Vowed in Shadows Read online

  “You can’t steal my soul,” he said. “You already have it.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Nim froze despite the steam starting to drift over the top of the shower, and despite the warmth of his touch. “I didn’t take your soul.”

  “Before we even met,” he said. “I told you, your demon called to mine. That’s how I found you. Because our damage, the vulnerability that opened us to the demon, resonated and made us a matched pair, one fitting into the other.”

  “You would not have chosen me.” The words hurt to say, so she knew they must be the truth. She was just a necessary evil in his fight. And after what she’d almost done, emphasis on the “evil” part.

  She let her hand drop from his face, but he caught it. “Nim? I didn’t mean you’d taken my soul in cold blood. I know this is all still so strange to you. We’ll figure it out together.”

  “Together,” she echoed softly.

  “Now get in the shower before we use up all the hot water. And then go to bed. You need the sleep.”

  She took a steadying breath. “That’s not what I need.”

  “I can get you some dinner too. You hardly ate any breakfast. . . .”

  “Not food.” She turned her hand to lace her fingers through his. With her free hand, she tugged down her bedraggled skirt. The skimpy denim snagged on her hips, then slipped free to puddle at her feet.

  Now he was frozen in place. “Nim . . .”

  She wrinkled her fingers in front of his shirt, over his belly, scrunching the material out of his jeans. With his only hand trapped in hers, there wasn’t much he could do to stop her. Except club her with his hook, maybe, but she was sixty-forty sure it wouldn’t come to that. “You know, nobody tucks in a T-shirt.”

  He sucked in a breath. Not to make her job easier, she guessed, so much as to avoid her touch. “A habit from the jungle,” he said. “Tucking in cuffs and hems kept out the mosquitoes and botflies and leeches.”

  “Oh, my,” she murmured as she eased his shirt higher. Her fingers tripped up the rippled muscles of his abdomen. “Sexy.”

  “What are you doing?” The question grated out past the breath he was still holding.

  “Money, time, and the other thing I could always take from a man—his body. But at least I give up my own in return. Fair trade?”

  “I have only one arm.”

  She blinked at him, unsure if he was serious. “Well, you’re taller than me. So it works out.”

  “I didn’t ask for this.”

  Didn’t ask for her. “I know.” He was the only man who hadn’t. She knew better than to want things she couldn’t have, but she wanted this man. This good man. She wanted him to want her. Because if he did, then maybe, despite what she’d almost done, what she’d done before, maybe there was good somewhere in her. “It’s a bribe.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t want to be in the water alone again.”

  “You won’t drown in a shower. You won’t die.”

  “Not with you in there.” She let go of his hand to peel the shirt from his shoulders. She let it fall to the floor and took that moment to strip off her own.

  Standing only in her black thong, she knew he’d finally give in. Not even a man with demonic strength could resist a black thong.

  But when her hand went to his fly, he caught her. “Nim . . . Elaine . . .”

  She put her finger over his lips to silence him. “I haven’t been Elaine for a very long time. Elaine would not have survived what happened to Nimue.”

  “And now I have the Naughty Nymphette.” His breath teased her skin.

  “Not her either. She doesn’t allow touching, remember?” She stroked her finger across his bottom lip. “You were right the first time. It’s Nim. Nobody but Nim.”

  His breathing was ragged. Her own wasn’t much better. What she was doing was wrong, selfishly taking advantage of a good man. Well, a good man and a repentant demon. She was wrong to think his goodness would rub off on her. Goodliness, like cleanliness, didn’t transfer. Unlike dirt, blood, and sin, which were endlessly contagious.

  But he was the one who’d said “together.”

  When she reached for the front of his jeans this time, he didn’t resist.

  In fact, parts of him were eager to be free. As she eased the zipper apart and the backs of her fingers grazed his erection through his briefs, his whole body shuddered. Feralis teeth didn’t scare him, but zipper teeth would bring down any man. And bringing this man to his knees was her job.

