Page 26 of The Healer (The Blood of Legends #2)

Chapter Twenty-Six

A REACTION TO BEAT ALL

F inding Rhys standing on the doorstep freed more tears. The lump in Ilona’s throat strangled her voice, and she garbled at him. From frozen to an explosion of energy, she threw herself into his arms. The moment he embraced her, her soul danced. She burrowed into him, needing his heat, his strength…him.

Mortification burned, but she refused to blink, unable to believe he was there, with her, holding her. What was it with bear shifters forcing their presence on her?

She sighed, having been everything he’d listed—alone, scared, sad—all that and more. But him holding her was surreal. She should be stiff-backed, fighting the comfort his presence offered, after all, she had agreed to their ‘relationship’ and on him being too far away to mess with her heart. Her limbs refused to obey, instead, she struggled to absorb as much of him as possible. She loved his cologne, like wild forests or a winter’s breeze hinting at spring.

He growled, and she stilled, raising her gaze to meet his. Her breath caught at the dark intensity in his eyes. His words echoed in her, against her singing senses. Something about not here to make love to her, how her wiggling was driving him crazy?

At his threat, she laughed. “You’ll do what? I’m not scared of you, Rhys.” Wiggling again, she managed to entangle her legs in his and looped her arms around his neck. She hummed. “Better.”

Make love to her? She wished he would. It wasn’t in her to be the aggressor, and he had just arrived.

Scrambling off him before she succumbed to the temptation and seduced him, she strolled to the kitchen for its lighting, needing to photograph her palm post Rhys’s blood smear.

He trailed her, adjusting his jeans around an impressive erection. At the sink, she splashed water on her face and used the kitchen towel to pat herself dry. Then she extracted her phone out of her pocket and took a few pictures of her palm, sending them to Evie with a text.

He leaned his ass against the cupboard while Ilona bandaged her hand. His presence thickened the air, filling it with sexual tension. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he had lost a little weight, enhancing his narrow hips and impossibly long legs. Shit, the way the denim clung to his thighs.

She bit her lip and offered her back while she made coffee. “The auctioneers will be here in the morning.”

“Good.” His voice was hoarse, as if from disuse. “Moving to Inner City—does that mean I can date you now?” The hope in his blue eyes speared her when she peeked at him.

Inside, she squealed like a teenager. Outwardly, she shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“I’m not making love to you until you agree to date me, Lona.”

“What?” She faced him. “Why?”

“I want all of you, not just your body.” He closed his eyes as pain twisted his features.

When his eyelids fluttered open, a desire smoldered in their depths. Her body responded, catching alight and zinging electricity from her nipples to her sex. She clenched her thighs together and tried not to show how turned on she was.

“So, no quickie?” She flashed a smile, hoping to ease the tension and burning need knotting her stomach.

“I’m serious about you. Like forever serious.” He gripped the counter, and had it not been granite, she expected him to crack it.

“Forever?” Who was this man who spun a magical world around her senses, her heart? He spoke as if ancient, like time meant an eternity to him.

“I want your heart, your passion, your caring nature, the woman behind that stunning body.”

Something twanged in her heart, like a musician thrumming tight bands of surgical thread. Her chest expanded on a deep breath, and she closed her eyes as heat swirled in her core.

She had to ask. “Because I look like Callie?”

He laughed. “You have the same hair color, but her eyes are greener. Your hazel eyes reveal more of your emotions. She has tons of sass I now find annoying. Your lips are prettier, and I have this fierce need to fuck you sideways, upside down, against a wall, I don’t care.” He lunged across the kitchen and pinned her to the counter with his hips. “Right here, right now, decide, and put me out of my misery, Lona.” Cupping her cheek, he thumbed her bottom lip. “Will. You. Date. Me?” He peppered each word with a kiss.

She opened her mouth to reply, but he lifted her, sliding her ass onto the counter, then with his hips, he spread her thighs wide. He tilted his head and deepened the kiss, plunging his tongue in. The smoky taste of him, foggy Sunday mornings, sunlight-bathed terraces, coffee and croissants, flooded her. She moaned, raising her legs to draw him closer. His chest rubbing against her breasts, him stroking an earlobe while he ran his other hand up her back to crush her to him, empowered her and filled her with eager delight.

She clung to him, dueling with his tongue to dominate him as he did her. His growl rumbled through their chest cavities and traveled down her vertebrae to nestle in her pelvic bone. This was what she wanted. To feel something other than sadness, to wallow in sparkling light than miserable darkness.

Tugging on his jacket, she shoved it off his shoulders. He didn’t break the kiss but let his jacket fall off one arm at a time. Joyful triumph engulfed her, and she hurried to slide her fingers under his T-shirt, searching for his velvet skin. She brushed the hair along the waistband of his jeans, and he shuddered at her touch.

