He held her with one arm, positioning her against the glass door of the shower. He stripped her, wanting that blood-stained clothing away from her delicate skin.
Her lashes began to flutter.
He stilled at once. “I’m just taking care of you.” Her fear was the last thing he wanted.
Jane’s eyes opened fully. “He was crazy.”
Alerac shook his head.
“I-I saw it. In his memories. The more blood he took, the more darkness ate away at him. Liam tried to hold on to his sanity, for so long, but he knew he was losing the battle.”
“He never said…” Alerac began.
“His father went mad, didn’t he?”
Alerac nodded. Some werewolves could turn feral. The most dangerous of their kind.
“He saw it happen,” Jane whispered. Her hands rose and curled around Alerac’s shoulders. “He saw it, and so did I. He knew the same fate was happening to him, and he thought that if he could just become immortal, like you, he’d have a different fate.”
The drumming of Alerac’s heart seemed to echo in his ears. “He drank vampire blood for me. To help me search for you. To avenge our pack.” From the vampire attack that had nearly wiped them out so long ago. Lorcan’s attack.
“No.” Jane shook her head as her fingers tightened around his shoulders. “He did it for himself. Because he thought the blood would make him strong enough to fight the urges he had, but, after a while, it just made everything worse.”
If Liam had been sick, Alerac should have known.
“He loved you,” Jane whispered. “And he hated you.”
His jaw locked. “You only had a few sips of his blood. You can’t know all of this.” She couldn’t know it. Jane hadn’t even gotten Alerac’s memories until she’d slept.
A faint line was between her brows. “I think I’m stronger. Your blood made me stronger. Because I could see everything. From the first drop of blood that hit my tongue, I could see.”
He wasn’t sure why, but Alerac felt like those words were a warning. “Then maybe you should drink from me again. That way, you can fully see the monster before you.” What the hell was he saying? He didn’t want her to see him that way.
Did he?
Alerac stepped away from her. He’d stripped her down to her bra and underwear. He tried not to notice the delicate temptation of her body. Failed.
He leaned into the shower and yanked on the water. Then he stripped without looking at her.
He put his hands on the shower’s glass door. “Why did you faint?” Because of what I am?
“His memories were too much. I couldn’t shut them out any other way, so I guess I just shut down.”
Alerac nodded. But he knew her words weren’t the total truth. “You were afraid of me.”
“Alerac…”
With a twisted smile, he glanced over at her. “You still are.”
He climbed into the shower, and the rushing water poured over him.
The blood washed away. If only it were so easy to wash all the sins from his soul.
Then Jane was there. Naked, entering the shower with him. The water slickened her skin. Steam floated in the air around them.
“I am afraid of you,” Jane confessed.
She was trying to break him.
“And I’m afraid of myself. Since I’ve met you, I’ve changed.” Her body brushed against him.
If the woman was so scared, she needed to be stepping back. Not getting closer. Because in another few seconds, he’d be grabbing her.
He didn’t plan to let go.
“I’m not the same woman you found in that bar. I-I still don’t remember Keira, not really. But I’ve seen her, through your eyes.” Her lips pressed together. “It’s more than that, though. I’m stronger than I realized. You make me strong.”
That was bullshit. She’d always been strong. Someone weak didn’t trade her life for another’s.
“I know that I’m going to keep changing. I’m not going to be fully Jane, not fully Keira, but something in the middle. That scares me.” Then she made a mistake.
She touched him.
Wet, silken flesh.
His c**k was already erect and aching. The too-big shower suddenly seemed too small.
“And you scare me, too. Because I know that you’re dangerous.”
Not to her, dammit, never to her.
“You make me feel so much. Desire. Need.” She stood on her tip-toes and pressed her lips to his. “When I’m with you, I feel like you belong to me.”
He did. Had, from the moment he first saw her.
“And I belong to you.”
He pushed her against the tiled wall. “You do.” He didn’t care what twisted magic Lorcan had spun. Jane was his. In life. And beyond death.
He wouldn’t let her go. He’d find a way to break that spell or curse or whatever the hell it was.
He’d find a way.
Jane’s fingers slid down his body. Curled around his aroused flesh as he kissed her beneath the rough spray of the shower. His c**k jerked at her touch. He was so ready for her. Always, for her. She stroked him, pumping his flesh, bringing his arousal to a harder, sharper, desperate edge.
Enough.
He lifted her up against that tile. Took her breast into his mouth. Licked and sucked and when she moaned, it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.
Her pleasure.
He kissed a path to her other breast. Her legs curled around his hips, and she positioned his c**k right at the entrance to her sex.
“Now, Alerac, I need you now.”
He drove into her. Her silken heat covered him, straining around his length. His hands had flattened on the tile behind her. Their eyes were on level now. He stared at her.
In her gaze, Alerac saw every dream that he’d ever had.
Saw her.
He withdrew and thrust. Again and again. But he didn’t make the rhythm rough and wild. Not this time. This time, he kept a stranglehold on his control. This time, he wanted to prove that he could be more than the savage who went wild for her.
His c**k angled over her clit as he thrust. Her breaths came faster, harder. Her nails pressed into his shoulders. And her gaze held his.
His c**k swelled even more. He drove deep.
Kissed her. Stroked her with his tongue and his lips, and she came around him, shuddering, her sex quivering along his length.
He held his body still as she came, loving the feel of her pleasure, and then, only when she was sated, he carried her from the shower. Her legs were still wrapped around his hips. His c**k was still in the paradise of her body.