Shield of Winter

Chapter 40

Aden—the surgical simulations you asked me to run all end in Vasic’s death. Given the seriousness of the matter, I went outside my official authorization and liaised with other surgeons after telling them the problem was a hypothetical model. None were able to offer any suggestions I haven’t already considered and ruled out.

Message from Dr. Edgard Bashir

IVY STOOD AT the window that night, looking out at the high-powered lights that illuminated the street below. The bodies were gone, but the authorities were still collecting evidence. She knew in her gut that if the outbreaks continued, such careful work would soon be considered a luxury.

Hearing a noise from Vasic’s bedroom, she stepped through the open doorway to find him shrugging off his leather jacket, his boots already discarded. The last time she’d seen him, it had been for a fleeting instant when he dropped Rabbit back at the apartment. He’d been on watch outside for hours, not to mention the work he’d done to help clear away the bodies. She’d missed him with every breath . . . but the man who’d come back to her wasn’t the same one who’d surprised her with a pastry that morning, before the world fractured in a hail of terror and madness.

“Getting ready to shower?” she asked, stomach tightening at the ice of him, his emotions walled up so effectively that the emptiness made her chest clench in pain.

A curt nod. “Excuse me.” And he was no longer in the room.

Ivy stared at the space where he’d been as the shower came on after a minute in the attached bathroom, the words Aden had spoken to her at the hospital vivid in her mind. As the other Arrow had pointed out, Vasic’s wounds ran bone deep. Those wounds had been drenched in death and violence anew over the past fourteen hours, were rubbed raw and bloody.

Understanding why he’d gone distant and cold didn’t mean she was about to permit him to brood alone. That bad habit was one she intended to break, and break quickly. You know, she said telepathically, it’s extremely frustrating to try to have a conversation with a man who can simply teleport away.

Hands on her hips when he didn’t respond, she strode over to the open bathroom door—clearly her Arrow didn’t appreciate her determination where he was concerned. Leaning against the doorjamb, she felt her breath leave her lungs in a pleasured rush at the blurry outline of his nude body behind the steamy glass of the shower enclosure.

It took serious effort to find words since her brain seemed to have forgotten the concept of language. “So”—she saw him freeze beyond the glass, his hands in his hair—“did the medics discover anything new about the infection?”

Lowering his hands, he said, “Ivy.”

“Yes?” She didn’t budge. “You were about to answer my question.”

“I was about to ask you to leave.”

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you.” Wickedness woke in her. “Where are you going to teleport naked?”

“I could go to my quarters in Arrow Central Command.”

She stuck out her tongue at him. “That’s cheating!”

Turning off the shower, Vasic slid open the shower door. Ivy was determined to stay . . . but lost her nerve at the last second. “Damn it.” Twisting out of the door, she stood with her back against the wall beside it, her skin hot and breath short.

When he stepped out, a towel wrapped around his hips, she bit down on her lower lip. He was beautiful. All sleek muscle and strength, a finely honed blade of a man. Trickles of water from his hair trailed down his back, and she had to fight so hard not to reach out and touch. She wasn’t sure he’d accept it. Not tonight. “You didn’t dry your hair properly.” It came out a husky whisper.

Turning toward her, he braced himself with his palms on either side of her head, his bare skin inches from her, the heat of him smashing against her hungry skin. And his fury . . . that was a stunning thing, the storm in his eyes molten silver.

“I can’t give you what you want.” It came out ice-cold, but those eyes, those eyes . . . “I thought—” He shook his head. “You can’t change the core of a man, Ivy. You can’t take a man christened in blood and make him into something better.”

Ivy narrowed her eyes, furious at the way he continued to see himself. “I don’t want you to change. Haven’t I made that clear?” Rising on tiptoe, she fisted her hands in his hair. “I want you. All of you. Even the part that infuriates me.”

