Chapter 6 #2
“No!” His face turned to stone, and he gripped her arms almost painfully. “No! I can’t lose you now. I won’t let you go. I won’t. You can’t leave me—”
“Jack!” she exclaimed softly, wincing as she looked at her arms, and he relaxed his crushing hold on her. “Let me finish.”
He swallowed, and she watched his throat bob with the force of it.
“I don’t…” she started again. “Know how to live without you now.”
He exhaled in a rush of breath. Putting his hands under her arms, he pulled her on top of his body, clasping her to him fiercely, like he would never, ever let her go. You’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine.
She felt the furious rhythmic thumping of his heart against hers and felt her heart respond in kind. I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours.
“The thought of anyone else…like this…with you.” Tears filled her eyes as she placed her hands on his cheeks, gently pressing her lips against his and then drawing back to look at him. “I’d rather die. Do you hear me? I’d rather die than live another day without you.”
“So we’ll figure it out?” he asked in a rush. “We’ll stay…together?”
She nodded and watched his face change from uncertain to relieved before her eyes. His eyes fluttered closed for a moment, and she knew he was having trouble controlling the depth of his emotions as his eyes glowed under his eyelids.
“We will…” she whispered, smiling at his handsome face. “Stay together.”
Like lightning, he flipped her gently back and swung his body over hers, his erection hard and pulsing against her thigh.
Her body flooded hot and wet, instantly ready for him again.
She arched her back to meet his quick, smooth thrust. His eyes seized hers, his burning, seething, beautiful glowing eyes that she would read with clarity, the sum and total of her days and hours and minutes from now until the end of time.
I love you.
I love you too.
I belong to you.
And I belong to you.
Forever.
Forever.
And then they were one, seeking, finding, needing, having, unrequited, finally, finally, finally requited.
“What time is it?” she asked again, her face resting on a pillow across from his.
He turned to look at the clock on his bedside table.
“Almost five.”
She looked troubled. He knew that losing time bothered her and wondered if he could try to offer some explanation.
“Do you want me to try to explain why it happens?” he asked.
“You know?”
“Not for sure. Nobody I know has ever been bound to a human, so I sort of had to figure it out for myself, but I have an idea.”
“Please?” she asked. “Tell me?”
He leaned forward and kissed her nose, then leaned back.
“My theory is that you lose about two hours a day when you’re with me.”
“Why?”
“My body lives on a lunar calendar, on a lunar cycle. The moon takes 29.54 twenty-four-hour days to make a full return to Pleine Lune, to a full moon, and 29.54 times twelve months is 348 days. Your calendar year is 365 days. That’s a difference of twenty-seven days, 648 hours.
Roughly two hours every day. When you’re with me, you lose them. ”
“Why don’t you lose them?”
“Because I never had them. They never existed for me.”
“Why do I?”
“Because you’re bound to me. And the nature of the binding is Roug, so I think it forces you to comply with Roug time when we’re together. This isn’t written down anywhere. But I think I’m probably right.”
“Will I age faster?”
“I don’t know, baby,” he answered quietly, running a finger up her arm from her elbow to her shoulder. “It bothers you?”
She nodded, moving her other arm under her head and looking away.
“It makes you sad?”
She shrugged lightly, but a tear escaped from her eye and ran down her nose, dropping with a plop on the sheet between them.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently.
She rubbed her eyes and mumbled something.
“What?” he asked.
She lowered her arm, finding his hand and entwining her fingers through his.
“Small price,” she repeated, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. “I’m so tired. I wish I could sleep for a few minutes.”
He smoothed the hair back from her forehead and kissed her lightly. “Sleep a little. I’ll wake you up right before seven.”
She took a deep breath and sighed. “Jack, when Lela comes…”
“Mmm?” he murmured.
“I know you’ll keep me safe,” she whispered softly, her voice already heavy with impending sleep.
“Don’t worry, baby,” he breathed, kissing her forehead again.
In a moment, she was breathing deeply, and he knew she was asleep.
He watched her for a few minutes, marveling that just last week he was sure she was lost to him.
And now here she was, delivered to him, surrendered to him.
For the first time ever, he believed not just in the power of the binding, but that Darcy Turner belonged to him because she chose to give herself to him.
Not because her destiny had been chosen for her, but because she had decided to claim it, to love him, in her own mind, from her own heart, with her own body.
And suddenly, Jack knew why his binding had always felt different. Why, as Tombeur had observed, it was so extraordinarily strong.
Because, among all Rougs, he was an exception. His binding hadn’t just been given to him. He’d had to earn it. And now that he had, he’d hold on to it with every breath, every bit of strength and courage that he owned.
He’d need it all, he considered bitterly, watching her sleep.
The equinox is coming.