by Gaja J. Kos
“Yeah… But I’m not the only lucky one here, am I?” Nicklas met my gaze.
I dipped my head and let that inner spark show in my eyes. “No, you’re not.”
After Karolin and Laia came over and we spent a few minutes chatting, I sailed off to do another round around the room. Again, wisps of attention trailed behind me, but far lesser in magnitude than before. I grabbed another gin and tonic and just started mapping out where I’d head next when Ewart, Pascal, and Leif strode into the room.
No Aric, though.
From the rumble in the atmosphere, I could tell I wasn’t the only one wondering when he’d make an appearance—though probably for entirely different reasons.
Ewart grabbed a beer and sidled up to me. “Can I tease you now?”
I snorted.
“Aric and I can still make the lot of you wait until you’re gray with saggy balls,” I said, remembering Leif’s previous comment.
“Could’ve fooled me”—Ewart took a swig—“if I hadn’t heard you making out like half an hour before.”
Due to his incubus nature, he’d probably picked up on a lot more than just the sound of us making out.
We stared at each other through narrowed eyes, then both broke out cackling until my abdominal muscles burned.
“Say, where’s Aric?” I asked when I finally caught my breath.
“Miss him already?” Ewart cocked an eyebrow, then cut in before I could hit him with a reply. “Last I saw him, he told us to go ahead and dipped back into the dressing room. Probably making himself extra pretty for you.”
Though I could definitely see Aric doing that, him being alone didn’t sit right with me. The only reason I’d left him then was because I had check-ins to perform and knew Aric would be with the guys.
Ewart must have read my unease from my face, because he cursed and said, “We shouldn’t have left him, yeah?”
“It’s all right,” I assured him. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel bad because he didn’t do what was, in essence, my job. “I’ll go get him.”
“I think you already did.” Ewart winked, and I was grateful for the twist back into his carefree, feel-good vibe.
I slipped through the door, past the demon who nodded to let me know she had things covered while I was gone, then took the corridor that would lead me to the dressing room. I stepped inside, but the damn space was empty.
Crap.
Sucking in a lungful of air, I sifted through the signatures, but with the overflow of old sweat, showered skin, and deodorant, the unique fragrances of all four guys jumbled into a cloud of scents that was near impossible to pick apart.
I stepped back outside, cleared my senses, and tried again. Aric’s trademark fragrance swirled in the corridor, but it was as if he’d moved around quite a lot in a narrow timeframe, making it hard to pick out just which trail was the freshest.
I opted to follow the one heading outside, since I knew he liked to treat himself to a smoke before attending the afterparty. The guard by the door met my gaze when I approached.
“Is Aric Sutter outside?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Haven’t seen him since before the show.”
Well, fuck.
“Thanks.” I forced out a tight smile.
I turned on my heel to walk back down the corridor and only narrowly avoided slamming into another guard. The unlit cigarette flew from his hand.
“Shit, sorry.” I sidestepped, just to give him some room.
“No worries. You looking for Sutter?” The guy picked up his cigarette. “Saw him talking to one of the stagehands a couple of minutes ago.”
I thanked the guard, then walked in the direction of the stage. My pulse refused to level even though Aric checking in with the crew was a perfectly normal thing for the vamp to do. It was all part of his routine. Nothing to be concerned about.
But the closer I got, the less I liked the vibe grazing against my skin.
Through the walls, I could hear the crew packing up the last of the equipment, but up ahead, where the door to the stage stood closed—
A grunt punched through the uneasy air, and the hairs on my arms rose.
Even contorted with pain, I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
Aric.
Chapter 22
I bolted for the end of the corridor and barged through the door. Both wings banged open, and the stench of blood—vampire blood—that crashed into me was so thick, so dense, it felt almost solid.
Acid stung the back of my tongue.
My primal wolfish brain took over as I froze and kicked me hard into action. I shoved past the packed-up cases of equipment the crew hadn’t cleared yet, then leaped over the three steps onto the darkened stage.
Two shadow-coated figures burned into my vision.
Aric, lying splayed across the empty ground. A man hunching over him, his hands gleaming wet with what could only be blood.
Milton.
The bastard snapped his head in my direction, revealing a rabid, bloodstained face, then blurred off. Shit.
I launched myself off the stage, dropped into a roll in the pit to keep my momentum, then sprinted after the bastard. Up ahead, the main door to the club stood ajar, the werewolf guard nowhere in sight. Shit, I thought we’d agreed all personnel remained present until the club cleared out, but he must have signed off sometime after I’d watched him secure the door.
Signed off…or worse.
Willing more power into my muscles, I propelled myself after the vamp. I couldn’t let Milton get away, torn tendons be damned.
I closed the distance to the fucker, and when my mind calculated this was as close as I could get, I threw myself at Milton’s speeding form.
Though the whole thing couldn’t have taken more than three seconds tops, everything unrolled at a slow yet impossibly fast pace all at once.
My fingers first met air—
Then snagged him by the foot.
