Free Return to Me (Storm Lords) by Nina Croft Page A

Reaching out, he twined his fingers with hers, stroked her palm until the faint tremor stilled. For a minute, he thought she wouldn’t respond, and then she licked her lips.
    “I used to have this nightmare all the time, before I built the wall.”
    “What happens?”
    “I die.”
    Shock ripped through him. “What?”
    “Over and over again. But the dying isn’t the bad part. They’ve taken someone from me. Someone I love, and the pain is unbearable.” She gave him a wan smile. “I used to tell myself that it was a good thing my mother didn’t love me. Love hurts.”
    Torr didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know. “How? How do you die in your dreams?” He waited; dread filling him, for her to answer.
    Bella looked away, staring ahead, almost in a trance. “I’m in a stone room. There are no windows. They are closing up the door, bricking me in, and I can feel their hatred pounding into me. The last stone slides into place, the light is gone, and I am alone. I don’t want to live, because I know he’s gone, but it takes such a long time to die.”
    Torr’s heart was being ripped from his body. He’d done this to her. Why would she ever want to trust in his love again? He had failed to keep her safe the last time. Why would she trust him now?
    Bella blinked and came back to herself, though her eyes were steeped in sorrow. She needed comfort and he gave in to the urge tearing into him. Standing up, he reached out and picked her up into his arms, then turned and sank onto the bed with her held tight against his chest. For a second, her body was rigid with tension, and then she relaxed against him, her palm flat against his heart, her face in the curve of his throat.
    He stroked his fingers through the soft hair at the nape of her neck, down over the supple curve of her spine to pull her even closer. He rubbed the swell of her ass, and she pressed against him, so the blood rushed to his groin and his cock thickened in his pants.
    She went still, then pushed herself away from him. His whole body screamed out in denial, but he forced himself not to tighten his grip, keeping his hands loosely on the curve of her hips. She came up on her knees, straddling his thighs, so she could stare into his face. Hers was pale, her lashes spiky with tears, but her eyes filled with need.
    “Don’t leave me,” she said again.
    And this time Torr knew she was not just asking him to hold her hand.
    A small doubt niggled that he was wrong to take advantage of her vulnerability. However, he couldn’t fight the savage satisfaction that roared through him, lighting a fire in his blood, which threatened to burn out of control. It had been so long.
    He would make her forget. Forget her nightmares, her murdered friend, fill her body and her mind with nothing but him.
    But at the last second he hesitated; he had to have her consent. “You’re sure?” he asked.
     

     

Chapter 7
     
    Why was he asking her? She just wanted to forget. Forget Justin. Forget what she had promised to do. Forget her nightmares.
    “Bella?”
    She nodded her head, and heat flared in his eyes, his face lighting up with a savage hunger.
    Her heart raced. The fear didn’t make her need go away. If anything, it burned hotter. She’d never felt like this before. If her mother had managed to do one thing, it was to put Bella off casual sex. Any sex in fact. Up until now.
    The little part of her mind still functioning, told her it was just heightened emotions, a reaction to all that had happened over the past two days. Justin had been her only real friend. The one person she had allowed to get close to her emotionally. Now she was alone, adrift, and she needed something to connect her with the human race, to anchor her to the living.
    It didn’t have to mean anything. It wasn’t as if she was promising forever.
    Just sex.
    Torr’s large hands still rested on the curve of her hips, now they slid around to cup her ass. He squeezed, urging her closer and