"I didn't take it. I won't be taking it."
She opened her eyes. His touch on her lips was distracting, almost as distracting as his eyes, locked on hers. He leaned in, all heat, pressing against her even though he wasn't physically against her. Yet.
"Why?" She let out a little hiss as he tapped on a fang, caressed the corner of her mouth.
"Same thing I told you earlier. I assume there are plenty of male vampires in your world who could bring you to your knees, master you."
"Control me. Torture me. It's not the same."
"No, it's not." He looked grimly satisfied with her response. "I expect that was part of what just happened, why you reacted to what I did that way. You're a tough bitch. No one's going to make you do what you don't want to do. But what really sets it all off is you're afraid I can master you without ever lifting a hand against you. As afraid as you are of that possibility, you want it more than you want anything. You want to call me Master and mean it."
He paused, gave her a penetrating look. "Yet that's a point of no return, isn't it? When you were fantasizing about it, you never thought it could become reality. If there's a chance it can actually happen, it changes the whole playing field, doesn't it? Affecting things way beyond ten days."
An ache was taking over her throat, spreading out in her chest. "I've had to be on my guard too long, Garron. This is just...I can't believe I came here, let alone let myself believe that something like this could happen. I just don't think I have it in me to trust you enough. As much as we both need me to trust to make this happen."
"Once again, you're taking too much on yourself, my lady." He sat down next to her, drawing up his knees, linking his hands loosely over them, sitting shoulder to shoulder with her. Or, given his height, shoulder to cheek. After the intensity of the past few moments, it was a casual move, almost friendly. She gave him a wary look.
"I know all about Eden seeming too good to be true," he said. "Before I came here, I was having nightmares pretty much every night. Refused to take any drugs, because that just made me feel trapped in the dreams, which was worse. First night I was here, I slept like a baby. That freaked me out more than having the nightmares. It took me awhile to get used to what this place can do, what it all means. Telling you that isn't going to make it any more possible to accept in the ten days you'll be here. Or maybe it will. You seem pretty extraordinary to me. A lot smarter than a big dumbass war veteran with bad PTSD."
He flicked a piece of glass off his knee, laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, as if he had all the time in the world to wait her out. Maybe he did. She studied him for a long pause, then settled back against the wall, putting her shoulder against his biceps.
The quiet companionship helped. She made herself calm down, using the techniques she'd used at the beginning, the things Seth had taught her. She wasn't too proud to treat herself like a fledgling, if the result was not putting the man next to her at greater risk. But after she'd found that center again, the hollowness was there as well. She put her head back against the wall, stared at the broken mirror.
"Have you ever had something you wanted so much that, if you ever did get it and then lost it, you'd want to die? Not the way people say 'I want to die'," she added. "Even when they're down and depressed, there's this line past which the instinct to survive will trump those feelings. Like the person attempting suicide who gets on the ledge, almost falls off by accident and starts screaming for help."
He stayed silent, waiting for her to finish the thought. Waiting for her to answer the question he'd posed, that hung in the air between them. "Yes," she said slowly. "If you're able to give me what I hoped to find here, I think I might meet the sun, rather than do without it again."
He put an arm around her. Said nothing, just held her to his side. Which made it impossible to resist putting her cheek on his shoulder. The broad, rounded expanse was solid and welcoming.
"You know," he said, "when they were putting me back together, and I was going through endless rehab, and surgeries, and more rehab, and more surgeries, I had a lot of days I thought, this just isn't worth it." Garron paused. "I mean, maybe I was meant to die, and these doctors, my buddies and especially me, just needed to accept it. Three of my closest friends were blown up with me. There weren't any pieces of them to put back together. They had to clean some of those pieces off me to make sure they weren't my parts. Some of the guys in my unit made the joke that it was good I didn't have anything amputated, else they might have stuck the wrong pieces on me. Then I really would have been like Frankenstein's monster, right?"
