Then there’s the fact that I’m something of a coward. I’ve never been able to get involved in any sort of relationship. The few casual ones I’d had left me feeling rather incomplete and after a few decades of that, a girl learns to be happier just on her own. And I had been doing just fine, right up until Rip.
Slowly, I sat up in bed, staring at his back as he walked away. He was walking away, right out of my room, leaving me alone… I could go back to my dreams, I could go back to my decidedly uncomplicated, lonely life.
“Rip, wait.”
He paused in the doorway, but he didn’t look at me.
“You… I mean… Well…” I snapped my mouth shut. Words were sort of blurring up in my head and running together and nothing made sense. Except—well, I didn’t want him to walk out. I really didn’t want that. “Do you… I mean, did I…?”
Rip sighed and turned around, staring at me. Once more, his eyes were shuttered, revealing absolutely nothing. “Just out with it, Greta.”
Out with it. Right. Just take a deep breath and calm down, think of a nice, diplomatic, preferably humiliation-free way to ask—
“Did I hurt you?” I blurted out.
Oh, good job, Greta. Way to avoid humiliating yourself…
“Hurt me?” he repeated slowly. Emotion flickered in his eyes yet again before he hid it.
“When…” I swallowed. “Well, when I told you I didn’t want to…well, have a relationship.”
He was staring at me like I’d sprouted another head.
“Look, forget I said anything,” I said after he continued to look at me like that for about another thirty seconds. I stood up, using the sheet to wrap around me toga-style.
Clothes. I needed to get some clothes, and then maybe a blistering-hot shower to clear the cobwebs from my head, and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. But of course, he was still standing there looking at me and my invisible second head, like he couldn’t quite figure me out. I shuffled around the bed and headed for my dresser.
Get the clothes. Get the shower. Get away from that dark, brooding gaze—
“I’m just tired,” I told him. “I think I’m still a little off from the blood loss. That would explain why maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t really there—”
“For months after you left me, I’d see you. Everywhere I turned. Every time I closed my eyes to sleep. Every time I saw a woman with dark hair, I’d stop and stare, hope that maybe it was you.”
I stopped—no, that’s not exactly right. I froze, unable to move. He was coming up behind me, I could hear him, then I could feel him because he was so close the heat of his body warmed mine. Then I could feel his hands on me, resting on my shoulders, then stroking down my arms until he could cover my hands with his own.
“I dreamt of you every night for years and even now, I can’t go more than a few nights without seeing your face in my dreams. And you ask me if you hurt me when you walked away.”
My heart was racing. So damn fast… Hell, if I could have a heart attack, I’d probably be in desperate need of CPR. And I ached. There was pain in his voice, and I had done that. I’d hurt him. Tears pricked at my eyes as I forced myself to turn around and look at him. “I’m sorry.” It came out in a pathetic little squeak and I made myself clear my throat before trying again. “I’m sorry. I never thought… Well, I mean, you know, we only worked together for a few weeks. And there was just the one night. I didn’t think we really had anything… Well, I mean…one night, you know?”
I was rambling. Man, oh man was I rambling. I can’t help it. When I’m nervous, I blabber. A lot.
“One night.” He smiled. But it was a sad smile. “Yes, it was just one night. Perhaps we didn’t have anything. But I didn’t need the one night, Greta, to know I had something. You didn’t feel it—that isn’t your fault.”
He cupped my cheek and stroked a thumb across my lip, staring at me in that way of his—the way that makes it seem like nothing and nobody else exists. “You didn’t want the complication of a relationship—I can understand that. Respect it. But I won’t just be a distraction whenever we have to work together.”
His lids drooped low over his eyes, shielding them from me as he pressed against my lip with his thumb. “Why don’t you get dressed? We’ve got work to do.”
His hand fell away and he turned around. Walking away.
It made my heart freeze to even think about it. He was walking away—
“You’re not a distraction.”
He didn’t stop.
“Damn it, Rip. I walked away because I don’t know how to do relationships period and I figured you were just wanting…”
Now he stopped. Now he turned around, staring at me and oh, shit, I couldn’t breathe. It was like something had gone and sucked all the oxygen out of the air and I was suffocating on the words trapped in my throat.
“You figured I just wanted…what?”
“Ah… Well, you know…one of those friends-with-benefits relationships.” I gave him a weak smile.
“And you didn’t want to be friends with me?”
“Yes. No. Damn it, I’m even confusing myself right now.” I stared at him. The strength went out of me and I sank down to the floor. The sheet pooled around my legs and absently, I smoothed it down around my legs. “It’s not that I didn’t want to be friends—it’s that I didn’t think I could just be friends with you. You turn me into a mess. You have pretty much from the first time I met you and I can’t think straight around you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he muttered under his breath.
I frowned as he crossed the floor and sank, kneeling over me with one knee on either side of my legs. “You’re a confusing woman, Greta. I don’t know if I should walk away, if I should stay, if I should run like hell while I still have the capacity for thought.”
