Page 76 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
It was all he said, but Lu felt the pathos behind it, the years and years of suffering and self-hatred. She felt it, and her heart wept for him, for whatever burden he carried, and wouldn’t share.
“Please let me touch you,” she begged.
The fury in his eyes was matched in his voice, though he kept it low. “You’ve touched me more than any other living thing in the last twenty years. That should be enough.”
Was he talking about physically touching, or something else? She couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. “It’s not enough, Magnus. I want more. I want more of you.”
Her words affected him. His eyes flashed, the hand around her wrist began to shake. He said hoarsely, “Why would you want me? I’ve got half a face!”
“That doesn’t make you half a man!”
He loomed over her, pressing her back against the bed, capturing her other wrist now and pinning both over her head against the pillow. He was angry and his anger was shaking him, sending tremors through his chest and arms, flooding his face and neck with color.
“You don’t know what you’re saying! You have no idea what kind of man I am, or the things I’ve done, or the things I’m capable of! You don’t know anything about me at all!”
He made a sound that was part growl, part wretched cry, his teeth bared, his eyes wild. He looked for a moment like an animal, and Lu remembered that Morgan had wisely advised her how to treat a wild animal: gently.
So as gently as she could, Lu told him the truth.
She looked deep into his eyes and said, “I know that underneath all your sharp bristles, you’re kind, loyal, and honorable. You’re smart, and capable, and there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to protect the colony, including sacrificing your own life. So that makes you selfless, and the most courageous person I’ve ever known. And I know that even though you’re all these wonderful things, you don’t think you deserve even the smallest happiness. You punish yourself as much as you can, you deny yourself any kind of pleasure, even smiling, and whatever it was that happened to make you that way, you can’t forgive yourself. Or you won’t. Either way, you hate yourself, Magnus. And knowing that breaks my heart.”
His expression was stunned; his eyes registered the depth of his anguish. He turned his face away and moved as if to withdraw, his grip loosening on her wrists, but Lu reached out and gently placed her hands on either side of his face, turning him back to her and holding him there.
“I won’t bring it up again. Not because I don’t want to know, but because it’s obvious you don’t want to talk about it, and I don’t want to have anything to do with giving you more pain than you already have.” Her voice grew smaller. “And I won’t say this again either, but you should know that I think you’re beautiful, Magnus. I’ve always thought you were the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Look at me! I’m not beautiful!” he hissed, his voice strangled, his body frozen above her.
“You are to me.”
He made a sound low in his throat and closed his eyes. Because he wasn’t moving away and he’d allowed her to keep her hands on his face, Lu took a chance and did the thing she’d been wanting to do since she’d first done it in Beckett’s lab, in front of everyone.
She kissed him.
But she didn’t start with his mouth; she wanted to show him with her actions what she’d said to him in words. So—slowly, gently, easing forward—she stretched toward him, brushing her lips against his scarred cheek.
He sucked in a breath. Lu froze, expecting him to bolt. When he didn’t, she closed her eyes, inhaling his scent deep into her lungs. Then she lightly rubbed her cheek against his, and leaned in farther to nuzzle her nose into the soft, warm spot just beneath his earlobe. There she pressed another kiss. A tremor ran through him at the touch of her lips against his skin.
He said her name, the barest whisper of sound, as she ran her mouth along his jaw. The stubble from his unshaven face tickled her lips. His hands dug into the sheets on either side of her head, bunching the fabric in his fists.
She slid her hands from his cheeks into the soft thickness of his hair and kissed the other side of his face, his closed eyelids, the bridge of his nose, slowly working her way back to the other side, then down to his neck, to the scars that puckered beneath his jawline. She kissed those, too. His pulse throbbed wildly against her lips. He exhaled, a soft groan that sent a spike of desire all the way through her.
“Please.”
His voice was low and wretched, filled with terrible longing and pain. Lu didn’t know if he was asking her to stop or to go on, so she gently pulled his head down and fitted her mouth to his.
He moaned into her mouth. Lu thrilled at the sound of it, every nerve ending tinglingly alive. He sank his hands into her hair, adjusted his weight atop her so his pelvis pressed down against hers, and kissed her back
, ferociously.
She loved it. The solid weight and heat of him, the scent of his skin, his taste. The way he couldn’t get enough of her mouth, his tongue invading, demanding, his fingers tightening in her hair as his erection dug into her belly, almost painfully hard.
He pulled back to gasp, “We can’t–I can’t—” but Lu flexed her pelvis against his and cut him off with another kiss. It went on and on, wild and deep, and would have almost surely led somewhere her body desperately wanted to go had it not been for the sudden, muffled sounds that broke them apart and left them staring at each other, panting and shocked.
The sounds were unmistakable, ones they both recognized:
Gunshots.
TWENTY-FOUR
