by J. R. Ward
“Don’t stop,” she said, tilting her face up. “Please…”
With force of will, he compartmentalized himself, putting the bad things and the vicious life he led and the dangerous realities he faced away from the bedroom, locking them out, shutting them down.
So that it was just the two of them.
“I won’t stop unless you want me to,” he said. And if she did he would, no questions asked. The last thing he ever wanted to do was make her feel the way he did about sex.
Rehv bent down, put his lips on hers, and kissed her carefully. As he couldn’t judge sensation, he didn’t want to grind on her, and he had the sense she would press herself closer if she wanted more—
Ehlena did just that, wrapping her arms around him and melding them hip-to-hip.
And…shit, he felt something. From out of nowhere, a flare of sensation broke through his numbness, the radiating wave dim, but very definitely warmth he could sense. For a split second he pulled back, fear spearing into him…but his vision stayed in three dimensions, and the only red he saw was from the glow of the digital clock on the nightstand.
“Is this okay?” she asked.
He waited a couple more heartbeats. “Yeah…yeah, it totally is.” His eyes traced her face. “Will you let me get you naked?”
Oh, God, did he just say that?
“Yes.”
“Oh…thank you…”
Rehv unbuttoned the front of her uniform slowly, each inch of flesh a revelation, the act not so much dishabille, but an unveiling. And he was careful with his hands as he slid the top half of what she wore off her shoulders and down over her hips to the floor. When she stood before him in her white bra and her white stockings, with the hint of her white panties showing beneath the hose, he was strangely honored.
But that wasn’t all. The scent of her sex lit off a buzz between his ears that made him feel like he’d been doing lines of coke for a week and a half straight. She wanted him. Almost as much as he wanted to serve her.
Rehv picked her up by wrapping his arms around her waist and hugging her to him. She weighed nothing at all, and he knew it by the fact that his breathing didn’t change in the slightest as he carried her over and laid her out on the bed.
As he pulled back to look at her, Ehlena wasn’t like the females he’d been with. She didn’t stretch and part her legs, didn’t play with herself, didn’t arch up and do some whorish variant of come-and-get-me-big-boy.
She also didn’t want to cause him pain and didn’t have any interest in degrading him—there was no hot, erotic cruelty in her eyes.
She just stared up at him with wonder and honest anticipation, a female without artifice or calculation—who was one trillion times sexier than anyone he’d ever been with or been around.
“Do you want me clothed?” he said.
“No.”
Rehv ditched his jacket like it was made of nothing more than shopping circulars, tossing the Gucci work of art to the floor without a care. Kicking off his loafers, he undid his belt and dropped his slacks, leaving them where they landed. His shirt came off quickly. So did the socks.
He hesitated at his boxers, his thumbs tucked into the waistband, ready to do the shuck, but failing to move.
His lack of an erection embarrassed him.
Rehv wouldn’t have thought it mattered. Hell, arguably his limp cock was what made this possible. Still, he felt like less of a male.
Didn’t feel very male at all, actually.
He took his hands out and put them over his flaccid sex. “I’m going to leave these on.”
Ehlena reached for him, desire in her eyes. “I want to be with you any way you come.”
Or didn’t come, as the case was. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
There was an awkward moment, because what could she possibly reply? And yet, he waited anyway, wanting…something from her.
Reassurance?
Christ, what the fuck was wrong with him. All these bizarre thoughts and reactions were crisscrossing the landscape of his temporal lobe, blazing trails to destinations he’d only heard others speak of, places like shame and sadness and worry. Insecurity, too.
Maybe the sexual hormones she was stirring up in him were like the dopamine, hitting him in the opposite way. Turning him into a chick.
“You are beautiful in this light,” she said in a husky tone. “Your shoulders and chest are so big, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be that strong. And your stomach…I wish mine were that flat and hard. Your legs are so powerful, too, all muscle, not an ounce of fat.”
As he moved his hand upward over his six-pack to one of his pecs, he looked down at her softly rounded belly. “I think you’re perfect just as you are.”
Her voice grew serious. “And I feel the same about you.”
Rehv dragged in a breath. “Yeah?”
“You are very sexy to me. Just looking at you…makes me ache.”
Well…there you go. And yet it still took a strange kind of courage to slip his thumbs back into the waistband of his boxers and slowly draw them down his thighs.
As he stretched out next to her, his body was shaking, and he knew it because he could see his muscles tremble.
He cared what she thought about him. About his body. About what was going to happen on this bed. With the princess? He didn’t give a rat’s ass whether she enjoyed what he did to her. And those few times he’d been with his working girls, he hadn’t wanted to hurt them, of course, but it had been a transaction of sex for money.
Xhex and he had simply been a mistake. Neither good or bad. Just was and never would be again.
Ehlena ran her hands up his arms and over his shoulders. “Kiss me.”
Rehv locked eyes with her and did just that, bringing his lips to hers and stroking, then extending his tongue and licking over her mouth. He kept kissing her until she undulated on the bed and closed her hands on him so tightly that the strange echo of sensation flared in him again. The feeling made him pause and open his eyes to check his vision, but all was normal, untainted by red.
