Sinking her hand in Nibo’s hair, she nodded, though honestly, she didn’t really feel that way.
As if he could sense it, he smiled down at her and fingered her cheek. It was the most intimate moment of her life to have him looking at her like that while she could feel him buried deep within her body.
And when he began to slowly thrust against her hips, she bit her bottom lip as her pain gave way to spiraling waves of pleasure. Nibo’s lips teased her with a knowing grin. “That’s it,mon ange.”
Nibo froze an instant as he watched the heated look in Vala’s eyes. There was something in her innocence that captivated him in a way nothing ever had before. It was as if it reached out and pulled a vital part of him out of his body, or perhaps it was a vital piece of his soul.
He couldn’t really explain it. It was just something he felt. In that moment, he knew he’d never again be the same.
And he knew the instant he was completely lost to her, because with his lovers, he was always in control. He always had restraint.
It wasn’t like that with her. Quicker than ever before, he came in a blinding white-hot moment of ecstasy, and there was nothing he could do to stop or delay it.
Panting and weak, he felt her stiffen the instant he filled her. It was as if she were in utter agony.
Valynda lay there on the edge of screaming as she struggled to understand what had just happened to her.
“Vala?” Nibo pulled out so that he could look down at her. His voice sounded so far away that she longed to ask him where he’d gone.
Yet her head spun as if she were the one down a hole. Strange lights and images spiraled around her, stealing her breath. A hundred foreign voices spoke simultaneously, some accusing, some in pity. Her chest tight, she tried to focus her thoughts, but like someone drowning at sea, she couldn’t find anything solid to grasp on to.
Then, in the fury of her mind, she clearly saw Nibo in his field, the day his brother killed him.
There was no missing the blood and the anger in his brother’s eyes as he’d beat him again and again, without mercy.
Then she saw Qeenan’s shame as he tried to hide Nibo’s body so that no one could find it. So that no one would ever know what he’d done to his own twin …
And that wasn’t the only vision in her head.
“Nay!” Scrambling away from him, she grabbed her discarded gown to cover herself with as she wept in near hysterical panic. She cowered next to a fallen tree, too horrified by the images and feelings inside her to think. “What have I done?”
Nibo looked at her as if she’d struck him, and he slowly moved to her side and retrieved his breeches. The pain in his eyes told her that he thought her rejection was of him.
Wiping away her tears, Valynda swallowed the painful knot in her throat and stiffened her spine against the terrible, unbelievable truth she must deliver to him.
“It’s not you, Nibo,” she whispered. She glanced up but couldn’t bring herself to face the bitter rejection that burned in his eyes.
Why? she wanted to scream. What had just happened? Why had she seen all those horrific images?
Of the past. Of a future that made no sense to her.
But no answer came, only more pain, more regret …
More guilt.
And of one thing she couldn’t seem to deny. “I—I have damned us both.”
A frown lined his brow as he moved to touch her, and though he appeared calm, she could sense some roiling anger inside him. “How so?”
Valynda closed her eyes in an effort to banish the warmth of his hand against her bare shoulder that she didn’t feel like she deserved.
And shunning Nibo was the last thing she wanted to do. But she had to keep him safe. But if what she saw was the truth, she had to keep away from him. For both their sakes.
Yet, she needed this man with her, and that need was what would cause his damnation! It was what would eventually cause her own.
How could she tell him that? He’d never believe her. Worse, he might think her mad and have her committed. Honestly, she found it impossible to believe, and she was the one who’d seen the visions.
Maybe they’re not premonitions.
