Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes

by Mark Henwick

  Her fingers touch-typed a number.

  Thank you, honey, she mouthed at me, and I love you.

  My fangs pulsed with pleasure, manifesting for a second and then disappearing. It made her laugh just as her call was answered.

  She became all business and I had to stop teasing her.

  I tuned out the conversation and instead, I watched her.

  There was something of the lioness about her when she worked. I could imagine her stalking into a boardroom and conversation stopping dead as people realized it had just gotten serious.

  Here, she was tilting her chair back, the picture of confidence, her voice calm, assured and very much in control.

  All in all, incredibly sexy.

  As long as I didn’t distract her, I guessed there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t enjoy the view.

  My eyes slipped down her, from her swirly blonde hair to the immaculate blue power suit with the angular jacket and the paneled skirt. From there, down to the toned flesh of her legs.

  I knew she’d been working out in the gym with Julie and Yelena. It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed, but it was a great opportunity to study the changes.

  Oooh. I like.

  Was it my imagination, or was it hot in the office?

  I fanned myself and dropped my eyes to the carpet.

  Behave, I scolded myself. I’m not a schoolgirl with a crush.

  I peeked again.

  She’d crossed her legs, one elegantly perched on the other. And she’d slipped the shoe off her heel. Her foot was arched elegantly, the tan Louboutin shoe rocking to and fro, held on only by her toes.

  I closed my eyes again.

  Then I realized it had gone quiet.

  She’d finished her call and she’d been watching me, watching her.

  A little smile played along her lips, as if she knew every erotic image that had flickered through my mind in the last few minutes.

  Crap. Busted.

  “Those notes were good,” she said. “It’d be…so interesting having you work under me.”

  I cleared my throat. I didn’t think that comment was aimed at my secretarial abilities. I played along. “Anything else I can do for you, Ms. Kingslund? Anything at all?”

  I didn’t have to fake it; my voice came out all husky.

  I kept my eyes down. That was a very wolfy signal, but maybe Jen would get the idea. I was loving the submissive role today.

  “Well…” the way she pulled the sound out made me think of a cat stretching before it went hunting.

  She came and stood right in front of me. Her hand brushed my cheek. I turned and kissed the inside of her wrist. A little catch in her breath was my reward.

  “You really are a most attractive woman, Ms. Farrell,” she said.

  “No, I’m passable, I guess, but you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

  “Passable? This says you’re wrong.” She cupped my face in her hands and kissed me.

  An Athanate needs Blood, but almost as much, an Athanate needs Rahaimon—sustenance from emotion. It didn’t need to be love; Basilikos proved that. But how could they bear to rob themselves of this?

  Despite any problems with eukori, Jen’s love and desire lit me up like a bonfire.

  Yes. Yes. More. More.

  She pulled me up. Locked at lip and hip, we swayed and spun until I felt the support of the desk against the back of my legs.

  We had to break the kiss as Jen pulled my T and sports bra over my head. Her jacket had disappeared and I slowed myself way down, teasing, opening the buttons on her shirt with exaggerated care.

  “And they say you have a reputation for being hard on clothes,” Jen said, loosening my jeans.

  “It’s well earned.” I tossed her shirt at the chair and her bra after it.

  “Oh!” Her hands paused as my jeans opened, and then slipped across my belly, making me gasp. “Pretty, pretty.”

  She spun me around and pushed me down so I was bent over the desk. It gave her a better grip on the jeans. I guess.

  I didn’t care. I was blissed out and melting inside.

  If it had been Alex, we’d have been playing bump the desk already. Jen just got more and more leisurely, tugging my jeans down, inch by inch.

  “Now there’s a sight.”

  A rasp, a whisper and her skirt joined the rest of her clothes. She pressed against my butt, trapping me against the desk. As if I was going anywhere.

