“You keep saying that, yet you’re the one stabbed. You’re the one who was surrounded. And you’re the one who was about to be murdered. By demons, mind you, so they would have taken your soul as well, genius. Which part of that exactly was having it under control?” As sexy as he was, I was starting to lose my temper with Goldie Locks.
“I had a plan,” he retorted, sticking to his guns.
“Well, if your plan was to get stabbed, then mission fucking accomplished, Rambo.” I rolled my eyes, moving as fast as I could. At this point, I just needed to dump his ass off at a hospital and bail.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” He suddenly jerked, sliding off my shoulder before I could properly holster him again.
“One of who?” I eyed him beadily.
“You’re a demon… or a witch… or a… something. Whatever you are, you’re not a normal human.” He gasped out in pain and eyed me just as darkly.
“How the hell do you know about any of this?” I asked, full-on annoyed at this point and not bothering to give a shit about showing it.
“One of my friends has gone AWOL from the military to run off with some creatures. In my spare time, I’m tracking him down. I don’t care what you are. Just don’t take me to the hospital. I need help if I’m going to get any deeper in this. I’m going to need someone that isn’t human on my side. Take me to your house, and I’ll bandage myself up. It’s just a flesh wound, and it’s the least you can do.” He stood to face me, and though he towered over my small frame, I did not flinch from the anger in his eyes. He didn’t scare me, but I did find myself relating to that look.
In life, there were a lot of emotions I did not understand, but rage and desperation… those I got.
“Come on, hard ass.” I slid my arm beneath his arm pit again and began limping him along.
My place wasn’t far away, but it would be a decent sized walk for a human. I expected him to complain, but even with two bumpy subway rides, while he held his side and kept the flow of blood from being noticed by the other passengers, he never once uttered a peep of discomfort.
I hated to admit it, but pretty boy might have been built of slightly tougher stuff than the average human. I stared at him through the flickering lights in the subway car, watching the emotions on his face change from pain to calculation, to worry, and back to pain again. He was trying to figure out how he could gain my allegiance. He didn’t have anything he could really offer me. Even money, which humans prized so much, meant very little to me. I had saved his life though, and he knew that I had to have a reason why.
After the last subway stop, we walked three more blocks and finally were there. I had never let anyone else inside my home before. It wasn’t very smart, and I wasn’t very warm and inviting, but what else was I gonna do? We had come all this way, and I hadn’t spoken up before, so no use in chicken shitting out now.
He didn’t say a word, not up the stairs and not when I opened the door to my severely dilapidated apartment. I had never really noticed how run down the place had looked before. Never really cared, to be honest.
I was never the decorating type. It wasn’t allowed in the assassins’ barracks, so what did I need it for now? My walls were left bare. I didn’t own much of anything. I generally liked only what I could carry and would normally leave everything else behind when I left one place for another. I didn’t buy or own furniture. I slept on a rollaway mat on the floor. Other than a few small things, my place was as empty as when I moved in.
Fortunately though, I did own a first aid kit. I had never had much use for one since my vampirism allowed me to heal faster than humans. However, after a few particularly bad fights, I had had to stitch myself up until my body could take care of the rest. It looked like I was going to need to do some stitching once again.
He took his shirt off and sat on the edge of the tub, and I did my best not to look at him.
“I’m not the best at this,” I warned him, threading the curved needle after I splashed him with rubbing alcohol.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not looking for a surgeon, just a way to stop the bleeding.” He grunted out in pain.
I stood there in my own bathroom like an idiot, glaring him down. His mama played absolutely no games when she had created him. God. Damn.
The man was all muscle. All of him. I didn’t even know how the knife had penetrated through all of that to even wound him.
“You’re staring at me,” he pointed out with raised, cocky brows.
“Yeah, well, it’s been a long time since I’ve been with a man. Especially a shirtless one,” I gruffed, going back to threading the needle.
“Why?” He stared at me, and I wasn’t sure if I loved or hated the hunger in his gaze. It was something I could understand… basic, primal, need. Normally, men made me cringe when they looked at me this way, but something about him made me feel relaxed instead of on edge, and I was able to enjoy the feeling of being wanted instead of hating it.
It was also something I didn’t need, though.
Men, sex, humans and, most importantly, mates. Shove that all down into a blender, and shred that shit.
“I haven’t wanted one,” I replied, telling the truth. As egotistical, or maybe crazy, as it sounded, I really hadn’t noticed how long it had been. It wasn’t something I had missed or had even noticed was missing from my life.
“You want me.” He reached out and grabbed my hand. I tried to recoil, but he held firmly to it, and for whatever reason, I let him.
“Yeah, well, you’re half naked and in my home, so it’s not exactly a shock that I had a small reaction to your man boobies,” I said, staring at his chiseled chest instead of meeting his eyes.
To stop the conversation from going to a place I didn’t want it to, I put the needle to his skin and began to stitch it. He grunted in pain but didn’t cry out like I thought a human would, and he didn’t seem to lose his focus on me or our conversation.
