by Sierra Dean
I sipped the drink and tried to act nonchalant, but he was using his new position to his advantage. Lifting me so I was poised over his hips instead of his stomach, he let out a groan as I shifted my balance.
“Sorry,” I whispered, putting my glass down on the coffee table.
“I’ll show you sorry,” he growled, seizing a handful of my hair and pulling me closer, kissing me with naked, ferocious hunger that brought the heat between us to a fever pitch. He tugged at my shirt and instructed, “Off.”
I complied, tugging the shirt over my head and tossing it away. It caught the wineglass, knocking the drink over and sopping up the remains. Well, at least I’d ruined a shirt with something other than blood for once. Ignoring the mess, I returned my attention to Lucas, licking his jaw. His stubble made it feel like I was licking sandpaper, but the sensation wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
The distinctive flavor of cinnamon unique to him flooded my mouth, and combined with the remnants of the pinot noir, it was a heady, dark blend that made me think of Middle Eastern spice bazaars and old spells Grandmere warned me about.
He spread his wide palms across my stomach, moving them upwards until he was cupping my breasts. A masculine smirk played at his lips, and he got harder, his erection straining against the thin knit of my black tights. My yellow eyelet skirt had already been bunched around my hips.
When he reached to unclasp my bra, I froze. The new tension was obvious to him, because he stopped immediately, his hands coming back around to the front like he was saying, Here they are. No funny business, I promise.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“It’s okay.” His voice was raspy and thick with lust.
“It’s just that—”
“Secret, I get it.” His hands fell to my thighs and, as if acting of their own volition, slid under my skirt. When I didn’t stop him, he moved closer to my inner thigh, and one thumb grazed the damp fabric between my legs.
I groaned.
“Let me…” He stroked a little harder, a little faster, until my breath became low, husky panting and I was rocking my hips to meet the frenzied gestures of his fingers. “Let me do something.”
“We can’t—”
“Not that,” he promised before I could voice my hesitance. “Will you trust me? I want to do something to you, Secret.”
He stopped stroking me, and I mewled in protest, my hands clenching the front of his shirt. I didn’t remember grabbing him. Lucas sat up, his mouth hovering over my breast a moment before he licked one taut nipple through the lace of my bra.
“Oh, yes. Yes, whatever you’re going to do just do it already.”
The press of his erection between my legs made me want to throw caution to the wind and put us both out of our misery. But I wasn’t ready yet. He latched on to my nipple and used his formidable strength to spread my thighs open more. When he bit down on my breast, his hand delved under the waistband of my tights, and he thrust one finger, then two inside of me while I rode the shudder of pleasure from his bite.
“Lucas.” I hissed out his name as he stroked me inside, his thumb moving in dizzying circles on the outside to match each come-hither curl of his fingers. I whined, throwing my head back.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
I didn’t think about it, just choked out, “Yes.”
He kissed my throat, teeth skimming over the surface, causing me to vibrate all over, clenching on his fingers. That only quickened his pace, his thumb rubbing slow but hard, making my head swim. If he kept at it, I might forget myself completely. There was only so much I could take before need outweighed reason.
“Don’t fight me. When I do this, just let it happen.”
“Okay,” I replied, not caring what he meant as long as he didn’t stop doing what he was doing.
He bit me.
He pushed me backwards on the couch so he was on top of me, his hand still conquering me with its demanding, impossibly precise thrusts that made me wonder how he knew the needs of my body well enough to meet them so perfectly. But riding the crest of an orgasm, I didn’t care how he knew, only that he was putting his knowledge to practical use.
The bite took me from the edge of ecstasy right into the abyss.
The heat between us exploded as I screamed, and I was sure we were both on fire, burning each other from head to toe, but it didn’t matter. Let it consume me and turn me to ash, nothing else mattered but drowning in it.
Where his teeth sank into my neck, it felt like an electrical current was running through him and into me, and the spark of it, like a live wire, ran from his mouth all the way to my groin, making me clench around his fingers again and turning one orgasm into two, then three, then they came so fast and hard I couldn’t keep count anymore and lost all sense of my body except for the riot of need.
