Mated to the Moon (Portal City Protectors Book 6) Georgette Clair (read novels website .txt) 📖

was the two of them, wrapped in a fierce embrace, her nails digging into his shoulders as he knelt at her feet. One leg was hiked over his shoulder and his face was pressed into it, toward the viewer of the painting, and his eyes were closed.

Adonis had never seen anything more beautiful come through such pain.

Her head was tossed back in the painting, her mouth open and her canines extended in full view. For a moment, the image moved like a slow live photo, her hair flowing in the wind, him pulling her closer to his waiting mouth, her chest heaving.

Stinging eyes didn’t stop him from staring at it, from taking in every come-to-life stroke Fabiana made. As her brush worked, so too did the image become more real until he swore he could make out the individual strands of her hair like a camera had captured it on zoom.

“We are beautiful together,” he whispered, hoping to soothe some part of her pain.

Fabiana sighed and fell back, but he caught her. His hands touched a waxy-like substance on her bare arm. He moved, and the film flickered for a moment, matching his skin tone before snapping back to hers.

She’s wearing something.

Adonis smoothed his hands over her body, the black gown she’d worn to bed only enough to cover a bit of her thigh. The film was everywhere, but she wasn’t hurt. When he touched her neck, he could barely decern the difference between the suit and her skin just under her ears. He put his nose there, and her scent was barely evident until he forced the suit down, breaking the seal.

There.

The suit was the culprit.

But he couldn’t talk to her about it, not now.

“Fabiana?” He pushed her hair from her face to see her better. “Come on, baby. Look at me.”

She groaned and frowned at him.

“Open your eyes.”

Like through quicksand, she did as he asked and the normal indigo color was there. The odd horn-shaped dusting faded and she took a deep breath.

“What did I paint?”

He shifted her in his arms so she could see her work.

Fabiana gasped. “That’s us.”

“Yes.”

“Why would I …” She shook her head. “I’ve painted you before but not like this.”

“What was it?”

Fabiana shrugged, her gaze still locked on the painting. “You were on your knees like this, but I held chains that wrapped around us. I did it shortly after that meeting you when wanted me to lift my head.”

Adonis cocked his head to the side. “The mate-bond maybe.”

“I don’t understand why you always seem to be kneeling. I don’t need anyone to do that for me.”

“You have a very bad habit of only looking at things from one angle when it comes to you, despite that scientific brain.”

Finally, she looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe I’m not there because you made me, Fabiana, but because I want to be. Perhaps it’s not so much the placement of us, but the projection to help you realize something.”

She sighed. “And what would that be?”

“Why can’t you look deeper?”

Fabiana pushed at his chest but he didn’t let her go. “Look, I know this thing between us is what our wolves wanted, but we are human too. No one should be made to feel inferior.”

Adonis shook his head. “Your father was a sick bastard who got his kicks from seeing you break. He used those around him like tools for his own ambition, delusions of grandeur of a weak man and an even weaker wolf. Stop letting his lesson cloud your better judgment because you’re too scared.”

“I am sick of everyone telling me I’m scared and hiding. I went through hell.”

“And you’ve now found heaven if you would just stop looking back all the time. Your past happened, and I will never take that away from you, but what is standing before you is a chance for you to be what you’re running away from.”

“What? Your mate?”

“Yourself. You are still locked in that steel box in your closet, trying to force yourself into the image of Fabiana that Primo created. You’re sick with it, but every day you walk right back in there. Do you know how many times I’ve had to grit my teeth in bed to stop from taking you when you rub against me in the late hours of the night? How many times your seeking hands search my body and memorize it? And every morning, I’m greeted with a woman who’s wrapped those walls around herself again.”

“I don’t–”

“Suficiente. You do, Fabiana. Every. Night.”

Adonis gripped her fingers and pressed them to his heart. He didn’t break eye contact as he made her fingers travel across his chest and down his stomach.

“You know this body better than you know your own, pequeña. You know where it’s hard and soft, where it gives and pushes back.”

He brought her hand back up, sliding it behind his neck and into his hair. And just like she did every night, she twirled her fingers into his curls and held on tight. Most days, he dried his hair straight to control the riot of hair given to him by his father. He hated the reminder that he looked like him, that he resembled him at all.

Fabiana seemed to love it from the first day she saw him step out of the shower and her eyes widened. And when she slept, she always played with the strands, slicing through the cool thickness and finding what seemed to be her favorite curl at the base of his skull.

“Did you find your curl?”

Fabiana didn’t remove her hand when he released her, pulling on the lock as she frowned.

“Every night?”

“Sí.”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember it.”

“Your body does, and it’s time for you to know