Free Wrath: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2 by Denise Tompkins Page B

took a quick shower and, while I waited on him, I thought about the events of the last twenty-four hours. I couldn’t cry anymore, and I couldn’t be any more fearful or angry or confused. After a long debate, I had agreed to let Hellion go back to the hotel room alone to get some of my clothes and things and to scavenge for any information he could find on Bahlin. If the dragons were there and on the warpath, Hellion wanted me far away from the potential violence. I had grudgingly agreed.
    Hellion walked out of the bathroom with a towel slung low on his hips, water droplets decorating his chest and arms, and his damp hair darker and heavier, hanging just past his shoulder blades. I openly stared, unable to look away. Guilt wound its way around my legs, whispering, “ Bahlin, Bahlin, Bahlin ,” and I couldn’t move.
    Hellion noticed me watching him closely and he stopped. The dripping water made little pools on the hardwood floor, and still he didn’t move. His eyes were so alive, hungry. He raised a hand and trailed it slowly down his chest, sliding it between his pectorals, and my eyes were glued to his every movement. He swirled a thumb knuckle around his nipple and it rose slightly, his breathing shifting to shorter, harder breaths. He dragged his hand lower, pausing at his bellybutton.
    I didn’t look away.
    He hit that sexy, narrow strip of hair from bellybutton to groin, and his fingers played in the hair lightly before sliding lower, hooking the edge of the towel where an impressive, twitching bulge was starting. It demanded attention like a living thing.
    I swallowed hard.
    “Madeleine?”
    “No.” I turned away from him and closed my eyes, breathing hard. I didn’t know if I’d ever wanted anyone so badly as I wanted him. But wanting and loving were two different things. I’d wanted Bahlin, had broken all my rules about fast sex, started truly falling for him and he’d broken my heart. It left me questioning whether or not it had ever been, or had the chance of being, real love. And didn’t that just make me feel horrid about myself. “No,” I said again, more firmly this time, though I still didn’t look at him when I said it.
    “I’ll not push, but I’ll remind you that the prophecy is what it is. We’re predestined, Maddy,” he said, emphasizing my name. I looked back at him and he smiled. My tiny, answering smile trembled with uncertainty.
    “Is that what you believe? That life is predestined?”
    He thought about it before answering. “I wouldn’t have thought so before meeting you, but I must admit my viewpoint is starting to evolve some, yes. There are things we’re meant to accomplish with each life we’re given, and what could be better than realizing an epic love is at least a part of our purpose?”
    I thought about that, disturbed. I turned away from him and rubbed the headache forming at the base of my skull.
    Hellion moved up behind me and wrapped his arms gently around me, laying his chin on my shoulder. A slight tightening of his embrace warned me he had a hard question to ask, but a little more query foreplay would have been good. “Are you worried about what Bahlin would think?”
    I thought carefully about how to phrase my answer. In the end, I just answered as honestly as I could. “Yes and no. I’m pretty sure that, on some level, Bahlin loved me– loves me–and he’d want me to be happy. He said as much before, just…just before. But now I can’t help but wonder, you know? He absolved me from all guilt yesterday morning, but it wasn’t with the knowledge that this would happen.”
    Hellion turned me to face him, holding me away from him by my shoulders. When he answered me he proved he was a far better man than I gave him credit for. “Worry a little, anamchara , then leave it go. He’d not want you to live your life looking back and missing what was right in front of you.”
    “Are you so sure?”
    “I knew Bahlin for years, Maddy. He wasn’t one to