Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Sable looked exhausted but happy. She stood by the rail with Anna Marie tucked under her arm. He was glad for the two women. The reunion had done them both good.
Wiping a hand down the front of his dirt-streaked vest, he thought they both looked a mess. Dust clung to Sable’s boots, and there was blood on her sleeve—his, probably. But when she turned to look at him, her expression held hope, and that was all that mattered.
This mission, with its personal connection, had left them both raw.
The harshness Sable wore like armor had cracked wide open, revealing a new light of relief and purpose.
Her eyes were red with fatigue, but she never stayed broken for long.
Exhaustion was the price of the job she did.
Whenever possible, Sable carried the burden so others didn’t have to.
The administrator in charge arrived to take Anna Marie aside for a discreet interview. It gave Elijah the chance to approach Sable and catch hold of her before she dropped.
“Get off me,” she scolded halfheartedly. “I don’t want your blood all over me.”
“I’m more worried about you.”
“Unnecessary,” she stated fiercely.
“Even so…”
“Even so, nothing—”
Ignoring this, he steered her toward the door and didn’t stop until they reached his stateroom. Once inside, he allowed her to re-dress his wound. She was the best of nurses, but a little brutal at times, with what he could only describe as a no-nonsense touch.
“Do you take pleasure in dripping iodine into the wound?” he demanded at one point.
“Ouch?” she suggested in a baby voice when he flinched.
“Yes. Fucking ouch.”
She showed him no mercy until she finally stepped back to view her handiwork. “There,” she said. “You can put your top back on now.”
“My bloodied top?”
“Well, put something on,” she insisted.
Elijah’s naked torso wasn’t the only reason she needed him to cover up. The ring hanging around his neck troubled her. Why was he wearing it? It couldn’t be his mother’s; he never knew her. Whose could it be that meant so much to him that he wore it on a chain around his neck?
Why do I care?
But she did.
He made her forget the ring with a sideways look that made her laugh. “Okay. You’re beautiful. And you know it,” she added snippily. “Even slashed halfway to hell, with enough bruises to persuade me you belong to some new race of purple people, you’re easy on the eye.”
“Are you too tired?”
“For what?” she demanded, knowing full well what he was getting at.
Recovery after a mission had always meant celebrating life, and that half smile of his made her want to—
Fuck?
Oh, yeah.
But she wasn’t ready for that. Maybe she never would be again. “I’m sorry,” she said, turning serious. “Really sorry for everything I put you through.”
“That again?” Catching her wrist, Elijah pressed his thumb to her pulse. “So, you’re alive. Who knew? You left. You died. You came back. What are you trying to do now? Pick a fucking lane, Sable.”
“I wasn’t aware I was doing anything.”
“Apart from teasing your bottom lip with the tip of your tongue as if I’m the next thing on your menu.”
“You flatter yourself.”
“Do I?”
She pulled away. He leaned in, crowding her until her spine met the door. “Can you even explain why you left?”
Blood drained from her face. “Black Meridian put a death mark on your file.”
“You think I didn’t know?”
“They sent images of the two of us, promising that if we didn’t stop hounding slavers, they’d take their time carving slices off you while I watched.”
“Hmm. Nice.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
He shrugged.
“Disappearing was all I could think of to keep you safe. Believe me, every day I remembered how we’d both been betrayed as children. The last thing I wanted was to do that to you again.”
“You’d do anything to avoid hurting me?” he suggested.
“I’d do anything to prevent you from being killed.”
There was silence until he said, “You think I wouldn’t burn Black Meridian organization to ash for you? You should have told me what you planned.”
“And have you stop me? They counted on me sticking around, making it easy to find you. I was determined not to give those goons that chance.”
He knew Black Meridian. They were trouble on a massive scale and could have taken both of them out. Sable had prevented that. And he was blaming her?
Something inside him fractured. The slavers’ evil and the grief for precious time lost fueled his hunger for Sable—not just for sex, but more, much more.
He touched the ring at his neck. “Do you know why I wear this?
She tensed. “No.”
Cupping her jaw, he tilted her face to meet his gaze. “I bought it seven years ago, just before you left.”
Silence. “For you.”
Her breath faltered. “You never said—”
“You left.”
“Before—”
“Before I could ask you to be my partner in every way there is—to be my wife.”
“Wife?” she exclaimed.
“Is that such a stretch? I wanted forever. There was a time when I thought you did too.”
“I’m supposed to guess from the chill you gave off?”
“Careful, not cold. I never promise anything I can’t deliver. I had to be sure.”
It would have been easier to understand this if the expression on Elijah’s face had changed by even an iota. But he was still the hottest thing on two hard-muscled legs, and sometimes the universe decides.
* * *
Their mouths crashed together, punishment and absolution. Fabric ripped as they tore at each other’s clothes. Once they were naked, he lifted her clear off the floor, and she locked her legs around his waist.
Maybe he needed proof she was still alive—alive to him.
And maybe Sable needed reassurance that those seven years apart had been worth it.
One hand fisted in her hair, he pressed her back against the wall, while the other palmed her breast. His thumbnail abraded her nipple. She gasped his name in a choking sob.
“Say it again!” he murmured, rasping her neck with his stubble. “Say my name when I’m inside you.”
He drove into her in one merciless thrust, stretching and claiming without patience or gentleness, just raw, filthy need. She screamed his name.
Raking her nails down his back, she begged for more, faster and harder.
Was he proving a point? Fucking her as punishment for all those years apart? No. It was more than that. Every moan of pleasure was not just a debt repaid, but a pledge for the future. She met him thrust for thrust, hips rolling, teeth clashing until their bodies were slick with sweat.
“Look at me.” Gripping her chin as her eyes fluttered shut, he spoke words torn from his soul. “You don’t get to hide. Never again.”
Meeting his fierce stare, she returned it with interest. “You’re mine,” she said, urging him on. “Fucking mine.”
He brought her to the edge again, and they shattered together, his name exploding from her lips as she clenched around him. They stayed locked together for the longest time, his forehead against hers, their breath mingling.
“Next time you decide to save my life, do it with me, or I swear to God, I’ll chain you to this bed and never let you go.”
“Promise?” she murmured, softening against him.
“Test me, sweetheart. Please…”