Vasic could feel the numbness that had crawled over him in a defensive reaction to the carnage he’d seen, the bodies he’d handled, begin to crack. Jagged and sharp, each crack echoed through his mind, ice splintering across a frozen lake. “I handled the dead with my hands and my mind today,” he said, and it was a brutal, inescapable truth. “Do you really want those hands on you?”

She released his hair . . . and something broke in him, only to heal even stronger when she tugged one of his hands off the wall and intertwined her fingers with it. “I’ve told you—I want your hands on every inch of me.” Passion glittered in her eyes, was hot on her cheeks, and a large part of it, he realized too late, was anger. “You used these same hands, that same mind, to save lives today. Why don’t you ever focus on that?”

Vasic set his jaw.

Gripping it in her slender fingers, Ivy forced him to meet her gaze. “No more, Vasic. You don’t get to live in purgatory, and you certainly don’t get to punish yourself by shutting out everyone who cares for you. If you want to brood, you do it with me so I can knock some sense into you.”

Vasic couldn’t take his eyes off the vibrant life of her, the numbness in a thousand pieces by now, no match for the force of Ivy’s fury. “You,” he whispered, “are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had in my life.”

Eyes afire, she shook her head. “No, you are not getting out of this fight that easily.” A glare. “I want a promise.”

His skin hurt with need for her, but he didn’t close the distance between them, uncertain of Ivy’s temper. “What do you want me to promise?”

Fingers still on his jaw, she pressed down. “That you will never again attempt to drive me away because you think I’d be better off without you.” A hard, fast kiss that was a punch right to the gut. “That will never be true. I wake up excited to see you, Vasic. I dream of you. Your voice, your mind, your hands. I love every part of you. I imagine a future with you!” Face flushed and body tensed, she sounded angrier and angrier with each word. “Don’t you dare try to tell me you’re not worth it! Don’t you dare!”

Vasic didn’t have the will to repudiate her. He’d used it all up. If she didn’t want to heed his warning, then he was going to be selfish and make his claim, accept hers. “I promise.” It was a vow.

Chest heaving, Ivy stared at him, the suspicion on her face making something twist deep inside him, the strange emotion at once gentle and fierce. “Wait for me in your bedroom,” he said, taking what he needed because Ivy had said he could have it. Have her.

Ivy had fought for his right to have her.

She never denied him, never punished him by withholding the touch he craved—her touch—and he planned to take terrible advantage. Now and always. “I need to make sure everything is secure before I join you.” The mattress on his bed was hard, would discomfort her. “I want you under me, naked and aroused and mine.”

Ivy’s cheeks went a hot peach. Running a hand down his chest, she scowled. “I’m still mad at you . . . but don’t take long.”

Vasic didn’t, but he was thorough nonetheless as he completed a security sweep of the floor after pulling on a pair of jeans and boots. Then, apartment door bolted behind him, he walked into Ivy’s room. Kicking off his boots by the side of her bed, he just looked at her for a minute. She’d changed out of her earlier clothes into the flannel pants she liked and that lacy, strappy top that didn’t cover much at all. The upper curves of her breasts were visible to his gaze, her nipples peaking below the fabric he could tear with a single tug, it was so ridiculously flimsy.

Ivy rubbed her feet on the sheet. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

“I’m thinking how easy it would be to tear off your clothes.” It would leave her bared to the skin, the cream and gold of her open to his touch.

She shivered, and he’d had enough of looking. Getting into bed, he came over her and placed his gauntleted arm above her head, then gripped her jaw as she’d done his. “Open your mouth,” he said. “I want to taste you.”

Ivy’s fingers clenched on his nape. “Vasic.” Her lips parted.

Not hesitating, he placed his own over hers and indulged as he’d never indulged before Ivy. Her body was soft and silky underneath the hard weight of his, her taste lush, her welcome unhidden. He wanted more, took more, controlling the kiss with his grip on her jaw. Ivy didn’t seem to mind, her free hand rising to wrap over his shoulder from behind as she held him to her.