  “Now that thong, that pretty, pretty thong, it really suits you, Ms. Farrell,” she murmured as her nails traced lines of fire along my back.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” I grinned down at the cool brown surface of the desk. “There’s nothing else in my drawers. The person who packed for me must have forgotten all my other panties.”

  “Oh, I don’t think anything was forgotten.”

  I bit my lip. I knew exactly who had chosen and packed my clothes. Same person who’d bought all these ridiculous thongs for me. Ridiculous.

  Jen ground against me and I gasped.

  She bent down and her hair caressed my back as her teeth nibbled up my spine.

  “You said you’d always tell me the truth,” she said.

  “I did,” I said. “I will.”

  “Always?” Another measured swivel of her hips and exquisite pressure on me.

  “Yes, yes!” I groaned. “You’re going to have to ease up if you want me to say anything else.”

  She chuckled, but the pressure did ease off a little.

  “Do you love me?” she asked.

  “Yes. Of course.”

  Stupid question. But I was still smiling.

  “Mmm.”

  She stepped back a little way. Her hand took a grip on my hip bone and tugged gently.

  I swiveled around on the desk. She slipped between my legs. I wrapped them around her and crossed my ankles.

  Gotcha! She wasn’t going to get away for a while now.

  She wasn’t trying to. She was pressing hard against me again.

  I bit my lip as a small moan escaped me.

  Her eyes had gone all sleepy and smoky with desire. I wanted her to kiss me and take me right there, but she held off.

  Was she teasing me?

  No.

  “Do you love Alex, too?”

  A little shock traveled through me, but I couldn’t lie. “Yes.”

  She didn’t let me go, didn’t stop squeezing me. Her lips trailed along my shoulder, hair tickling me.

  “What about me and Alex? What about us with each other?”

  My heart was already double-timing. Now it did it in my throat.

  I couldn’t bear the thought of losing them. Either of them.

  “We’re all bound together. We all know that.”

  “Not what I meant.”

  “I think you love each other too.”

  I hope. I want. I need.

  “So you said. You have seen us, haven’t you? We don’t do anything but argue.”

  “I know a couple of alpha werewolves whose entire conversation so far has been insults screamed at the tops of their voices.” I sucked my breath in as Jen stirred sensuously against me. I had to close my eyes and count backwards; otherwise I might have come right then.

  “They’re getting mated soon,” I managed to finish.

  “Hmmm. Interesting. Alphas.” She nuzzled my neck, her breath raising goosebumps all over. “You want us to love each other, me and Alex.”

  “Yes. Want. Need.”

  One hand cupped my breast and she kissed a nipple that was screaming to be bitten and sucked.

  I groaned again.

  “With all that entails?” she said. “Love and sex?”

  Another tremor shook me.

  Alex and Jen. Making love. All very well theoretically. How would I feel when it actually happened right in front of me? If I was going to be able to make love to both of them, and we all loved each other, then I’d have to agree to them making love to each other, wouldn’t I?
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br />   “Yes,” I said, swallowing. “Everything.”

  “Why have you closed your eyes?”

  “Because if I look at you, I’m going to come.”

  “I see,” she purred. “How insensitive of me, honey.” She kissed my ear. “Do you think you can carry me to the bed first? You’ll need your eyes open for that.”

  “I’ll try. I’m not sure my knees will hold.”

  I slid off the desk and picked her up, one arm under her knees, the other behind her back. My knees managed it.

  “See? No problem,” she said. Her head fell back and she watched me through lowered eyelids. “I love it when you get all butch on me.”

  “Says the woman who just dommed me all over her desk.”

  “Did I?” She fluttered her eyelashes. “I think you just made that word up.”

  “Is a word, too. Ladies who like leather use it all the time. We can dom each other,” I said. “Over and over and over.”

  At the door, I slowed.

  Outside, the split level made a sort of balcony corridor that curved along the length of the large living room. The bedrooms were off that.

  I was going to walk near naked, carrying my equally undressed kin, in full view of anyone in the living room. They’d also see exactly where we were heading.

