With Everything I Am(98)

He knew she knew he was there because he saw, nearly imperceptibly but it was there, her body grow tight before he was even close. Understanding it now, he’d likely notice these actions far more and he began cataloguing them.

He used his smile aimed at her friends to hide his unrest, came up to her from behind and slid an arm around her waist, placing his mouth at her ear.

“It’s time for your injection, baby doll,” he muttered in a voice for only Sonia to hear.

He was pleased he couldn’t see her eyes, even though he felt her body tense. Seeing her eyes go blank, night after night, was like dying a little death.

She turned to him, her gaze at his shoulder, and nodded, murmuring her apologies as he led her away, up the stairs, to the bathroom.

She waited obediently as he loaded the syringe.

When it was ready, she turned her back to him, one of his arms slid around her belly as he instructed gently, “Lift your skirt for me, little one.”

She shimmied it up her hips, as she did so, exposing a pair of sexy, white, lace panties he’d ordered her to go with his mother and buy (about a second after he’d gathered her unattractive undergarments and thrown them in the trash). She was also wearing lace-topped, thigh high stockings.

Regardless of his chore, he still felt his groin tighten at the sight.

Swiftly, so as not to prolong her apprehension, he administered the injection.

Facing the basin, the minute the toxin entered her body, both of her hands flew out to clutch the basin and her head lowered. She sucked in a tortured breath and her pretty face twisted with suffering. Callum dropped the syringe into the sink, yanked her skirt down and wrapped his arms around her, trying to tear his eyes from the mirror that exposed her pain and failing.

His body absorbed the tortured shudders rending their way through hers until she unconsciously dragged in calming breaths as the pain slowly burned itself out.

When it was over, she lifted her head until it rested on his shoulder, her cheek against his. His chin was lowered to her and her hands glided along his forearms until her arms were crossed and her fingers curled around his wrists.

“I even feel it in my hair,” she whispered, the ghost of pain veining her voice and Callum’s scalp stung unpleasantly in hearing the comprehensiveness of his mate’s pain.

He buried his face in her neck.

“Baby doll,” he murmured there as there was nothing more that he could do.

And he fucking hated the feeling of powerlessness that was thrust on him night after night.

Her fingers tightened on his wrists and she said softly, “It’s over, Callum.”

It wasn’t over. It would happen again the next night and the night after that.

If it was indeed a disease, it would happen until he stood beside her burning pyre.

He didn’t respond, just tensed his arms, drawing her closer.

“We have guests.” she reminded him.

He took in breath through his nose, her scent, already surrounding him, intensifying and his body relaxed at the smell and her uttering the fact that they had guests.

She did not say “I” but “we”.

Callum liked that.

He nodded and lifted his head, his eyes catching hers in the mirror where she, who’d endured it, gave him, who’d only witnessed it, a reassuring smile.

Then he stood holding her while she reapplied her lipstick and unnecessarily rearranged her thick, beautiful hair.

Then he led her downstairs and stood at her side as she entertained, having lost his enjoyment of the evening and as it continued finding himself losing his patience as his need for her grew.

She, however, continued to enjoy it and that was the only reason Callum could endure.

It was late. The caterers had swept away their wares, leaving the house tidy but Sonia still wandered it. Finding a discarded napkin here, the remains of wrapping paper there and throwing them away while Callum shut down the house for the night.

When he guided her up the stairs, he led her to the bathroom deciding that he’d give them a better memory of a space that had become, for him, as it had to be for her, dreaded.

At first she was confused and hesitant but that melted, as Sonia always did, when he gently placed her hands on the basin, ordered her to keep them there and yanked up her skirt. He pulled down her panties and she stepped out of them before he commanded she open her legs. He saw, reflected in the mirror, her face grow hungry and his need for her deepened before she did as she was told and, at once, as her reward, he slid his hand between her legs from behind, giving her what she craved.

Callum watched her in the mirror thinking distractedly, because he so liked what he saw, that he’d have to have a room paneled in mirrors at his castle in Scotland. The vision of her growing excitement erasing the earlier, painful one as he brought her to orgasm with his fingers. Then, while she was still moaning her uninhibited release, he watched as he entered her and fucked her, her skirt bunched at her hips, her sweet ass willingly tilting up to take all of him. And he kept watching as he brought her to orgasm again moments before he had his own.