Page 84 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
“You loved it,” he said, his voice thick.
“Shut up and tell me about your silly nickname,” she demanded, smiling at him, and his heart swelled inside his chest.
“First I want to take a look at your back. Sit up.”
Her response was to yawn. A shiver ran through her body. All her muscles pulled tight, then she relaxed back against the mattress with a contented sigh. “Still can’t feel anything. I’m sure it’s fine.”
Fine was something he very much doubted. He needed to inspect it with his own eyes. He’d been careful—as careful as he could be while in an altered state of crazed lust—but now he was beginning to realize he might have unintentionally hurt her, and kalum’s spirit vine concoction ensured she was in no state to feel a thing.
I wonder what she’ll feel about last night when it wears off.
He pushed aside that thought with ruthless determination. Time was still on his side, and he was going to enjoy every single second of it.
“Up.” He righted himself and pulled her along with him.
She grumbled and groused as he gently turned her away and brushed her hair over her shoulders. Then he stared in silence at what he saw.
The skin of her back was no longer raw. It wasn’t healed, per se, but neither was it broken. It was striped pink and white in a raised crisscross pattern from her shoulders to six inches above her waist, a pattern that should have still been oozing blood and pus. It wasn’t. She would most definitely be scarred, but the healing process was . . . well, it was remarkable.
He owed kalum big time.
“I told you it was fine,” Jacqueline said, smiling lazily at him over her shoulder. “You should listen to everything I say from now on. Clearly I’m always right.”
“Oh, really?” Equal parts relieved and amused, he wriggled his fingers into the curve of her waist, and she shrieked.
“No tickling! I hate tickling!” She leapt from the bed, but he was faster. He caught her up in his arms before she could take two steps, and held her tight against his chest.
“I bet it’s one of those things you say you don’t like, but you actually love,” he teased, loving her weight and warmth in his arms. “Like spanking.”
“Or like you,” she said, her head tilted down, gazing up at him from beneath her lashes.
It hit him like a wrecking ball in the chest. He froze. His heart stuttered to a dead stop.
Or like you.
She was toying with him. She was incoherent. She was just teasing.
Right?
She can’t lie. She can’t lie.
Kalum’s words started up a broken-record repetition inside his mind again, and he had to force himself to draw breath into his lungs or he’d pass out cold with her in his arms.
“I want to hear about your nickname!” she insisted, winding her arms around his neck, and resting her head against his shoulder, acting as if nothing had just happened at all. Acting as if his entire universe hadn’t slid off the edge of existence and exploded in space.
“Ah . . . I . . . it’s not very . . .” Hawk swallowed, blinking past his disbelief and the blind, aching hope that had stunned him like a two-fisted punch.
“Tell me.” She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat.
He closed his eyes briefly, willing himself calm. Willing the room to stop spinning madly. “It’s easier if I show you,” he said, then gently set her on her feet.
He pulled on a pair of pants, selected a clean chemise for her from the dresser, and helped her into it. Then, threading her fingers through his, he stepped out onto to the porch that surrounded the room, leaned against the wood railing, and looked out over the rainforest, training his eyes to the upper canopy and emergent far above.
When she looked up at him, questioning, he said, “Wait a moment.”
She watched him, waiting, while he scanned the sky.
They stood in silence for several minutes. Then he saw it.
