Chapter Thirteen
“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
—Oscar Wilde
Ben stared at her hotel room door from the other side.
He’d stayed out all day, getting lost in the crowded city. He walked until his feet were sore and he had to take a cab back because he’d gone too far.
Anything to avoid remembering.
Thinking.
Feeling.
Strangely, now that the dam had burst, and his pain and heartbreak had flooded forth, all his bloody innards spilled out for Seven to see, the wound inside of him stopped festering.
He still hurt. He still bled. But it was a dull, throbbing ache now, like a fracture or break that happened long ago and never healed properly. Maybe on the rainy days when his mood was particularly somber, it would pulse more sharply than usual.
But this was now.
He was a different person. The same worn soul, perhaps. But he had a new life.
He was incredibly blessed to be loved so well by so many. He knew this. He was missing a particular kind of love, but that was okay. All kinds of love were beautiful and precious. And he had more than any man could possibly wish for.
Yes, it hurt like hell to love someone so deeply yet never receive in kind. Yes, he’d ultimately died for it. Not once but twice.
Clearly, he was slow on the uptake and a glutton for punishment where Seven was concerned.
But looking back now, he wouldn’t have changed anything. He didn’t regret. Because his love was unconditional, and he chose her.
He’d always chosen her.
When he was Byakko and she was the Pure Goddess, he’d wished for a way to be her partner, to not only protect her and keep her company, but to satisfy her needs in all ways. To make her smile that elusive, painfully innocent smile when she gazed sleepily into his eyes and held him close.
When he was the leopard Beast, he’d recognized her soul in Lilith from the start. He’d seen her darkness and wrath for having been stripped of her godhood, now living amongst mortals. He’d resisted her pursuit in the beginning, because he was afraid of Falling again.
But he knew it was inevitable.
Because just as there was a bottomless darkness to her soul, there was also a limitless light. It was in the way she looked at him when she thought he didn’t know. As if she didn’t understand why he held her captivated, resented him for it, but was helpless against it.
It was in the way she held her growing belly and spoke softly to their unborn child:
I don’t know how to be a mother. I’m terrified of doing it wrong. There are…regrets inside of me that I don’t understand. I want to care for you, but I don’t want to be weak. You will have to be strong for both of us, and not hold it against me when I resent you for having to share your Papa’s affections. I’m a selfish bitch. But he’ll give you everything I don’t know how to give.
I hope you grow up to be just like him…
They’d had a couple decades together as Mates, and then one more as a family. They’d lived a peaceful, simple life despite being Pure Ones in a world ruled by vampires. Lilith had…cared for him in ways the Pure Goddess couldn’t or wouldn’t express.
It had been enough.
Even the agony of the end couldn’t obliterate the joy she’d given him before.
He didn’t have regrets. He’d chosen these paths with eyes wide open. He’d never been misled.
So, now he stood before Seven’s door in the middle of the night without thought, without blame, simply wanting to be here.
To hold her if she wanted his arms. If she was weak and needed his strength. If she was cold and craved his warmth.
With a soft click, the door opened a sliver.
She was right there, on the other side, standing silently in the dark just like him.
He nudged the door open a little more, enough that the low glow from the hallway light illuminated her face.
She was looking down at the floor, head bowed, shoulders hunched. He couldn’t see much of her face, except to note that it was blotchy red. Even from this angle, he could see the swollen puffs under her eyes. There was an uncontrollable quiver to her lips, though she tried to stop it with the tight clench of her jaw.
She seemed unbearably small and powerless, in a way he’d never seen in her before, no matter the form or incarnation.
He closed the distance between them with a step forward, and she shuffled a half step back so that he could come through the door and close it behind him. And then, as he leaned against the wood, she shuffled forward again so that they were toe to toe.
Her small hands trembled when they lifted toward his chest. He held his breath and braced for her touch, like a wounded animal longing for tenderness.
Very gently, she laid her hands on his cotton-covered pecs, making them jump. Then, she laid her cheek against his heart and shuddered a deep, exhausted sigh.
His arms slid around her waist as if he’d done this countless times, and she uttered a small sound that was half pain, half pleasure.
He didn’t know how long they stood this way, simply holding each other. It might have been hours, for the sun was starting to peek beyond low-lying clouds. Eventually, he scooped her into his arms like a child and carried her to bed. She clutched fistfuls of his shirt and wouldn’t release him when he leaned back to leave.