“I’m rather lacking that capacity myself.” I reached up toyed with the button of his shirt. It was a rather faded black polo, one that stretched over his excellent chest and clung to his excellent arms in the yummiest way. I bit my lip and said, “I loved being with you. Loved talking to you, just being around you. If I’d thought for five seconds you were hurt when I decided to leave, I would have… Well, I don’t know. I might have still walked way, but I would have probably tried to talk to you first.”
He threaded a hand through my hair and tugged, forcing me to look at him. “So what do we do now?” he asked. He massaged the back of my neck, his strong fingers digging into my knotted muscles and turning them to putty.
“I don’t know. Maybe… Well, maybe we should take care of business, and then see how this plays out?” I suggested.
“I’ve got a better idea.”
His idea involved untangling my hands from the sheet I held around me. It also involved urging me back until I was lying beneath him. And his mouth—it involved his mouth, running over me, along my shoulders, my neck, down over the curves of my breasts, my belly. And his hands—his hands pushing my thighs apart until he could lie between them and kiss me.
It involved his tongue and his hands and a lot of moaning from me.
It involved me climaxing—
I whimpered and gasped out his name, trying desperately to breathe and failing. I couldn’t breathe, not when he touched me like that, not when he licked me, teased me, tortured me…
“Rip, please.” I fisted my hands in his hair and tugged until he lifted his head and stared at me.
He didn’t say anything. He just pushed up onto his knees and tore his shirt off while I fought with the zipper of his jeans. I wanted him naked. Naked and on top of me.
He shoved his jeans down and I decided naked wasn’t an absolute necessity—he didn’t bother taking them off and right now, I was fine with that. As he came over my, I lifted my knees and wrapped my legs around his waist.
He couldn’t remember how to breathe.
It was a damn good thing he wasn’t exactly mortal anymore, because he would have suffocated by the time he got his
lungs working again. But who in the hell cared? Rip slanted his mouth over Greta’s as he reached between them, fitting the head of his cock against her entrance.ss
She was silken hot, wet and tight, closing around his aching flesh like a glove.
As he sank deep inside her, she whimpered in her throat and arched, wiggling under him and rocking her hips. Tearing his mouth from hers, he stared into Greta’s eyes and saw the edge of pain she tried to hide. Easing back, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently. He kept it light and easy, waiting until she relaxed. Then he sank deeper inside. Each time she tensed up on him, he pulled back until finally, she reached down and cupped his butt. Staring up at him, she whispered, “Stop being so careful with me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then make love to me, damn it.” A pout formed on her soft, full mouth. Her blue eyes burned into his as she added, “I hurt for you. Holding back is killing me.”
It was killing him too. She was killing him. A groan vibrated out of him and he pushed his hand into her hair, tangled the gleaming brown strands around his fingers. “Mine.” He rasped it against her lips as he pulled back…slowly…so slowly.
Greta arched underneath him, her nails biting into his arms. “Damn it, Rip!”
He drove inside, forcing his way through the tight, clinging tissues of her pussy, deeper, deeper until she’d taken all of him.
“Oh.” Her lids drifted down.
“Greta?”
With a smile curling her lips, she said, “Do that again.”
He did. Again. And again. Even when she tightened around him and came with a cry, he continued to ride her, taking her deep and hard and fast and it still wasn’t fucking enough—
The soft, warm weight of her breasts pillowed his chest, her nipples tight and hard, pressing into him. He kissed her again, desperate for the taste of her, the feel of her…desperate for her. All of her.
Need.
Need.
Need.
It was a burning inside him, this need for her, one he’d had to live with for so long. Even meeting that need was excruciating. Touching her, taking her, it was a painful pleasure that just might kill him.
It just might undo him.
It just might make him…
She came a second time and as she clenched around him, shuddered and wiggled and rocked beneath him, he came as well. His climax was another one of those painful pleasures—he wanted it to last forever, and at the same time, he didn’t know if he could handle another second.
By the time it ended, his muscles were limp and he barely had the energy to keep from collapsing on top of her. She breathed out his name on a ragged sigh and slid a hand down his sweat-slicked back, urging him closer. Unable to fight it, he sank down against her body.
His heart raced as he lifted his head, stared into her eyes.
A smile curled her lips and she sighed, a drowsy, content little sound.
Stunned, still struggling to breathe, he buried his head between her breasts. She felt something. She’d said as much, right?
His head was something of a mess, though, and he barely knew up from down.
He needed to know. That was one thing he did understand.
He needed to know…
A soft, steady sound reached his ears and he lifted his head and realized in the span of a few heartbeats, Greta had drifted off to sleep.
“Greta?”
She hummed under her breath and did that little wiggle again, arching closer like she wanted to disappear inside his skin.
Okay, so his need to know would have to wait a little while.
CHAPTER FIVE
He was already awake when I woke up.
It was the first time in years that I woke with a smile on my face and I couldn’t stop myself from pushing up on my elbow just so I could see his face better. I could feel the dopey smile spreading across my face and I didn’t care.
Reaching up, I toyed with the medallion he wore around his neck. It looked exactly like mine. But it was more fun to toy with the one he wore. Man, I had it so bad.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, stroking a hand down my arm, then running the tips of his fingers across my belly.
