Sunny - Mona Lisa Eclipsing

“Dr. Hubert,” Stanton said, clearly irritated. “Can you clear out some of your people? It’s too crowded in here.”

The doctor kicked out two nurses and three young interns. That still left almost a dozen people in the room.

“Dontaine,” I said in a normal tone of voice. “I need you.”

A scarce moment later, I felt Dontaine’s presence outside, heard him say politely, “Excuse me, please.”

Dontaine entered the room in full, stunning glory. Everyone looked dazzled, no doubt expecting some big bruiser to enter, not someone who looked like a living, breathing Adonis. Dontaine didn’t need a sword; he simply smote them all with a blinding smile. A few in the room embarrassingly came close to swooning, and not just the women, I noted.

“Tone it down a little, Dontaine, will you?” I said with a dry smile.

The wattage dimmed. “Yes, milady.”

He walked straight to me, people parting before him like the waters of the Red Sea. The rogue, however, knew him for the threat he was.

“Easy, Jarvis,” I said. “My word that Dontaine will not harm you or the girl. I need him to help me bring out my light to share with you.”

By the sudden hot, sensual change in Dontaine’s expression, I knew he had mistaken what I intended. No , I tried to convey in the severe look I shot him, we’re not having sex!

“What are you talking about?” Agent Stanton asked. “Bring out what light?”

“Jarvis has not bathed in a Queen’s light for six years; that’s why his energy is nearly depleted. I need Dontaine’s help to ignite my light so I can share it with Jarvis, similar to what we do when we Bask, pulling down the moon’s light.”

“And how will this guy help you do that?” Agent Stanton asked, eyes narrowing.

“By kissing me. Nothing else,” I said to Dontaine, making things clear. “Just kissing.”

Dontaine’s emerald bright eyes sparkled with a delight that was out of proportion to what I proposed, until I realized why he seemed so pleased. Because I had called him instead of Dante.

“And how will kissing you help bring out this light you’re talking about?” Agent Stanton asked.

“We glow only in pleasure,” I said, lifting my face to Dontaine. As Dontaine lowered his head to me, all my awareness of the watching audience, the nervous rogue, the skeptical FBI agent . . . all of it suddenly dimmed as Dontaine’s mouth lowered until he was just a few inches away from my lips.

“Just a kiss?” Dontaine murmured. “Quite a challenge.”

“I have full faith in you.” I watched Dontaine’s emerald eyes darken to forest green, watched his eyes dilate, the expanding black iris chasing the green color out to the very rim.

Those firm, lovely lips lowered to airbrush their way across my check, over my jaw, not touching, just the light, stimulating buzz of his presence against mine, and then those lips landed light as a butterfly on my neck, grazing the exact spot where Halcyon had sunk his teeth into me. It had long healed. No trace remained of my skin ever having been pierced there. But it was still incredibly sensitive.

I shivered, bit back a moan as I felt Dontaine’s tongue with sudden, electrifying sensation. His teeth grazed skillfully, precisely, there against that invisible bite wound for an eye-rolling, heart-pounding moment before moving down the bend of my neck, torturous nibbles of pleasure mixed with that gentle buzz of sensation that was something I felt only with Dontaine whenever my skin contacted him. With delicate finesse, Dontaine slowly released more of his power into the contact until there was a significant bite, tiny electric shocks dancing along my skin, mixing the biting pain of it with the pleasure of his tongue, teeth, and lips, running it over and over where Halcyon had left his invisible mark.

I gasped, quivered.

“My lady,” Dontaine said, his husky voice vibrating my ear. “You are alight.”

My skin was glowing, soft and pearlescent, the inner moonlight we carried inside us brought to the fore. Jarvis gazed at me with wonder and hungry yearning in his eyes. The expression in Kelly’s eyes, however, was not just wonder but fear. I felt the same reaction from others in the room, but had to shut it out and ignore it for now.

“Keep touching me, Dontaine,” I murmured as I knelt by Jarvis’s chair.

Dontaine’s finger lightly stroked over my sensitive neck as I placed my hand on Jarvis’s uninjured thigh. His body, the one part he could not voluntarily control, stirred, tenting the sheet covering his lap. I felt hunger in him, not just the normal physical desire of warrior for a Queen, but an even more visceral one of all the drained and depleted cells in his body thirsting for the illuminated light in my hand resting against his skin. So close and yet unable to pass across the barrier of his own unlit skin. It was partly from his weakened state and partly because, as I had explained, we glowed only in pleasure. Just resting my hand on his leg was apparently not eliciting enough pleasure.

I lifted my other hand to Jarvis’s face. Felt him shiver beneath my touch as I leaned forward and kissed him with warm sensuality. He liked it, but not enough to glow. There was too much learned fear and intimidation of who and what I was—Queen—to relax into the desire. More drastic measures, like a hand job, were looking more and more eminent. But I really wanted to avoid that if I could. Not the greatest first impression to make here.

My glance shifted to Kelly, standing beside us. A stormy expression was in her young, street-hardened eyes. She hadn’t liked me kissing Jarvis, not at all. Made me wonder if the nature of their relationship was less platonic, on her part, at least, than what I had presumed.

I drew back but still kept my hand on his thigh. “Kelly, maybe you should try. Kiss him. Try to bring out Jarvis’s light.”

Jarvis jerked beneath my hand. “No, milady, please. It’s not like that between us. She’s my friend—a child.”

“Hush, Jarvis,” I admonished, squeezing his thigh. “Kelly’s hands are bandaged. She can’t touch you any other way. I will not force her, if she does not wish to, but if she is willing, you must let her try.”

“The child ,” said eighteen-year-old Kelly, “is willing.”

“Kelly—”

“Shut up, Jarvis,” she said, moving in front of him. “Close your eyes and think of England or something.”

He made a rough sound of laughter that stopped abruptly when Kelly leaned forward and touched her mouth to his. It began as a chaste and gentle kiss, then slowly deepened, became more heated. His eyes closed, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t thinking of England.

Light gathered slowly on Jarvis’s skin like creeping dawn, just the faintest spark, but that was all I needed. The barrier between us dropped and my light rushed into him. And not just my light but my power. I thrust it into him. Thrust it the same way I had learned to push power out of my hand in a concentrated blast of energy. Healing power was different, more natural, but Jarvis’s body was nearly depleted; it hungered for what I had to give him.

A wash of power, of energy, of shared light blasted out from me to him. A moment of dazzling brightness that drew cries, and then the light dimmed and was gone from my skin, but lingered still on his in a soft afterglow that slowly faded into his perfect, unmarred, unblemished skin.

His wounds were completely healed, the full thickness of his epithelium fully restored.

I stood so that I could see his back, and found it as perfect as the rest of him.

A shocked roomful of faces stared back at me; more than one mouth was agape.

“He’s healed,” Kelly whispered. And then a pandemonium of sound and voices—exclamations, questions, demands—broke out.