Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nathaniel

"Well, this is… underwhelming," Roxy declared as we walked into another white-walled and white-floored room.

There was nothing at all in this one. No blocks that needed sorting. No crystal balls.

No windows.

And as soon as the one closed behind us, no doors either.

"Huh," she said, turning in a circle, surveying the surroundings. "So, do we suffocate to death?" she asked. "Well, me anyway," she said. "Since you don't need air.

"Or maybe we dehydrate. I hear that's not a terrible way to go. I assume that by the time you get hungry enough to drink my battery acid blood, I'd be nearly dead anyway."

"Is this depressing monologue helping you work through what the actual task is?" I asked, surprised at how snippy my voice came out.

Sure, I was frustrated.

But not with her.

With this endless labyrinth. With the emotional toll it was taking on her. With, you know, almost dying myself. In a very mortal way.

"If you have any suggestions, please enlighten me, oh, superior being," she snarked right back, jerking back at her tone, as confused as I was by my own outburst.

"We could rest," I suggested, feeling the ache in my muscles, the burn in the soles of my feet. Such mortal concerns. Ones I would have to learn to live with until we reached my cure.

To that, she snorted.

"What?" I asked.

"A little hypocritical, I guess. Always telling me to stop being lazy and to hurry up. But when you want to sit and rest, we can sit and rest."

"I believe it's more of a double standard than being hypocritical."

"Whatever," she grumbled, slitting her eyes at me, but she lowered herself onto the unforgiving floor of the room. "Maybe if I close my eyes and imagine a memory foam mattress, it won't feel like knives are stabbing my back," she mumbled to herself.

I stretched out beside her, loathe to find she was right about the pain.

Still, it was relief from my throbbing, aching feet.

As if responding to my focus, my soles screamed more.

And more.

Were they actually that painful, I wondered? Or was this room playing tricks on me?

Roxanne grumbled, rolling onto her side, facing me.

She was closer than I realized.

And even with my much more mortal nose, I scented the summer honey sweetness of her.

My mind flashed back to the fantasy playing out before my eyes on the crystal ball.

It hadn't felt like watching a show, either. It had been like starring in it.

I felt the softness of her skin, the way my fingers sank into her flesh, the soft sighs she made.

And, as I started to kiss up her thigh, the summer honey scent intensified.

I knew that if I'd gotten a chance to lean in, to yank her panties to the side, and get my mouth on her, that she would taste exactly like she smelled too.

Sweet.

Intoxicating.

Addicting.

Even just the memory of the vision had desire coursing through my body, more acutely than any I'd ever felt before, either as a human or a vampire.

I was hard, pressing against the fly of my pants, the pressure of it making me shift uncomfortably as the heat of my need raged through my veins, turning my skin to flames.

Roxanne shifted again, grumbling at her discomfort.

But as she moved, her scent intensified, and her warm, soft body brushed against me.

"Don't," I snapped, reaching out to push her back. But my fingers only managed to sink into her hip.

"Don't what?" she asked, still surly, until her gaze met my face.

I could feel the heaviness of my eyelids. I knew she didn't miss it either.

Suddenly, the tension and frustration slipped out of her pretty features.

I watched as her own eyes went to half-mast, as a flush worked its way up her neck and into her cheeks.

I may have been trying to ignore it before, but I was not unaware of her desire.

Now, I couldn't seem to remember any of the reasons I'd had in the past to fight it, to ignore it.

If anything, my own need just burned hotter at the evidence of hers.

My hand massaged her hip, and I watched the way her pouty mouth parted, and a soft mewling sound escaped her.

Her thighs pressed together, trying to ease the growing ache between.

I didn't want it eased.

I wanted it stoked.

I wanted her writhing and mindless in her need.

I wanted her begging for me to put an end to the torment.

Unable to think of anything else, I rolled onto my side, then slid my body over hers.

A gasp escaped her at the weight of me pinning her into the ground, at the feel of my hardness against her stomach.

Her thighs spread for me, inviting me between. Her legs wrapped around my lower back, holding me more tightly against her.

Impatient for a taste, my lips claimed hers, feeling the way she gasped, then relaxed into the sensation.

This was nothing like her kiss back when she'd been in my lap in the maze.

That kiss had been short and sweet. Just a manifestation of her relief.

This was pure desire as my lips bruised into hers, as hers responded, begging to take it deeper.

When her lips parted for me, my tongue slipped between to toy with hers, to taste more of that honey-sweetness of her.

Roxy's hands went from tightly wound around me, to searching, exploring, getting to know the feel of me.

When she tugged restlessly at my jacket, I sat back to yank it off of me.

Looking down, I found her spread for me, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her face flushed, her eyes wide, her pupils blown.

She reached out, grabbing my wrists, and pulling me back down toward her.

I was too happy to oblige.

Little shivers coursed through me as her soft hands roamed over my bare skin as my lips took hers again.

Beneath me, her body was wiggling, writhing, silently begging for relief from the fire burning through her.

I understood too well.

The same fire threatened to burn me to ashes too.

Roxy shifted down slightly, allowing my hardness to press against her cleft. The sensation had a deep, needy moan escaping her.

My lips were muffling the sound of her, so I pulled back, wanting to hear how far gone she was for me.

I waited for her eyes to open before grinding down against her.

This time, I got to hear the full depth of her need in her moan as she arched up off the floor.

Her fingers slid to my hips, then back, sinking in, and driving me against her as her hips circled at the same time.

"Nathaniel, please," she begged, mindless with her desire, desperate for relief from the ache inside.