When he pulled his mouth away, I was sagging and boneless. I couldn’t open my eyes or lift my head. I simply lay beneath him, panting and soaked with sweat, aftershock shivers rolling over me. Lucas licked my neck, then kissed my lips with a restrained delicacy that was in glaring opposition to what we’d just done.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Uhn.” I raised one limp hand and patted him on the back.
He laughed, then lay down beside me, snuggling me close to him. Before we both fell asleep, he picked up the remote off the table and hit a button, bringing down lightproof curtains over the massive windows. Now I could sleep through the day, safe from the deadly light of morning.
“I love you,” he whispered into my hair.
I didn’t know what to say back to him, so I let my breath go deep and slow and hoped he’d think I’d fallen asleep.
Chapter Nine
Dusk fell and I awoke to the sound of the shades opening on an automatic timer, letting in the purple, sunless glow of evening. Lucas was gone, but he’d put a blanket over me, and a Prada box was on the coffee table instead of a broken wineglass and my soiled shirt.
I folded the blanket, then poked the charcoal-colored box with my toe. When it didn’t explode or bite me, I lifted the lid and pushed the tissue paper aside. Lucas had replaced my twelve-dollar Forever 21 blouse with a gold-toned Prada dress that still had the seven-hundred-dollar price tag attached.
Instead of arguing about the extravagance of the gift, I decided not to question the kind gesture. He was a billionaire, after all, and I doubted he’d understand why such an expensive gift made me uncomfortable. I shucked off my skirt and slipped the dress over my head. It fit perfectly, and now I wouldn’t have to go home topless.
I entered the kitchen in search of my purse, holding yesterday’s skirt in one hand and my leather jacket draped over the other arm.
“Did you come to give that back to me?” Dominick asked.
I yelped. He was leaning against the counter beside the fridge, and I hadn’t noticed him when I’d come into the room. The jacket I thought of as mine had, in fact, once been Dominick’s. I’d sort of forgotten about that since I’d had it for so long.
Sheepishly, I looked down at the jacket, then back at him. “Did you want it back?”
He laughed and set the bowl he’d been eating from back on the counter, next to an open box of MultiGrain Cheerios. Five thirty in the evening seemed like a weird time to be eating cereal, but sometimes people get strange cravings. “Keep it,” he insisted. “It looks better on you anyway.”
I hugged the jacket possessively and smiled at him. “Thanks.”
When I came closer to the island, looking under the stools for my missing bag, Dominick went rigid. He stood in front of me, and as I straightened, he grabbed my face and turned my head abruptly to the side.
“Hey,” I snapped, smacking him in the chest. “What the hell?”
Dominick dropped his hand like I’d burned him, taking a step back from me. “What happened last night?”
“Uh, personal question, Dominick.”
“It’s not like I’m asking if you guys got it on or anything. I�
�m asking what’s up with your neck.” Judging by the drawn expression on his face, he knew more than he was letting on, but I for one had no idea what he was talking about.
My hand flew to my throat, and instead of smooth skin I felt the raised edge of a scab, and the skin was tender. Bruised. But that was impossible. Something as small as a little love bite should have easily healed while I was at rest for the day.
“I…” Finding the closest stool, I sat down. “Does it look bad?”
“Looks like one hell of a hickey.” He took a seat across from me. “Des is gonna love it.”
Frowning, I set my skirt and jacket on the island and touched the wound again. It was sensitive under my featherlight fingers, which meant it probably looked brutal, especially if it was still around after so many hours.
“That’s the weirdest thing.” My hands fell into my lap.
“Not that weird,” Dominick mumbled.
Before he had a chance to explain what he meant, the kitchen door opened and Lucas came in. He bent down and kissed me with enough flourish he had to brace himself on the counter of the island, and Dominick cleared his throat to remind us he was still there. I hadn’t forgotten, but Lucas was otherwise distracted.
It wasn’t until he pulled back that I realized I hadn’t tasted anything.
