His acceptance of my tears, and his strong, silent support, warmed me from the inside out. And that was before he started singing to me.
I’d only heard him sing once before, but it was one of those rare moments in my life that I’d have loved to bottle up so I could experience it again. His voice was a lovely unpolished baritone, and the tune had the soothing lilt of a lullaby, though I didn’t recognize the language.
There was a part of me that felt faintly ridiculous about cuddling up in a man’s arms, being rocked like a baby while he sang me a lullaby. That part of me was drowned out by the part that was touched and moved beyond words. Jamaal was not a man from whom I expected tenderness, and that was hardly surprising in light of the horrors of his life. But it was moments like this when I knew for sure that all the years of abuse he’d endured, and all the torments of trying to control his death magic, had not destroyed the decent human being he was destined to be, no matter how hard they had tried. There was a reason I felt such a strong connection to him, a reason I felt the need to reach out to him even when he tried to hold himself aloof.
My tears ran their course, slowing to sniffles and hiccups, but Jamaal didn’t let go of me, nor did he stop singing. I took as many deep breaths as I could manage. My head felt swollen and achy, my nose was completely stuffed up, and my chest hurt from the violence of my sobs. And yet for all that, I felt almost . . . peaceful.
Finally, the song ended, and I reluctantly extricated myself from Jamaal’s arms, wiping at my eyes with the backs of my hands, unable to look into his face when I felt so raw.
“That was beautiful,” I said in a scratchy whisper I could barely recognize as my own voice.
“Matilda used to sing it to me when I was very little,” he said. “I should hate it and want to burn it out of my memory, but it’s stayed with me all these years.”
Matilda had been his owner’s wife. She’d been unable to have children of her own, and had treated Jamaal like a surrogate child—right up until the time she found out her husband was Jamaal’s father. Then she’d insisted that her husband sell both Jamaal and his mother, and both their lives had gone to hell.
“What language is it?”
Jamaal chuckled, and even brief laughter from him was so rare that I had to look up at his face after all.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I think it’s Swedish or Finnish or something like that. Matilda’s family was from Scandinavia somewhere. I’m sure I’m butchering the pronunciation.”
“Whatever language it was, it was beautiful,” I told him again, still wiping at my tears.
He shrugged, uncomfortable with the praise. And possibly with the tenderness he’d just shown me. He started plucking at the string on his jeans again. I had a feeling that the discomfort was going to get to be too much for him soon, and he would retreat, leaving me alone to recover. Maybe that would have been the best thing for me, but the last thing I wanted was to be alone.
I reached out and touched the place on his chest where my head had rested. Not surprisingly, his shirt was damp.
“I’m sorry I got your shirt wet,” I murmured as I continued to skim my fingers over the wet spot.
“Nikki . . .” There was an unmistakable warning in his voice, but I didn’t feel inclined to listen, and despite the warning, he wasn’t pulling away.
“It must feel kind of clammy against your skin. Maybe you should take it off.”
He shook his head and pulled my hand away from his chest, but he couldn’t hide the flare of heat in his eyes. I’m not a ravishing beauty under the best of circumstances, and I didn’t want to know how awful I looked after a crying jag like I’d just been through. But I knew Jamaal found me attractive anyway, and I was sitting there in front of him wearing nothing but a bra and panties. Mismatched, and not exactly pretty, but I’ve found men rarely care about such things.
“We’ve given Sita enough fuel to feed her jealousy already,” he said, fingers still wrapped around my hand even as he verbally pushed me away.
I snorted. “Sita can bite me! And probably will, if she gets a chance.”
The dirty look Jamaal gave me suggested he didn’t find my attempt at a joke all that funny. I guess I didn’t, either, because I really didn’t look forward to having his psycho tiger even more mad at me than she already was.
“You can’t let her run your life, Jamaal.”
He tried to stand up, but I anticipated it and grabbed a handful of his shirt. He could have torn away from me easily, but he settled for a halfhearted glare instead.
“The death magic has run my life ever since I first became Liberi,” he growled at me. “Whether it’s contained inside me, or in the form of a tiger, it doesn’t matter. It always wins.”
He was trying to look and sound fierce and angry, but I could hear the wealth of pain under the facade. Still holding on to my handful of shirt, I got to my knees beside him so my head could be level with his as I looked into his eyes. It would have been more effective if he hadn’t turned his face away from me.
“You’ve always been fighting it solo,” I reminded him, then cupped my hand around his face so I could turn him toward me. There was fear in his eyes when he met my gaze, but there was desire, also. “You’re not in this fight alone anymore.”
“I have to be,” he said. I caressed his face, feeling the racing of his pulse beneath my fingertips. “It’s too dangerous . . .”
“After what I faced today, I’m not intimidated by a jealous cat.” We both knew that wasn’t true, of course. Only an idiot wouldn’t be afraid of a magical tiger with a grudge. “And besides, I think you’re worth fighting for.”
Jamaal closed his eyes as if those words hurt, but he leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine, so I guess they didn’t.
“I don’t want you to get hurt because of me,” he whispered, his breath tickling against my skin.
