The Secrets of Roan Island

39. Ruby

39

Ruby

I ’m shivering by the time Noah sets me down in the bathing room of his suite. When I see myself in the mirror, I gasp, touching the dried blood on my neck.

“I died,” I whisper.

Noah stands behind me, his arm wrapped around me, his hand wide across my abdomen. “You’re alive. You’re here with me.” He kisses the top of my head, and I feel the soft breath of his sigh flutter my hair.

With a gentle touch, he unties my ruined dress and peels the sticky fabric from my body. Once it’s off, Noah wads it up and tosses it into the fire, warming the room. Together, we watch as the flames eat it, the slow consumption of silky fabric.

Then he takes my hand and leads me to the massive clawfoot tub, filling it with steaming water and making the room humid.

“Get in,” he says, the words laced with just a touch of demand.

My hand in his, I step into the water and sink below the surface, letting the heat nurture my icy skin. Noah kneels next to the tub, his shirt sleeves pushed above his elbows.

“You need a bath too,” I tell him.

“I will. First, let me take care of you.” Undoing the remaining clips from my hair, he carefully picks out the pearls his sister placed there earlier. “All the way in,” he orders.

I sink under the water, and it cleanses more than the blood. The worry, the fear, the pain all slip away when I resurface.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, his hands framing my face as his eyes bounce around my features, taking me in as if he needs to memorize me. He gives me a quick kiss before working soap into my scalp, scrubbing away the dirt and blood, massaging away the tension. My eyes slip closed as I lean forward, arms wrapped around my knees, letting him care for me in a way no one else has before.

“When I saw you walk in with my father…” His words drift and his hands continue to work through my hair.

I open my eyes to look at him. “What?”

“I never wanted to kill him more in my life. Seeing you with him terrified me.” He tucks a finger under my chin, brushing his thumb gently across my lips. “Rinse,” he says, tilting my head back. Using clean water, he washes the soap from my hair.

I sigh as the fresh water pours over my head. “Noah?”

He hums and soaps a cloth before applying it to my shoulders and neck, the skin completely healed from the night’s trauma.

“Are you sad about your father?”

“Sad?” An incredulous sound flits through his nose. “No. Any love I once had for him died with my mother. He changed.” He slides the soapy cloth across my back and around to my front.

I adjust, straightening my legs and leaning back.

He washes my breasts, my stomach, the cloth moving lower until it’s rubbing between my thighs. My lips part on a sigh, and I spread my legs as his touch makes my insides quiver. I place a hand over his. “I think it’s time you join me, ta’ari .”

I don’t miss the way his hearts speed up, the thumps knocking together inside his chest.

“ Ta’ari ?” he asks with a smile. He lets the rag float to the surface and replaces it with his fingers, circling my clit.

I whimper, every heartbeat a song in my head, every shift in his scent an aphrodisiac of longing inside me. “Get in.”

I pick up the cloth and rinse it under fresh water as he strips from his soiled clothing. I admire a view that’s still becoming familiar to me. The lines and sinew of his body. The gentle peaks and valleys of his chest as they give way to his abdomen, driving my eyes down to his hard cock. It’s beautiful. He’s beautiful.

“If you keep looking at me like you want to eat me, ta’ari , I won’t be responsible for what comes next.” With a chuckle, he climbs in, sitting opposite me.

Water sloshes over the lip of the tub as I move to straddle his long legs, his hard cock pressing against the crease of my ass.

“I thought you needed time,” I tease.

He smiles as he scrubs at his face. “It’s been plenty long enough.”

I use the rinsed cloth to catch what he hasn’t on his cheek and jaw before moving it down his neck, across the width of his chest to each shoulder.

He lathers the soap, covering his skin. “You’re in my way.” He grins as he bucks his hips under me, then leans forward and presses a kiss to my lips.

I rise onto my knees to give him room, my breasts in his face.

He takes the rag from my hand and uses it to scrub the rest of himself down, his tongue and mouth grabbing a nipple as he does. Then, releasing my nipple, he drags the soapy cloth over his hair before sinking below the water to rinse. When he rises, water pouring from the dark strands of his hair, he wraps his arms around me, drags me closer, and kisses me, all teeth and tongue, his fangs sharp.

This isn’t a reverent kiss.

This one is filled with vulgar promises.