"There's nothing monstrous about you," she said softly. When she lifted her head and met his gaze, a tide of feeling for him swept her. What had just happened, the violence of it, compared to the quiet now, underscored how he was managing the situation. Honestly. He'd shown her anger and humor when he'd felt them, and now insight, giving her a window into a terrible time of his life she could understand. He was treating her as an equal, a confidante, not holding himself away from her, emphasizing that the two of them were bound together in this remarkable situation.
That tide of emotion she was experiencing was gratitude. Even if this didn't work out, she was grateful for the chance to finally connect with someone, talk honestly about herself. And, riding that surge of feeling, she wanted to give him something for that. Immediately.
She'd noted how his brow furrowed as he talked, as she talked, as if he was fighting a faint headache. She could give him something no one else could. It would be temporary, just like his gift to her, but an offering just the same.
Lifting her hand, she touched his ear. He tilted his head, a curious expression on his face as she felt the shape of the hearing aid, figured out how to remove it from his ear. She shifted onto her knees to remove the other one, stretching her body out against his chest. He let her do it, his hands briefly resting on her waist, her side. When she had the small objects cradled in her hand, she braced her forearm on his knee, looked down at them, back up into his face. "It's easier to talk without them, isn't it?"
She knew he could read lips, had seen the way he watched her mouth. He also seemed to pick up just as much of what she was saying from her body language. "My hearing is exceptional," she added. "So when it's just us, you don't have to wear them. You don't have to worry you're not speaking clearly enough, too loud or too soft. You can whisper or mumble, and I'll know what you're saying. It's easier that way, right?"
His gaze softened and he touched her face. "Vampires are supposed to be mean. You're not. Violent, sure. Possibly cruel at times. But mean, no. Not being mean counts for a lot in the world."
"Not in my world."
"Maybe you're worrying about the wrong world."
She shrugged, settled back at his side. Guiding his arm back around her, she put her head against his shoulder once more. She turned her face up to him so he could read her next question, though. She liked the careful way he watched her mouth, her facial expressions. "So what happened to get you out of that dark place, during all the surgeries?"
"One day, I'm in the hospital, feeling a million miles from anyone, and this nurse who mothers everyone on the ward shows up with a picnic basket. Through pieces of our conversations and talks with my buddies, she's figured out what my favorite foods are, and has cooked up the best fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and apple pie you've ever tasted. So she perches on the edge of my bed, feeds me, listens to me, rea
ches out and touches my face, strokes my cracked and scarred head. When she gets ready to leave, she just puts her arms around me, hugs me against her big Mother Earth breasts, where you feel like everything will be right with the world. Even when your world is a cracked egg with the yolk running all over a dirty floor."
He cleared his throat. "She says 'Son, it's pretty simple. I don't care who you are, there's nothing in the whole world that doesn't feel better after you've had a good meal and the right kind of contact with another human being. You don't have to have the answers. You just have to have the feeling that you can handle them.'"
Garron touched her chin, made her look up at him. As he leaned in, she thought he was offering a kiss, but as her lips parted for that, he bypassed the opportunity, instead sliding closer to hold her, his bare chest and throat against her face, his arms circling her. The nightgown was still tangled at her waist. She hadn't bothered to change its position, even when removing his hearing aids. As a result, she could feel him against her breasts.
He brought them both to their feet, her against the wall. A different level of intrigue took over as he pushed the nightgown all the way off of her before hiking her up and guiding her legs into a locked position around his body.
Once he had her there, he went still, letting her feel his bare shoulders under her hands, his chest against her, his hips spreading her thighs wide for him, his groin pressed firmly to hers, reminding her of the throbbing need between her legs.
He didn't move, didn't stroke her further, just held her like that, looking at her, seeing her, saying nothing. The position emphasized his strength, let her absorb the muscled power of him pressed against her body so fully, pinning her to the wall. His silence, the full contact that suggested so many possible actions, none of which he was immediately executing, making her guess what he'd do next, were incredibly stimulating, resurrecting the weighted, delicious tension between them.
The nameless feeling that bound them, that connection, also resurrected, making her protests and fears die with their two bodies melded together like that.