“No, you wanted me before.” His voice lowered, and I really didn’t want to look at him now. “When those guys were attacking me, you laid claim to me. You didn’t want them touching me because I’m yours, aren’t I? You’re a vampire, and I’m your… mate. It fits.”
“How do you know about any of that?” I eyed him warily.
“I told you, I’ve been chasing my friend who was apparently much more into the supernatural than he should have been. I know probably too much,” he shrugged me off.
“Do you wanna get stabbed again, boy wonder? Because this is how you get stabbed.” I yanked my hand away from him hard this time and bit down on the thread to break it once I had tied it tightly.
No sex. No men. No humans. No Ryker.
None.
“No, ma’am, I was trying to get something much sweeter than that from you.” He pulled at my hand again, and for some stupid reason, again, I let him take it.
“You know you’re covered in blood, right?” I asked, not really sure why I was shocked that something as small as mortal danger would scare a man into letting go of his erection. “You should clean the blood up and sleep it off.”
“This?” He waved his hand, dismissing it. “You should have seen me in Afghanistan. I looked like a crash test dummy half the time, but I still wouldn’t have turned you down.”
“Well, I’m not offering,” I countered, trying to cut him deep with my words, but that didn’t seem to work. He didn’t seem turned off in the slightest. Either he had a lot of confidence, or he really, really liked to poke the bear.
“You keep rejecting me with your words, but your body keeps egging me on.” Again, he looked me over, and this time, I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the mirror and realized what he was talking about.
My hair was disheveled, my cheeks a rosy pink behind the locks. My breathing was labored, my breasts heaving up and down with every word he spoke. My body was leaning in to him, far more than I had realized it was, my nipples so hard even I noticed them through my shirt. How long h
ad I been staring at him this way? No wonder he was calling me on my shit. I looked like a cougar on the campus of an all-boys Christian school, ready to corrupt all of that sweet flesh.
“You haven’t had a man in a while, but here I am. And, I want you, so there’s no point in denying you want me,” he said with a smirk.
The little bastard smirked at me!
“I should knock that smirk right off your face,” I growled.
“Do it right after this.” His blue eyes shone up at me as he pulled me hard into a kiss.
I could have resisted it. I was so much stronger than him. But, I didn’t. I let him pull me into that hard body. I let him wrap his arms around me, and god damn it, I let him kiss me deeply.
~
The vampire in my arms was so soft, so undeniably feminine. There was nothing about her that screamed “unhuman,” or “creature of the night.”
My cock had no idea that what it was getting hard for was not a normal female, and to be honest, it didn’t make a lick of difference to me.
Yeah, my side was killing me. Yeah, I had felt like I was gonna die every time the subway jostled along. But then, I saw the way she was staring at me. I saw how hungry her body was for mine. Fuck everything else on earth besides satisfying this woman.
She tried to argue with me, to feed me some bullshit about not actually wanting this. But I knew she was a hundred times stronger than me; if she didn’t want me, she would have pummeled me into dust by now. I didn’t know what was holding her back, but I was going to keep pushing my luck until she stopped me.
Pushing my luck could have been the name of my autobiography at this point in my life.
Her lips melded into mine, and a soft little moan escaped just before I crushed her against me. I knew how much she needed this. Her body yearned for it.
She pushed me back, and I went down obediently. She needed to be in control, and that was okay. Something clearly had her spooked and on edge about sex, especially with me.
Was it because I was human? Was it my blood wafting in her face? I wouldn’t know unless she told me, and something had me thinking she wasn’t exactly the sharing type.
Maybe if she let me stick around, I could try and get her to open up a little, but as much as I loved to push my luck, I wasn’t going to try and push it that far. Not yet.
Her thin arms wrapped around my head, and to my utter shock, she straddled me.
Yes, ma’am.
My hands gripped her ass tightly, drawn there like a magnet, and since she didn’t promptly remove them, I pushed a little further.
She was wearing a thin material, maybe leggings or yoga pants. It was hard to tell in this position, and I definitely wasn’t going to stop to ask her about it. I shimmied them down from her hips, exposing her sweet little ass like a plump apple bursting forth from the fabric.
God damn her skin was smooth. Butter didn’t have shit on this girl.
She wasn’t wearing underwear, and I moaned deeply against her lips as I realized this.
Where the hell had this girl been my whole life?
I kneaded her ass, my rough calloused hands meeting her tender flesh. She moaned in appreciation of the feeling, and I kept going.
Her sweet pussy was just inches away from my grasp, and I knew without touching it that she would be soaked.
I made my way, tracing her ass to the point that I was hovering over her lips, and she suddenly jerked away from the kiss, maybe just now noticing what I was really doing.
For a moment, she simply caught her breath before she stared hard at me. She was wondering if I was worthy. I could see it in her eyes.
It wasn’t exactly the best feeling in the world to be able to see someone questioning your worth, but what could I do about it?
“Let me please you, girl.” I wasn’t quite asking, but I wasn’t quite demanding, either. “I can do this. Let me scratch that itch that’s been keeping you awake for so long. I know you don’t think humans are as good as vampires, but if there’s one thing I can do better than those other assholes you’ve been with, it’s get you off.”
