Immortally Embraced

chapter eighteen




I blew out a breath, struggling with the idea that he was here, that I wanted him, but that I could never have him. How were we going to work together? I dropped my hands. “This is completely—”

He drew me close and silenced me with a kiss. “I thought I was never going to see you again,” he said, grating against my mouth.

I pulled away. “I thought I killed you.” I tried to get my bearings as he slid his hands down my back, cupping my ass. I’d never expected him and I’d never expected this and holy frick I wanted to eat him alive.

“Wait,” I gasped as he ground against me. “We can’t do this.” Not again.

Yes, he was here, and yes I wanted him, but I had to be strong.

His eyes were molten, his breath hitching. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Which was another reason for me to step away, end the embrace.

“What about your goddess?” I asked. “What did you promise her?” Maybe I could pick a fight. I drew my fingers down his arm in the exact same place she had. I wanted to erase her.

He hissed. “I want you, Petra.” He eased me back against the lab table.

He felt so good. So right. But we had to get one thing straight right away. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

What we had—what we could never have now—was eating me alive. He might be able to separate it, but I couldn’t.

He yanked me against him until I could feel him—all of him—hot and heavy against me. “Then just kiss me.”

His gaze locked with mine. “There’s never been anyone like you. Never will be.”

His words cut into me, I couldn’t take that. I couldn’t open myself to him like that anymore.

He kissed me long and hard, until I lost my mind. Until I was wet with it.

Marc wrapped one of my legs around his waist, then the other. He shoved my back against the wall as his fingers found the very core of me. I was melting. Sweet heaven, I had no idea how much I’d needed this.

He slanted over me, mouth-on-mouth, chest-to-chest, thigh-to-thigh, his fingers working magic between my legs. Making me shudder, making me ache.

“Do you want me?” he asked, as he slipped two fingers inside of me.

I should lie. But why? He knew the truth.

“I’ve always wanted you,” I whispered, moaning with the pleasure of it.

He grinned wickedly as I writhed against him. “Good.”

His mouth found mine again, primed and ready. It was too much. Having him back. Knowing he was alive and here with me.

I reveled in his obvious desire, in the feel of him stroking my most intimate place.

My body was alive with it. I felt myself grow even wetter as he ripped at the buttons of my flak jacket.

I tried to help him and fumbled. This was crazy. It was only supposed to be once. I was going to have him and then let him go.

But I couldn’t forget the way his naked body had felt against mine, hot and slick and ready. I remembered the moment he slid the tip of himself inside me. How he moved inside me.

I gasped against his mouth as his coarse uniform rasped against my bare breasts.

This was insane. He could never be mine.

But he was here now. Whole and alive.

How many nights had I lain awake, dreaming of this man? Of what he could do to me?

Merde, I was primed. I was out of my mind.

He pinned me against the wall while he drew his fingers in and out of me. His heated mouth latched onto one of my breasts. I couldn’t think anymore. I could only feel as he sucked and licked, running his teeth along the ultra-sensitive skin of my nipple.

I wanted him so bad, it hurt. This pleasure that built to a painful burn, a desire so intense that I cried out. I called his name. It lanced through me as I clung to him.

“Please, Marc. Let me—”

“Not without me inside you,” he ground out.

He worked the buttons on his fatigues and then he was pushing inside me. I cried out again, from the sheer pleasure of him, the weight of him, the heat of him, the feel of him as he penetrated me.

He cursed under his breath, yanked me closer. His breath scalded my cheek as he gathered himself, found his rhythm.

Jesus. I was stripped bare against the wall. He was still fully dressed; I could feel the hard buttons against my inner thighs as he drove into me.

It excited me to no end to be laid out like a feast for this man. His coarse uniform abraded my skin, teased me, pushed me higher. I came with a sharp cry as the pleasure of being desired, taken, owned crashed over me.

I clung to him, needing him like I needed my next breath.

He gave a hoarse shout as he broke, pounding into me, pulling me even closer as he came long and hard inside me.

His cheek scraped mine as we clung together, gasping and spent against the wall. I could feel the moist heat of him radiating from under his uniform. It gathered between us, slicking where we were still joined.

Slowly, the world came back into focus. I drew my hands up his strong back, over the sliver of skin between his ear and his short, military cut. I felt the heat of him there, fought the urge to lick it.

God in heaven. “What are we doing?”

He flexed his hips, still semi-hard inside me. He chuckled against my ear. “I could show you again if you’d like.”

Yes, yes, my body panted as he slid over my aching *.

The man should have come with a warning label.

I braced my head against the pinewood wall. I didn’t want this to end. I wanted him inside me. But this should never have happened in the first place.

He flexed again and I nearly lost my train of thought. Still, I needed to wrap my head around this. He’d been my rock, my confidant. I should be able to talk to him about this.

I licked my lips. “Seriously, Marc. What are we doing?”

A bead of sweat slicked down the side of his face. “We’re taking what we can get.”

Settling for scraps. We were talking about days, weeks if we were lucky. I was at his mercy and at the whim of the gods.

My heart broke a little. “I don’t think I can live like that.” We deserved more. From the moment I’d met him, I’d known I wanted more.

“It’s all we can have.” He pulled back, slipping away from me, out of me as he helped me stand. He tried for a smile and failed. “I’ve been given so few things in this war.”

Me too.

I tipped up the corners of my lips. It was either that or cry.

“Let’s enjoy this gift,” he said, his fingers finding my cheek. “We’ll be together for as long as we can.”

He didn’t say the next part, but I knew it already.

It would have to be enough.

His mouth was tight, but his eyes were soft as he brushed a lock of hair behind my ear.