In a rush of water and need, with my body still wrapped around him, he stands, carries me into the bedroom, and tosses me down on the bed. A squeak leaves my lips as I bounce on the mattress.

“There are things about Mavarri you still don’t know.” His voice is deep and sensual. “Things I think you’ll like a great deal. Things I couldn’t show you when you were so fragile and human.” His lips slide into a sinful grin. His body grows. His fangs elongate, sharp points that promise dark pleasure.

I saw all this during the new moon, but now I realize he was holding back. As my eyes rove over him, I notice something else changing. His cock swells larger, lengthening, thickening more than it had at the new moon.

He was definitely holding back. I gasp. “How is that going to…”

“It’ll fit.” He stalks me with his eyes, tracking my movement as I sit up on the bed, his hand wrapped around the base of his massive cock. “You’re Mavarri now. You can take it.”

I’m Mavarri . My grin widens as the truth of that sinks deeper into my consciousness.

I’m Mavarri. A predator. A huntress. Powerful. Strong. Able to take his power. Equals.

A wicked thought crosses my mind. Primal hunger roots itself in my belly. I track Noah’s movement as he starts around the bed, eyes taking in every inch of my body. Arching my back to accentuate my breasts, I spread my legs to show him my glistening center.

He growls.

“I read somewhere during my studies,” I say, stretching my arms over my head, “that lionesses pursue the male of their species and demand sex twenty to forty times a day during their heats.” With that eager thought, my fangs lengthen and my lips lift. “They bite their mate's balls if they don't comply.”

Noah stops in front of me with an arrogant grin. “Are you saying you want to bite my balls, ta’ari ? Because I’d be more than happy to agree to that if I get to fuck you into oblivion.” He starts across the mattress toward me, and I spring away, there one moment, off the other side of the bed the next.

His eyes widen, and his grin shifts to something more feral.

I lean forward, hands on the mattress as I face him. His eyes dip to my breasts, his head tilting as if it will help him see more.

“I’m saying I want you to fuck me hard, Noah. Over and over until we’re both boneless. No holding back. But first…” I run my tongue over the sharp tips of my fangs. My claws extend, and I dig them into the bedding, crouching, ready to pounce. “I want you to run.”

I lunge straight over the massive bed.

He moves in a blur, dodging me with a shout of joy, running from the room in all his naked splendor.

With a growl, not wanting anyone to see what’s mine, I give chase, tracking his movement, my senses more attuned and enhanced. My eyes can see him move where they couldn’t before. The scent of him—that distinctly amber note and something muskier, his arousal—is more pronounced, leaving a trail in his wake for me to follow.

And even though he must be well down the hall by now, I can still hear him as if he’s next to me when he says, “I’ll run for you, ta’ari . I’ll let you play your little game, but don’t mistake who’s in charge here.”

I chase him, wild with lust.

He avoids the other heartbeats in the house, leading me through hallways I’ve never seen as if he’s giving me a tour. When I eventually corner him in the green house, I realize this is where I first saw his teeth sharpen and his eyes turn black, though I didn’t acknowledge it to myself then. The deeper I move into the room, the less prominent his scent becomes amidst the lush flowers and plants overwhelming my senses.

“Are you done with your games, ta’ari ?” His voice sounds like it’s coming from everywhere at once.

“I haven’t caught you yet, have I?”

A solid mass slams into me, knocking the air from my lungs. We twist, momentum slowing, and Noah pushes me up against the paneled window, my bare back and ass pressed to the cold glass.

“No. I’ve caught you.” His kiss sears my soul, and I kiss him back with everything I have to give.

Then he gets to his knees and drapes my legs over his shoulders. “I need to taste what’s mine.” His mouth claims my core, his tongue lapping at my clit. I cry out at the pleasure, the tables turned from hunter to hunted.

“Noah,” I pant, my hands gripping his damp hair. “Noah!”

I’m climbing the steep incline to an orgasm, my voice a fevered pitch of ecstasy when he stops abruptly, stands, kisses me, and is gone.

“Fuck,” I shout and give chase once more. “When I get my hands on you,” I call.

His laughter leaves a trail for me to follow until it disappears behind the painting of Zarah down into the Gate House. I burst through the painting, half expecting Noah to grab me there on the stairs. But it’s empty and cast in absolute darkness.