I held her legs more tightly against me as I rolled myself under her, pulling her up on top.

Roxanne was quick to push back, to sit up and look down at me, her gaze burning into me as she settled herself against me.

My hands slid under the hem of her shirt, desperate for the feel of her.

My fingers were tracing up her back as she leaned downward, teasing my ear with her lips and tongue.

Her path blazed downward.

When she met my neck, her teeth moved out, playfully biting my skin.

A growl escaped me as my fingers slid to her ass, sinking in, dragging her against my hardness.

She cried out against my neck.

But she was undeterred.

Her lips continued their sweet torment, sliding down the column of my throat, over my chest.

Her tongue flicked out, teasing around each of my nipples.

Then she was moving downward, her lips and tongue learning the indents of my abdominal muscles as my need blanked out everything else in my mind.

My fingers slid up to work the tie out of her hair. It fell like a curtain around her face, tickling over the heated skin of my chest and stomach.

Her tongue traced the indent of my Adonis belt.

Then she was moving down.

Tracing the head of me through my pants, making a guttural groan escape me.

"I've never felt like this before," Roxy murmured as she moved back, settling on top of me again, aligning her core to my hardness, then bearing down on me. "I can't… think," she admitted, brows furrowing, like that fact concerned her for a second.

But then it was gone as she rocked against me, stoking her need, driving herself toward that edge.

I wanted more than anything to go with her, to hear her cry out just from the brush of my need against hers.

But her words came back to me with more clarity.

I've never felt like this before.

I hadn't either.

It was overwhelming, all-consuming.

I can't… think.

My own thoughts felt steeped in molasses; each thought thick and hard to draw out.

There was something… wrong.

"Nathaniel," Roxy cried, head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut.

"Look at me," I demanded, as a hard-to-grasp thought needled at me.

Walking in the boring, nothing room.

My sharp tone.

Hers.

My pains.

Hers.

All… more acute than they should have been. Especially given what we'd already been through together.

Something was wrong.

I just… couldn't place it.

"Roxy, look at me," I demanded, voice stronger.

Her heavy lids slipped open, glancing down at me.

But not really focused.

Like she wasn't even seeing me.

Like she was… lost in her desire.

Like it was consuming her.

Like it was something bigger than her.

I can't… think.

"Wait," I said, my mind fighting with the desire surging through my body. "Roxy, wait," I demanded, grabbing her hips, fingers sinking in, dragging her up a few inches, so she wouldn't continue to rock against me.

"No," she whimpered. "I need you," she said.

That primal rumble moved through me again, every bit of me wanting that to be true.

And perhaps it was.

But not at this level.

There was something off about this, about how intense these feelings were. About how mindless they were making us.

"Listen," I demanded, still fighting back my own unmet needs.

"I don't want to listen," she said, her hands gliding up my chest, creating little sparks of interest.

"Roxanne, this isn't right," I told her as she folded forward, hair teasing my chest.

"It feels right to me," she murmured, her lips meeting the skin of my neck. "Doesn't it feel right to you?" she asked.

It did.

More right than anything else in my entire sorry existence had ever felt.

But that was part of the problem, wasn't it?

Nothing was supposed to feel like this.

This wasn't us.

Or, to be more accurate, this wasn't just us. There was some sort of spell at work.

"It's not that," I said, groaning as her teeth nipped my earlobe, sending jolts of electricity through my nerve endings. "This is a spell," I said, the words rushing out before I stopped fighting it, before I gave in completely. Like my body was screaming for me to do.

"No," she said, lips blazing a sweet path down my jaw toward my lips. "No, I've wanted this for days."

"I do too. But it's not right," I insisted as her lips claimed mine.

I gave in for a moment, tasting her sweetness, loving the feel of her, the aggression of her desire.

But it wasn't right, damn it.

It didn't matter that there were underlying desires at play. What mattered was there was no guarantee that this moment would be happening if Roxanne was in her right mind. If there weren't powers at play that were lowering her inhibitions.

Giving in right now felt too much like taking advantage of a woman who was too drunk to consent.

Because Roxy was drunk.

On some unknown power.

Some spell that she didn't even willingly ingest. Which made it all the more wrong.

Her lips left mine, moving back to my neck. Where she stiffened suddenly.

"It's a spell, Roxy," I said, pushing her off of me. It felt like torture to try to move away from her, to gain my feet, and create more distance, going to the far corner of the room to try to pull myself together.

The scent of her filled the windowless room, making me start to hold my breath, frustrated that within seconds, I was helpless but to suck in more air.

The frustration grew, amplified, making me annoyed at everything to do with this almost entirely human form.

I noticed it then.

For the first time in hundreds of years.

A thumping in my chest.

Fast with the lingering desire and the growing frustration.

I was too wrapped up in these new sensations, in the falsely strong emotions, that I lost focus on Roxanne for a moment.

It wasn't until I saw movement in my peripheral that I turned back and saw she'd closed half of the space between us.

She was standing, legs hip-width apart, arms crossed over her chest, her eyes sparking green flames.

Angry.

That was the emotion that was being amplified for her right then.

"It was the right thing to do," I insisted. "I wasn't rejecting—"

"Shut up," she snapped, voice biting.

"I know you're angry—" I tried again.

"Yeah," she agreed, taking a step closer, the rage practically sparking in the air around her. "Yeah, I'm pretty angry at you right now. I think I have a right to be," she added. "Were you ever going to tell me you were mortal again?" she asked.