  She’d make him forget he hadn’t wanted her, couldn’t want her.

  He kicked off his boots as she pushed down his jeans, his briefs along for the ride. Then he was naked, except for the hook. “Nim . . .”

  “I figured out how to pull a soul from a body. I think I can get your arm out of this trap.” She ran her fingers along the straps that cuffed the hook to his upper arm, searching out the snaps. Underneath the pad, knotted scars gnarled his flesh.

  He pulled away from her, nudging the hook from her hand. “It’s ugly. The birnenston where I fell sealed the wound. Hellfire saved my life and crippled me for the only purpose I had left.”

  “Jonah.” She wasn’t sure what she should say next.

  He took the chance away from her. He lifted her off her feet and pushed her through the shower curtain. For a heartbeat, she thought he would leave her standing there alone, but then he was beside her.

  The curtain blocked most of the lone lightbulb, and the swirling steam gave the wan light a mysterious glow. It definitely wasn’t demon light, since his reven and hers remained quiescent.

  She touched the black lines of the demon that marked his neck.

  “No demon,” he murmured, barely audible over the shush of the water. “Just Jonah for nobody but Nim.” He smiled, but fleetingly. “I don’t know if that will be enough anymore.”

  She pulled off her thong and tossed it toward the end of the tub. “I guess we’ll find out. Together.”

  The bar of soap in his hands gave off no scent beyond clean. “Turn around,” he said. “Let me see where that electrical hook got you.”

  She turned obediently in the circle of his arms, and lifted her dreads over her shoulder.

  At the first touch of his hand, she closed her eyes. God, he was so gentle. As if she might fall apart. “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “It’s all healed.” He slicked the soap down her spine until she was slippery with lather, but stopped short of her buttocks.

  She leaned back into him and pulled his arm around her middle. “Let me return the favor.” She rubbed her back into his chest, pleased to hear the rough hitch in his breath.

  The soap joined her thong on the bottom of the tub as he twisted her in his grasp and kissed her.

  That hadn’t been so hard. Maybe because he was so hard. His erection pressed against her belly, and she felt the answering throb inside her. She wanted this, wanted him since he had teased her during the lap dance, when she was supposed to have been teasing him. He hadn’t meant to, she knew.

  Oh, but now he meant to. He sank his fingers into the muscle of her butt and pulled her closer, as if there were a closer when already not even the water droplets could find a way between their bodies.

  His mouth angled over hers, almost rough with impatience, and she made a soft sound of pleasure and surprise. He broke off at once and tipped his head back into the stream with a groan.

  “Jonah.” She leaned forward to press her lips into his throat. Water sluiced around her mouth. She danced him in an intimate little tango to put the water at her back.

  “I want you so much. I’m afraid you’re going to slip away.”

  She decided not to remind him that this had been her idea. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said against his skin.

  “None of the others could hold you, and they had two hands.”

  With a huff, she reached up to frame his face in both hands and forced him to look at her. “Are you trying to piss
me off by calling me a whore, or are you angling for my pity?”

  His eyes blazed with purely masculine affront. “Neither.”

  “Then kiss me again.”

  He pulled her up against his chest, anchoring her with his arm at the small of her back. His fingers cupped the back of her head as he brought his mouth down again. He definitely wasn’t going to let her slip anywhere.

  Except, maybe, here . . . She sucked in her belly to wedge her hand between their bodies and took him in a gentle grasp. He bucked against her. Just as well he had her locked in an iron hold. At his growl, she laughed against his mouth.

  “Easy,” she said.

  “Hard,” he corrected. He kicked off the water behind her and pushed aside the curtain. Then she was in his arms again. She wrapped her elbow behind his neck. Despite the slick floor, the soap somewhere underfoot, she felt oddly secure in his hold.

