“It’s not what you think.” I rubbed my nose against his, loving the touch of him, even if it wasn’t totally real. I’d take all I could get. “Well, like we’ve realized, it’s part of my ability that allows me to come here. I needed to find you.”
Warmth filled his eyes, and he chuckled. “I should have known you would.” All that emotion in his expression reminded me of what I’d gone through these last days of him being gone. Before I was angry and then overtaken with a lust I couldn’t control, but now my heart shattered. Kipp’s shadowed gaze told me he saw it in my face and I managed to get out, “Why did you leave?”
“Tess.” He leaned in as the wind blew around us, but he also shifted himself inside me and his erection had completely hardened again. “It’s not what you think, either. I didn’t want to leave. Nor did I want to stay away.”
I gasped as he moved his hips, gently now. Even here in the Netherworld, my body ached from his rough sex. He lifted me into his strong arms then lowered us both down to the ground. The soft sand pillowed my back as Kipp settled between my thighs. The waves from the water crashing up onto the shore created perfection as did his lips on my mouth.
All traces of the hard edge to him had vanished. Now he simply savored, as did I.
“Why then?” I whispered against his lips.
He circled his hips, grinded himself into me, and his moan drifted over me in a delicious embrace. The pleasure swiping through me was spinning me in a hot wave that had me trembling beneath the hard planes of his body. His face remained so close to mine, as if he couldn’t take his eyes off me. I never wanted to stop looking at him. As his thrusts shifted to in-and-out long strokes, his body pressed me into sand, while he tangled his fingers in my hair and tugged to hold me closer.
After a low moan, mirroring my sigh, he finally said, “I was told to come and stay here. It’s safer. I can’t come back right now.”
My eyes fluttered closed before I realized what he said. I forced them open as pleasure flooded me. Making love to Kipp had been something I never thought possible. Hard, rough, and dirty sex had been always what I imagined us doing, which had been exactly what we’d done. But this…sweet and sensual…tears filled my eyes. “Why?”
He grunted. “Safer.”
“For who?” I gasped.
“You…and me.”
Pleasure threatened to make my thoughts nonexistent, but I focused to get the answers I needed. To beg him to come home. To fight against this horrific situation. “I don’t want to leave you again.”
He groaned as my center clamped against him, my nails dug into his powerful thick biceps and the valleys of muscles there as his thrusts quickened. “You must.”
Now Gretchen’s worry became reality. Could I leave Kipp here? “Why won’t you come back with me?” I gasped as heady sensations overtook me. “What danger is there?”
As much as I yearned to stay right here with Kipp, he didn’t live here, and I craved more for him to be alive. While this time with him was more than my heart could possibly survive and I knew the after blow of this would be a brutal crush to my soul, the future with him remained a solid wall of focus in my mind.
I wanted to love Kipp as a man.
“Tess,” he said sharply, snapping me right out of the pleasure he was forcing upon me.
I blinked, suddenly realizing the level of pleasure wasn’t as intense as it had been. The slick feel of him within me remained, but the pressure, which built to orgasm, had vanished. “What–”
His voice was urgent, expression twisted, and the sky above him appeared more gray than black, the stars no longer twinkled. “Did you learn about your ability to travel here on your own?”
My grip on him shifted. His arms were still solid beneath my fingertips, but the definition of his muscles ceased to exist. His body pressing into me seemed lighter, so I hurried along and hoped my explanation would be enough for him to understand. “Dane and the others.”
Kipp’s eyes widened before he started to blur in front of me. “It’s happened.” I stared at him and could barely hear him say, “Trust no one.”
“What?” I shouted. The same tingles I experienced when I entered the Netherworld whipped through my body like a loud roar in my ears, and pulled me farther and farther away from him. “Why?”
His expression became frantic and even though I could tell he screamed at me, it only sounded like a dull whisper. “Dane was the one…”
Right then, a blast of cold energy swept across me, removing any of the heat Kipp had built and iciness struck me to my very core. With an earsplitting cry, the only touch I wanted to stay with forever…vanished.
Chapter Eleven
“No,” I screamed, shooting up in bed.
Gretchen lurched off the mattress and clutched at her chest. I drew in loud deep breaths, settling my hammering heart, too. The lamp next to me on the nightstand table cast a warm glow through the room and the bedspread was no longer covering me. In fact, at a quick glance, the sheets were completely kicked off the bed—clearly, my sleep had been restless. “I need to go back.”
She sighed, since I had clearly scared the bejesus out of her, and then she returned to the bed. “You were in REM sleep for almost an hour.” She shook her head, taking up my trembling hand in hers. “I couldn’t chance letting you be there any longer.”
My lip quivered as the reality of what I had experienced settled in and the emotional break I expected hit me in full force. My entire body quaked and I yanked my hands away, grasping them on my lap. I shut my eyes and inhaled, swearing I could still feel Kipp, sore in all the right places.