The voluntary dissonance trip wire in his mind sparked a warning, but it was only a yellow alert, a reminder of the power he had to control. Ignoring it, he continued to keep Ivy trapped below his body as he smashed the rules of Silence to rubble and kissed her in unrestrained demand. Ivy wasn’t very good at being angry with him—she gave him the wetness, the raw intimacy that he craved with a wild generosity that only made him hungrier.

Humans and changelings had hobbies, he thought in one corner of his mind. This would be his.

“Sex can’t be a hobby,” Ivy gasped, tiny nails digging into his flesh in a bite that made him want to demand more, and he realized he’d telepathed the words to her.

“Why not?” He reinitiated the kiss, having had nowhere near enough. It’s a physical act. All physical acts require practice if an individual wants to improve. And Vasic intended to become an expert at making Ivy utter those small, soft, intrinsically female sounds that went straight to his already painfully erect penis.

“I don’t think you need to improve.” Ivy moaned when he slid his mouth down from her jaw to her neck and nipped at her, her body moving restlessly beneath his. “God . . . How . . . Where . . .”

I had to think about something good while I was on the street. I thought about what I wanted to do to you. The second the words were out, he wished he could recall them, not wanting the ugliness of the past hours in their bed.

But Ivy wrapped a leg around his waist, and said, “Excellent use of your time,” and it was all right.

Sucking on the pulse in her neck because the rapid tattoo of it fascinated him, he felt her stiff little nipples rub against his chest. He wanted to suck on those, too, wanted to lick and bite and taste every naked inch of her, wanted to drown his parched soul in the pleasure that was Ivy Jane.

His Ivy Jane.

IVY was melting in Vasic’s arms, her need at a keening pitch, the weight of his body pinning her down in a delicious prison . . . which was probably why it took her several seconds to realize she was no longer in bed. In fact, she was no longer in her bedroom. Breath ragged as their lips parted, she whispered, “I can feel sand underneath me.”

Vasic ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip. “We’re in the desert,” he said, and dipped his head again.

When he licked his tongue over hers, she licked back. She had no idea if they were doing this “right,” but oh, it felt goooood. Sex was the best hobby, she decided, as Vasic began to lave his tongue over her collarbone after nudging aside the strap of her camisole. “I want to do that.” She tugged at the raw silk of his hair.

He grazed the ball of her shoulder with his teeth. “Later.”

Brain hazy at best, she decided she could wait her turn since his turn was making her blood transform to honey . . . until an icy chill penetrated her back. “Vasic!”

Lifting his head, he said, “Alaska,” and then they were back in her bed, his hands braced on either side of her and his gorgeous chest rising and falling in harsh breaths above her.

She went to touch him, caught the shake of his head. It took almost a minute for her brain cells to start working again. “So,” she gasped. “Slight technical glitch.”

Silver-frost eyes locked with hers. A heartbeat later, they were kissing again, wet and hot and so good . . . until Ivy yelped, the earth hard and cold beneath her thinly clad form. At least it wasn’t snow, she thought, looking around at the tall green grasses that created a cocoon around them. Then the first fat droplet of rain hit Vasic’s naked shoulder.

The bed was below her the next second, the air warm.

Pushing away, Vasic fell onto his back beside her, his gauntleted arm above his head. She rose on her elbow, and though it took teeth-gritting control, didn’t immediately pounce on the beautiful, beautiful man in bed with her. The one who’d just kissed and nibbled on her like she was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

He could devour her as often as he liked.

“What about you?” A piercing gray-eyed glance. “Your shields?”

Not shifting her gaze from her very private, very gorgeous view, Ivy accessed her empathic senses. “My abilities seem heightened, but I’m not reading you, not consciously.” She bit her kiss-swollen lower lip. “I suppose I could’ve been doing it subconsciously, but if I was, I was too in the moment to know it.”

“I don’t mind, Ivy,” he said, clearly hearing her worry. “It’s not as if my desires were unclear.” He ran one hand over the erection pushing at his jeans.