I licked my lips, ran my tongue over the back of my teeth, sucked the interior of my cheeks, but nothing. He’d had a vague espresso flavor in his mouth when he kissed me, but there was zero taste of cinnamon. My heart started to pound, and my eyes flicked to Dominick, but now he wouldn’t look at me.
“Lucas, I can’t—”
“That dress looks incredible on you.” He pulled a bottle of water from the fridge, and under the weight of his gaze, I felt a familiar warmth fan through me, the warmth I associated with our soul-bond. The anxiety building in me tapered off. Okay, so I wasn’t tasting him, but the bond was clearly still working. Maybe the taste was only a temporary thing, or maybe it wasn’t so obvious right now because I’d spent the night with him.
I tried to remember if the lime flavor of my bond with Desmond was always apparent when I woke up with him. I thought so, but maybe I only assumed it was. But in spite of the warmth of my bond with Lucas, a queasy feeling churned in my gut.
“Thank you,” I replied to his compliment. “It’s beautiful.”
“I knew you’d like it.”
“I do.” I hopped off the stool and saw my purse beside the kitchen door. Scooping it up, I stared at Dominick until he finally looked back. “Dominick was about to take me home.”
Oblivious to my unease, Lucas took a sip of his water and nodded, a broad smile on his face when he turned to me. “I’ll give you a call later tonight.”
“Okay.” I tugged Dominick off the stool and pulled him out the kitchen door.
The whole way back to my apartment Dominick played dumb. Anything I asked he would reply, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” By the time he turned onto my block, I was ready to strangle him or cry with frustration.
The moment we pulled up to my apartment, with Desmond’s Dodge Charger parked in front of my BMW Z4—another pricey gift from Lucas—it no longer mattered what Dominick was or wasn’t telling me. I just needed to know if I could still taste Desmond.
I didn’t bother to say goodbye to Dominick, or to close any doors when I burst into the apartment. I dropped my bag on the ground and called out. My voice sounded strained and fearful, nothing like it usually did.
Desmond poked his wet head out of the bathroom and came out, wrapping a towel around his waist. It wasn’t the view of his toned abs or his damp, glistening olive skin that made my heart leap. The tart, bright flavor of lime exploding in my mouth the moment I was close to him was what made me throw myself into his arms and hug him, never wanting to let him go.
“Hey, hi.” He rubbed my back in comforting circles and held me close. “Good to see you too. It’s only been a night, you know.” Desmond ducked his head, giving me a smile meant to comfort, but it faltered when he saw my face. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I was worried. When I woke up I couldn’t taste Lucas anymore, and I thought something in the bond was broken, but he was acting like everything was hunky-dory and I—”
“Wait, wait, wait.” He released me and stepped back, holding his towel up with one hand. “What did you say?”
“I was afraid something was broken?” I asked.
“No, about Lucas.”
“Oh. I couldn’t taste him when I woke up tonight.”
Desmond’s focus darted to my neck, and his cheeks flushed. Feeling guilty but not knowing why, I covered the hickey with my hand and looked away. Desmond had known I was on a date with Lucas last night, and he knew the bond was the same for me and the wolf king as it was for me and him. He couldn’t be oblivious to the fact Lucas and I sometimes got a little physical. I did feel bad it was so in his face though.
Why hadn’t the stupid thing healed?
“Son of a bitch,” Desmond growled, punching the wall next to the bathroom door so hard he broke through the drywall.
I went rigid, afraid to move or breathe. I’d seen Desmond angry, but never like this, and never over such a stupid reason. When he pulled his hand out of the wall, it was coated in plaster dust and flecked with blood. I tried to reach out, wanting to make sure he wasn’t hurt too badly, but he jerked away.
“No,” he snarled, holding his hand away from me. He took a few steps back, then pointed to the hall table where my cell phone was sitting. I’d forgotten it the night before, and the red message light was flashing. “Mercedes keeps calling.”
His expression was an unsettling mixture of pain and rage, and he couldn’t look me in the eyes, too focused on my neck.
“Desmond, I’m sorry, I—”
“Just…just answer your phone and go, okay?”