Yanked out of his high-speed mode, Milton crashed down hard.
The next moment, I was atop him.
The bastard snarled and bucked in an attempt to throw me off. I wrestled him right back.
It felt like riding a fucking mechanical bull, but one that was all jerky motion and bony strength. But worst of all—totally fucking unpredictable. It was only a matter of time when he’d send me flying across the pit.
I did my best to match him, ease out the jarring forces he was shoving out, but his next buck, I careened sideways.
Milton’s torso shot up. He jammed his hands between us and pushed me off, rising to his feet—
I lashed out and smashed my fist into his balls.
A grunt filled the open space, but instead of victory, chills sliced down my spine.
That grunt hadn’t been Milton’s.
It was Aric’s.
The split second I’d lost my focus, rendered immobile by the pain that threaded through the grunt, was all it took for Milton to blur away. Everything inside me roared to go after the fucker, but another of Aric’s grunts, weaker this time, sent me running in the other direction.
I jumped onto the stage and skidded over to Aric on my knees.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He was bleeding from what looked like a thousand cuts, his clothes sliced up to reveal the gaping wounds, the ravaged collarbones…
Bile pushed at the back of my throat, and my stomach knotted.
Not even his healing abilities would be enough to patch up such damage.
Aric looked at me through heavy lids, and what little strength I could still sense in him faded. Fuck.
I positioned myself beside him, then brought my wrist to his mouth. “Drink, Aric. Please, drink.”
But his mouth didn’t move. His fangs didn’t puncture my skin.
Sniffing, I searched through my purse with trembling hands until I found my wallet. I pulled out the first card I could find, not even caring what it was, then snapped it in half and dragged the sharp end across my veins. On the first
try, it barely nicked my skin, but when I sawed across my wrist harder, ignoring the unpleasant sensation, the skin tore open and blood welled from the cut.
Letting the card fall from my fingers, I pressed the open wound to Aric’s mouth.
Nothing happened.
Shit.
My blood tinted his lips, but they weren’t fucking moving. They weren’t fucking—
Barely holding the panic at bay, I pried open Aric’s lips with my free hand and dripped the blood into his mouth.
My heart thrashed against my chest.
How could we have been so wrong? How could we have missed so badly what Milton wanted?
Had he known we were waiting for him?
Was that why he’d escalated?
The whys, though, didn’t even matter. Not when Aric was fucking fading in front of my eyes.
Just as I dredged up the power to howl a distress signal, Aric’s throat bobbed.
A full-bodied sob jolted my chest.
Aric’s lips latched onto the wound, and the prickling of fangs teased my skin as he started to drink. My eyes burned, but I couldn’t even allow the tears to fall—I was too focused on Aric, on every small tell that assured me the blood was working.
Gradually, those tiny indications bloomed into visible cues I had no trouble spotting.
The color returned to his pale cheeks. The bleeding slowed, then stopped entirely as the skin fought to knit itself together.
But what finally caused those tears I’d been too tense to release to fall was when I felt his vitality returning, his body growing stronger with every swallow of my blood.
My werewolf nature kept replenishing what I lost almost in equal measure, and I willed Aric to drink more when he seemed to hesitate. He wouldn’t hurt me. Couldn’t.
His gaze locked on mine, and the force of the love brimming in those beautiful brown depths shook another sob from my lips.
With motion more fluid than someone who’d still been flirting with the brink of death mere minutes ago should even possess, Aric lifted himself off the ground and faced me on his knees.
Understanding and something deeper, something that transcended the usual experience of sensing another living being, pulsed between us. I craned my neck, exposing myself to Aric. As that pull between us swelled to the point where it saturated every atom of air, Aric wound his arms around my body and tugged me to him—then sank his fangs into my vein.
Desire pulsed through my core—the exact same desire that now reigned within Aric’s scent and set the heat blazing through my veins on high.
Once we rode out the wave that could have lasted seconds or minutes, I couldn’t tell, Aric retracted his fangs. He drank deeply for a few more swallows, then ran his tongue up the side of my neck, claiming every last drop.
A soft, intimate sigh that sent a lick of desire up my spine echoed in the open space. Aric straightened before me, our faces mere inches apart.
The way my mind spun had nothing to do with blood loss and everything to do with the vampire holding me in an iron grip, his gaze hooded and lips parted, and breaths flavored with the sanguine scent of me coming out almost as harsh as were mine.
I wanted to look down, check over his injuries to make sure he was truly all right, but my treacherous gaze caught on his lips, and the next thing I knew, Aric was kissing me, his tongue moving against mine with a demand there was no saying no to. To do anything less but surrender wholly would have been a betrayal of my very soul.
When he wound his fingers behind my neck, so deliciously assertive, I moaned and raised myself to my knees. Aric came up with me without breaking contact with my lips, then curved the palm of his free hand around my breast. I writhed, kissing him harder, deeper, my control and caution flaking away under the force of my need for him.