He caught her fingers and leaned back. “Minx,” he rasped, despite the smile curling his kiss-swollen lips.

Despair was swift to strike, and she groaned, leaning forward to press her chest to his. “I need this, you.” And she did, desperately. The heavy weight of dread didn’t line her stomach thanks to hot, white lust. “I’m on the pill if that matters.”

He scooped her off the counter and carried her to the couch. There, he sat and spun her so her back lined his chest. With a nudge of his knees, he spread her thighs while unbuttoning her jeans.

She gasped, cupping his hand. “What are you doing?”

His answer was a kiss, luring her into the sweet depths of desire. The brush of his fingers across her labia snapped her from of the spell his addictive lips wove. Before she could protest, he swiped a finger across her clit, and set her senses ablaze. She moaned, arching into his touch, not wanting him to stop. Gripping his thighs, she pinned her back to his chest and twisted to nip his neck, needing to taste him. Every attempt to kiss him was met with air as he shifted just out reach.

She growled, but couldn’t do more than glare at him, not wanting him to remove his fingers. He cupped a breast, kneading it with a gentle touch, then tweaked the nipple. She cried out. Her hips gyrated as he teased and tormented her clit, but when he returned to the same spot that rolled her eyes back, she cried out, riding his fingers with every cell in her body focused on the steady climb, on the looming ecstasy.

“Fuck, you smell so good.” He latched onto her earlobe and sucked, then swiped across the shell.

She moaned at the triple assault. “Rhys…”

He growled, rolled her nipple between his forefinger and thumb, swirled the finger between her thighs, and when he nipped her neck, her world exploded. Bright joy engulfed her, shuddered through her until stars and divine bliss saturated her. He cupped her mons, peppered kisses along her neck, and massaged her breast, as if to apologize for the mind-blowing orgasm he’d given her.

As she drifted like a fallen feather to reality, his ragged breathing registered, along with the thumping of his heart against her ear. She opened her mouth to agree to date him, but all that slipped past was a sob. Along with the high, came the low, and she crashed. Blubbering in his arms, he carried her to the spare bedroom and crawled onto the bed with her. He hugged her against his chest, saying nothing, no meaningless condolences. Right then, she knew, he was a keeper.

When Ilona awoke, her eyes were puffy, and her nose clogged. Rhys sprawled beneath her warmed her, holding the cooler temperatures of early morning at bay. She twirled a finger across his chest. He slept on, his breathing steady and deep.

In the moonlight, the angle of his jawline was softened, his bearded face not so overwhelmingly handsome. This man wanted to date her. She was a fool not to agree. But her silly heart wanted no one to care for, no one to lose.

Sliding her fingers under his T-shirt, she brushed along the hairs leading up his torso to his pecs. With a smile at her boldness, she dipped to kiss a path upward. He smelled good, delicious, and she pressed her nose to his skin for a deep inhale.

His chest expanded, announcing she’d awoken him. She lifted her gaze to meet his.

“What are you doing?” His thick voice raised the hairs along the back of her neck.

She shivered, relishing the puckering of her nipples. Yup, just with his voice, he could seduce her.

His navel trembled when she placed a wet kiss there. “Making love to my boyfriend.”

He stretched, and the lamp illuminated them, but she looked nowhere else but at him, at his wide eyes, at the slow smile sauntering across those sensual lips.

“We’re dating?” He paused, with his long fingers wrapped around her upper arms. “You’re not just saying that to get laid?”

Laughing, she rose onto her knees and crossed the distance between his stomach and his lips. “Would I lie to you?”

He didn’t hesitate, flipping and pinning her to the bed. The kiss he blessed her with melted her into the soft mattress. She moaned, wrapping her arms around him as best she could.

When he trailed a kiss along her cheek to her ear, she grabbed the opportunity to breathe. “T-shirt. Off. Now.”

He jerked up and whipped it off, then pressed her into the mattress again. On a hum, she scraped her nails across every inch she could reach. She savored his velvety skin beneath her fingers. With a guttural groan, he swooped in and claimed her mouth. The way he dominated her snatched her ability to breathe, to think. She ached, as if the earlier orgasm had done nothing to alleviate the throbbing between her thighs.

His hand on her bare stomach made her whimper. She wiggled, rubbing her core along his thigh nestled between her legs.

“Fuck, you’re driving me wild, Lona.”

Her shirt disappeared, her bra followed, but she didn’t mind, not when the heat of his palms toyed with her nipples. She arched, wanting more of him, his touch. His chest left her. She flicked her eyes open to ogle him as he yanked off his boots and jeans. He wore no boxers or briefs. She gasped at that discovery. His erection twitched under her perusal. Fuck me, James, he is gorgeous.