The bathroom door slammed behind him, and I was left alone in the hall with nothing but a blinking phone and a thousand unanswered questions.
Chapter Ten
Some things in life will stick with you forever.
Desmond’s tortured expression was one of them. The seven voicemails from Detective Mercedes Castilla were another. The first half dozen were mysterious and vague. “Secret, it’s Cedes, call me, chica, it’s important.” They escalated, her voice worried by the last message. “I need you to call me ASAP. This can’t wait. I wanted to warn you before he used his phone call, but if you don’t call me back, I can’t. Please, Secret, call me back.”
What was so important? And who was she talking about? Had Nolan gotten in trouble? Or, God forbid, had Keaty been arrested for something he couldn’t explain? My cell’s answering machine told me I had an eighth and final message.
“Secret.” Right away my whole body went cold. I’d been pacing my living room, watching the bathroom door for any sign Desmond might come back out, but once I heard my name spoken with such familiarity, I had to sit down. I recognized the speaker’s hushed pitch with just one word. That voice had once haunted these walls, had whispered sweet nothings to me in my bedroom. It twisted my guts into knots and made bile wash up the back of my throat. “Hey, Secret. It’s, uh, it’s Gabe. Gabriel Holbrook?” Like I’d fucking forget. “See, um, thing is, I’m in a bit of a bind, and I didn’t know who else to call.”
Now all of Mercedes’s messages made sense. She’d been with me through the whole Gabriel mess. She knew how long it had taken me to recover. No wonder she’d wanted to reach me so badly.
The voicemail continued, Gabriel’s recorded voice oblivious to what he was doing to me in the here and now. “So, I’ve been arrested. I didn’t do anything, but I need your help. See, um…it looks like the cops think I’ve killed someone.”
A half hour later I was in the police station, sitting at Mercedes’s cluttered desk. I watched as she and Detective Tyler Nowakowski had a heated exchange behind a wall of windows at the back of the room. Judging by her pissed-off ex
pression, Tyler’s red face and the number of times the two of them pointed at me, it seemed to be going in my favor.
What Cedes had failed to mention in her many messages was that she wasn’t in charge of Gabriel’s case. She’d been here when he was brought in and had tried to call me then. Her panic set in when Gabriel had told Tyler who he wanted as his one phone call. Not a lawyer. Not a family member. Nope, stupid Gabriel Holbrook had asked to call his ex-girlfriend, the private investigator.
Normally that wouldn’t have been so weird.
Problem was, Tyler and I had a history, and it wasn’t an entirely pleasant one. We’d had one date, orchestrated by Mercedes, and it had gone really well until he witnessed me slaughter three vampires, and I had to have his memory erased. Or wiped as Shane had so charmingly phrased it earlier. Tyler didn’t remember the incident, but he hadn’t trusted me since. When I’d gotten caught up in a nasty murder investigation over Christmas, his distrust turned into outright suspicion.
He thought I was trouble, and he wasn’t wrong.
Being the first choice of contact for a suspected murderer wasn’t going to help me convince him otherwise, and it wouldn’t help Gabriel’s case either. I shouldn’t have cared what Tyler thought of me, but I did. On more than one occasion I’d wrestled with the idea of telling him the truth. Mercedes knew about vampires, and she was able to deal with it. Maybe Tyler could too.
But every time I thought about it I convinced myself it was stupid. It was also profoundly illegal, and as a Tribunal leader I’d be putting myself and the council at astronomical risk if I exposed us to human authorities.
The conference-room door banged open, and Tyler and Mercedes wove through the sea of desks until they both stood in front of me. I remained seated with my hands clasped in my lap, trying to look as innocent as possible.
“Come with me,” Tyler instructed.
The poker face Mercedes was wearing told me nothing, but she gave a slight nod, so I got to my feet and followed Tyler back to his desk. Cedes stayed where she was. Detective Nowakowski’s desk was the opposite of Mercedes’s. His papers were all in neat piles, and there were no empty Doritos bags or week-old cups of coffee on it.