My stomach hollowed. “I can’t do that.” Legs wobbly, I felt his withdrawal like a physical ache. “I’m not as good at holding back as you are.” He’d said it himself that he could compartmentalize this. Well, I couldn’t. I was all or nothing. I didn’t know how to be anything else.

“Petra—”

My uniform jacket slouched on an empty corner of the lab table. I found it and tugged it on, not really wanting it.

He followed me, held me. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do.” He wasn’t giving me everything and it wasn’t fair, not when I was about to rip a hole in my heart that might never heal. I took a deep breath and said it before I could change my mind. “From now on, we’re just friends.”

Marc looked like I’d slapped him. “Unbelievable. You don’t know what I had to pull in order to get this assignment. It was one in a million, I finally have you back—and you want to be friends?”

That was our mistake—in a nutshell. “You don’t have me back,” I said, buttoning my jacket, ignoring the hurt in his eyes. I didn’t have him back, either.

He was right. I didn’t know what he’d had to do to make it here, but I knew it was temporary. And that he was giving only what he could on this particular day, this week, this month.

The Marc I knew never held his emotions in check. He never held back his love. He was all or nothing—just like me.

This war had changed a lot of things.

He watched every button. “So you’re expecting me to be here with you every day and not touch you?”

“Bingo.”

“I can’t live like this.”

“I say that every day.”

But he was right. This was going to be our own particular brand of hell.

To be here, alone. Constantly tempted with what we’d given up at the whim of the gods. I wanted to strip him naked every time I saw him.

I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. I was raw with it.

But I couldn’t have him, so I might as well save myself the grief and the pain. Last time I’d fallen, it had taken me ten years to get over him. If I tripped again, I might never recover.

He stood motionless. “So if we’re friends, are you going to tell me what you’ve been doing for the past ten years?”

Surviving. I’d have given anything to go to him right then, wrap my arms around him, and never let go.

“Let’s just stick to work,” I said, moving to my desk.

His lips formed a thin line, but he didn’t offer any comment as he buttoned his fatigues and joined me at my desk.

“Not so close,” I said, as his rough jacket brushed my wrist, making me all too aware of his closeness. Of him.

He huffed. “Any more orders?”

“Don’t get pissed at me.”

He gave me a hard stare. “Why not? You won’t let me love you.”

Please. “Love is not the problem, Marc, and you know it.”

My words hung between us. We stood for a moment, shocked, the silence deepening.

He sat, reaching for my lab notes without even looking at them. He bent over them, trying to focus. “This is your progress so far on the ethanol?”

Lovely. Yes. Physical battle he could do. In spades. As far as putting his true self on the line? Well, he’d just proved my point.

“I’m exploring different solvents that will allow us to control the effect of the sphinx venom.”

“Sure,” he said, as he paged through the notes.

Battling a sigh, I sat down on the stool. The effects of our robust reunion were beginning to wear off and fatigue tugged at me. “When do you think your side will start sending equipment?”

“Knowing the goddess? It’s already on the way.”

“About that—” I stiffened. “How well do you know the goddess?”

“Jealous?” he challenged.

For a second, I didn’t know what to say. I was too tired, too raw.

Regret flashed across his features. “I’m sorry. That was an a*shole thing to say.” He shook his head. “Nerthus means nothing. I know I sound like an idiot when I talk to her, but courtly words make her feel good. And it got me on this project.”

“Why?” I asked.

He softened. “I wanted to see you again.”

“It’s too dangerous.” He had to understand that. “What if she turns you into her slave boy?”

“I don’t care,” he said simply.

I sighed. The man was impossible. “Yes, well, our last group project didn’t turn out so well. How long were you down?”

“A few days,” he said, purposely making light of it.

“I thought you were dead.”

His eyes caught mine. “I’m sorry for that.”

I planted my hands on my hips. At least this time, he’d sought me out despite the consequences. He didn’t just let me go on with my life, thinking he was gone.

He paged through my notebook. “I heard about this project when I was in the hospital. They needed someone fast. I made a personal appeal to Nerthus.”

“It worked,” I said drily.

Still, forces were at work. That much was clear. I just didn’t know what it meant. “The prophecy said, Death comes with a gift.”

“I’m not dead yet,” he said, quoting a Monty Python movie we used to watch. He went back to the notes. “Besides, you can’t put too much stock in the oracles.”

He had no idea. “They’re true.”

Marc kept reading, so I stood and closed the book on him.

“Hey,” he said, trying to keep his spot.

“Listen to me.” He had to understand it. “These things have a way of happening.”

He cleared his throat. “I agree we’re involved in something big, but we’re in control, not some oracle.”

This is where I’d changed and he hadn’t—most likely couldn’t. “It’s a matter of faith,” I said.

He gave me a level look. “I’m a man of science.”

He just had to use my old argument. Fine. I was being rigid, I got it. “I probably deserved that.”

But Marc wouldn’t let it go. “I’m not putting you down. I’m just going on facts. My side is developing a weapon. Your side is developing a mercy drug.” He paused for a moment. “Let’s see if we can develop ours first. If there’s no suffering, maybe the guts and glory will lose its appeal. Maybe the gods will end this war on their own.”

I wanted to believe that. “Maybe that’s how the oracle will work,” I mused.

The lantern light played off his strong features. “Petra, you’ve got to stop hoping some oracle is going to swoop in and save us.” He cupped a hand under my chin. “We have everything we need right here.”

He always had to be in control. I should have known he’d never accept the idea that something larger—something he couldn’t control—was at work.

I shook off his touch. “Let’s just agree to disagree.”

Marc was here with me for a reason. And it wasn’t so he could rip my world apart again.

If I just kept my wits about me, we could use time together for good, for healing. And maybe, just maybe, we’d find what we needed to survive.