Ivy’s mouth dried up, her eyes locked on that spot even after he dropped his hand aside. “Why,” she said, voice hoarse, “is that so erotic?”

“Is it?” His gaze dipped. “Touch one of your nipples for me.”

As breathless as if she’d been running, Ivy lifted her hand, blushed, but bracketed the tight, pouting tip between her fingertips through the camisole. It was her own body, and she’d touched it thousands of times as she showered and dressed, but this time it was different—because Vasic was watching her, his eyes heavy-lidded.

Turning her lips inward to lick them wet, she rolled the taut nub between her fingertips . . . and almost fell when the bed turned to sand, her hand dropping to dig into the porous softness. The displacement only lasted a second, then the mattress was firm beneath them once more.

“Verdict?” she asked, playing her finger through a tiny river of sand caught in the sheet.

“Highly erotic.” Vasic reached down to undo the top button of his jeans, lower the zipper a fraction.

Ivy whimpered when he stopped. “That’s not going to ease the pressure,” she said, her breasts pushing against the delicate fabric of the camisole.

Reaching out, Vasic just barely brushed the back of his hand over her swollen flesh. It shot a bolt of intense sensation right to her core, her panties beyond damp. Rubbing her thighs together only made the frustration worse. “The desert’s nice,” she began in a cajoling tone, creeping her hand toward him. “We—”

“Will probably end up in a Siberian prison the next time.” Gripping her hand on that dark warning, he returned it to her side of the invisible line in the bed. “Do you know what I want?”

Ivy ran her foot over his jean-clad leg. “What?”

“To watch you touch yourself between your thighs as you tug on your nipples,” he said, the frank sexual request ratcheting up her need to a fever, “but we’ll have to wait until I have the ‘slight technical glitch’”—a silver-eyed glance, his thumb stroking over her lip—“under control.”

Ivy bit at the firm flesh, frustrated and playful both. “Your voice should be illegal.” Sucking at his thumb when he didn’t immediately withdraw it, she saw his lashes come down, his breathing alter . . . and sand all around them.

To her toe-curling delight, though he broke the intimate contact after they were back in the apartment, he began to twine one of her curls loosely around his finger. “I hope you really do like the desert. Because it looks like we’ll be visiting it on a regular basis.”

She giggled and snuggled a tiny bit closer. “I do.”

“I have one advantage over other Tks.” His abdomen flexed under her touch, but he didn’t tell her to keep her distance this time. “My primary power is teleportation, and it appears that’s what my brain defaults to when I lose control—otherwise, I might cause serious damage.”

Ivy thought of the sand, the snow, the grasses. “Well, as long as your brain picks isolated locations, I don’t care.” All she cared about was being with him. “Though,” she teased, “I think you should be on the bottom next time.”

“We’ll negotiate that after I can keep us in one place.”

Ivy drew a design on his abdomen, her head nicely cushioned on his shoulder. “The places we went, you recognized them in a glance.”

“They were all locations I choose to go to when I’m not on assignment.” Releasing her hair, he tumbled her onto her back again, his expression altering to the cool remoteness she knew so well, but his hand, it gently collared her throat. “Are you sure, Ivy?”

It was a potent, quiet question, one for which she didn’t need an explanation. “Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “I’m sure.”

Vasic nodded and returned them to their former positions, Ivy cradled against his chest. She released a shuddering breath. She was where she was meant to be, and she would fight to hold on to the wild beauty of it with everything she had.

“Woof!” Scrabbling paws, then a small weight jumping onto the bed.

“Rabbit,” she chastised with a laugh.

Padding over, he looked at how she lay in Vasic’s arms, huffed, then curled up on Vasic’s other side. It made her smile. “I like that you two are friends now.”

Vasic said nothing, but he cupped the back of her head with one hand and rubbed Rabbit’s back with the other, the black sheen of his gauntlet gleaming in the light. It was a moment as perfect as it was heartbreaking.