“Because that particular irrationality is called jealousy, and it means you really do care for me.”
He studied me for several heartbeats, a smile tugging at his lips and his expression somewhat bemused.
Then he sighed, shook his head, and said, “For a very smart woman, Risa Jones, you are sometimes extraordinarily dumb.”
Chapter 11
I blinked. To say I hadn’t been expecting a comment like that would be the understatement of the year – in a year that had been full of them.
“I’m gathering you have got a reason for insulting me like that. Or are insults some weird reaper way of showing affection?”
He smiled. “It is hardly an insult when it is the truth. And you have had the answer to the question you fear to ask for some time now.”
“You know, you’re not making anything any clearer.”
His amusement grew. “Why do you think you are pregnant?”
My eyebrows rose even as I wondered what the hell that had to do with anything. “I got pregnant because we had unprotected sex.”
“Yes. And as I told you once before, a reaper can only ever have a child with his Caomh.”
Caomh. The reaper term for life-mate. I could only stare as the word echoed around my brain, unimaginable and impossible.
“But nevertheless fact,” he said softly. “You carry the truth of what has lain unspoken between us since the very beginning.”
I swallowed heavily, not daring to believe that fate had, against all the odds and two very different worlds, made this man mine.
“Believe,” he said. “You are my body, my soul, the energy by which I live, and the song in my heart. It was not for our son, or the keys, or the fate of our two worlds that I pulled you back to life. I did it because I cannot live without you.”
And with that, he kissed me. It was a fierce thing, his kiss; fierce, and passionate, and joyous. It was everything I’d spent half my life searching for, everything I’d ever wanted, all wrapped up in one glorious action.
But it didn’t end there.
He touched me, caressed me, even as I ran my hands over his beautiful body, teasing him as thoroughly as he teased me, until sweat stung our skins and the smell of desire was thick in the air.
I wanted him; dear god, how I wanted him, but I didn’t immediately give in to the need. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him again, pressing my body hard against his, until it was difficult to tell where his skin ended and mine began. Desire and heat burned through and around us, until even the very air we breathed seemed to be boiling.
He slid his hands down my back, then cupped my butt and lifted me with little effort. A heartbeat later, he was in me. It felt like heaven and, for several seconds, neither of us moved, simply enjoying the sensations and the heat that rose with this basic joining of flesh. Then the heat became too great to ignore and he thrust deeper – harder – his cock sliding in and out of me with growing urgency. Energy flickered across our skin, dancing between us, tearing through us, until the music of his being played through me, and mine through him. It was a dance, a caress, a tease. It was movement, and heat, and desire. It was crazy and electric, a firestorm that ripped through us even as we remained in flesh. It fueled the urgency and heightened the pleasure, and the desire coursing through my body built, until it was all I could do to keep hold of the pleasure that threatened to tear us both apart.
His movements became more and more urgent, until my whole body shook with the intensity of them. I burned, tightened, until I couldn’t breathe and it felt like I would shatter.
“Please,” I somehow whispered, “please.”
He responded instantly, his movements fierce. I shuddered, my control crumbling as my orgasm began to sweep through me, intense and violent. A heartbeat later, he cried out, his body stiffening against mine as he came.
For several minutes neither of us moved. He leaned his forehead against mine, his breathing harsh against my lips.
I smiled, and touched his cheek gently. “If you continue to love me like that for eternity, I will be one contented woman.”
“I do not believe I would have any complaints, either.” He lowered me gently. “As much as I would like to linger here, with you, we should continue with the key search.”
I sighed. “Yes. I’ll just grab a quick shower first.”
He nodded and stepped aside. I padded across to my wardrobe, grabbing underclothing, jeans and a T-shirt, then headed into the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later we were standing in front of Rubin Johnson’s little store, situated in McMahon’s Point, just across the bay from the opera house. The shop itself was one of those quaint, single-front two-story Victorians that were everywhere in Sydney, although this one was in the process of being renovated, if the splashes of paint across the windows were anything to go by.
“That is not paint,” Azriel said, voice grim.