  She tucked in her legs as he maneuvered her through the doorway. “I’m still dirty.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to be reminded of your old life.” When she huffed as if annoyed, he hugged her tight. “It’s an excuse to bathe again later. After.”

  “Ooh, after what?” She squeaked as he tossed her onto the bed.

  She hadn’t gotten a good look at the room as he carried her in. And she didn’t get much more of a look before he loomed over her and distracted her with his undeniable desire.

  But she had the impression of dark woods and pale fabrics. She at least got a close-up of the creamy chenille spread on the neatly made poster bed when he flipped her onto her stomach and straddled her.

  She strained to turn back, but he traced his fingertip down her spine and she caught her breath.

  “Let me start small,” he murmured.

  “Too late, I think.”

  He chuckled, a deep, seductive sound. “I meant the small of your back. I wanted to touch you here, when you danced for me.” He leaned down and his breath, then his lips, followed the path his finger had outlined. “I thought these dimples would drive me mad.” His tongue dipped into one while he tickled the other. Her nerves jumped and she squirmed under him. He palmed her flat. “You said you weren’t going anywhere.”

  “You said you don’t torture.”

  “You said there were different kinds of pain, and you implied some of it was good.”

  She moaned as his hand finally slipped down the cleft between her legs, just grazing the heated core of her. “I’m a liar and a tease. Put me out of my misery.”

  He rolled her onto her back, and she angled one leg around him so he was captured between her thighs.

  When he blinked at her, she smiled. “Just making sure you understand this is sexual banter, and that any laying on of hands better go a lot further.”

  He nodded, all seriousness, and she locked her ankles behind his back. He lowered himself slowly. Without his hand to brace him, he had to rest on his elbow, which left him hovering scant inches above her.

  She took a deep breath, teasing her nipples against his chest. “I ache. Since the first night I saw you.”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing, holding back.” He dipped his head and pressed a kiss between her breasts.

  She held him there a moment. “Maybe you were, but the right thing isn’t always possible.”

  When he turned his head and took her nipple into his mouth, she gasped and ran her hands over his shoulders, dug her fingers into the pad of muscle.

  He reached between them and smoothed his thumb through the dampness gathering there. Up and over and down, the teasing, tightening circle of pleasure made her writhe. His mouth on her breast and his hand at her core stroked her toward a climax. Not alone this time. There’d been other men who brought her this far, but in the end, she’d always been alone.

  “Now,” she said. “Come inside me now.”

  Finally, Jonah thought hazily. It had been only a few heartbeats, and yet he worried she would never ask. With a rasping breath, he shifted his weight and guided the hot, heavy head of his erection into her. He clenched his teeth, easing in. So long it had been . . .

  Her heels, clamped over his backside, drove him deeper. “Now,” she demanded.

  He plunged into her. His elbow slipped on the bedspread and he caught himself with his good hand. Never—even when he’d faced a charging feralis, minus his hand—had he regretted his maiming as much as now, when he wanted only to reach down, touch her cheek, tip her head back, and kiss her.

  But if his loss had brought him to this moment, maybe those dark times since the teshuva had come for him and he whispered “God, why me?” had been answered: for this reason. For this . . .

  Not that he had time to contemplate, not with Nim’s body closing around him, legs and arms and the soft, molten core of her embracing him with a ferocity that made his heart pound. He levered himself up onto his knees and angled her hips high, stroking deeper. She clutched his hip bones and mewled, such a desperate sound he almost climaxed right then. But he clenched his teeth, tightened every muscle in his body so that he wouldn’t let go, not before her.

  She bucked against him, and he almost lost his precarious grip. She panted his name, and her internal muscles clenched him with an intensity that rolled his eyes back.

  This was a demonic strength the other pair-bonded talya males hadn’t mentioned.

  For a moment, they lost the rhythm, his awkwardness and her impatience jolting them. He swore, shocking himself with his vehemence, and she laughed.

  His cheeks heated. “I’m sorry.”

