Chapter 5 #3
The sun was still high for late afternoon. The days were getting longer now. They’d keep getting longer until the equinox. The equinox.
Darcy moved slightly closer to him, her side flush against his, her head still resting on his shoulder.
“What happens to us, Jack?” she asked quietly.
He was surprised by her question, taken aback by the directness of it. Her use of the word us almost took his breath away, but he reminded himself to tread softly, to choose his words carefully.
“I don’t know. It’s not only up to me. What do you want, Darcy?”
She answered with another question. “After Lela’s caught…will you stay?”
He shrugged lightly. He didn’t have an answer for her until he knew what she wanted.
If she wanted him to go, he’d go. If she wanted him to stay, he’d stay.
He wanted to stay. He wanted to stay with her and ask her to marry him.
Although Rougs didn’t have any binding ceremonies, other than Gathering bindings, he wanted to respect her human traditions.
But he hadn’t really dared to dream that far except in his best, wildest, most unlikely dreams.
“If you went home…” She started, her voice thready with emotion and, he suspected, more tears. “You could find a Roug girl. Not your…not your sister. But someone who understood everything about who you are. Someone who you could, you know, live with and h-hunt with, and have ch-children…”
She stumbled on the last words, and finally her voice trailed off. He felt her swallow against his shoulder.
“I could do that,” he replied in a whisper, sensing the fragility of the moment, the fleeting nature of this precious common ground. “And you could find a nice human, buy a house in town with an herb garden and have barbecues with your neighbors, and your kids would be…”
His voice broke, so he stopped speaking, taking a deep breath through his nose, trying to ignore the throbbing pain that such a vision accompanied.
He swallowed, feeling miserable. He looked at the pale orange hair pulled back in a bun, resting on his shoulder, and he realized that more than anything else in the world, he wanted what was best for her.
He wanted her to be happy. It gave him the strength to say what needed to be said.
“If that’s what you wanted, I’d leave you alone. I’d never pull you inside again, Darcy. I’d let you go, and I’d never come back. I promise.”
She lifted her head slowly from his shoulder, and he reached up gently with his thumb to brush away the tears that fell in streams down her face.
“Why do you have to shift?” she sobbed.
“Because it’s what I am. Because I can’t change it, and there’s no remedy for it.” He raised his other hand to her face, cradling it tenderly, his fingers flush against her damp cheeks, thumbs resting by the corners of her mouth.
“Are you s-sure?” she managed through tears.
“It doesn’t exist. I wish it did. I wish to hell I could control it completely, but for those three nights, I can’t.
I can’t, Darcy. I can’t.” He shook his head back and forth, his eyes burning with Roug gold and human tears as he looked down, ashamed of his emotions, ashamed of who he was, desperate for her light in his life and knowing there was no way she would ever agree to stay.
He felt her small, cool hands reach up to cover his, her fingers lacing through his to rest on the skin of her own cheeks. She leaned her head forward until her forehead rested softly against his.
After a moment, he pulled back, his watery eyes capturing hers. He couldn’t read her face. It was almost expressionless, but that didn’t make it less intense. She held his eyes with a fierceness he couldn’t recall ever seeing in her gaze before.
You belong to me, and I belong to you.
He inhaled sharply, wincing at the power of her words, and his eyes shuddered closed. Please, please, please, he pleaded with every god of the universe, every power that ever was or had been or would be, even though he knew he had no right.
He opened his eyes and looked into hers.
I love you, Jack.
His eyes leaped with fire, and he jolted forward, finding her lips with his.
Darcy plunged her hands into his hair, pulling his head to hers, moaning as he thrust his tongue into her mouth.
Drinking him in like a thirsty wanderer in the desert, she couldn’t get enough.
She sucked greedily on his tongue before releasing it to stroke hers, sending shivers of pleasure down her back all the way to her toes, which curled inside her muddy boots.
Jack lowered his hands to her shoulders, pushing her T-shirt down until her shoulder was exposed, then he abandoned her mouth, kissing a trail from her mouth to her jaw to her neck to her shoulder, murmuring her name, “Darcy, Darcy, Darcy,” like a litany as his lips moved insistently across her skin.