A tug on her leg made her laugh when he removed her jeans, sliding them off her, but leaving on her panties. He crawled across the bed, stroking his chest along her knees, thighs, and stomach. He grinned and snatched a kiss before throwing himself next to her. He rested his hand on her thigh. She trembled, wishing she could wiggle and steer his touch to where she needed it the most. When he did nothing but lie there, smiling at her, she arched a brow.

“You’re as beautiful as I imagined.”

She wasn’t—her breasts were too small, her hips too wide, but she shoved those thoughts aside. Her internal voice wasn’t her friend.

He dipped his head, scraping his chin along her neck, her collarbone, and across one nipple. She moaned, gripping the comforter, relishing the texture of his beard. He wrapped his hot mouth around a nipple and sucked hard. Crying out, she arched off the bed as fire lanced from her breast to her core, to her clit. She ached, needed, couldn’t he see that?

While he suckled and swirled his tongue, he slid a hand up her thigh to cup her mons through her panties. He growled, the sound vibrating along her chest and spreading outward.

Pinching and massaging her sex, he continued to suckle her nipples, trailing wet paths between them. Waves of merging sensations, emotions, catapulted against her nerve endings, stoking fire and anticipation.

She whimpered when he released a nipple to watch himself slide his hand into her panties.

One finger between her lips, brushing along her clit, shot her hips up.

“I want to cherish this moment, Lona, but I want you. So much you can’t possibly know, sweetheart.”

She nodded, biting her lip to stop herself from begging. As enticement, she spread her thighs wider, granting him more access. His breath caught, and he slipped off the bed, coming around to crawl between her legs. He looped his fingers around the elastic of her panties and peeled them off her.

Shoving his backside in the air, he arched to bury his nose, brushing it across her clit until she moaned, unable to stop her hips from gyrating. When he stroked a path from her clit to her vaginal opening, she writhed, her breathing coming in gasps. He latched onto her clit, suckling as he had done to her nipples, while dipping his finger into her channel.

The sensations were too much, too overwhelming and glorious. She crushed the linen in her fists. An orgasm crashed into her, and she called his name, thrashing, letting her body ride it, to experience a feverish, ecstatic moment.

His chest rubbed across her sensitive nipples, and his weight pressed her still.

“Your taste is nectar, Lona-love.” He kissed her cheek, chin, nose, then her lips, sharing the tart flavor of her orgasm.

But with the head of his erection pressing at her weeping core, she spread her thighs wider, urging him on. He slid into her inch by inch, his body trembling where he held himself off her. His gaze locked onto hers, and something warm, dark, and intense flickered across his face. Her heart twanged again, but before she could ask, he dropped and buried his face into the curve of her neck.

He withdrew and thrust into her, groaning and grunting. She savored the sensation of his hard erection stretching her vagina and rubbing along her inner walls. Each thrust sparked a wave of heated joy through her, and she tightened her legs around his hips, urging him on with her heels digging into his sexy gluteus maximi.

Emotion bubbled up, a wave of endorphins gripped her, and she opened her mouth to confess she loved him, then bit her tongue. Tears leaked at the too-intense emotion, so she clung to him and gave him every reaction, hoping to convey what she felt for him.

As he ramped the pace, another orgasm rippled along the edges, tugging her toward that metaphorical cliff. Eager, greedy, she succumbed. He twisted to meet her gaze, and smiled, then swooped in to kiss her. He grabbed her legs, rested them along his chest, and leaned forward, changing the angle of his thrusts. Overwhelmed, her senses exploded. Screaming, she threw herself off the cliff, lost in intense joy, as if he had discovered a part of her that had never been touched.

He froze, his eyes widened, and he roared, shuddering as an orgasm tore through him. Pinning her in place, only his hips jerked. His mouth curved into the most satisfied smile she had ever seen. He released her legs, and when she lowered them, slivers of belated ecstasy rippled along her core. His moan echoed hers, and he collapsed on top of her.

“Amazing.”

She nodded.

He shook his head. “No, you’re fucking amazing.” His grin was bright, bold, and breathtaking. “And you’re mine, Ilona Devereaux Strickland.”

Forcing a chuckle, she dipped her head to hide a new wave of warmth lambasting her cheeks. By doing so, she squashed her lips against his shoulder, so followed the action with a kiss.

His shiver was its own reward.

He rose, holding himself off her in a push-up. “Say it.”

She met his gaze and frowned. “Say what?” That she loved him?

“Say you’re mine.” His expression softened and tugged at her heart threads.

She smirked. “You’re mine.”

He arched his back as he laughed. The sound was so joyful, she smiled in earnest.

“At last.” Swooping in, he snatched a kiss that curled her toes.