  Well, it’s not as if they don’t know.

  I wasn’t going to die of embarrassment, but I had a feeling I might pass away if I didn’t make love to Jen soon.

  And as it turned out, the living room was empty. Everyone taking the opportunity to rest, maybe.

  I laid Jen down on the bed in our room and she decided she’d had enough of being submissive.

  In the process of us both losing our g-strings—matching, huh? who’d have thought it?—she got me pinned down, holding my wrists above my head.

  I struggled and struggled, of course. She overpowered me.

  To an observer, it might have looked as if I was just writhing for effect.

  And as it turned out, we got an observer.

  The door banged open and Alex barged in, carrying his clothes and still dripping with water from skinny dipping in the swimming pool.

  “Oh! Hey, you go right on,” he said, grinning. “Wouldn’t want you to stop just because of me.”

  “Pervert.” Jen slid off me, on the side furthest away from Alex.

  “Ice queen,” Alex shot back.

  “Children! Please.”

  My heart was back in my mouth. So much for the theoretical discussion with Jen, so much for the plan of slowly edging up on it. This felt like I was on the high wire with no safety net. And no eukori to let me cheat.

  Trust and jump.

  “Alex.” I reached an arm toward him, inviting him.

  He hadn’t bothered with a towel any more than he’d bothered with swimming trunks, so he was cold and wet as he slid into bed next to me.

  The pair of them were about as relaxed as rattlers sizing each other up.

  About as relaxed as Felix and Cameron had been at Coykuti.

  That gave me a seed of hope.

  Jen was an alpha. Not a werewolf, but clearly every bit as alpha among humans as Alex or Felix or Cameron were among werewolves.

  What if she and Alex were just responding like werewolf alphas?

  If the glares and insults were a sort of crazy teasing?

  I was genuinely pinned down now. Alex was lying on my right arm, Jen was on my left. Apart from just pressing them together and hoping they wouldn’t explode, what could I do?

  Water from the pool trickled down from Alex’s hair and ran across his chest.

  The pool was a special salt-water version. No chlorine, thankfully.

  I licked some droplets off his skin, working my way up to his throat.

  Alex sucked in a deep breath.

  And what I did for one…

  I ran my tongue across Jen, nipple to jawline.

  Now both rattlers seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. I pulled Alex down to give him some life-saving mouth-to-mouth.

  Then Jen. All about balance.

  It worked, and now, we were cooking.

  I had a firm expression of interest from Alex which was currently pressed hard into my hip. Jen’s eyes were back to their smoky best and locked on Alex’s.

  Silence, but for three sets of ragged breathing.

  Alex’s eyes flickered down to Jen’s lips. As if in response, they parted.

  Eyes wide open, the two of them tilted forward over me.

  Lips touched and they jerked back as if scalded.

  Awkward.

  My school friend Cassie had made a better job of it with her cousin when I dared them to kiss in the garden shed. They’d been all of twelve.

  “Wow, that was hard,” the demon in my throat said. “Now, once more, with passion.”

  Jen shut her eyes and tilted her face.

  Alex met her halfway.

  Their lips touched, parted, touched.

  I forgot to breathe again.

  What would it feel like?

  They are in love. They are in love. They want to make love.

  Their desires are sacred to me.

  Which made it sound like some kind of duty, to allow them to love each other as they loved me.

  They were kissing now, a real kiss. I could feel the heat of it, the urgency, the need.

  It woke a need in me too. Watching them kiss was a mouthwatering, thigh-loosening, searing-hot level of erotic.

  This was no duty. This was all about pleasure. Hunger.

  We needed this. We needed our love to be equal and shared between us.

  Not some truth I discovered with eukori, but a truth I just felt as the fire began to burn in all three of us, each feeding the other’s flames.

  And as they kissed deeper, Jen trailed her fingertips over Alex’s chest, leaving tracks of goosebumps. Up and down between Alex and me. Brushing my nipple. His belly. My belly. My hip. The seal of skin where his belly pressed my side.

