Chapter 5 #2
“During panic attacks,” Annika finishes for me, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. “We’ve talked about it.” She grins softly. “She’s getting better. She doesn’t go into full detail about what her and Saint work on during their time together, but she’s getting…clearer, more grounded.”
“I’m glad,” I say. “This trip seems to be helping her.”
Annika nods.
“Do you have panic attacks?”
She shakes her head.
I press my lips together. “You don’t have to tell me,” I say. “But, I hope you will sometime. So I can understand you better. Help teach you better.”
A battle flickers over her face. “I was using the bath to relax,” she says, struggling to get every word out.
“Okay,” I say. “And that’s embarrassing because?”
She groans, rolling her eyes. “I needed a release.”
Everything in me goes statue-still at that small admission. That kernel of truth she’s trusted me with.
Desire. Passion. Release. That’s what had triggered her power.
I swallow hard, nodding. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“Sure thing.” She blows out a breath, and the tension between us mounts. “Not sure how that is going to help.”
“Has anything like that ever happened before?” I ask. “When you were with someone?” The question tastes sour on my tongue. For some reason, picturing another male’s hands on her makes me want to rip out hearts.
“No.” She sputters a laugh. “Though, I haven’t been with anyone like that in a while. The last time…I don’t think my power had manifested yet. It certainly wasn’t an explosive enough experience to merit anything happening either.”
“It wasn’t?” Anger and relief snap through me, the most conflicting sensation.
“Nope.” Her eyes drop to the water, more embarrassment coloring her face.
“That should be a crime,” I say, and she looks up at me again. “You deserve explosive.”
Her full lips part. “I do?”
I nod.
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I can’t even connect with my power. And the longer I can’t, the more of a liability I am to the family.” She sighs. “I want to help. I want to be useful.”
“You are useful,” I argue.
“I’m okay in hand-to-hand, thanks to training with my aunt before she got pregnant, sure.
But if I could wield my power? I’d be able to help us in the fight that’s coming.
” There’s a pleading look in her eyes, a desperation that pricks my chest. “I know I can be a brat about these lessons,” she continues.
“But I really want to master this. I know in order to do that, I need your help.”
I swallow hard. This would normally be the time I make a smart-ass remark. But…I can’t think straight. Not when she’s looking up at me like that. Like I’m the answer to every question she has.
“Ugh,” she groans. “Sorry about the pity party. I just really want this to work.”
“I know you do.” I clear my throat. “Have you tried recreating that night?”
Annika’s eyes flare wide. “The night I froze everything?”
“Yes.”
She presses her lips together. The flush along her cheeks is answer enough.
“And did anything happen?” I ask. “Clearly, you didn’t freeze yourself again or you would’ve called for help.”
She huffs a laugh. “No,” she says. “Nothing happened. Maybe that night was a fluke.”
Or maybe, she needs more.
It’s a torturous, terrible idea. One that sends lava shooting through my veins.
Fuck it. She said she trusted me. No harm in asking if she wants to do an experiment.
“Can I try something?” I ask, walking around her, stopping when I’m behind her.
“Try what?” She whispers the question.
“Try to trigger the power connection again,” I say, my heart pounding in my chest. “You might need a bigger push. And recognizing that connection is the key to finding it and the source of your power.”
Everything narrows to her. The way the curves of her body look in that swimsuit as I stand behind her in the water. The way her breath hitches. The way I can scent her—a combination of her signature smell and something headier.
Desire.
Fuck, it smells so sweet on her.
“No pressure,” I say, not wanting to push her. I want to help her.
I want to touch her too—I’m not a total saint—but I want her to feel empowered just as much.
“I’ve failed at everything else,” she finally says with a shrug. “Do your worst.”
I chuckle, trailing my fingertip over her bare shoulder. “This okay?”
“Yes,” she breathes.
I glide my hand gently up the curve of her neck. She tips her head back slightly, almost like she doesn’t even realize she’s leaning into me. She said she’d needed a release that night, who’s to say she doesn’t need another one now?
“You were in the bathtub,” I say, prompting her to get back in that headspace.
“Yes,” she whispers. “I was.”
“Were you lying back in the water?” I ask, urging her to lean fully against me.
She does, pressing her back against my chest, her perfect ass grazing just the outline of my cock.
“Yes,” she answers.
“Where were your hands?” I ask.
She goes quiet.
