Kane had spent an especially long time licking and sucking her nipples and tasting her pussy that morning before he had Stung her and she could still feel his hot mouth on her. Because no matter how much he teased her, he never let her come. Even when he Stung her clit, she wasn’t able to reach the peak—although she would come maddeningly close each time.
The constant stimulation without gratification was really beginning to get to her. It was making her snappish and desperate and frankly, Alli wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out.
“You don’t have to hold out, baby.” Kane leaned across the table, his eyes gleaming. “Just come to bed with me. I’ll give you everything you need.”
“Including your seed inside me,” Alli said accusingly. “Since you already stated you intend to make me pregnant.”
“Is that what this is about?” Kane frowned. “You still don’t want to acknowledge your deepest desire? The desire to have a child of your own?”
“I don’t…don’t want that,” Alli protested, but again, she couldn’t be sure if she was telling the truth.
Kane’s black and silver eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“You want it…but you fear it,” he remarked. “You have to get over your fear of what you want, Alli.”
“Maybe…maybe I don’t want to.” Alli put down her napkin and rose from the table. “I’m finished eating. I’d like to go to bed now.”
“By yourself, I take it.” Kane shook his head. “I’ve never had a concubine hold out as long as you, baby. Especially with as much as I’ve been Stinging you. You have enough of my lust-honey in your system to drive ten females wild.”
Alli had nothing to say to that.
“I’m going to bed,” she said shortly. “Good night.”
And she left before she could do something she would regret.
Nineteen
That night Alli had a dream so powerful she woke in tears.
It was still dark when she opened her eyes, a sob rising to her lips and her cheeks wet. It took her a moment to realize she was really awake.
What was it? What did I dream of?
Alli couldn’t remember but the sorrow of the dream, whatever it had been, was still so strong she couldn’t seem to stop crying.
Suddenly someone was there, beside her in bed.
“It’s all right, baby,” a familiar gravelly voice murmured in her ear. “Everything is going to be all right.”
And then Kane was drawing her into his arms and Alli found herself resting her cheek against his broad, bare chest and clinging to him for dear life. It was as though the dream was a treacherous undercurrent in the ocean of sleep which had been trying to drag her under and the big Kru’ell One had thrown her a lifeline. She clung to him, feeling surrounded by safety, never wanting to let go.
“What is it?” she asked brokenly between sobs. “What’s wrong with me, Kane? Why can’t I stop crying? I had a dream—I can’t remember it but it was so sad.”
“Try to relax, baby,” he murmured. “Let me into your mind and I’ll help you find it.”
Though she had been on her guard against him for days, Alli found herself doing as he said. Relaxing against him, she opened her mind, letting down her mental and physical guards and simply melting against him.
She felt Kane giving her a gentle nudge mentally and then images began rising to her mind. She saw herself as a younger woman—just about to enter law school. She was dressed in black and standing by a gravesite—her father’s, she realized. He had died so young—right after she’d gotten her acceptance letter. And Since Alli’s mom had died when she was only seven, her father’s loss left her alone in the world.
The sight of the grave site faded and she saw her younger self trying to forget her loss—losing herself and hiding her grief in wild parties, drunken nights, hedonistic sex. It seemed to numb the pain somehow, seemed to take her mind off the empty void she felt inside.
Alli felt contempt for her younger self but then she heard Kane whispering,
“No, Allisandra. You mustn’t blame yourself for what you did to ease the pain. You were just trying to survive.”
“Look where ‘just trying to survive’ got me, though,” Alli said harshly.
For the next images which came up showed her same younger self holding a pregnancy test and running one hand through her hair anxiously.
“A baby,” she was muttering as she stared at the positive test. “What in the hell am I going to do with a baby?”
“So your womb did quicken once before,” Kane murmured.
Alli felt grief catch her by the throat and her voice came out tight and squeezed.
“Only once. But…I lost it.”
Images of her younger self clutching her abdomen and crying with a terrible mixture of relief and sorrow filled her head. This was the part of the dream that had affected her so, she realized. This image from her past which was so painful she’d pushed it down and away until she had almost forgotten it herself