She opened her mouth to point out that it was unlikely anyone even knew they were in the house, so they should be safe, but paused as she noted that Harper’s gaze had slid past her to the door to Elvi’s room and that a haunted look had entered his eyes.
Frowning, she glanced toward the door and stilled when she noted the dark stain on the hall wall beside it where the paint had been charred . . . as if something on fire had leaned or slumped there. Her gaze then dropped to the floor and she saw large charred spaces—two of them, one larger, one smaller. That must have been where Anders and Edward had encountered Harper and Stephanie and doused the flames consuming them, she realized, and released a slow breath.
Turning back, Drina stepped forward and kissed Harper. He remained still under the caress, but she kept at it, nibbling at his closed lips, and then trailing her mouth to his ear, then his neck, her mind working frantically. She liked this house, she liked the town too, and she liked Teddy. She also liked the other life-mate couples she’d met here, but she especially liked Stephanie. Drina wanted to be able to visit the girl here on occasion, but would never inflict that on Harper if coming here would stir bad memories for him. She needed to try to replace his bad memories of the fire with new, more pleasant memories, and this was the only thing she could come up with. Drina wasn’t sure if it would work, but she was going to give it her damnedest, she decided, nipping and kissing his neck as she began to tug his T-shirt upward so she could play her hands over the skin of his stomach and chest.
“Drina?” he said uncertainly as if coming out of a fog.
She lifted her head and kissed him then, relieved when Harper slowly began to kiss her back. Even so, Drina wasn’t sure she’d fully reclaimed him from his ghosts until she slid her hand down to find him through his jogging pants and felt a shaft of pleasure stir between her own legs.
“Let’s go to my room,” he muttered, breaking their kiss and reaching for her hand.
“Next time,” Drina promised, evading his fingers and dropping to her knees, her eyes never leaving his face.
“But—” Harper began, and she saw his gaze flicker to the wall several feet behind her, but then his gaze jerked back to her on a sucked-in breath as she tugged his joggers down and clasped his growing erection. When she took him into her mouth, he let that breath out on a moaned, “Next time.”
Harper woke up crumpled on the hardwood floor with Drina’s head in his lap. He lifted his head to peer at her and smiled faintly, but the smile faded as he peered at the marks on the wall beyond her. He stared at them for a moment, recalling how they had got there, then let those memories fade away and looked at Drina.
He knew exactly what she’d tried to do, and he loved her for it. It had even worked for the most part. At least, Harper thought it had. When he’d first seen the charred mark on the wall, and then the others on the floor, his instinct had been to abandon the idea of getting clothes and rush Drina back downstairs. Or at least go wait for her downstairs while she collected clothes for herself and Stephanie. He’d wanted to be away from it and the bad memories it roused in him.
Now, however, while he wasn’t exactly happy when he looked at them, Harper didn’t feel an immediate need to get away, either.
Drina stirred sleepily, her hand tightening around his shaft, and Harper bit his lip and closed his eyes as the damned thing began to awaken too. Honest to God, he was bloody insatiable where she was concerned . . . and short on staying power. Not that new life mates were supposed to have great quantities of that, but seriously, there were things he wanted to do to her that this shared-pleasure business really put a kibosh on. He just couldn’t keep their excitement level down long enough to get to them.
For instance, he wanted to tie her to his bed and kiss and lick his way from the tips of her toes to her nose, and then kiss her as he plunged himself into her. But he doubted he’d make it halfway up her thighs before they were both screaming and fainting.
And that was another thing, Harper thought with disgruntlement. He had never fainted in his life, and while he knew it was this whole life-mate, mind-blowing-sex business, it was still damned demoralizing to be fainting like a breathless virgin at the end of every encounter. And he couldn’t even blame her for exciting him too much or driving him wild with passion until he lost control.
Well, perhaps he could this last time, Harper acknowledged with a smile. Drina had definitely been the one in control of this last round, and she had driven him wild with passion, so fast and so hard that he’d performed no better than an inexperienced fourteen-year-old with a high-priced hooker. He swore she hadn’t been on her knees two minutes before he’d been throwing his head back and screaming like a madman . . . only to wake up on the floor in a heap.