I run my hands down her arms, my touch lingering on her silken skin. “Close your eyes,” I demand. She obeys, and I get harder at the submission, the trust. She wasn’t lying when she said she trusted me. That’s everything. “Go back to that night,” I say. “Where were your hands, Annika?”
“I can’t…” she whispers, shaking her head against my chest, eyes still closed.
“You can trust me,” I urge her. “You said so yourself.”
“You promise?” The question is so vulnerable.
“I promise,” I assure her. “I’ve got you.”
She leans into me, relaxing a little. She catches my hands as I sweep them over hers.
And moves one of them right between her thighs.
My fangs punch out at the first, light touch over her swimsuit.
“What were you thinking about?” The question scrapes out of me as she continues to tease herself with my hand. “Where you thinking about someone pumping into you? Slow and hard or fast and chaotic?” Fuck, I want to know. I want to know exactly what gets her off.
Annika’s eyes flutter open, looking over her shoulder at me. “Yes,” she says. “I was thinking about someone.”
My fangs pulse, instinct sharpening to the desire I smell coming off of her. “And what was this someone doing to you?”
“Touching me,” she answers, her breath shuddering a little as she shifts my hands against her heat. “Kissing me.”
Jealousy threatens to steal this charged moment. Whoever she was fantasizing about is now my number one enemy.
“Did they make you tremble?” I ask, applying a little extra pressure as she moves against me. “Like you are now?”
“Yes.”
“And what did they do next?” I lean my cheek against hers, inhaling deeply as I hold her tighter against me.
“You sank your fangs into my thigh—”
She cuts herself off, her eyes locking onto mine.
“Me,” I say. “You were thinking about me?”
She nods. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
That brings me up short, my awareness slicing down to the bone. Her grip tightens on my hand like I might run away. The admission breaks something in me. The visualization, the notion that she’d been touching herself while thinking about me…
I spin her to face me, crushing my mouth on hers.
Restraints be damned, I need her like my next feed.
Mine.
Not my anything. I shoot the thought down as I suck her tongue into my mouth.
Not mine. She has a need I can satisfy. I can do that. I can be that for her. A tool for release. A conduit to help her control her power.
I cup her face like she’s something delicate, kissing her in soaring sips. Her breathy little moans tell me everything I need to know about what she likes. She rocks her hips against me as I roll my tongue against the roof her mouth in a dominating claim.
And fuck me, every inch of my body wants hers. I want to sink my cock and fangs into her right this second, see if she can moan loud enough to break the wards.
But that’s not what this is about.
This is about trust.
About breaking down barriers.
I plunge my hand back into the water, and slip her bikini bottoms to the side. I pull back to look down at her, gauging her reaction. “This okay?”
“Yes, please.”
That please has my cock aching to sink into her. I ignore the coursing need pumping through my veins, focusing on her. I slide my fingers through her silken heat, claiming her mouth again as I tease her clit.
“Dagon,” she says against my lips.
“Can you feel the connection?” I ask, some part of my brain still functioning, still remembering this is a lesson. “To your power? Like that night?”
A tiny whimper slips past her lips as I dip my finger into her heat in a teasing flick. “Yes,” she says. “I can feel it.”
“Good,” I praise her, slipping in another fingers. Fuck me, she’s so hot and squeezes me so well. “Study that feeling.”
A frustrated groan rips out of her that makes me smile against her mouth before I nip at her bottom lip. “You can do this,” I encourage her. “Focus.”
She trembles in my embrace, her fingers digging into my back as she clings to me. “There,” she says, eyes closed.
“Good.” I pump my fingers into her, dragging them out to roll over her clit before doing it again. She rocks into the teasing touches, her body so damn responsive to me. Heat floods my body, my muscles clenching against the instincts begging me to fuck her right here and now.
We can’t do that. Not when she’s studying her power. Not when she needs to use me to connect to it. Use the sensations I’m creating in her right now.
The water around us ripples. A smile stretches over my lips. She still has her eyes closed.
“You’re doing so fucking well, Annika.” I pump my fingers into her again, dragging them over her sensitive flesh as she gasps.
“Dagon,” she moans into my mouth as I haul her tighter against me.
That sound she makes when she says my name, pure submission and trust and need. I could die to it. I could kiss her mouth for an eternity and never tire of it—
Water roars around us in a quick burst, the motion jarring us out of the kiss. I draw my hand from between her thighs, resting it on her luscious hip.
Annika blinks a few times, glancing around at the thin pillars of water shooting up to the sky on either side of us.
“Is this you?” she asks, still clinging to me.
I grin, shaking my head. “This is all you.”