And then she gained more purchase when her arms wrapped around his back and her legs hooked around his hips.
Stay, her body pleaded, though she didn’t say a word, her cheek still pressed tightly to his chest.
Ben knew this was it.
If he stayed, there would be no going back. He wouldn’t be able to walk away again. He would be making a choice, just as he had twice before.
He sighed and closed his eyes, letting her small weight draw him down.
Apparently, his battered soul never stopped hoping.
Wishing.
Yearning.
Even if his heart kept breaking.
~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~* ~ *~ * ~
A bright sun filtered through gauzy drapes that shielded the bedroom window.
Seven squinted against the light, not opening her eyes.
She usually slept in full darkness, with all the blinds down and blackout drapes pulled closed. In her apartment above the diner, she’d bought and installed the thick, opaque drapes herself.
Sometimes, darkness and silence could be comforting. She was used to it, after all.
She must have forgotten to pull the drapes closed in her hotel room. She’d forgotten many things yesterday. Like how long she stayed huddled at the park, even when strangers tried to rouse or comfort her.
Somehow, she’d gotten back to the hotel. But she didn’t change out of her clothes into the long sleep T-shirt she liked to wear. She didn’t shower either, which she was meticulous about. Gods never got dirty, but humans most definitely did. Even when they sat around doing nothing, they accumulated dirt, sweat and dead skin cells. She didn’t eat, even though her stomach rumbled and clenched on emptiness.
But at least she finally stopped crying.
She’d sat against the wall adjoining her room to Benjamin’s for an untold amount of time. He wasn’t there, she knew, but it still made her feel closer to him this way. Eventually, she heard motion in the hall. She could detect his footsteps from the cadence of his gait alone.
They’d stopped first at his door. Then, after a long silence, they took a couple of steps to stop at hers.
She stood up from her huddle and went to the door, facing it while he must have faced the other side. Her hand was already on the latch, wanting to open it and pull him inside. She needed him and wanted him in equal measure, but she dared not demand his attention.
She knew now that she didn’t deserve it.
Never deserved it.
And yet, when the latch depressed from the light pressure of her palm and the door clicked open a sliver, he’d come to her by his own will.
His own choice.
And she realized with startling clarity that he’d always given himself to her this way. Freely. Everything he had, he’d given her. Not because she commanded or demanded it. But because he wanted to.
Unconditionally.
The last thing she felt when she finally slept was his arms wrapping safely around her, his heat making her warm and cozy. For the first time in years, she fell into a dreamless sleep.
She didn’t change into Michael before dawn. She hadn’t changed into him yesterday afternoon either. And just like that, she realized that Michael was gone. Absorbed into her one remaining body—Eve.
She was whole now.
Wholly human.
Presently, she feared to fully awake, for what if Benjamin was no longer here?
Panic made her heart flutter furiously like hummingbird wings. She didn’t like how needy she was at the moment, but she liked even less the possibility that he was gone from her.
With some trepidation, she raised her eyelids a tiny fraction.
Hooded aquamarine gems glittered back at her through thickets of long golden lashes.
Benjamin was right here. In her bed. Facing her.
He hadn’t left.
He wasn’t holding her anymore. They weren’t touching at all. But he was close enough that his heavenly scent enveloped her, making her feel embraced by him all the same.
They were on their sides in mirrored poses. An arm crooked under their cheeks beneath a pillow each. The other arm settled in front of their chests, almost but not quite touching one another. Their hips were turned inward, knees bent.
With the curve of their upper and lower bodies, Seven imagined they looked like a heart sitting in the palms of two hands joined at the base.
This was a gift, she thought. His presence here.
He was giving her comfort when she most needed it. Even though she’d never offered him the same. And all she’d ever done was hurt him.
Suddenly, her chest didn’t feel so empty anymore. Just the opposite. She felt so full, she thought she’d burst.
Her hand lifted of its own accord, hovering uncertainly above his face. She wanted to touch him so badly, she had no control of it. But she also vowed that she’d never touch him again without his permission.
Miraculously, he gave it.
He took her hand in his and laid it on his cheek, cupping his own palm over the back of hers.
She rubbed her thumb across the blade of his cheekbones and the silky yet rough beard on his jaw.
He’d been mostly clean-shaven a few days ago, though he seldom shaved. Perhaps it was for the conference he attended. Or in deference to the hot, humid weather here.
But now he’d grown a proper light beard again, more than just a stubble. It wouldn’t be long before it was a full one.
