Mark of Betrayal (75 page)

“
No!” I squealed, jerking around as he dug his fingers into my ribs. “Stop!”

He laughed, his voice deep and gentle, while his strong fingers forced my body to thrash about in a very unladylike manner, wriggling and screaming. But he seemed so young and so human when he played this way that I really didn't want him to stop—and he knew that, so he didn't.

“
See?” Breathless, a little puffed-out, he pinned both my hands beside my face and leaned right down. “I know more about you than anyone else in this world, Ara-Rose. And I know you didn’t ask me for that ring because you liked the fact that I had it. You liked knowing how it made me feel to carry it—as if I owned a part of you my brother never would.”

“
What part?”

“
The truth.”

I stiffened; he smiled, and his eyes slowly travelled from my face to where his legs rested between mine, Arthur’s button-down shirt rising up to reveal I wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

He released my hands and pulled the shirt to cover me. “What happened down there tonight, Ara?”

“
Where?”

“
In the training hall. Why were you down there—practically naked?”

I swallowed, and the pictures of everything that happened flashed across my thoughts before I could stop them.

He swept my hair off my brow, frowning. “Whoa. Ara, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“
What?” I looked up, half panicked.

“
That’s
what you were doing down there tonight? Arthur? R
ea
lly?”

“
I…” I blinked a few extra times. “You saw that?”

“
Sweet girl, I saw everything.” He backed off me a little, resting on his knees, his hand on my open leg. “So that's what the dagger’s for—that’s what David wants it for?”

“
And that’s why he hasn't been coming to see me.” I grabbed my locket. “He can't bear it. He’s wanted to tell me so badly, but he knows I’ll fight him on it. He’s planning to just disappear.”

Jason moved forward quickly, dropping his hands beside my shoulders, and looked down into my eyes, an intense stare swallowing all the animation from his face. “No.”

“
No, what?”

He bit his lip, shaking his head. “No. I won't let this happen.”

“
What?”

“
I'm not letting you do this to yourself.” He reached down and started undoing my buttons. “I won't see you suffer my uncle’s touch then hate yourself for the rest of eternity.”

“
I have to.” I cupped my hand over his. “I can't lose David.”

“
But you can lose me,” he said, and rolled the shirt off my shoulder, opening my bare skin to the night.

“
Jase—” My hand slowly came up to rest along his face. “If you father the heir, you’ll be going to your
death
.”

“
Precisely.” He laughed.

“
Why would you want that?”

“
You don't know?”

I shook my head.

“
You really have no idea what you are to me, Ara, do you?”

“
What do you mean?”

“
I…it would take a lifetime for me to show you how I feel. There are no words I could find to say it in one breath, and
I love you
just doesn’t hold enough weight for the feeling I have in my soul that you are everything. You are my life, my breath, my reason to get up, to smile, to live each day. I will never let you go.” He wiped his soft, long fingers down my cheek. “Don't you see? One day my brother will come back here, and I won't get to be with you anymore, and, eventually, that will kill me anyway.”

“
But, Jase,” I said, trying not to cry. “How can I live in a world without you?”

He shook his head, taking in my half naked body as he peeled the shirt completely away. “Better than you can live in a world without David.”

My whole heart tightened with sadness, because I knew it was true, and I knew I could love Jason for one night without hating myself as much as if it was Arthur.

“
Wait.” I pressed my hand to his abs as he lifted his shirt over his head. “Will David really hate me if I have a baby to stop him from dying?”

“
He’ll get over it.” He ditched the shirt and fell on his hands, his body over mine. “Think of the agony he's been going through these past few months, probably worrying whose hands he’d be leaving you in once he’s
dead
.” He looked down at my hips and cupped them both firmly, sliding me down the bed. “He knows this will happen, he just believes it’ll be when he's gone—cold in the ground. But it doesn't have to be that way.”

I was surprised at that, really. I kind of thought he’d jump at the chance to have me for eternity.

“
No,” he said, having read my mind. “Not sad—not eternally grieving him, Ara. If you really do love him more than me, then you will not
ever
be happy again if he dies.” He reached down and unzipped his jeans. “We’re doing this. I'm giving you my child, and I will die happy, knowing that I at least left a part of myself behind—in you.”

I closed my eyes, taking a few deep breaths while he fussed about between my legs, taking off his clothes. And when his bare skin fell smoothly and warmly against mine as he came back down on top of me, I felt myself only more drawn to him. Ready for him. Wanting him.

“
I'm sorry, but…while I have you completely naked, I'm gonna do something I've wanted to do for a long time,” he said behind that mischievous grin.

“
What’s that?” I asked shyly, my cheek to my shoulder.

“
Kiss you somewhere naughty.”

As if my body belonged to his every touch, my spine curved, making my ribs press against his, my chin tilting upward by command of his lips; his mouth opened, warm breath over soft skin, and traced lovely wet little kisses from my collarbones to my ribs, then over the line of promise.

“
This,” he said through the kisses, running a finger over my Mark, “looks incredibly sexy on you.”

“
I'm not sure I fit in a sentence with the word
sexy
,” I scoffed.

“
Tell that to my body.” He smiled against my flesh, taking his lips down my belly in a curve, finding the join of my hip and sneaking off to that patch of forbidden hair. I gasped, a rush of heat moistening between my thighs as his tongue entered me where no man had ever kissed before.

I grabbed the edge of my pillow, opening my legs wider, trying not to moan loudly, but the glorious ability of this mind reader meant that he knew exactly where to put his fingers and exactly how soft his touch needed to be. He slid one finger slowly out and back in again, kissing me each time it entered.