I kissed his temple and felt the shudder of desire that ripped through him. Encouraged, I started kissing my way down the side of his face. One of his hands came to rest on my back, and one on my hip, just above the waistband of my panties. I took that as another positive sign and propped his chin on my palm so that his mouth was at the perfect angle.
His hands clamped down tighter when our lips first touched, and he held himself rigidly still, fighting his desire. But when I ran my tongue along the seam of his lips, he lost all that hard-fought control. A little moan escaped him as his mouth opened for me.
I kissed him hard and thoroughly, and he loved every minute of it. He shifted his grip so that both hands were under my butt, then effortlessly dragged me forward until I was straddling his lap, still on my knees. I pressed myself tightly against him, savoring the scent, the feel, the taste of him. When we’d kissed before, his tongue had been highly flavored by the smoke of his clove cigarettes, and I’d found it surprisingly erotic, perhaps just because clove cigarettes and Jamaal were so closely associated in my mind. I tasted them now, though the flavor was faint because he was smoking so much less.
I played with his braids while I kissed him, enjoying the coarseness of his hair contrasted with the smoothness of the beads. And all the while, I was aware of him hardening beneath me.
My hands slid out of his hair to caress the broad expanse of his back over the thin T-shirt he wore. I desperately wanted to get my hands on bare skin, but the last time we’d tried giving in to our attraction, it had all come to a screeching halt when I’d touched his scars. I didn’t want that to happen again, so I forced myself to let Jamaal set the pace.
His hands explored my every curve while staying maddeningly clear of my erogenous zones. I wasn’t sure if he was doing it to torture me, or if even now he was fighting what was happening between us, trying to keep the distance I so badly wanted to remove.
I was determined to let Jamaal take the lead, but it was a powerful test of my self-control. Without even meaning to, I was grinding myself against him, and I had to clench my hands into fists t
o resist the urge to tug at his shirt. His mouth left mine as he trailed kisses down my throat. I arched into them and moaned, wanting him more than I could ever remember wanting anyone in my life.
Jamaal put his hand under my butt again, and I thought we were finally getting somewhere when he lifted me and laid me down on the bed. His body came to rest on top of mine, a warm, solid weight that might have crushed me if he weren’t partially supporting himself with his arms.
I thought I might spontaneously combust when he nudged the cup of my bra downward and sucked my nipple into the delicious heat of his mouth. My mind short-circuited with pleasure as my back arched off the bed. I forgot all about letting him set the pace, and about keeping my hands away from his scars. In that pleasure-fogged moment of carelessness, I slid my hands under Jamaal’s shirt.
If I’d been thinking rationally—or thinking at all, more like it—I might have expected Jamaal to be so overcome by pleasure that he forgot whatever it was that made him so touchy about the scars. But either he wasn’t as lost in the pleasure as I was, or whatever emotional wound those scars triggered was far too deep to be defeated by sensual pleasure.
Whatever the reason, Jamaal’s body jerked as though I’d given him an electric shock, and every muscle in his body went tense and rigid. I desperately wanted to hold on to him, but my instincts told me that was a terrible idea, so I kept my hands to myself as he rolled off of me. He came to rest beside me on the bed, lifting his forearm to cover his eyes. His chest rose and fell with panted breaths, but the bulge in his jeans was fading before my eyes.
I had enough sexual frustration coursing through my body to set off an explosion or three, but I swallowed it down as best I could. Whatever Jamaal was going through right now was far more important than my carnal needs. I turned to face him, propping my head on my hand, but I didn’t say anything at first, giving him time to gather himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said, arm still over his eyes.
“Hey, I blubbered all over you a little while ago and you wouldn’t let me apologize for that.”
He moved his arm so he could give me a look that was both skeptical and strangely tentative. “Not exactly in the same league.”
It was hard to shrug in the position I was in, but I gave it a shot. “It’s all emotional crap neither one of us is all that comfortable letting others see.”
“Still not the same,” he said stubbornly.
My heart ached for him, for whatever trauma had happened to him to make him so sensitive about his scars. I wanted to know what was behind it, but I knew I had to tread very delicately or risk scaring him off for good. I reached out and put my hand on his chest—over his shirt, of course—and felt the continued racing of his heart. The one thing I knew I couldn’t afford to do was ask him why having me touch the scars freaked him out so much, no matter how badly I wanted to know. He would tell me when and if he was ready, and he didn’t need me pushing at him.
“I’m sorry I let myself get carried away,” I told him. “I knew better than to touch you like that, and I had every intention of keeping my hands to myself.” I smiled at him, trying to convey the message that whatever was wrong, it was no big deal to me. “Maybe next time you should put some handcuffs on me.”
He growled and sat up. “There won’t be a next time,” he said, predictably. “I’m too fucked-up, Nikki. I can’t do . . . this.” He made a vague gesture with his hand, and I didn’t know whether his this referred to a relationship, or just sex.
“Maybe you can’t do it right now,” I said as gently as possible, “but I’m more than willing to wait.”
“You can’t fix me!”
“So you’ve said. And you’re right, I can’t. But I can be here for you whenever you decide you want to fix yourself.”