And she was reminded, irrelevantly, that he’d always possessed a light dusting of hair all over his body, no matter his incarnation or form. Thick on his head and jaw, a tantalizing smattering on his chest, a silky thatch under his arms, a treasure trail that bisected his stomach, and thick again at his groin.
The other gods had called him a rudimentary creature, a barbaric beast. For, Immortals were hairless as a rule, except for the tops of their heads.
But Seven had aways loved his hair. His wavy mane was made for her fingers to run through. His hairy chest perfectly cushioned her own sensitive mounds. The dusting everywhere else made his skin so soft and luxurious despite the stone-hard muscles beneath.
She loved everything about her beautiful Beast.
Something changed in his eyes just then, as if he could hear her thoughts. His lips parted on a shaky indrawn breath.
Seven didn’t think. She simply wanted to erase that look of doubt and fear from his expression.
It was a look that said:
I know you will hurt me. But I am powerless to resist you. I don’t want to.
I want…
Please…
His eyes begged her. For what, she knew not. Except that she begged him too, arching closer, her own lips a breath away from his.
Please let me, she answered.
Let me hold you the way I should have before.
Let me soothe away the pain.
Let me give you pleasure.
Slowly, with the slightest pressure of her palm on his cheek, his hand on her own, she caressed his lips with hers.
Just the lightest brush. Barely there.
She’d never liked kissing as a rule. Kissing wasn’t required for fucking. In her more generous moods, she allowed his kisses begrudgingly. But she never initiated them.
They made her weak.
They made her want.
And long. And yearn. And hope.
They overpowered her senses and made her feel too much.
But she needed his kisses now, the way she needed air in her lungs and light on her skin to live.
And he gave it to her.
Everything she ever dreamed of and more.
His hand moved to the back of her neck, cupping her nape, bringing her inexorably closer. For a moment, they simply breathed, lips parted, trembling together.
She could feel her entire body pulsing with anticipation and terrifying need.
To be even closer to him. To become part of him and make him a part of her. Such that even their molecules fused together, cell by cell. She wanted to bask in his warmth and light.
She wondered if this was his first kiss, just as it would be for her. She didn’t want to think that there could have been others; it made the darkness within her throb with possessive fury. But she pushed that part of herself back and focused on what mattered:
Who was she to begrudge anyone the gift of Benjamin? And who was she to deny him pleasure and affection wherever he chose to find it?
There was so much sadness in his eyes, beneath the radiant light. She knew now that she was the one who had put it there. She hurt for him that he hurt. His pain was hers too. She wished she could do it all over. Be someone else.
But she didn’t know how. Even when he tried to show her, she’d been too afraid, too arrogant, and too selfish to learn.
She wanted to learn with him now.
Together.
And then he shifted the tiniest degree, somehow aligning their mouths in a way that made her gut clench with ravenous hunger—to be so close to ambrosia. So close to the greatest temptation across her endless, lonely existence.
She knew that there would be no heaven sweeter than the taste of his lips.
He covered her then—his mouth firmly, lushly against hers, his body curled around her, half beside her, half over her, his hand in her hair fisting, pulling her tightly into him. He tasted her in barely controlled sips and laps, his entire body vibrating, his breath hot and fractured, as if he didn’t trust himself to fully let go.
As if he meant to devour her.
Oh, but she wanted to be devoured. So badly.
She wanted to submit to his desires in ways she’d never allowed herself before. She wanted to give him everything too, everything she had.
She might be plain and average. She might have no powers, no money, and a limited lifespan besides. But she felt a whole universe of feelings for him. No one could possibly feel this much, hope this much.
He made her special.
Beautiful. Powerful.
He made her limitless.
At last, he deepened the kiss, licking into her mouth with his slick, sweet tongue, a voluptuous slide that made them both groan at the carnality of it. The delicious decadence.
Who knew that the cavern of her mouth could be so sensitive, and so directly connected to her nipples and sex? Every undulation of his tongue within, every sinuous slide against her own, made her breasts swollen and achy, made her channel weep and convulse.
Wanting him inside. Everywhere she was empty.
She hadn’t done this before as Eve. Hell, she hadn’t done anything as a human. And the last time she’d been intimate with him had been thousands of years ago. There’d been no other since.
Yet, her body somehow remembered, despite its newness. It burned for its Mate. Her legs clasped his hips tightly and brought him fully on top of her. She wanted to feel his solid weight, his tantalizing heat.
