“I’m fine.” But his voice sounded as raw as her wrists.
“Are you coming out?”
His sigh was heavy enough to hear through the door. “Yeah. Give me a minute.”
Riley turned off the light and got into her bed. She had a feeling Sam would appreciate the darkness.
He’d been in the bathroom, in the shower, for more than half an hour. When he first threw himself off her she’d been in a haze of desire, and his horrified expression had pierced her to the core. But then he fled into the bathroom, where she’d heard him retching a short time later. She might have some insecurities, but she didn’t think she was that repulsive. No, something else was going on.
She curled on her side and watched shadows flicker in the light under the door as he moved around. The light clicked off and the door opened. Riley’s eyes were adjusted enough to see he wore only a towel. Her heart skipped, but he walked quickly past the foot of her bed to the far side of his own. As far from her as he could get. With effort, Riley kept herself facing away until she’d heard him settle into bed. Then she rolled over.
“Sam.”
“Riley.” The low rumble was an apology all by itself.
“Talk to me.” He didn’t respond, so she said, “I didn’t want you to stop.”
Sam drew in half a breath and choked. “What?”
“I want you to know that. In case some of the problem is that you were afraid you were forcing yourself on me or something. I wanted you, too… That’s all.” That was so not all. Her body still hummed. She could still taste him. Her want was very much not in the past tense. But if she had any hope of desire growing into more, something lasting, she had to give Sam room.
“Thanks.” His voice was soft, and then he cleared his throat. “That helps. A little. I, uh…”
“You can talk to me,” Riley said. Please talk to me.
“Shit. I don’t even know where to start.”
“I can ask you questions.”
He chuckled. “Okay.”
“What made you stop?”
He groaned and ran a hand down his face. “I just clued in that it wasn’t normal.”
Yikes. What did that mean? “Not normal because…”
“It wasn’t regular, uh, desire. I was driven, hungry. More than hungry. I didn’t know if I could stop.”
“But you did.”
“Luck. I saw—” He hesitated. “It’s a long story, and it’s getting late.”
“I can sleep in the car.” So far, their relationship had been all about what she needed from him. She wanted so much to help him in return, and staying awake to listen seemed like such a small thing.
“Not all of it’s mine to tell. So…don’t, like—”
Riley sighed. “I would never repeat something you said to me, Sam. You can trust me.”
Sheets rustled, and he cleared his throat again. “Before the whole leech thing, Quinn used to get what she called moon lust. Her body would be depleted when she channeled energy, and she needed to recharge, to balance it, with sex.”
Riley stilled, a new kind of heat rising up into her face. Who did Quinn recharge with back then, before she had Nick? Probably her dedicated assistant. Her hands clenched until the burns on her arms pulled, making her wince.
Not the point. Just listen.
“I think when I filtered the power she transferred to Jennifer, I got more than the residue. I think I got something from Quinn, too. I’ve never felt that kind of craving before. I never understood what she was feeling, all those years.”
He mused the last, and Riley forced her tense jaw to relax. Just because he was reflecting on the past didn’t mean it had anything to do with the present.
“Does that mean you still need—”
“No, I, uh…I’m good.”
Riley flushed with what should have been embarrassment, but understanding what he meant stoked her fire. Her mouth went dry, and she squeezed her thighs together, to no avail.
“I think that would be it if we were done with the transfers. I can’t draw on additional energy and drive the, um, reaction up again.”
Oh, God. She couldn’t handle this! It was all she could do not to climb into his bed. She rolled to her back and swallowed hard. “So you’ll be like this after you do the next transfer.”
“And it may be worse.”
“You don’t have to do it,” she said softly, though she knew he’d never say no.
“Of course I do. It’s killing Quinn. She has to get rid of it. And Chloe and Tanda need their abilities back to be whole. But I was already worried about the power part, and now this. I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He swallowed, the sound audible from where Riley lay. “I want you to leave. To go somewhere safe. But—”
“But there is nowhere safe.”
“No.”
The sexual tension slid away. He sounded so lonely. Even if he didn’t think of it that way, she’d been mired in it long enough to recognize it in someone else. She slid out of bed and sat on the side of his. Despite the dark, she found his hand and gripped it. “You’re not alone.”
His fingers wrapped around hers. “I know I’m not.”
“No, I mean it. You won’t talk to Quinn and Nick because you think they have enough to worry about. And you want to send me away in case you lose control. But I’m stronger than you think, and whatever I can do to get you through this, I’ll do.”
“You don’t know what that might entail,” he said half humorously.
“We’ll find out together.”
“Anson’s still out there, and we don’t know what Numina’s doing.”
“It’s not our job to find out right now, remember? We’re leaving that to the Society. If Anson messed up their decade-long plans, they’re probably not close to their end game.”
He sat up, and the sheet slid down to his waist. Riley forgot everything she’d been saying and stared at his torso. The little bit of light in the room gleamed across his skin, enhancing the shadows of his abs and pecs. He loomed in front of her, his size and strength rendering her offer to be his champion utterly ridiculous.
“It’s usually me saying stuff like that,” he said. All the tension had drained from his voice. “You make it all seem easy to handle.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “One thing at a time, right?”
“Right.” He raised his hand to her chin and slowly leaned forward to press a soft, warm kiss on her mouth. “Thank you.”
Riley drew a deep breath and eased away to go back to her own bed. As they both settled and said goodnight, she relaxed her mind and body. As soon as she did, Sam’s buzz tickled her awareness at the same intensity it had been before.
She found it surprisingly comforting.
…
The next morning they all piled into the Charger with bags of breakfast to go, Nick at the wheel. Riley pouted a little out the rear window when they drove away from her Beetle. It had gotten her through so much, and leaving it here, however temporarily, felt like a betrayal of the reliable little car.
After hours of hard driving, Riley talked Nick into a pit stop at the rest area on I-75 in Tennessee. She followed Quinn to the ladies room. The other woman had kept her expression overly steady and movements deliberately smooth as she got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk. Riley had a feeling it was taking Quinn a great deal of effort to hold it together and keep the guys from worrying. Nick was already almost as stressed as Quinn was sick.
She waited a couple of beats before pushing through the main bathroom door. Quinn was already in a stall, retching.
They had to do something. They weren’t even halfway to Rhode Island. Nick was riding the accelerator hard and had even let Sam drive for a few hours so Nick could rest without stopping—something he clearly didn’t like to do. But they still weren’t moving fast enough.