“Ain’t gonna happen.” He had closed down entirely, the expression on his face distant and almost forbidding. If I didn’t understand so thoroughly his need to protect himself from the fear and the pain that welled inside him, I might have been hurt at being shut out like that. He slid off the other side of the bed, no longer able to look me in the eye.
I wished there were magic words I could say to make all his pain go away, or at least get him to open up enough to me to let me help him. But for now, he was out of my reach once more, and I blinked away the burning sensation of another bout of tears as he walked out of my room without another word.
EIGHTEEN
After Jamaal left, I felt drained and melancholy. I dragged myself into the shower and stood under the hot spray for way longer than was environmentally correct, washing away the lingering traces of blood, sweat, dirt, and tears that clung to me. I didn’t have any plans to go out, having checked out the window and seen the pristine blanket of snow that covered everything in sight. It was still coming down, and only in the direst emergency would I consider trying to drive through it. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to blow-dry my hair and put on makeup, but I did it anyway. Maybe just because it made me feel more normal, though my concealer wasn’t up to the challenge of hiding the dark circles under my eyes.
I probably should have left my room in search of Anderson as soon as I was dressed. No doubt Jamaal and Leo had told him what they’d found in the police report and he would expect me to fill in any missing details for him. But I wasn’t up to facing him after what I’d been through. Maybe he’d had enough time to absorb the blow, especially after I’d left him that screen shot the other day, but I didn’t think it was likely. He had loved Emma so much, and though I suspected she had always been self-absorbed and bitchy, the years she’d spent as Konstantin’s prisoner had made Anderson forget her true nature. She had become a paragon in his memory, and I didn’t want to see his pain at having that paragon irrevocably destroyed.
I guess that meant my plan was to hole up in my room for the rest of the evening so I could avoid any chance of running into Anderson. Or anyone else, for that matter. My stomach grumbled its disapproval of my plan, reminding me I hadn’t eaten all day and my body had burned up tons of energy bringing itself back from the dead. I contemplated a run to the kitchen, but decided I’d dip into the box of granola bars I kept in the filing cabinet in my sitting room instead. Buying myself a filing cabinet had been silly, since most of my paper files had been destroyed by the sprinkler system in my old office, and I rarely kept much in the way of paper files anymore. But it made for a handy pantry, and I grabbed a chocolate bar for dessert while I was at it. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest meal I’d ever eaten, but it was damn convenient.
Crunching on my granola bar, I opened up my laptop and went in search of something, anything, to keep my mind occupied so I wouldn’t keep thinking about what had almost happened to me this afternoon. It was worth a try anyway.
I was just finishing my chocolate bar and trying to resist the urge to go foraging in my filing cabinet again when there was a knock on my door. I had the cowardly urge not to answer. I didn’t want to talk to anyone right now, wanted to lose myself in something completely mindless—not that I’d had a whole lot of success with that so far.
“Come in,” I finally said with weary acceptance.
The door opened, and Anderson stepped inside. No doubt he would have let himself in whether I’d invited him or not. I closed my laptop and laid it on the coffee table, then stood up, scattering a bunch of granola crumbs all over the place. I brushed at my clothes to dislodge any remaining crumbs, giving the task way more attention than it deserved. It looked like I was going to have to talk about all the things I didn’t want to talk about after all, and if I could put it off for a few seconds, I was all for it.
Finally, I was as crumb-free as I was going to be, and I raised my head to look at Anderson. I expected to see pain, anger, and even sorrow, but what I saw on his face was none of the above. Instead, I saw a frozen, almost lifeless calm. I’d seen him run both hot and cold with anger, but I’d never seen anything quite like this before, and there was something so forbidding about it I had
to fight the urge to take a step back.
“I came to offer my apologies,” he said, and his voice was off-the-charts weird, too. Completely flat and noninflected. Inhuman, almost, though not exactly godlike, either.
“Umm . . .” I couldn’t think of what to say. The man who stood in front of me wasn’t Anderson, at least not the Anderson I knew.
“I was blind to Emma’s faults, and you almost paid an unspeakable price for it.”
He was saying the right words, but without any emotion behind them it was hard to tell if he actually meant them or not.
“A-are you all right?” Stupid question, of course, because he was obviously anything but all right. I realized his face was so immobile he wasn’t even blinking, like his body was some kind of automaton. Was the Anderson I knew even in there?
His head moved slightly in a sad imitation of a head shake. “No. I am far from ‘all right.’ I am dangerous in my current condition.” There was still no emotion in his voice, like he was reading off cue cards. “I cannot afford to feel anything just yet. I will try to act more like myself when we meet with Cyrus tomorrow.”
I shivered, more freaked out than I wanted to admit by the talking husk Anderson had left behind. “We’re meeting with Cyrus?”
“One of his Olympians has broken the treaty. We will meet to discuss the consequences.”
Not a conversation I particularly wanted to participate in. “Do you really need me—”
“You are the injured party. You are coming.”
Not much chance he was going to be flexible about that. “You’re not going to kill her, are you?” I didn’t know what this faux-Anderson was capable of. Maybe in his current state he wouldn’t mind letting the world know just who and what he was.
“No.”
He turned to leave, and I should have just let him go. But of course I had to open my big mouth again.