Blood Ties Book Three: Ashes To Ashes

He let the opportunity to ridicule her primitive, old-world folkism pass, and slid behind her on the bed.

“What are you—”

“Nothing sleazy. A back rub will help.” Before she could argue, he pulled her between his legs and went to work on her shoulders.

She groaned and her muscles seemed to melt under his hands. “Wait.”

Here we go. This is where she goes off on her “You’re getting it all wrong, I don’t feel that way about you” kick.

To his surprise, she leaned forward and pulled off her shirt. “The fabric was chaffing.”

Faced with the smooth expanse of her warm back, he suddenly couldn’t trust himself. He fixed his gaze on the dark lines of the curse tattooed on her arms, silently vowing not to notice the black straps of her lacy bra or the two tiny moles just above the small of her back, the ones he’d bent to kiss as he’d taken her from behind….

Just a friendly back rub for an injured person. Keep your dick out of her. It! Keep your dick out of it!

She moaned a little as his hands worked the base of her neck, and he shifted to keep her as far from his growing erection as possible.

“How long was I unconscious?” she asked, pulling her braid forward over her shoulder.

The silky rope of hair brushed his knuckles, sending shivers up his arm. “Well, we weren’t with you when it started, and you were…gone when we got there. But after Carrie got you back, I brought you up here and that was about…six hours ago?”

Bella turned her head slightly. They couldn’t make eye contact, but in profile he saw her mouth curve into a smile. “You carried me here?”

He shrugged. “You couldn’t exactly walk.”

“And you stayed with me?”

“Every second.” He cleared his throat. “Except for when I went to get the water and the extra towels and the first aid kit. Those seemed kind of important to have, just in case.”

“Ah.” She faced forward again and wiggled her shoulder, signaling he should continue what he hadn’t even realized he’d stopped.

Trying hard to infuse every brush of his fingers against her skin with platonic feeling, he kneaded her back, then her shoulders and finally her upper arms, trying the entire time to block out her satisfied groans and whimpers.

When his hands started to ache, he tentatively pulled away. “That better?”

“Yes. Thank you.” She didn’t withdraw.

In fact, to his great and keen dismay, she leaned against him and reached back to loop an arm around his neck. “I missed you.”

“Did you?” He’d missed her. At least, part of him had.

She gave a little sigh. “Do you know you are still the only man I have ever slept with?”

“Congratulations. You went a whole month without boning someone else.” He felt her laugh, and smiled, though it hadn’t been meant as a joke. Somehow, the thought of her with another man horrified him more than the dangers posed by the Oracle and the Soul Eater combined. “Listen, I should go.”

“No.” Her arm tightened around his neck. “Stay with me.”

What would it hurt? He didn’t particularly want to travel down the road his thoughts were leading him on, but he couldn’t help it. Every moment of every day, he thought of her. Not because he wanted to, but because there was some broken pipe in his brain that kept sputtering out toxic drops of her until his head was completely polluted. Now the leak had become a flood, and his fear—a very real, paralyzing fear—was that his brain would never dry out. He’d just stagger through the rest of his life drowning in her.

But it infuriated him that he couldn’t just turn off the way he had with all those other women. She was dangerously close to becoming an obsession, and if he didn’t control himself now, he might never be able to.

He shoved her off him under the guise of clumsy gentleness, and tucked the blanket around her, pointedly ignoring the hint of dark color that peeked over the lacy edge of her bra. “You had a bad night. We both did. You’re not physically up to anything…physical.”

“Werewolves heal quickly.” She cocked her head.

“Yeah, well.” He scratched his neck, a nervous tic that seemed to emerge only around her. “I’m not up to it.”

Frowning, she crawled forward, rising to her knees to loop her arms around him again. “Did you get hurt?”

He didn’t return her embrace. “Yes.”

She finally got it. It took her long enough.

With a wounded look, she eased away from him. “You are not still angry about what happened between us?”

“Of course I am!” he cried. “Jesus Christ, it’s only been a month! What kind of inhuman bitch are you, to ask me that?”

Her eyes flew open in shock, then narrowed again. “Not a human. I did not think that was news to you.”

“Don’t change the subject!” He stood and paced angrily at the side of the bed. “You can’t do this. You can’t just decide we’re chums when you’re lonely or horny or—”

“I am scared!” she shouted over his tirade, her voice hoarse. “I do not want sex, I wanted you to stay with me. You have an annoying habit of cuddling. I thought if we had sex, you would stay, and I would not be alone here. I am sorry if I opened your wounds regarding me, but what was I supposed to do?”

She was more human than she gave herself credit for. He felt like an asshole, and he hated that she could make him feel that way. “First of all, I don’t have any wounds because of you.”

She glared at him, hurt shining in her eyes even as she prepared for another round of fighting.

He let her stew for a minute, then sat beside her on the bed. “And second, all you had to do was ask.”

The way his voice went rough, the way he had to clip his words short to get them out made him crazy. He was going to say something stupid. He knew it, and wouldn’t be able to stop it.

“All you have to do is ask for anything, and I’m not going to be able to tell you no.” He swallowed. There it was. “And that’s probably why I hate you so much.”

She smiled and kissed him, a friendly peck, thank God, and pulled him with her onto the bed.

As she arranged the covers around them, he glanced at the clock in the corner. “You know, it’s not exactly my bedtime.”

“Stay,” she implored, twining her fingers with his.

His lips quirked in a reluctant smile. “And I’m not exactly dressed for bed, either.”

“Stay,” she repeated, yawning.

He did.

During the day, while we slept, the atmosphere in the house seemed to change. If the Oracle had intended to shake our confidence by nearly killing Bella, her plan had backfired. By the time we gathered for another—hopefully uneventful—war council, we’d all found some sort of peace with each other.

Max, however, hadn’t found peace with his dining room, so we met in the library. Bella lay curled before the fireplace in a pose that betrayed her canine blood. Max sat at her side, occasionally giving her head an affectionate scratch. Each time he did this, Nathan, seated in the stiff-backed wing chair next to mine, rolled his eyes.