s feet, they meant chicken’s feet.

Not even Manning was going to get under her skin.

Sal strode through the sliding doors. “Good morning, everyone!”

A variety of humored responses followed, but Paul cocked his head.

“How are you feeling?”

“Great. Really great.”

The nurse looked her up and down. “Well, you look great. Get a new body wash?”

Sal chuckled. If he only knew. “Let’s get these rounds going.”

Paul indicated the residents’ room. “I have no idea what’s going on, but Manning’s holed up in there.”

Swinging her bag of Tyr’s toiletries playfully as she walked toward the office, Sal put her resolve to the test. Whatever stunt Stacy was trying to pull, she refused to rise to it.

Opening the door to the office, Sal found Manning macking on some guy. They were really going at it. His hands were all over her.

Looking away before the sight was indelibly etched in her mind, Sal exclaimed, “Get a room… only not this one.”

Sal tossed her stuff down on the desk as Stacy turned, her lipstick smeared like a little girl who had stolen her mom’s for the first time. “Give us a minute.”

“Looks like that’s as long as it would last,” she snorted. Manning might be reduced to breakroom quickies, but Sal had the real thing.

Then Stacy backed away, and the man, who had Manning’s lipstick smeared all over his face, stepped into the light.

Sal felt her knees weaken. She knew that leather coat. That white shirt. Those blue, blue, blue eyes.

“Tyr?” she asked, not realizing that she’d actually spoken her fear.

“You two know each other?” Stacey asked.

“Leave,” Tyr said, then over Manning’s objection, he barked, “Leave!”

Clearly distressed that she wasn’t in control of her actions, Stacy rushed out, slamming the door behind her.

Sal searched Tyr’s features for any clue, any clue at all as to why he’d done this. “What… How… Why…?”

But then in a single motion, Tyr explained everything. Pulling his knife from his sheath, he extended his hand. “May I?”

Oh God, no. Oh God, no. Oh God, no,
was all Sal could think as she slumped against the wall.

He needed her blood, just like the beast had needed the statue’s heartbroken blood, to go home.

Without resistance—What else could she really do?—Sal put her wrist in his hand. His features blurred as tears flowed down her cheeks, but would she really have found anything helpful in them?

He hadn’t made love to her. He’d meticulously primed her for this specific use. He’d manipulated her to be his ticket home.

At the exact moment she truly realized the depth of the deception, her heart shattered into a thousand pieces, and the man who’d broken it cut her wrist.

The pain of the blade eclipsed all of the other injuries she’d sustained. Those precious heartbroken drops of blood stung as they fell from her wrist into his vial.

Sobbing, Sal didn’t even know how her blood kept flowing, because it felt that the chambers of her heart had shriveled and died, nothing more than muscle flailing with no purpose.

After capping the vial, Tyr went to bind her wrist.

Why bother? Sal jerked her hand back. “Get away from me.”

“Salista, please—”

“Don’t ever call me that,” she managed to squeak out, before descending back into sobs.

Tyr grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to face him. His grip was so strong, and she was so weak. Her angst so great that her body vacillated between wanting to faint and vomit. But she refused to give him the satisfaction of either.

She looked up into those crystalline blue eyes. “What could you possibly say after you…”

“I hunt beasts. I kill beasts,” Tyr stated.

Sal stifled a sob, repeating his earlier words. “To expect more of a dead blood is folly.”

“Think on it, Sa—” He stopped himself before saying her name. “What prowess would I have after a single week? I sit idle when you spend your days honing your skills at witchery?” Tyr tightened his grip on her shoulders. “All the while knowing the beast has been unleashed upon my world, wrecking havoc with the alchemy he acquired? That I
allowed
him to acquire?”

No matter his urging, Sal couldn’t look at him. “We could—”

“What? What could we do while I heard the screams of my people, my brethren, echo down through the ages? Blaming me in my failure? I am dead blood. Please do not ask me to be other.”

How could she argue? Their love didn’t negate the beast’s threat. No matter how much she wished it. Tears flowed again as she realized Tyr must leave.

“Will we even see each other again?”

That faint smile played across his face. “We are bound, are we not?”

When Tyr leaned in, she didn’t resist his lips. Their tears moistened the kiss. Sal would have thought she’d want the kiss to last forever, but it became too painful. Too painful to imagine life going on without him.

Then the kiss ended. When she opened her eyes, Tyr had gone. Gone home, leaving her behind.

He hadn’t even gifted her with a forget edict.

She was left to remember it all.

###

Fated

Torn Apart by History, Bound for Eternity

PROLOGUE

The air was heavy with un-spilt rain as the warrior surveyed the battlefield, a deep frown spreading. It seemed that the gods themselves laid down a thick cover of clouds to block the horrendous sight below. The smell of death hung in the still air. Hidden within the thick forest just south of the conflict, the commander’s concern grew. This was to be a day of Spanish victory. The moment when Spain finally threw off the yoke of Rome’s supremacy.

Gripping the pommel of the saddle, the commander realized that Caesar was a more potent enemy than any had thought before. The Roman’s burgundy-crested centurions pushed the line farther and farther up the Spanish hill. As the morning sun struggled through the dark clouds, the legionnaires’ bronze armor sparkled as if encrusted with exotic gems. Despite fighting uphill on soil very far from their home, it was as if Julius’ legions were kissed by the gods.

The Romans had been on a forced march for over a week, yet these glittering soldiers were making quick work of the Spanish countrymen defending their land.

“Torvus!” a shout rose from the north.

The warrior acknowledged the summons, but took little pride in the name. Latin for “reprimand,” the name Torvus was a questionable honor given to this hard-edged foreigner. Like the Romans, Torvus was born far from these lands. Instead of originating from the south like the legionnaires, the commander came from the North, a fact that Torvus’ red hair could not hide—not amongst the sea of raven hair that graced the Spanish.