In the cold, lonely days she went over it a hundred times in her mind—what she would say to him, how she would hurt him as he had hurt her. Used her. When he looked at her with his wolf’s eyes, she wanted to scream out her rage and loss and sense of betrayal and beat him down with it, knowing he would be helpless to respond, helpless to act.
But in the nights, she dreamed. She dreamed of Luke’s touch and his slow-waking smile, the way his caresses made her burn. In the dreams it was always right at first, as it had been after Val Cache, a never-ending, glorious present without the burden of past and future. And then the dreams would change, and she would see his eyes and remember the moment when he had taken her mind as he had taken her body. You won’t leave me, Joey. His voice grated, harsh and inhuman, over and over. His eyes dragged her down and ripped her away from the moorings of all she had known, all she had thought was real. Stole her away from herself, so that all she had left to hold on to was Luke.
“Luke!” She flailed out with her hands to push him away, and they slapped against flesh, solid contact that woke her from the dream with a start. He was warm, hard, human under her skin as she opened her eyes. The length of him was stretched out beside her on the sofa where she had slept each night, and he was most certainly no dream. Relief clouded her vision as she breathed him in and felt him with every inch of her body.
“Joelle,” he said softly. She felt his hand come up to stroke her cheek and closed her eyes tightly against the gentle invasion of his gaze. “It was only a dream, Joey.”
A shudder racked her, his gentle words a catalyst that shattered the brief and fragile moment of happiness. “Yes. Only a dream.” She pushed against him, but he held her tightly, pulling her up as he shifted, stirring her hair with his warm breath.
“Joelle,” he said again, caressing her name. “You feel so good.” His hands laced through her hair, and he rubbed the strands of it against his face. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Joey’s heart lurched. “Lost me!” she said in a distant, tiny voice. Did he understand, truly, what he had done and what she had finally realized?
“I thought I was dead,” he murmured into her hair. “I would have been.” He pulled his face away and caught hers between his hands, making her look up at him. “My brave Joey You saved my life.” Words seemed to fail him, Joey forced herself to meet his eyes and saw the suspicious brightness there. “Your courage astounds me.”
She tried to shake her head, but he held her in his big hands and stroked the contours of her face with his fingers as if seeing it, feeling it, for the first time. His hard face was relaxed and vulnerable and alive, baring his need to her. Impossible to hate, impossible not to love. She tried to stop the trembling that betrayed her, weakened her resolve, the conflict started the useless tears yet again, and he bent down to catch them on his tongue.
It was too much. The wave broke over her and engulfed her utterly, and she lifted her mouth to his and took his kiss as hungrily as he offered it. “You’re alive,” she whispered against his hard, demanding lips.
The simple statement seemed to release all the tears at once. She was sobbing even as he kissed her mouth, her chin, her cheeks, her neck, he crushed her to him as if he would pull her inside himself. “You saved me, Joey,” he breathed. “You saved me.”
Emotion sparked between them, an electric current that shattered the icy walls about Joey’s heart. She felt Luke—she felt him, felt with him, knew his joy and his overwhelming need for her. There were suddenly no barriers at all, their bodies nothing but husks to be cast aside. This was what she had known before when she had felt his pain, now it was blinding joy and wholeness so bright that it lit all the dark places of despair.