  She hushed him. “I’m flattered.” She stroked her fingers down his belly to the junction of their bodies. His flesh leapt inside her, and she sighed.

  Slowly, he rocked, his hips bumping the sleek muscles of her inner thighs. She watched him through half-lidded eyes and caught the tempo he set. Her dusky skin flushed with pleasure. A little faster he moved, and she matched him, beat for beat. With every stroke, her blush deepened, no demonic violet, just human delight.

  Her fingers danced across his chest and fastened on his biceps, holding tight. He would not falter again. Just as well he had the stamina, the determination, the stubbornness, because he knew he did not have the art.

  She did not seem to care, and if she was flattering him, he could not bring himself to care either. She murmured words without sense and touched him everywhere—the quiet marks of his reven, even the ugly stump—as if she would learn his body as well as she knew her own.

  In sync, their pace quickened, and his breath came in bursts, when he could hold it no longer. This was what it was like to drown, in the spiraling well of his own desire.

  “Come now,” she whispered. “Oh, come now.”

  With jackknife violence, he did, and she seized around him, a possessive hold that wrenched a gasp from him along with the last of his semen and his strength.

  His elbow unlocked without his command, and if he hadn’t had the demon’s latent strength at his disposal, he would have flattened her. Instead, he was able, barely, to angle to one side and merely drag the gnarled scar of his arm across her middle.

  “Oh,” he said.

  Under him, her belly trembled with her heaving breath and a laugh. “Yeah.”

  Tacky, sweaty, slick. He wanted to lie there forever. As his body finally softened, he rolled to his back to cradle her in his arm. His good arm. He’d give that up for her.

  “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “About pregnancy or disease, I mean.”

  “You said we’re immortal,” she reminded him. “Besides, I know you’re too responsible to knock me up. You’d use the rhythm method, at least.”

  “Your faith terrifies me.”

  He didn’t look down but he felt her angle her head to look up at him, as if she could see up his nose, into his brain. “I’m sure you’re used to having people believe in you.”

  Her dreads wrapped around his only wrist, not unlike snakes. He wasn’t going anywhere, even if his legs—demon powere
d though they might be—could hold him upright. “Yes, people believed in me.”

  She made a comical “oh” of dawning enlightenment. “That’s why it terrifies you.”

  He gave her a squeeze.

  “Still,” she continued. “I think you did all right. You walked into the jungle, just as you intended, and you converted a bunch of heathens, which was the plan anyway, and you would have died there if you’d had your way. You stayed until the end. Not your end, since that wasn’t an option. But your wife’s end. That has to count.”

  “Perhaps. If you have enough fingers to do the counting.”

  She was silent a moment. “What was her name?”

  He didn’t pretend not to understand her. “Carine. Her father built the church that sponsored our mission. He didn’t want her to go. I wish I’d listened.”

  “Why? She stayed there her whole life. Wasn’t she happy?”

  He took a breath. “She stayed there for me. Back home, how would she explain a husband who never aged?”

  “So you stayed for her, and she stayed for you. Sounds like love.”

  With her hand lying on his chest above his heart, she must have felt his heart leap at the word. “It was. Without a doubt. But I think it would have been better if . . .”

  Her palm slapped down with a startling sting and then hovered threateningly. “Watch what you say next.”

  With his hand trapped under her head, he couldn’t defend himself. Nor, considering the dark thoughts that circled those long-ago choices, did he have the right to defend himself. “Since when are you a romantic?”

  “Just because I’ve never loved anyone besides Mobi doesn’t mean no one else has loved. You love her still, or you wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  For some reason, the accusation—no, it wasn’t an accusation; it just felt like one—bit deep. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Oh, this is just fucking. It doesn’t have anything to do with love, no more than my dancing does.”

  He pulled his arm out from under her, despite her grumble. “Don’t call it that.”

  “Don’t get all prim and proper on me now. It’s just a word. Like ‘mated.’ Like ‘love.’ ”