Whereas once the darkness terrified me, that fear is far away now. I can see better than I ever could. I’m stronger than I’ve ever been. There are no lingering ghosts haunting me. Instead, it’s only Noah, and I’m his Mavarri ta’ari .

I run down the steps, ignoring the twist in my stomach as the stairs flip upwards, and stop when I emerge from the painting. The dim hallway stretches out before me in muted blue-gray light. Using the rest of my senses, I listen and sniff the air. My prey is close. The library, I decide. He’s waiting for me there. I get as far as the hall that leads into the library when I’m suddenly pressed up against the wall, my body between the stone and a very hard man.

It’s the mirror image of the place where we stopped in the hallway my first full day here. When I chased after him with raised skirts. When his knuckles grazed the back of my hand, so controlled and restrained, but so full of heat.

There’s nothing controlled about him now. He grips my wrists and hauls them over my head. “What are you going to do when you get your hands on me?” he taunts and rubs his hard cock against my belly.

I growl, lifting my legs and wrapping them around his hips to line us up. “This,” I say and sink my fangs into his shoulder, releasing my venom.

“Fuck me,” Noah groans and lets go of my hands, adjusting and supporting me with a tight grip on my ass. He notches his head at my opening.

“Yes. Yes. Do that.”

Without preamble, his hard cock rams into me, and I cry out from both the pain and the pleasure, stretched to the limit as he fills me completely.

“See,” he groans, pulling out, then pushing back in. “I told you it would fit.”

“Yes!” I cry out with a strangled gasp at the beautiful invasion. “I feel you everywhere.”

I claw at his back, tilting my hips in time with his thrusts.

“You feel so good.” His voice is deep with lust. “Your pussy is perfect. Like you were made for me.” His hands tighten on my ass, the tips of his nails pricking my skin, and I shudder. “I’m going to fuck this perfect pussy until your legs shake. Until this whole house shakes. You’re mine, ta’ari .”

“I love when you talk like that,” I say as he lifts me, sliding me up and down on his cock. I help him, using my hands on his shoulders. Over and over, again and again, pleasure coming in wave upon wave as he fills me. I yell his name, clawing shoulders, screaming my pleasure so loud it rattles the artwork on the walls.

He drops us to the floor and takes me on my back, slamming in and out of me so hard we’re moving across the carpet. My back burns from the rug as he pounds into me. Pleasure mixing with pain. Pain mixing with pleasure.

As if in sync, we bite each other at the same time, blood and venom flowing from me to him, from him to me. The pleasure is all encompassing. It’s more than I could ever imagine. We reach bliss together, a twisting coil of two bodies trying to climb into the skin of the other. I don’t know where I begin and end, where Noah begins and ends. I come as he fills me, screaming his name just as he screams mine.

It’s a gradual fall from the precipice as consciousness returns.

Still connected, Noah props himself up on his elbow and looks down at me. His hands move the hair from my eyes, and he kisses my cheeks, my eyes, the tip of my nose. He sighs, and I know he’s thinking he loves me. I feel it.

“I love you too,” I whisper.

He grins. “I have been well and truly caught by you, Professor Ruby Rose.”

“And I by you, Noah Roan.”

He carries me back to his rooms, lays me down on the bed, and makes slow, sensual love to me until we’re both exhausted. Then we lay tangled together, silent.

Tomorrow, we’ll worry about what’s to come. We’ll talk about everything. We’ll face the rest of Noah’s family and figure out what to do with the women who know too much. Tomorrow, I’ll write to my friends at the Women’s Conspirator’s Society and tell them… well, I’ll figure that out tomorrow. I’ll figure out what I’m going to do about my job. Tomorrow.

Tonight, I’m going to stay in Noah’s arms and rest. Tonight is just about us, the foundation for a future we’ll forge.

The thought makes me smile, content to be alive and loved by the man I love. I listen to him sleep, the slow, contented rhythm of his breathing as I curl against his side.

He tightens his hold, cuddling closer as if I might disappear.

I smile in the darkness, recalling the way I thought I’d made a mistake coming here, the way desperation brought me to an island filled with secrets. A foolhardy plan for survival. But now, wrapped in the arms of my mate, I think this—coming to Roan Island—was the greatest idea I ever had.