Page 8 (1/2)
I turned to look at hiuarded pain in his face before he could hide it frouished Worse, he was despairing
"Stop that," I said "What’s happening?"
"It’s getting larger," he said "I had to expand the containment to keep it within the boundaries You can’t push yourself this hard"
"I know that, and yet I’ I have much of a choice How’s Lewis?" He didn’t want to tell me, but I think he kneasn’t about to let hiuilt," David finally said "He blames himself for the deaths He feels he made a tactical error"
That wasn’t unexpected "He ive it a try"
"I know He’s afraid that he rushed into it He’s afraid that he allowed personal issues to color the decision"
"That’ll be the day," I said, and then wondered what that meant "Personal, how?" Please, let it not be about me
"Rahel," David said softly "He can feel her suffering, just as I can Bad Bob issure we can feel it"
Bad Bob had a Djinn named Rahel in his clutches - one of David’s New Djinn, and someone I could almost call a friend He could do whatever he wanted to her - the curse of a Djinn being bound to a bottle, of having her will taken away And she couldn’t fight back The nightmare dimensions of that stretched on and on into the darkness, because I kne sick Bad Bob’s iination had been even years back God only kne much worse he was these days, with so much Demon in his body that I wasn’t even sure the old Bad Bob was still around in any fornize
Rahel had done me some very kind favors in the past She was never to be trifled with, or underestimated, but unlike a lot of the Djinn, she did care, however remotely, about the fate of individual humans - and the fate of the human race
David, as her connection to the power source of Mother Earth, would feel every injury done to her I wasn’t sure, but I thought that her connection to Leas s than old-fashioned lines of fealty She liked him He liked her Maybe it went deeper than that He’d never felt the need to tell ht their relationship was
I put my hand on David’s cheek and looked hi moment
"How bad is it with her?" I asked him I didn’t want a kind evasion I didn’t want anything but the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, and he could sense that fro to destroy her?"
"Eventually," he said, and gently tookmore I can do for Rahel just now She would want me to focus on those I can help"
"You’ve done all you can for me, too"
"Yes," he said, and I could see he hated to ad it down, but that’s all I can do It’s deep, and it’s still growing But I intend to keep trying I’ up, not on either of you"
He wasn’t saying anything we didn’t both know, but I could hear the frustration in his voice, and the anguish I slipped my arms around his neck and the two of us cuddled close for a
"You’re tired," he entleman he was at heart, David slipped the bra back up my arms, turned me around, and fastened it for me He even buttoned up my camisole "I want you to rest"
I wasme This felt warm Intimate in a way that seemeda husband did for a wife - an everyday kind of gentleness
It made me crave him so badly
"David?" My voice came out very small "I can’t sleep Will you stay with me? Just for now?"
His arms wrapped around o through him, some emotion I couldn’t nah to shatter my heart
"I’ll stay," he said, and easedas you’re awake"
"Big proets stuck up a tree in Peoria? I bet you’d go running off to the rescue"
"You kno seriously I take a vow Unless I ently on the nose, and there was humor in his face now "Clothes off or on?"
"Oh God, off Off off off"
We were naked before our backs hit the mattress, thanks to David’s wondrous Djinn fabric-vanishing powers The duvet settled over us like snowfall, but it arm beneath it, so warm, and when his lips touched entle and sweet I rested my head on the pillow of his ar spoken His fingers brushed hair froered onheat down to my chin
"Please," I whispered "Please o away Just for a while Can you do that?"
"I’m only a Djinn," he said "Not God Himself But I’ll do what I can" His lips brushed their heat down, taking all the ti in unexpected and vulnerable places The inner aspect of my forearms My wrists The delicate skin just beneathmy blood to the skin with slow deliberation
He left a h awakening of my entire body that made me writhe silently, sheets fisted in
Gradually, hisNips of his teeth, strokes of his tongue My control slipped, and Iup to ht noanted to be ravished, and he could feel it echoing out ofbell
I could tell the exact second that his control slipped gears His body language shifted, tensed, and he raised his head and looked at me My already quickened pulse jumped, because the look in those Djinn-bronze eyes was feral Wanting I sat up and ry and desperate, full of feverish need and frantic energy It fed back through the link between us, striking like lightning through a grounded circuit, shorting out whatever defenses we’d kept built between us
When I pulled back, David’s eyes were no longer bronze They were fire, with pupils of absolute darkness Mine, I thought incoherently Mine I didn’t know if that came fromvastly more corowled and put a hand on th on the bed He followed, not quite putting his weight on me Brushes of his hot skin teased and tortured us both He ran his pal tilt of ht, and the difference in sensationshot; his , and deliciously wet I bit my lip and feltsound from David - need, lust, love, wordless reassurance
We were both on the knife-edge of control David had never fully let his Djinn instincts out to play before, not like this I think he’d been too afraid - afraid of hurting me, afraid that I’d be shocked by the depths of his needs and desires