“And how the hell did you come up with that conclusion?” she demanded.
“If they had done to you what I’m about to do to you, you wouldn’t have gone all these years without having it again.” I stared her hard in the eyes, daring her to see the truth in mine. I was a well trained military soldier, but I wouldn’t try to win her over with my strength and titles, not when she so clearly felt like humans were inferior, no matter what. Sex, though, was something that was obviously missing from her life and something I prided myself on being able to do, so why not do it for her and maybe garner her interest that way.
“You want this pussy, don’t you?” she challenged me, not exactly acknowledging the truth but rubbing herself against my rock-hard erection.
“You know I do, and you know I’m going to tear you up, girl,” I clamped down on her thighs, pressing her down even harder against my cock.
She bared her fangs at me, maybe to challenge me, maybe to scare me, or maybe because that’s what vampires did when they were turned on. There was no way to tell for sure, but I was into it. After watching her fight, I was into anything she did to me.
Pulling her close, I pressed my lips hard against hers, not caring that her fangs slid across my skin. A little blood never hurt anyone.
Her body tensed, and for a moment, I thought she was going to throw me against a wall and tell me to fuck off. But, she didn’t. She melded into the kiss for a moment and then, once again, grabbed the reigns for control.
She gripped the back of my skull tightly, forcing our kiss to deepen, and wrapped herself around me even tighter. I wasn’t used to a woman taking this much control, but I was into that, too.
Lady Vamp obviously had a hard-on for me, and I was going to let her take as much of me as often as she needed it tonight. I was a nice guy that way.
She was so hot against my skin, her passions unloading on me like a wave crashing down. All I could do was try to keep up.
My hands flexed over her body, rubbing, caressing, squeezing. Her pace was frenzied, ripping at me, leaving long wicked scratches as she clawed me against her.
I didn’t mind the pain; I didn’t mind the roughness. I just wanted her to want me as much as I wanted her right now.
Call me crazy, but she was everything to me in this moment. So beautiful, she could have taken any man to his knees, but that wasn’t what interested me.
Her ferocity, her… power. That was addicting. I had never met a human, male or female, who I felt with such certainty could kill me. But this girl, this vampire, if she decided to end me after she fucked me, all I could do would be to die with a smile on my face.
War, death, suffering, I had seen it. I had been there. I knew what those things felt like, yet still none of those experiences gave me the sense of smallness that she did.
It was like looking into the face of a goddess and daring to kiss her anyway. I either had bigger balls than I ever imagined, or I was a lot fucking dumber than I thought.
Hot and hungry, her mouth seemed to take almost more than I could give her. She was absolutely starving for it.
For a moment, I debated whether I should take her shirt off. As stupid as it sounds, I actually felt a little nervous. She was a powerful being who already didn’t feel like I deserved her. The last thing I wanted to do was fuck it up by missing her sexual cues or doing something she perceived as me taking control from her. I wouldn’t necessarily call her a control “freak,” but at this point in time, it was definitely clear to me that she wanted to be the boss.
Then, I reminded myself that I had only gotten this far by being bold, so I needed to sack up. If I hadn’t have been cocky, if I didn’t press my luck or pull her in for a kiss, I would probably be stitched up and on my way back to the subway by now, kicking myself for missing one of the best opportunities of my life.
The fabric of her shirt was soft and worn and so very d
ifferent than the feeling of her steel like skin. The girl could have been made of Teflon for how tough she was.
Again, her body stiffened for a moment when she realized what I was doing. The anticipation was beyond exquisite. Would she try to stop me? Would she jerk away from me? Would she see this as a volley for control and get angry? I couldn’t even begin to guess.
Her eyes kept their poker like expression as she pulled slowly from our kiss. They were so dark they glittered like stars with emotions she kept hidden from me behind that sturdy mask of hers.
“We can take it at your pace.” My voice was husky and exhausted from the heat of her kisses. I wanted her to know I wasn’t rushing her, and if she wanted to be the boss, then she could be the boss.
“I can’t decide if I want to fuck you or not.” She looked away from me towards the mirror. I saw her taking in the full picture of us together there. The words stung to hear, especially when I saw her face and knew that she was actually struggling. Was it just because I was human? Had someone hurt her in the past and made her feel like sex was something unclean? That could explain why it had been so long since she had been with someone. But again, unless she opened up to me, I would never know. I didn’t know how to comfort her as we were still basically strangers, so I went with my go-to response: humor.
“I’m really trying to resist making a smartass remark here. I deserve brownie points for that, and I wanted it noted somewhere.” I got a small crack of a smile from her, which in my book counted as a win. My humor didn’t always work in my favor. I’ve gotten my ass kicked more than once for it, but if it was ever gonna work out for me, I’m glad this was one of the times. “I think you do, and I think that’s okay. I don’t know what’s making you hesitate, and I’m not going to tell you what to do. But I think you’re starving for some affection, and I think I’m the perfect person to give it to you. And not just because I’m the only other person here.”
A smirk flitted across her face for a short moment. She covered it up quickly, but I knew what I saw.
Forever Onyx (Vampire Brides) Page 2
