After the shower, I helped her with her bra and panties, her pain level still at an inhuman level. She hadn’t realized yet that I could feel it. The more she tried to hide it from me, the more I could feel it. It was almost a game to me now. She saw me smirking at her, asking what I wasn’t telling her.
“The more you try to hold everything in, the easier it is for me to feel it. I know you’re trying to avoid pushing your pain on to me, but the more you fight letting it go, the easier it is for me to feel. I know how excruciating that shower was for you just now,” I said. Her eyes went wide as she realized that her feeble attempt to block me had failed. That was a new one for me. She’d been able to hide her pain both times she’d been seriously hurt before. I was still a little angry with her over it. No matter how many times I told her that I wanted her to come to me, her default was still to try and hide it and take care of herself, rather than feeling like she was burdening me with anything more. Now she couldn’t hide and I, for one, was very happy about it.
“D*mmit,” she said. “That did not go how I planned.”
I just laughed at her as I started to wrap the sling around her waist. “I did warn you before, you know,” I said, trying to mimic Misha’s penchant for the dramatic. “It’s not fair that you only share the good parts with me. Now I can hold you to that.” I looked at her, quite proud of this latest development. I wanted to be able to take care of her and to know what she needed the same way she did for me.
She stood in front of me, still in her bra and panties, still slightly surprised, but half-grinning at what I was sure was a goofy grin on my face. I suddenly got hit with the warmth that she felt when she thought about how much she loved me. I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing that feeling. It was so different to the pull that I felt in my chest when I thought about her, but it was so her. She radiated love, especially for me. The warmth that she felt was a physical manifestation of that. When she would push that feeling to me, it wasn’t the feeling of being loved. It wasn’t a knowing that she loved me. It was love. She is love.
“I didn’t realize how much I would miss that feeling,” I said as I took a step toward her. I wanted to pull her to me, but I knew she was still in so much pain that wasn’t a good idea. I could still feel her pain, but it was in the background now. The warmth was the dominant feeling. I wanted to make it last for her. I remembered when we were in Italy that she had told me that anytime we had s*x, the pain would subside completely. It didn’t take any effort on my part to think about what I wanted to do to her when she was healed. I took her face in my hands and pressed my lips to hers, thinking about feeling her, about what she made me feel. It was difficult to hold myself back, but I kissed her with more passion than I had at the hospital. I sucked on her bottom lip, which I knew she loved. I felt her reach up with her good arm and hold onto my forearm. She felt like the pain was lessening and her desire was getting stronger, but I wasn’t completely sure it worked. The pain was still there, but it was not as loud. She leaned into me, moaning softly. Before I lost complete control, I stepped back from her. I didn’t want to hurt her. She still had her eyes closed when I looked down at her. She kept them closed for a moment. Longer than I thought she would. “Are you okay, solnishko?” I asked, a little worried that something was wrong.
She slowly opened her eyes, almost like she was afraid to. “You took all the pain away just now. How did you do that?”
Adrik
“It worked?” I was a little surprised my idea had worked.
“Yeah, it’s coming back slowly, but not as fast as I thought it would. What did you do?”
“I remembered when you were hurt after the ball, you told me that when we had s*x it made your pain go away. I don’t think you’re in any shape for that much right now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think about it,” I said.
She cut her eyes up at me, a small grin on her face that made her look s*xy as hell. “Devious. I like it. I’ll allow it,” she said. She gave me her smile that made my heart threaten to stop. I’d definitely missed that “I should do that more. Your light just got brighter again,” I said, grabbing her leggings to help her finish getting dressed.
“Yes, please,” she said, walking slowly to the bed so she could sit. Her breathing was still labored, especially when she got tired. She took as deep a breath as she was able to while I helped her with her leggings. “I didn’t know I would miss being able to feel you. I didn’t know it would go away,” she said quietly.
“I don’t think it went away, solnishko. I think it was just drowned out by your pain. I’m still shocked that you’re able to function with the pain levels you’re dealing with right now. I wouldn’t be able to move,” I said “Ivan told me that redheads have an insanely high pain tolerance. Apparently he was right,” she said.
“How does he know that?” I asked, going to the closet to grab another one of my hoodies for her and clothes for me.
She waited until I came back to answer. She still couldn’t talk very loudly. “I don’t want to tell more than he wants me to. He said that there were a few redhead boys where he was experimented on when he was a kid. He said he felt worse for them than he did himself, which is saying quite a lot. They tortured Ivan,” she said.
“Ivan hasn’t told me everything. I think you’re the only one he’s ever told everything to. He doesn’t need to. Whatever it was, it shaped him into the man he is today, like you told the nurse. That’s all I need to know,” I said.
She looked at me, very seriously and slowly pointed her finger at me. “That’s exactly the kind of thing a witch would say,” she said, trying to hold in her laughter. “That reminds me. How can you feel Ivan now?” I asked, curious.
“It’s very different and it’s definitely not as strong as what I feel with you, but he has his own energy signature. I was starting to feel him when we were grabbed. Like, I could tell when he was getting angry without having to see him. It seems like anger is the easiest one for me to feel. When they took me from the room to Armando, I felt him lose it before he made a move to try and protect me.” I sat on the bed next to her. She chewed on her bottom lip, stopping to catch her breath. “When you’re protective of me, it feels like you’re
I/4 right there with me. Like you’re standing beside me, but your presence is all that’s needed to scare whatever is threatening me away. That’s what it felt like when you pulled me from my nightmare into the darkness. It felt like you were with me, showing me how to command the darkness.” She looked at me, again catching her breath. “With Ivan, it’s completely different. He puts me in a bubble.” I laughed at her description. “I know, sounds weird, but I don’t know how else to describe it. But that’s what it feels like. When the doctor was doing whatever it was to make Ivan feel like he needed to protect me, it felt like I was in a bubble and the doctor could no longer see me. I could still feel you and I could feel Ivan standing guard, basically, but I felt nothing else. Everyone else was gone and I couldn’t hear anyone talking unti the doctor left the room.”
“What about Misha? Can you feel him the same way now that you unlocked a new level for him?”
She thought for a minute. “Not exactly. I could tell who was moving me before I woke up, but I don’t know if that’s the same. I knew it was Andrei and Stephen that moved me so you could get in bed with me when I started shaking,” she said.
“How did you know it was them?”
“Andrei’s warmer than average and I’d know Stephen’s undead hands anywhere,” she said, smiling. “I haven’t noticed being able to feel anything extra with Misha yet, but he’s probably the next one.” I brushed a still damp curl back from her face, kissing her temple. “You never cease to amaze me.”
Sephie was clearly tired after the shower and getting dressed, but she didn’t want to sleep. At least not in the bed. “You told the guys to come back up here so you’re going back out there and I don’t trust my body to not start shaking if I fall asleep without you here yet,” she said.
“Fair enough,” I said, quite happy I didn’t have to be apart from her for any length of time.
“Besides, I want snacks,” she said, grinning at me.
“Then snacks you shall have,” I said, opening the door for her to walk back to the kitchen.
She walked straight to the refrigerator, at her slow pace, and rummaged through until she found something to eat.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.