Cursed Read online

  Charlie tried to do as he said but she was tense with embarrassment and cold. Oh my God, this is so awkward! Are we supposed to just pretend this is normal—lying here naked—well, I’m naked anyway, at least he has on sleep trousers—with him getting all hot and bothered because I’m on top of him?

  “Relax,” he murmured again. “Or at least try—I can feel how tense you are. It’s like holding a piece of wood against my body.”

  Charlie thought about saying she wasn’t the only one sporting a piece of wood but she really didn’t want to open that discussion.

  “How am I supposed to relax?” she demanded instead. “This is so weird. I mean, I’ve been on plenty of police stings but I’ve never had to cuddle naked with my partner before as part of one.”

  “Don’t think of it as ‘cuddling’ then, if that bothers you,” he murmured. “Think of it as survival. I can’t let you freeze, Charlotte, and since you don’t want to drink my blood, this is the only way to warm you up. Are you feeling warmer? You’ve stopped shivering so much.”

  “Some,” she admitted, realizing it was true. “Do you want me to move? Am I crushing you?”

  He gave a low laugh. “Hardly. You’re not that heavy, you know.”

  “My hips and ass would beg to differ,” Charlie muttered. “But I thought I might be making you…uncomfortable in, uh, other ways.”

  He cleared his throat. “If you mean my…arousal, I apologize for that. But you have a very beautiful body and I cannot control my body’s involuntary reaction to you.”

  “Um, okay. Thanks, I guess,” she said awkwardly.

  To tell the truth, she could hardly control her reaction to him either. Pressed as she was, right up against him like this, she could smell that warm, spicy, completely masculine scent that rose from his skin. God, what was that anyway—some kind of cologne? But there was nothing artificial about it—it seemed to be just his natural smell.

  As unobtrusively as she could, she pressed her cold nose to his warm, broad chest and inhaled deeply. Mmm, amazing! His big body seemed to cradle hers in warmth and safety—as though he was her very own breathing mattress. And he was so warm too—he seemed to put out heat like a furnace. Was that because he came from a cold planet and was used to these temperatures? Or did it have to do with the microbes being repelled by their “combined field?” Charlie didn’t care. For whatever reason, it was really nice.

  But as nice as it was, she was still tense and uncertain. There was a long, uncomfortable pause between them and she didn’t know what to say. Finally she blurted, “Tell me what I did wrong this evening.”

  “What?” He seemed startled by the question.

  “When I was massaging you.” Charlie hoped he wouldn’t get mad at her again for asking. But at least this time he was a captive audience—he couldn’t just walk away from her and refuse to answer.

  “Well…” Stavros shifted uncomfortably.

  “Look, I really need to know,” Charlie said reasonably. “We’re partners here. I need to know what I did wrong so I can avoid doing it again and setting you off.”

  “You didn’t ‘set me off’,” he protested.

  “Oh no?” Charlie frowned at the outline of his features in the darkened room. “Then why were you so pissed off at me? And don’t say you weren’t—you know you were.”

  “All right,” he said reluctantly. “I will admit I was…not happy.”

  “Ha. Not happy.” Charlie snorted. “You were as mad as a bear with a bumblebee up its butt.”

  “A what with a what up its posterior?” He sounded like he was frowning.

  “Never mind. Just tell me what I did to make you so mad. Was it…was it that I touched your tattoo?” she asked in a lower voice. “Were you trying to tell me not to and I just ignored you? Because if so, I’m sorry. I should have been more sensitive to the signals you were trying to send.”

  Stavros was quiet for a long moment—for so long, in fact, she wondered if he was going to answer. Finally, just as she had given up and decided they would go back to awkward silence, he spoke.

  “It wasn’t so much that you touched it—my mark, I mean,” he said in a low voice. “It was that you were willing to touch it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Charlie said blankly. “I mean, I know you said people on your home planet think it’s bad luck—”

  “That was an understatement,” he said. “It is not just bad luck. It is…an abomination. A cause for disgust and loathing. No woman of Tranq Prime would ever lower herself to touch it, let alone massage me there, as you did. Not even a whore.”

  “I’m sorry that your people are so superstitious and judgmental,” Charlie remarked. “But did you just say I was lower than a whore?”

  “No—that’s not—” He shifted restlessly. “You don’t understand what I’m trying to say. Even my own mother would not come near me once the mark started growing on my back when I was just six cycles old.” His voice dropped lower, as though he was lost in the memory. “She first saw it during bathing time. I…I remember how she screamed.”

  “She screamed?” Charlie asked softly.

  “You have to understand—it was like seeing the mark of death on her only son,” he rumbled. “My parents had feared the possibility that I might be Cursed because of my red hair—it is often the sign of a Sin Eater. But it usually manifests early, when the child is still a baby. I think my mother had allowed herself to love me more and more as the years went by and no mark appeared. And then, when she finally saw it—” He sighed. “It horrified and disgusted her, as it does all the people on my home world.”

  “But…you were her only son, like you said,” Charlie protested. “Surely she got over it eventually.”

  In the darkness, she saw his head shake.

  “No. She never got over it. Before then, she used to hug and tickle me to make me laugh—it was one of our favorite games. After the mark began to grow on my back…” He cleared his throat. “I…I do not believe she ever touched me voluntarily again.”

  “Stav, that’s awful,” Charlie murmured, using his nickname without thinking about it. “I just…I don’t know what to say.”

  He shrugged philosophically. “It is the life of a Sin Eater. There is nothing more to say.”

  “So should I have avoided your back? Maybe…massaged you someplace else?”

  “Not…necessarily.” He sighed. “I suppose I should be less sensitive. It’s just…no female has ever touched me there before. It was…a moving experience.”

  “And I treated it like it was no big deal. I’m sorry,” Charlie said again. Despite the animosity she had felt for him in the past, she couldn’t help being moved by his sad story. To be rejected by his own mother—an outcast among his people—and all because of a stupid mark on his back. It seemed so unfair…so awful.

  “And I am sorry I didn’t explain more fully about my mark earlier,” he rumbled. “It is…shameful to me. But I should have given you more information before we came to this place.”

  “We’re both to blame,” Charlie said softly. She shivered again. “You know, you’re really warm but it’s still so damn cold in here.”

  Stavros pulled her closer. “I wish I could warm you more thoroughly—from the inside out.”

  Charlie shifted against the hard ridge that still pressed against her belly. It had gone down some when he was telling her about his mark but now it seemed to be getting harder again.

  “Um…” She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure what you mean by that but—”

  “Not that way,” he said quickly. “I was talking about giving you my blood.”

  “Tell me about the blood drinking thing. Is that something you do a lot on your planet?”

  “Only between mates,” Stavros said in a low voice. “A Blood Kindred may warm his bride by giving her his blood to drink.”

  “Oh…but I’m not your—”

  “I know you are not,” he said. But for some reason my body reacts as if you were