Page 13 of The Darkness

Chapter Six

How did you make love to someone when it might be the last time, and you wanted to show her what she meant to you?

Darius stared down at the woman in his arms.

She had been an innocent the first time. He remembered his shock. A two-hundred-year-old virgin—who would have believed it? He’d known she’d led an isolated existence; witches tended to keep to themselves. But it had been a surprise. She’d learned quickly, but still, he’d been careful of scaring her. He’d always held something of himself back. Tonight, he wasn’t going to hold back anything.

Except no feeding.

He could do it. However much he wanted to taste the sweetness of her blood, he would not. He suspected she didn’t trust him, and why should she? Perhaps she believed if the link was strengthened, he would come looking for her.

She was right.

They were wasting time. “Let’s go to bed,” he said.

She looked into his face and nodded. Rising to her feet, she held out her hand to him as though she was the one leading the way. He took it and stood up. Then lifted her effortlessly in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. He put her on her feet and tugged at the thin straps holding up her dress. “I love this gown,” he said, “but it’s coming off.”

“It is?”

He nodded. He was about to remove it when the dress vanished, leaving her naked but for a crimson thong. She was perfection. Long and slender, but her body honed, with graceful lines of muscle showing beneath the pale skin. He reached out a hand, stroked her shoulder, cupped one small, sweet breast in his palm and ran his thumb over her nipple, and it darkened under his touch. She swayed, and he moved his hand lower, tracing a finger along the mark above her left hip bone. It was black, stark against the paleness of her skin, and shaped like a bird, wings outstretched. He remembered the first time he had seen it. He’d known immediately what it was, what it signified. It was the mark of the Morrigan. Still, he’d had to ask.

“Your mother is the Morrigan?”

Gina had nodded, and shock had ripped through him—her mother was a goddess. And not just any goddess, but the goddess of war and pestilence.

Now he rubbed his thumb over the mark and wondered what other blood ran in her veins. “You never told me,” he said. “Who’s your father?”

“I don’t know, but according to Regan our mother has terrible taste in men.” Gina smiled. “She reckons that’s where I get it from.”

Darius snorted. “Yeah, and I love your sister too.” He looked at her. “What’s she like? The Morrigan, I mean.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met her. I told you, she left me with my sisters when I was a baby. I used to wonder what she was like, and I used to pray to her. She never answered, and I gave up praying years ago.”

∞∞∞

Her words were a lie, but Gina had no wish to tell Darius that she had spent much of the last week praying. What was the point? There had been no answers; her mother had remained silent, as always. Gina reached down and took his hand in hers, pressed his open palm against the mark. “This is all I have from my mother.”

A tension ran through him. She was sure he meant to pull away, and panic flared inside her. She wanted this so much it was like a live thing tearing at her insides, ravenous, demanding to be fed. Her hips pushed against him, and his hand relaxed beneath hers. His fingers flexed, then pressed into the flesh of her stomach, sliding over her skin to slip beneath the tiny scrap of satin that was all that covered her. They ruffled through the soft hair, then moved lower, curling upward, probing, searching.

She knew the moment he realized how much she wanted him. His breath caught as his long fingers slipped between the folds of her sex and sank into the hot, slick heat. He went still for a moment, and then leaned forward and kissed her. A slow drugging kiss, his tongue filling her mouth, while his fingers stroked the swollen, sensitized flesh, massaging the hard little nub until her legs gave way and she clung to him for support. She closed her eyes tight, concentrated on the feel of his fingers moving against her. The pleasure intensified, radiated outward, and then exploded in a shower of lights that flashed behind her closed lids.

“Oh!”

He laughed softly against her mouth, then drew back, picked her up and dropped her onto the huge bed behind her.

She opened her eyes. He was standing over her, staring at her nearly naked body while he stripped off his own clothes. He didn’t bother unbuttoning the shirt, just ripped it open, tore it off, and dropped it on the floor. He was beautiful, his chest broad, with a covering of dark silky hair that narrowed and ran down the muscular ridges of his lean abdomen and disappeared into the waistband of his pants. He was already hard; the outline of his erection clear beneath the material. Her mouth went dry, and she held her breath as his hand moved to the fastener. He flicked it open and slowly drew the zipper down. She started to breathe again as he slid his pants down over his thighs and stood before her naked.

His skin was golden, his legs strong columns, his cock long and heavy, springing up from a nest of midnight curls. It twitched and pulsated with life under her hot gaze, and she came up on one elbow, reached out and curled her fingers around it. He gasped, and she tightened her hand, loving the feel of his burning-hot, silky soft skin over the rock-hard shaft.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he murmured, and she loosened her grip, her fingers fluttering up over the long length of him, then down to cup the heavy weight of his balls.

He groaned again, dropping down onto the bed beside her. She released her hold, her hands moving to his shoulders to drag him closer. Darius pulled her against him, cupping her buttocks in his palms, then rolling her so she lay beneath him. Lowering his head, his lips took hers in a savage kiss of possession, and she opened her mouth, welcomed the scalding thrust of his tongue.

He ripped the thong from her body, and for a moment stayed poised above her. He inhaled, his nostrils flaring as they drew in air heavy with the musky scent of sex. His hands tangled in her hair, and he held her still beneath him.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he said. “In my dreams, in my waking moments.”

She stared up into his face. He was fierce, predatory, his lips drawn back, exposing the sharp whiteness of his fangs, but she knew no fear.

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