He went back to what he was enjoying, being careful because he couldn’t mediate the pressure of the contact, letting her come to him so he didn’t crush her with his mouth.
He wanted to go so much further…and she read his mind.
Ehlena was the one who undid her bra, releasing the front clasp and baring herself. Oh…fuck, yeah. Her breasts were perfectly proportioned and tipped with tight pink nipples—which he promptly sucked into his mouth one after the other.
The sound of her moans flared up his body, replacing the cold with life and energy, warmth and need.
“I want to go down on you,” he growled.
Her, “Please,” was more groan than voice, and her body gave him an even clearer answer. Now her thighs parted, her legs falling open, all the invitation he could ever have asked for.
Those stocking of hers had to come off before he chewed through them.
Rehv was as slow and deliberate as he could stand to be, stripping her flesh free of its thin binding, nuzzling her all the way down to her ankles, breathing in deep as he went.
He left the panties in place.
Rehvenge’s gentleness was what surprised Ehlena the most.
In spite of his great size, he was as careful with her as he could be, moving gently over her body, giving her every chance to tell him no or divert him or stop things altogether.
She had no intention of doing any of those.
Especially as his big hand drifted up the inside of her bare leg and subtly, inexorably inched her thigh out even farther. As his fingers brushed her panties, a shot of electricity sizzled in her sex, the miniorgasm leaving her gasping.
Rehvenge pushed himself up and spoke into her ear on a growl. “I like that sound.”
He took her mouth and stroked her sex over the top of the modest cotton that covered her. Deep tongue thrusts contrasted with butterfly brushes, and she threw her head back, getting utterly
lost in him. Tilting her hips, she wanted him to go underneath the panties, and prayed he took the hint, as she was too breathless and desperate to talk.
“What do you want?” he said into her ear. “You want nothing between us?”
As she nodded, his middle finger slipped under the elastic, and then it was skin against skin and—
“Oh…God,” she moaned as a release pounded through her.
Rehvenge smiled like a tiger as he stroked her while she orgasmed, helping her ride out the pulses. When she finally stilled, she felt embarrassed. She hadn’t been with someone in so long, and never someone like him.
“You’re incredibly beautiful,” he whispered before she could say something.
Ehlena turned her face into his biceps and kissed the smooth skin over the tight muscle. “It’s been a while for me.”
A quiet glow came into his face.
“I like that. A lot.” He dropped his head to her breast and kissed her nipple. “I like that you respect your body. Not everyone does. Oh, and by the way, I’m not finished yet.”
Ehlena dug her nails into the back of his neck as he tugged her panties down her thighs. The sight of his pink tongue teasing her breast arrested her, especially as his amethyst eyes met hers while he circled her nipple and flicked at it—like he was giving her a sneak peak at the attention she could expect down below.
She came again. Hard.
This time Ehlena let herself go with it completely, and it was a relief to just be in her skin and with him. As she recovered from the pleasure, she didn’t even flinch as he started to kiss his way down past her stomach and to her—
She groaned so loudly there was an echo.
As with his fingers, the feel of his mouth on her sex was all the more vivid because he barely touched her. Soft strokes hovered over that vulnerable, hot place on her body, making her strain to feel him, turning each pass of his lips and his tongue into a source of both pleasure and frustration.
“More,” she demanded, pushing her hips up.
His amethyst eyes lifted. “I don’t want to be too rough.”
“You won’t be. Please…it’s killing me….”
With a growl, he dove down and sealed her sex with his mouth, sucking her, pulling her into him. She came again, this time in hard, shattering blows, but he did her right. He kept going, riding out her jerks and arches, the sound of lips against lips rising up with her guttural cries as he worked her and made her climax over and over again.
When God only knew how many times she released, she stilled and so did he. They were both panting, his glossy mouth on the inside of her thigh, his three fingers buried tight in her, their scents mingling in the heated air of the—
She frowned. Part of the heady fragrance in the room was…dark spices. And as she sniffed deeply, his eyes lifted to hers.
Her shocked expression must have shown exactly the conclusion she came to.
“Yeah, I’m catching the scent as well,” he said roughly.
Except he couldn’t have bonded with her, could he? Did it really happen that fast?
“For some males it does,” he said. “Evidently.”
Abruptly she realized he was reading her mind, but she didn’t care. Considering where he’d been, getting into her brain didn’t seem half as intimate.
“I didn’t expect this,” she said.
“Wasn’t on my list either.” Rehvenge withdrew his fingers from her and licked them clean with deliberate strokes of his tongue.
Which naturally teed her up all over again.
Her eyes stayed on his as he repositioned himself upon the pillows she had thrashed around on.
“If you have no clue what to say, join the club.”
“We don’t have to say anything,” she murmured. “It just is.”
“Yeah.”
Rehvenge rolled over onto his back, and as they lay in the dark with about six inches between them, she missed him as if he’d left the country.