His groin settled into her notch naturally, only their thin clothes separating them. He was so hard and heavy there. A perfect fit to fill her hollow.
She moaned incoherently against his mouth, her hands now pulling at his shirt and shorts. Scrabbling desperately up his sides and down his back beneath his T.
He touched her too, his hand spanning her throat for a heady moment, using the slightest pressure, collaring her. A gesture of ownership.
She submitted. Arched into it. And the pressure increased, making her pulse race even faster. Then, that hand traveled across her collar bones to her meager breast.
She thrust into his palm, wishing she could fill it with more generous curves. But he seemed to like what he found, for a husky groan vibrated from his chest, and his pelvis pushed harder against her.
As if he couldn’t help it. As if she brought out the beast in him.
She couldn’t lie still as he cupped her breast and worried his thumb over the hardened peak. Every brush sent a tingle through her belly to her groin. If felt like he was touching her there.
It wasn’t nearly enough.
She grabbed onto the strip of muscle sitting above his hip bones, pushed his shorts lower, then delved and dug until her questing fingers found hot, satiny skin. She clutched a handful of rounded muscle in each palm and squeezed, making his buttocks clench and his hips stutter against her.
Gods, she wanted him in.
Right fucking now!
She needed it. Needed him.
Later, they could explore each other to their heart’s content.
Later, she could map his bare body with ardent kisses, possessive touches, and adoring eyes.
Now, she needed to take him inside of her, make him a part of her, absorb his light into her unending darkness and finally feel full.
Feel whole.
Barely breaking their kiss, he deftly doffed his shirt, then worked between them at his fly and hers. Clearly, he had the same idea. He couldn’t wait anymore either.
Satisfied that they were on the same page, she refocused on the kiss. She sucked on his tongue the way she wanted to suck on him elsewhere.
He shoved their pants and underthings down and she helped him get them off the rest of the way with their feet. He whipped her shirt off too, and finally, finally, they were skin to skin, no barriers between them.
She whimpered and moaned at the hard heat of him. All that satiny, hair-dusted skin over steely muscle. All that power and perfection in her arms.
Perfect for her.
She’d made sure of it when she wished him into being.
She swallowed his breath and drank from his lips as if he were food and water, and she’d been starving for so very long.
An eternity.
And then—he was there. A long, thick brand between her soft thighs, hard and demanding, deliciously plump and wet at the tip.
She needed to be joined with him. Connected to him in the rawest, most intimate way.
Now. Now. Now.
Her hands dug into his muscular ass, her fingers curved into the hard rounds like claws. She pushed him, pulled him, all but mad with desperation to have him inside.
But he didn’t budge. Not yet.
She could feel his cockhead pulsing at her entrance, already half an inch between her slick folds. She could feel the unyielding hardness of him teasing her with that euphoric pressure. So thick and long she wondered how they’d ever fit.
But her body craved the burn and stretch. She could almost feel it. She wanted it so badly she bit down on his lower lip with impatience and drew blood.
He hissed and reared back slightly, then chastised her by nipping her gently as well. Then, he delved deep with his tongue again, as he undulated his hips below, moving his swollen cockhead through her folds, wetting it with her dew, abrading her clit with every pass.
“Benjamin…” she moaned.
Frustrated. Desperate.
On the verge of either tears or madness or both.
He braced his weight on one arm beside her shoulder, the other hand holding her face. He looked down at her with those incandescent eyes.
Piercing her right through the chest. Making her gasp.
He’d been her creation, woven by magic, desire and hope. But he made his own magic thereafter, growing his own soul, and it was infinitely more dazzling than she could ever have imagined.
He wasn’t the moon that reflected her light. He was the sun. The stars. The cosmos that held her so captivated beyond the Celestial Realm’s Dome.
He was her Mate.
She’d never understood the meaning of it until now.
Holding her gaze, making it impossible for her to look away, he pushed slowly, inexorably, into her, opening her body, mind, heart and soul to his.
Her lips parted as her lungs filled with his scent, as her eyes melded with his.
There was a pinching, burning pain, despite the slickness of her channel. But she welcomed it. Embraced it. Waves of heat rushed through her tissues as she clenched tightly around him, becoming one with him.
He paused within her to let the pain dull to an achy throb, as if he could feel how she felt. A muscle ticked in his jaw at the control he was exerting, as if he hurt far worse. Yet, his eyes flared with pure male triumph at the knowledge that she’d never held another this way.