The electricity in my hands snapped, making me hotter all through my core; I drove them under my pillow and bit my lip, giggling inside.

“
What’s funny?” he asked.

“
That kind of tickles.”

He laughed, running his wet hands up my hips and to my breast, his lips following, his hair touching my chin, the faint smell of myself all over his mouth as he kissed my nipple, moving up my neck to my jaw.

I wanted to reach down and grab him, slide him inside me, but he kept his hips away, reaching up to grab my hand as soon as the idea entered my mind.

“
Not yet,” he said.

“
Argh! You’re killing me!”

His breath left his chest, tinted with a low tone of his beautiful deep voice, and I felt so close to him, hearing him that way, hearing his voice against my skin. I opened my mouth as he came to it, and let my tongue touch his—felt his lips perfectly shape to mine, his hands reaching around to cradle my spine, as if he couldn't possibly hold me close enough to drive the desire away. And as I wrapped my legs around his hips, felt the driving force of his love so solidly, so clearly in that first thrust, that I let out a little cry, scrunching my fingers into the flesh between his shoulder blades.

“
You okay?” he asked, laughing into the curve of my neck.

“
I just…”
David was never that passionate.
“I'm okay.”

His hips moved away from mine, coming closer again, the muscles in his butt tightening each time. I never imagined it could feel this way—all of it; skin on skin, chest to chest, his thin body, so toned and so firm, pressing my breasts flat between us, while the sharp bone of his jaw rested against my head, his throat just above my nose and lips—just close enough to bite. There was a kind of energy between us, surrounding us, that felt solid, like we were grounded by a force outside our awareness.

I leaned down and kissed the Mark on his arm softly, closing my eyes as I remembered the first time I saw it—how much I loved him even then.

“
Jase?”

“
Yeah?”

“
I love you.”

He stopped for a second, and his soft hair tickled my nose as he drew back, then looked down at me. “I love you, too, Ara. For forever.” He leaned in and kissed my lips once. “And I will die loving you.”

I rolled my head back and tilted my hips up to meet his, inviting him to move in me once more; he obliged, keeping his chest and belly off mine, looking down between my legs, watching himself go inside me. And it was about the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

Hot liquid flooded my insides, making Jason grin as he reached down to press his thumb against a really sensitive spot.

“
Holy shi…!” I said, as if I’d just
plunged down
the dip of a roller-coaster. “What the hell is that?”

“
Clitoral stimulation.”

“
Oh.”

He laughed, and I looked up—saw the amusement in his eyes, the tongue of concentration sitting in the corner of his smile. His thumb made my body do things it’d never done before—make noises my throat didn't know it could make, and I felt myself tighten around him, from the inside out, pulsing in little twitches as he acted on my every thought.

At the point my body could no longer take it, he shoved himself hard inside of me again, hitting a spot way up that sent everything flooding back down. Moisture swam between us, his thighs wet against mine—the night air sweeping between us, cooling what was so hot I could hardly breathe.

Jason moaned loudly then, his chest above my lips, his arms so tight the veins bulged around his elbow as he gripped the bed, holding himself at the deepest point within me. And I felt it—felt him release, felt his life force rush through me. We were One. There was no going back. A threshold had been crossed and the door closed. And I was nothing but content, even though I knew he would pull away at any second, because right now, he was mine and I was his—just the way I wanted it to be.

As my gasps died down to soft breaths, he pressed his body to mine again, moving slowly, teasing that overexcited spot. I let out a long sigh, feeling so tight in all my limbs, but most deliciously, where he and I connected.

“
Ara.” He slid his hand behind my back, cradling my spine as he rolled me up, gently tucking my face against his chest. “I wish I could hold onto you like this forever.”

And I felt so loved, so safe in his arms that I wished it, too.

I angled my chin to his chest and kissed him where his heart should be beating, breathing deep his spicy cologne and the delicious orange-chocolate of warm blood through his veins, then wrapped both my arms and legs around him, squeezing his body tightly. I never wanted to let go. He was a part of me now, and always would be. I wasn't sure it meant I had come to terms with how I felt, but I was certainly face to face with it, unable to deny it any longer.

“
Jase?”

“
Yeah?” He shuffled back, slipping out of me.

“
This won't make it okay.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
I mean…I love him. I really do, and I…I can see his face. I can see the way he’ll look at me when I tell him the baby’s yours.” I shut my eyes around that thought.

“
Shh.” He kissed the bone just above my eye. “It’s okay. We’ll tell him together.”

“
No.” My eyes shot open. “We can't. He needs to be free to have an emotional reaction—he can't do that with you there—with anyone else there.”

“
It’s his
emotional reaction
I'm worried about, Ara.”

“
He won't hurt me, Jase.”

“
Then you don't know him very well.”

“
Or maybe
you
don't.” I shoved him off me and stood up. “Stop always thinking the worst of him.”

“
Ara, I’ve seen it. I've goddamn well seen him hit a girl before.” He stood up, too, following me. “Why won't you listen to me?”

“
Because it’s irrelevant, Jason.”

“
Why?”

“
Look what we did.” I pointed back to my bed. “We betrayed him. We…we loved each other in his bed. He’d be right to hurt me for that, Jason.”

He ran forward and gently grabbed my arm. “No, Ara. He wouldn't.”

“
Just—get off me.” I shrugged away. “I don't want this anymore. I don't want the confusion.”

“
It’s not confusing, Ara. You love me. You said it yourself.”