  The three of us were trembling.

  Her fingers paused.

  A question.

  My heart beat like it was trying to get out of my ribcage.

  Alex’s body shuddered and shifted. A tiny amount. Barely enough to provide space for a hand to slip between us, down to where his expression of interest was throbbing hot against my hip.

  An answer. An invitation.

  This was going to work. A flood of unbelievable pleasure and anticipation rocked my body.

  In an instant it was all gone. A second before it happened, both Alex and I knew. Alex was already up in a crouch between us and the door when it was thrown open.

  Yelena. Obviously straight out of her bed. Magnificently stark naked, silver hair worse than Medusa.

  Elizabetta and Dominé right behind her.

  “Sorry, Boss.” Yelena held out my cell. “It’s urgent.”

  I rolled off the bed.

  “Dante?”

  She shook her head. “Tamanny.”

  Chapter 51

  I put her on loudspeaker, icy fingers of apprehension clutching my gut as I got dressed.

  “Tamanny? Tamanny, are you all right?” I said.

  “Is ’at you, Ms. Farrell?” She sounded so small and frightened. Trying not to cry. Her words were blurred, as if her mouth were numb.

  “Yes, it’s me. Call me Amber. What’s happening?”

  “I…you said I should call you, if…” She stopped, and beneath her stifled sobbing, I could hear traffic noises.

  “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, the sound of panic in her voice. “I jus’ ran. Can’t remember how I got here. I don’t know what to do.”

  “You’re doing fine, Tamanny. Fine. Now, I can hear cars.” I spoke as calmly as I could. “You’re on a road. Can you remember anything about how you got there?”

  There was a pause. “Just ran. They took me to a club. Supposed to be a fashion show or something. I’m feeling real bad.”
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  Her voice trailed away.

  “Tamanny?”

  “There was a bridge over the road. Big bridge. There was a wire fence thing with school buses. Under the bridge. An’ people in rags. And y’know, graffiti. Like faces and stuff.”

  Elizabetta frowned, making a gesture with her hand—need more.

  “Are there street names?” I said. “What can you see?”

  Tamanny gave a scream.

  “What’s happening?” I yelled.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” she mumbled. “There was a guy sleeping on the sidewalk. I thought it was trash, but he woke up. He scared me. Everyone’s staring at me.”

  “Street names?”

  “Oh. Can’t see. There’s some kinda flea market? The booths are blocking everything. Wait.”

  A car horn blared and I could hear her apologizing again.

  We could hear music and shouting in the background.

  “San Pedro,” she said.

  “Oh God,” Elizabetta whispered. “She’s heading into South Central.”

  “Is there a restaurant you could go in?” I said.

  “No money,” she said. “Left my purse. Had to. Just got my secret cell. It’s a secret. Promise you won’t tell.” She started crying. “Tore my dress a little getting through the window. Pretty dress.”

  What the hell happened to her?

  “Tamanny, if there’s a restaurant that looks good, go in there,” I said. “Hand the cell to the manager and I’ll talk to him. I just want you off the street.”

  “Yeah. They’ll be looking for me,” she said. “They paid their money. Have to get off the street. There’s one here. Restaurant. Alcan…Alcantara.”

  There was the sound of a door and some elevator music.

  “Hey! You. Out!” I could hear someone shouting at her, then Tamanny desperately trying to explain and get him on the cell.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen this kind of scam before. Get the fuck outta here, you drunk whore.”

  The sound from the restaurant cut off and the noise of cars and people came back.

  Tamanny was sobbing openly now.

  I was finished dressing and headed for the garage.

  “Keep talking to her.” I handed my cell to Elizabetta.

  “Car’s too slow,” I said to everyone else. “I’m taking the Kawasaki.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Alex said. “I can make my own way back.”

  “We’ll follow in the car and meet you,” Yelena said. Julie and Keith had joined her.