Her hands flexed on his ass, squeezing with proprietary satisfaction, for she knew that the same was true for him.
They were both each other’s firsts. She wished they would be each other’s forever too.
He pushed forward again, and she felt that she was being split in half. A gasp left her in an aborted breath, cheeks flushed a scalding red.
It was too much. He was too big. She began to tremble and shake from the incredible pressure. But he held her down with his body mass and weight, pinned her in place with the beam of his eyes.
Just when she thought she couldn’t take more, he bent to kiss her again, distracting her with the pleasure of his tongue. And somehow her body adjusted and conformed around him, pulling him ever deeper—
Welcoming him home.
At last, he settled to the hilt, locking them together. His pubic bone ground directly upon her clit, making her keen as she convulsed helplessly around him.
You’re mine now, she heard his voice in her mind.
Had she imagined it?
But no. Despite them both being human, supposedly devoid of any magic, she heard him as clearly as she used to when they’d been connected telepathically.
Say it.
“I’m yours,” she whispered obediently, for it was what she wanted too.
She’d never admitted it before, but she’d always been his.
His goddess. His Mate.
He’d owned her as much as she owned him. He’d simply never forced her to face the fact. As if he knew she was too afraid of it.
She was still afraid now. But despite her physical weakness, she’d never felt stronger. More certain of herself.
“You’re mine too,” she said, her hands pulling him deeper still, her whole body sighing with pleasure.
His eyes glinted with an emotion she couldn’t read. But before she could pursue it, he dipped his head and kissed her again, as he slowly undulated his hips in a rolling thrust.
And all coherent thought evaporated like smoke.
Make love with me now, his deep voice commanded.
Show me…
She moved her hips, arched her spine, clenched every part of her body around him. In perfect synchronization. Pushing and pulling against him as he thrust, the cadence of their bodies as old as time.
She was so tight and wet. He was so hard and hot. And he filled every empty crevice inside of her, surrounded her with his heady scent.
Oh, heaven!
There was nothing else like it in the universe. His body lit hers up in ways she couldn’t comprehend. Like stars exploding one by one in the cosmos, birthing new stars, creating endless possibilities.
Her crisis blossomed within her softly, making her sigh at the beauty of it. She left his mouth to find the pulse in his throat, and she bit him there. Not breaking skin, but marking her Mate nevertheless. Hard enough to bruise.
The small pain spurred him on. He rocked harder into her now, her channel clenching him like a silken fist, her release never ending but building in intensity.
Harder and faster, hitting her right there. Making her body seize over and over again until her gasps turned to helpless cries.
Which he swallowed into his mouth as he took her lips again, his tongue mating with hers the way his body did below.
Relentlessly, he stroked into her, stoked her euphoria higher and higher. One hand tangled into her hair, fisting it. The other hand gripped her thigh as she squeezed both tightly around his hips, ankles crossed over his flexing buttocks.
Gods! The man could move!
She latched onto his throat again, sucking hard. Wishing she had Pure or Dark fangs to sink into him and take his rich, sweet blood. Wishing she could Claim him like the Immortals did.
And also just because she wanted to scream the incredible pleasure that exploded endlessly within her body, effervescing every cell. But she muffled her sounds against his skin instead.
Her channel locked up tight around him, milking him with brutal, continuous seizures. Her hands clawed across his back and down his sides, finally digging into his flexing ass again. Holding on.
Sweat rolled down the deep valley of his spine, into the seam of his buttocks. Her breasts were slick with it too, his and hers, mingled together, her nipples rubbed deliciously raw against stone-hard pecs.
Benjamin, she implored in her mind.
Come.
Let go.
Fill me full to overflowing.
On a long, tortured groan, he shuddered and shook, releasing in hot spurts inside of her, triggering another climax of her own.
But he didn’t stop moving. Hips pumping. Ass clenching. The steel of his staff never faltered, not even a little. And he filled her over and over again, brought her to orgasm countless times.
Until both of them were sore and exhausted. Until she leaked both their fluids down her thighs, and the bed was a tangled mess beneath them.
Until finally, they shuddered to a vibrating stillness, and he rolled until she was draped on top of him, still holding him tightly inside of her.
At last, they slept.
And as she entered a dreamless slumber, she felt him place a lingering kiss on the top of her head.
She smiled.
Feeling, knowing, in her heart of hearts, that she was truly loved.