“And I was passed out, useless.” She pressed her lips gently to the wounds, as if her touch could speed the demon’s healing. As if the wounds hadn’t been her fault.
“You’re here now.” His voice roughened. “The demon removes the scar, but not the pain. Only you do that.”
Her fingers tripped up his abs, and his muscles tightened. “Mostly I seem to have made it worse.” She pulled herself onto her knees to wrap her hands behind his neck and kiss his throat. “But now’s my chance to atone.”
She worked her way down his chest again, skimming her fingers over the still, black lines of the reven on his back, until she reached his shorts. The snap sprang open under pressure from within. She smiled up at him as his ready erection surged into her hand.
“We should go down,” he said huskily.
“I already am.” She took him in her mouth.
He jerked so hard, she thought he might come right then. But he steadied himself, his bound hand centered on her skull.
“You don’t have to—” He broke off with a groan when she cupped his sack and gave a tug. His fingers tightened in her hair.
The gentlest suction brought him a step closer. A swirl of tongue, and he kicked out of his shorts and put his foot up on the cushion next to her thigh. The conquering-hero pose. She worked the length of him, the fingers of her free hand splayed through the line of hair low on his belly, and when she hummed, he shuddered, not just conquering, but conquered. She snaked her arm up around his leg, dancing her fingers along his inner thigh.
His cock surged in her mouth, and then he was kneeling on the cushion, nudging her back. He spread her thighs with his knee. The August sun heated her—as if she needed it—but not as much as his mouth. That she needed, his lips and tongue exploring every nerve, wayward locks of his hair tickling her waxed pubis. Who needed hands?
Which didn’t stop her from clutching his head, holding him fast, making sure he touched her there, and there—ah—and there.
He whispered something against her flesh, unheard words, hot and wet, that her body knew and tightened around, as if holding them. Another slow rasp of his tongue and another, and then she was coming undone, shivering apart under his touch.
Melted into the cushion, she struggled to help as he tugged her to the edge of the seat and positioned himself between her thighs. His erection slipped into her.
She watched as he tipped his head back and stroked himself in her passage. She drew her legs up so the only point of contact was that wicked thrust, the wet burn of friction. The tremors built again, and she panted his name.
He straightened to look down at her, his eyes as hot blue as the summer sky behind him.
With the merest flex of muscle, he snapped the bandage around his chest. The gauze unraveled in a loose spiral around his hips before he tore it away.
“Your arm—” she started.
“While I can hold you, I will.” He raised her legs to his flanks, and she locked her heels behind him, drawing him deep. “Ah, Nim.”
He reached down between them to stroke the throbbing flesh of her swollen clitoris.
“Again,” she moaned.
With each teasing flick of his fingers, she wound tighter around him, hoping she wasn’t hurting him, knowing he wouldn’t stop her. Until one more touch tossed her over, and she went ecstatically, in a violent contraction that jackknifed her upward into his arms, just as his own release caught him.
He pumped his body against her a last time, one arm holding her shoulders, his fingers tight on her ass. His heaving breath rocked her against him for a long moment before he lowered her to the cushion and collapsed beside her.
She fitted herself between the hard curve of the hull and his even harder bulk. “Thank God we’re immortal.”
His breathing broke on what she thought was a laugh.
Her thundering pulse slowed and matched itself to his. Pillowed on his shoulder, she traced a fingertip over the all-but-invisible scars on his chest while he stroked her hair. “Am I forgiven?”
His hand stilled on her head, and abruptly she wished she hadn’t asked.
“Because I can do it again,” she said quickly.
He wrapped one of her dreads around his finger and gave it a tug. “What? Get into trouble again?” She huffed into his chest, and he resumed his petting. “I think I’m done passing judgment.”
She wished he’d waited until after he’d forgiven her. “If not you, then who?”
“Someone who makes fewer mistakes.”
“I thought you’d say God.”
“We’re here, aren’t we? Possessed by demons. Somebody didn’t get that right.”
“Ooh, heresy.” She thought for a moment. “I like it.”
“You would.” His hand stilled again. “I judged you more harshly than any heathen I’d hoped to convert in Africa.”
“It’s probably the hair. Maybe I’m more heathen than them.”
“Quite likely. But I like your hair.”
She laughed, but had to close her eyes against the ridiculous surge of pleasure.
“More to the point,” he said, “I think, back then, the concept of converting sinners to save my own soul was somewhat academic. But my fear was no excuse for the way I’ve treated you. I was braver in the jungle.” He sighed. “Carine would have had my head.”
“For sleeping with me, definitely.”
He didn’t laugh. “Last winter, when Sera came to Archer, I realized Carine had been dead for as many years as we’d been together.”
Tentatively, Nim offered, “Maybe she’d think it was time for you to move on.”
“She said that the first time someone mistook me for her son. And then her grandson. And then, before her death, when she began to slip—or maybe she was just tired of the lie—and called me her husband again, she said I should move on.”
“But you didn’t. That would have been the sacrilege to you.”
He propped himself up on his elbow to look down at her. “And now I find myself reveling in sacrilege. Hungry?”
She blinked at him. “Change the subject much?”
He rolled off the bench and stood. “Those days were long ago, longer with every day that passes. I’m here now, with you. And I’m hungry.”
From the tiny galley, he produced tins of tuna fish, a package of crackers, and a can of pineapple rings. She carried the little feast to the deck and pulled on the oxford he’d thrown at her earlier. She rolled up the sleeves while she watched him deftly mix mayo and relish into the tuna, wedging the bowl between his stump and his hip, letting surface tension hold the crackers in place while he spread the salad.
She accepted the mini sandwich and leaned back on the cushions to stretch in the sunshine. “What a glorious day.”
His eyes glinted. “Quite.”
The heat in his gaze penetrated deeper than any UV, warming her from the inside, microwave style. She decided she liked it, so she stretched her bare legs toward him. “How nice you had a boat to help us escape.”
“We discovered our last Bookkeeper—a league posting for a man equal parts librarian, historian, and researcher—was embezzling. One of the few items we recovered was the Shades of Gray.”
“What happened to the Bookkeeper?”
“He retired.” This time, the glitter in his eyes was decidedly toward the cold end of the spectrum. “With Corvus’s help, he devised the chemical formula for the desolator numinis, what became solvo. Also with Corvus’s help, he ultimately lost his soul. Now he’s living—if you can call it that—down south with Nanette’s haints.”