She pulled the hair on the back of his head hard, jerking his head up and smashing her lips into his.
She felt their teeth clash and tasted blood on her lip.
Jack growled into her mouth, his hands dropping to her waist and moving urgently under her shirt.
He pushed her bra aggressively upward, and she felt his hot, huge hands covering her liberated breasts, his thumb massaging her nipple until it stood at attention, almost painfully erect.
She slid her hands down his neck, running her hands over the rippling ridges of muscles under his shirt, then over his stomach, one hand straying lower until she felt his belt buckle, and then lower, resting on the enormous bulge in his jeans.
He groaned into her mouth, squeezing her breasts sharply, eliciting a sob of pain-pleasure from her throat.
She felt for his zipper under the buckle and pulled it down, wiggling her hand inside.
She gasped as she made contact with the unconfined, hard, satin length of him, her fingers curling around the top half of him, stroking the head of his rigid shaft with her thumb as he had caressed her nipples.
Suddenly, he broke off their kiss, lowering his hands from her breasts and pulling hers away from his erection. He panted against her face, resting his forehead on hers, eyes closed.
Darcy grimaced in frustration, trying to pull her hands away from his to touch him again. She didn’t want to stop. She never wanted to stop. But he held her wrists firmly.
“Why?” She finally sighed with frustration, her voice breathy, heavy, stonewalled. “Don’t push me away. I want you, Jack. I choose you. Why can’t we—”
He leaned back from her.
Because…
His chest heaved up and down with the force of his breathing, and his eyes burned from wanting her.
My brother’s standing behind you.
“Looks like you two made up.”
Julien’s amused voice was like a bucket of cold water. Her wrists relaxed, and Jack released them. She discreetly reached up and tugged her bra down, readjusting it over her breasts as Jack zipped up with a low groan.
He stared at Darcy with hunger and longing, his hands resting lightly on her thighs, but spoke softly aloud to his brother. “Your timing is incredibly shitty, Julien.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Is this about Lela?”
“No. Nothing yet. I just came to say that after spending two days with you two, I felt I deserved some real company that didn’t scowl or growl at me this evening.”
Darcy turned at the waist to look at him, torn between feeling bad for him and wanting to smack his face off for interrupting them. He grinned at her.
“So when I was checking out your house early this morning, I invited Willow over for dinner.”
“Really?” Jack’s tone was surprised if not amused. “And what are you making for her?”
“Oh non, mon frère. I promised your Coq au Vin.”
“Is that right?” Jack asked.
“And I even did the stealin—er, shopping.”
“I don’t even want to know,” muttered Jack under his breath.
Darcy turned back to him and grinned. “I wouldn’t mind knowing how you make it.”
I wouldn’t mind seeing your naked body in my bed.
Her cheeks flushed hot and ached from the sudden width of her grin.
Later.
Promise?
She stood up without answering and took his hand, unable to keep a joyful laugh from rising up out of her chest as she pulled him back into the house.
Darcy sat on the counter beside him as he chopped vegetables for the Coq au Vin, chattering about her lack of expertise in the kitchen. She plucked a carrot off the cutting board and observed to him, in a teasing voice, that he could always give cooking lessons if he needed a little spare cash.
He winked at her, feeling happy.
It was true. He was completely comfortable in the kitchen.
He’d learned how to cook from the most exclusive chef in Boston.
After a decade with the Council he had taken a job in Boston doing private security for humans, and working with such wealthy and privileged people had exposed na?ve, backwoods Jack to the best food, the best wine, the best of everything, including their personal staff which always included a chef willing to teach tricks of the trade to an eager student after hours.
Regardless of the soft, stupid work, exposure to the super wealthy had only served to feed his ambition.
He wanted those things in his life. He wanted to be able to offer them to Darcy someday.
So Jack had worked hard, learned quickly, and acquired a sterling, if expensive, reputation.
Being the best in his field meant a lot of money, and living simply meant amassing a small fortune.