“Wonderful.” I smiled. “A little tired, but I feel wonderful.”
He cupped his hand over my breast. “Yeah, you do.”
The gleam in his eyes faded as he sat up and urged me onto my back, eying my belly. I wiggled and tried to pull away. “I’m fine, Rip. Good as new.”
He frowned and rested the palm of his hand just below my navel. “You were cut up pretty bad.”
“Couldn’t be that bad.” I shrugged and tugged until he lay back down beside me. “I healed up quick enough. Hey…where did you get that staff thing of yours?”
“God.”
“Seriously…?” I stared at him. The deadpan expression on his face never would have given him away. But there was a faint smile glinting in his dark brown eyes and it wasn’t so easily hidden. His gaze locked on my mouth and all of a sudden, I realized what he was referring to.
He caught my hand and guided it down and I blushed even as I closed my hand around him. “I wasn’t talking about this staff, hotshot. I’m talking about the one you used on the bocan last night.”
“I had it made. I could get one for you, if you’d like.”
I grinned at him. “Hell, yes.”
One of his rare smiles appeared and he shook his head. “Such a strange lot we are. I offer to buy you a tool of death and you smile like I’d offered to give you a puppy.”
“I would make a lousy puppy mama. Tools of death are much more useful for us anyway.” I dipped my head and kissed him, paused just long enough to nip his lower lip. He was reaching for me as I pulled away. “And speaking for tools of death, we really do need to moving. We’ve got work.”
“Where do we look?”
“I can find her,” I said, blowing out a breath. I had no doubt of that. She was a weight inside me, a dark presence in my heart.
Is that what I’d felt like to Mary?
Don’t go there. Not right now—I couldn’t let my thoughts go wandering down those paths right now. I sometimes get lost in my memories. After you’ve lived a few hundred years, it’s easy enough to do. But I couldn’t afford to get lost when somebody out there needed me.
Even though she wouldn’t be happy about it, that girl from last night did need me. I could hear her need, calling to me.
Calling…
A hand closed around my arm and shook me. Dazed, I had to force myself to focus. Had to force myself to focus on Rip’s face. He was half-lost to the shadows, staring down at me as we stood on the porch of the small house where I stayed.
“You in there?”
I gave him a wan smile. “Where else would I be?”
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. I jerked a shoulder up, shrugging restlessly. “I’m feeling a little out of it, I guess. Feel a little off from last night and now I’ve got her in my head.”
I didn’t have to say anything more than that. He understood.
“You up for this?” He curled a hand around the back of my neck and eased me close. I could feel him toying with my hair while he did it and I took a moment to just revel in it, in him.
“Greta?”
“I don’t know if I’m up for this or not.” I grimaced. “Not that it really matters. It’s calling me.” She was calling me.
“Then focus. If it’s that strong, we may not have a lot of time.”
We didn’t. With every step we took, my urgency grew. Miles passed and we drew nearer. Closer…closer…almost there. But we were already too late. There was a dark cloud in my mind. Dark and suffocating.
She wasn’t alone.
There was somebody else with her…and it was too late for that person.
Choices.
We all have to make them. Every day. Some are important, some are almost inconsequential.
Bu
t we have to make them and tonight, somebody had made a choice that was going to end in death.
We were outside a rundown house. It looked abandoned. It wasn’t. The darkness didn’t affect my vision. I could see perfectly fine and more. I could hear voices. Faint and muffled. She was in there.
And there was a book.
“Rip?”
He paused and glanced at me. “She’s not alone,” I told him, staring at him morosely. Too late…
“Neither are you.” He dipped his head and kissed me.
I wish I could say all my fears and misgivings disappeared, just like that. I wish I could, but I’d be lying. It was a comfort, though. Having him with me. Now at least I wouldn’t have to guard my back from one while I dealt with the other.
As we mounted the crumbling concrete steps, the stink of evil flooded the air. Demons, in their incorporeal form, don’t smell. But once they settled in a human, it was kind of like the stench of decay came with them. Humans wouldn’t smell it, but animals did. So did we. It was faint, cloying and enough to make me glad I hadn’t taken the time to eat anything earlier.
I doubt I would have puked it up, but fighting the urge to hurl can be kind of distracting.
I didn’t need to be distracted right now.
It was an orin.
Orin—fucking soul stealers. The orin could probably make dealing with a vampire look like a walk along a moonlight beach. At least with vampires, when they move in for the kill, the typical person realizes something wasn’t quite right.
With the orin, the typical person wouldn’t figure out anything until it was too late.
Of course, maybe it’s not that big a deal—after all, either way, you were dead.
Somebody inside that house was dead.
God, please…don’t let it be somebody young.
I wasn’t worried about it being a child exactly. Children tend to have their own guardian angels—of a sort—ones that keep the demons at bay, but these days, childhood was lost earlier and earlier.
True innocence came with a protection against demonkind that awes me even as it saddens me. If only we could spread that protection out to everybody.
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