To Eternity. Daisy Banks
as powerful as ever. She feasted her gaze on his body. The need to touch him grew stronger, and she took a step forward.
He lifted her chin so she met his eyes. So much sorrow and concern filled his gaze. The combination brought a lump to her throat. She raised her arms so he could tug off the camisole top. He took the chain with the key to his wolf bonds from her neck and bent to ease her panties down her legs.
“Now, get into the water,” he said.
She stepped into the bath. “Oh,” she exclaimed when the heat contacted her chilled flesh.
He joined her, easing himself down at the taps end. A gentleman even though they’d quarreled. She lay back in the water until it warmed the base of her ears. It wasn’t the kind of row many couples might have. Not a yell and shout fight. No.
This was worse. He’d hurt her and not understood how.
“I do understand. I can only plead for you to forgive me. I didn’t think it through before I told you. I never meant to cause you pain. Believe me, all I want is to protect you from the horrors that can be caused by what I am.”
The day dissolved with the touch of his palm on her leg, the way he smoothed her skin. He leaned forward. A tingle of sensation snapped her back to full consciousness as he placed his other hand on her thigh, rubbed with his fingertips until she breathed out on a long sigh.
“We need to talk.”
His low voice soothed her more than the warmth of the water. A tremble shook her lip. They’d talked already, and she’d lost it in a way she’d never experienced before. She hooked her forefinger around his. “What do you want to say?”
“Will you listen to all of it?”
“Yes, Magnus.”
“I want to tell you how much I need you and make you believe it. If you understood how important you are to me, then today you’d not have been so hurt.”
She sat up. Her hair dripped over her shoulders. “You think I’d have been okay with you having a child with a woman you hardly knew, whereas, with me, you’ve said it can’t happen. I don’t understand the difference.”
Magnus closed his eyes for a long moment. “The two things are not one and the same, not at all. One is an accidental event from long before you were born and many years before I met you. The other is your wish for something very different.”
“So, if this girl is your granddaughter, she’ll be like any other girl?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then I don’t see the difference at all, at least not about the idea of a child. You say you didn’t have a permanent relationship with her mother.”
He leaned forward to cup her chin in his palm. “I know. But, please, believe me, there is a difference. For us to share our lives, for you to have the child you want, within a lasting relationship, we’d not merely make love. There is much more to consider.”
“I see. So, in fact, we’re back to our last conversation about this. You have to make me your mate, not your wife, not your live-in lover, but your mate.”
He reached for her, put his arms about her and pulled her up from the warmth so she straddled his thighs. She closed her eyes as he took her mouth with his. He kissed her until she whimpered.
“Yes.”
His thought powered through her, melted her bones and she relaxed against him. Desire smoldered in her skin, so her nipples hardened in anticipation of his caresses. She moved her mouth from his. “Then do it, Magnus. Please, I’ll beg if I must. Do it. Make me your mate.”
“Not yet.” He moved her to lie over him in the water. “I know you think you are certain this is what you want, but I need you to have more time to think about all the possibilities, the dangers, the way of life you’d have to accept.”
She sighed. Some, though not all of the pain, eased from her heart.
“Forgive me?” he asked. “I swear I’ll not be so thoughtless again.”
Everything she’d told herself in the woods, all the tears, the hurt, and the determination to do whatever she must to keep him, swept through her. His reasoning caught at her heart.
He tightened his embrace about her until she gave a small squeak.
“I’ll not let you go unless you truly wish to leave. I will know if such bitterness is to be mine, Sian. I want you to stay so very much. Everything is right with you.” He found her lips with his and kissed her until the water around them matched their body heat.
“I’ll take you to bed now and show you how much you mean to me until dawn.” He rose from the tub with her in his arms.
“You’d best tell the staff we won’t be down for dinner,” she murmured.
“You can telephone down to them while I dry you off in front of the hearth.” His dark gaze held hers, full of promises to make her stomach roll with desire.
God help her, wolf curse or not, she loved him.
Chapter 6
Hunched from the pain, and clumsy in his efforts to open the door, Franklyn Gorsewell dropped the keys. He stooped in a welter of agony. He grunted like a hog as he fumbled around the moss-coated plant container beside the front step to find them. At last, the chilly metal met his fingers and he opened the door into his ground floor apartment. After kicking the pile of mail and assorted junk publications aside, he went down the short hallway. The fine hairs on the back of his neck rose as he walked into his darkened sitting room.
The place stank.
The unmistakable scent of urine, mixed with the metallic smell of blood, blended with a savage animal musk. The odor sent a shiver down his spine.
He flipped on the light. The arcing splatter of blood up the walls had spurted from an artery to create a huge pointillist curve on the ceiling. The boarded up window relieved the rusty brown pattern. Thank God, the neighbor found him when she did. The patio window glass had shattered the night of the attack. A welter of lethal shards still lay where they’d fallen, some stained with his blood. Many sat end up, buried in the thick carpet.
He’d bled so much, he should be dead.
The wide patch of dried blood appeared so much worse than he’d imagined. No wonder the ambulance crew and the doctors in the emergency room thought he could lose his arm from the horrific injuries.
A fresh memory of the creature with its snarling jaws tormented him. Instinctively, he drew back from the pain of its bite. He forced himself to look at the room. No monstrous beast salivated with hate in its eyes. He set his bag down by the door, as far from the glass fragments on the carpet as he could. No one would believe the truth if he tried to explain. It was better the medical staff had recorded that the glass caused his wounds.
His recovery, remarkable in itself, had given the medical team so much to ponder. The causes had faded from their interest, but he’d known. Hovering in a daze from the painkillers, he hung on to his sense of self by his fingertips. He’d understood when the torn skin, savaged muscle, and shattered bone healed at a stunning speed. Inside he’d changed. While he had recovered, he’d accepted the strange alteration to his senses, and he’d learned to dream.
A surge of excitement twitched through his cock. In his first dream after the attack, he’d found Sian, along with a sense of reality he’d never experienced before. The heated throbbing recalled how close he’d been to screwing her. He’d lunged between her wide-spread thighs, his cock oozing pre-cum, and he’d almost entered her pussy.
She’d been coy at first as they’d danced, typical Sian, but when she’d understood he wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer that night, she’d kissed him. He had thrust his tongue down her throat as she gave in. He could still hear her enticing noises, feel her writhing beneath him on the smooth polished floor when