Turning on her side, she rested her head on the inside of her arm and stared at him as he stared at the ceiling.
“I wish I could give you something,” she said, leaving the whole bonding thing for a later time. Too much talk was going to ruin what they’d just shared, and she wanted to keep it going for a little longer.
He glanced over. “Are you crazy? Do I need to remind you what we just did?”
“I want to give you something like that.” She winced. “I don’t mean to make it sound like something was missing…I mean…Crap.”
He smiled and brushed her cheek. “It’s sweet of you, don’t feel awkward about it. And don’t underestimate how much all that pleased me.”
“I want you to know something. No one could have made me feel any better or more beautiful than you just did.”
He turned to her and mirrored her position, resting his head on his thick biceps. “See why it was good for me?”
She took his hand in hers and kissed his palm, only to frown. “You’re growing cold. I can feel it.”
She sat up and pulled the duvet over his body, wrapping him up first, then cuddling into him, while lying on top of the covers.
They stayed like that for a century.
“Rehvenge?”
“Yes.”
“Take my vein.”
She could tell she’d shocked the shit out of him by the way his breath caught. “Excuse…Wh-what?”
She had to smile, thinking that he wasn’t the kind of male who stuttered much. “Take my vein. Let me give you something.”
Through his parted lips she saw his fangs elongate, not so much inching as punching out of his skull.
“I’m not sure…whether that would be…” As his breath grew ragged, his voice got even deeper.
She put her hand to her neck and massaged her jugular slowly. “I think it’s a great idea.”
As his eyes glowed purple, she eased onto her back and cocked her head to the side, exposing her throat.
“Ehlena…” His eyes traveled down her body and returned to her neck.
He was panting and flushed now, a fine sheen of sweat slicking up what portion of his shoulders showed from out of the covers. And that wasn’t the half of it. The scent of dark spices flared until it saturated the air, his internal chemistry reacting to the need he had for her and what she wanted to do for him.
“Oh…shit, Ehlena—”
Abruptly, Rehvenge frowned and looked down at himself. His hand, the one that had been tender on her cheek, disappeared under the covers and his expression changed: The heat and the purpose drained right out of it, leaving only a troubling kind of disgust.
“I’m sorry,” he said hoarsely. “I’m sorry…I can’t…”
Rehvenge scrambled off the bed and took the duvet with him, pulling it free from under her body. He moved fast—but not so quickly that she missed the fact that he had an erection.
He was hard. Big, long, hard as a thighbone.
And yet he disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door solidly.
Then locked it.
THIRTY
John told Qhuinn and Blay he was just going to crash in his room for the night, and when he was sure they’d bought the lie, he slipped out through the staff quarters of the house and went directly to ZeroSum.
He had to work fast, because sure as shit one of the two of them would check in on him and then form a damn search party.
Bypassing the front entrance of the club, he went around to the alley where he’d once seen Xhex crack the head of an asshole with a big mouth and a fistful of coke. Finding the security camera above the side exit, John tilted up his head and stared into the lens.
When the door opened, he didn’t have to look over to know it was her.
“You want to come in,” she said.
He shook his head, for once not bothered by the communication barrier. Shit, he didn’t know what to say to her. Didn’t know why he was here. He just had to come.
Xhex stepped out of the club and pu
t her back against the door, crossing one steel-toed boot over the other. “You tell anyone?”
He met her eyes steadily and shook his head.
“You going to?”
He shook his head.
In a soft tone, one he’d never heard from her or expected to, she whispered, “Why?”
He just shrugged. Frankly, he was surprised she hadn’t tried to take his memories from him. Neater. Cleaner—
“I should have taken your memories,” she said, making him wonder if she was reading his mind. “I was just fucked in the head last night, and you left fast and I didn’t do it. Of course, now they’re long-term, so…”
This was why he came, he realized. He wanted to reassure her that he was going to keep quiet.
Tohr’s departure had cemented the decision. When John had gone to talk with the Brother and found the guy had disappeared again, and without word again, something had shifted in him, like a boulder being rolled from one side of his yard to another, a permanent change in the landscape.
John was alone. And therefore his decisions were his own. He respected Wrath and the Brotherhood, but he wasn’t a Brother and might well never be one. Sure, he was a vampire, but he’d spent most of his life outside of the race, so the symphath revulsion was something he’d never fully understood. Sociopaths? Hell, that shit started at home, as far as he was concerned, with the way Zsadist and V had acted before they’d mated.
John was not turning Xhex in to the king so she could get deported to that colony. No way.
Now her voice became hard. “So what do you want.”
Given the kind of bottom-feeding, opportunistic, desperate people she had to deal with night in and night out, he was not at all surprised by the demand.
Holding her stare, he shook his head and made a cutting motion over his throat. Nothing, he mouthed.
Xhex looked at him with cold gray eyes, and he felt her get into his head, sensing the push against his thoughts. He let her probe to see where he was at, because that more than any words he might have spoken would be what reassured her most.