Some distant part of my mind reminded me we were onstage, kneeling in blood—blood that had come from a gravely injured Aric.
But not even that was enough to break the spell I was free-falling into.
Still holding on to the back of my neck with one hand, Aric pulled back. He stared at me with an intensity that sent flames roaring down my veins, and his lips parted to reveal a hint of his teeth. I was pretty sure my mind fractured into a million pieces at the colossal impact of the sight that was Aric fucking Sutter.
Every atom of my body, my heart, and my soul belonged to him.
Aric slid his other hand down my body, my hip, lower—
In a sweeping motion, he dragged his deliciously guitar-hardened fingertips up my thigh, whisking the fabric of my dress up along with them. Anticipation crackled between us, within me, I couldn’t even tell. All I knew was that there was something so fucking magnetic building in the already charged space between our bodies, just waiting to erupt.
Aric’s fingers moved higher still, exposing more and more of my skin—
I breathed through parted lips. Aric’s gaze dipped to my mouth, then locked on mine again.
Fucking surreal.
All of this was fucking surreal. Like some massive trip on heady magic that coaxed out your darkest desires.
And yet…
I felt the veracity of it, of us, so deep in my bones there was no denying where we were headed.
An edge of Aric’s devious lips flicked up, and he shoved his hand into my panties.
“F-fuck.” I grabbed hold of his shoulders.
Offering no reprieve, he plunged his fingers into my wet center while at the same time pressed the butt of his palm against my sensitive clit.
The dual rush of pleasure rocked through my body, and I cried out, holding on to him tighter.
“Yes, Gina,” Aric rasped and worked me harder. Faster. “That’s it.”
Shit, there was no way I could hold back even if I wanted to.
Aric’s gaze mapped out a path between my lips and eyes, scanning my face as if he could read every fine nuance of just what his fingers were doing to me written there. My breaths turned labored, heavy with the ache blazing in my core.
“Oh, gods…” My thighs quaked.
Aric’s hand moved faster, rubbing my clit just the way I liked it. There was that good edge of possession in the way he held me, in the way he fingered me. Like he knew I was his. That I’d always been his.
And that it would be his greatest satisfaction to watch me orgasm under his touch.
I whimpered, my legs trembling, but Aric didn’t let go.
“Come on, Gina.” His voice was velvet fucking sin that unfolded my soul. “Come for me.”
I could have sworn his hand blurred in my godsdamned panties, because what ripped through me wasn’t just an orgasm. It was a storm designed to wreck entire galaxies.
On the wings of the detonating waves, Aric pulled his hands from my panties, his bedroom eyes on me, and licked my wetness of his fingers. One. After. The. Other.
Savoring the taste, his eyes fluttered shut.
I almost came again.
An appreciative grunt rumbled in his chest, then that piercing gaze of his zeroed in on me again. With a wicked curve to his lips, he grabbed me by the waist and blurred us backstage.
My back hit a piece of equipment or construction, I couldn’t tell, didn’t care, not as Aric pressed the length of his body against mine.
Shadows shifted in the periphery of my vision. I craned my head to see a crew member who’d been heading our way quickly change course.
“Oh, fuck,” I whispered, staring after the guy, but Aric turned my head back toward him with a press of a single finger against my chin.
His eyes blazed. “Do you want me to stop?”
We were in public. In public where anyone could stumble upon us.
He’d been fucking hurt, for gods’ sake, on the verge of dying.
Blood caked our skin. Permeated our clothes.
“Gina, do you want me to stop?” Aric asked again, his voice as much a velvet-dark seduction as the scrape of his calloused fingertips against my sensitive skin.
I dragged my teeth along my kiss-swollen lower lip and let out a shuddering breath. “No, I don’t want you to stop.”
Chapter 23
As my whisper dissolved in the charged space between us and its spurs pollinated the raw, robust atmosphere of the shadow-filled backstage area, the point of no return shattered in a thunderclap.
One moment, Aric and I stared at each other, the next, we clashed.
His mouth working hungrily against mine, he pulled off my purse and cast it aside, then yanked down the top of my stretchy dress and shifted aside my bra. Air whisked across my exposed, heated skin that pebbled beneath the caress, but the next second, Aric’s hand was there, cupping the fullness of my breast in a way that made me moan into his kiss.
Shit, he felt right. We felt right—fit fucking perfectly.
Aric’s fiery energy flicked against my flesh, and the arousal in his scent that deepened with every move of his fingers as he kneaded my breast all but drove me insane.
With a low, deep rumble that soaked my panties, he tore away from my lips. Whisper-soft moans rose from me as Aric kissed his way down, down—
He flicked his tongue over my nipple.
I shivered, and my need for him skyrocketed—though how that was possible since the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins, and every nerve in my body were already aflame, I didn’t know. I arched my spine in a silent plea for more, the back of my head bumping against the construction behind me. I didn’t even care. If anything, I needed the fucking support. Needed to feel caged between the cool metal and the embers of Aric’s energy, the hot feel of his mouth on my breast.
After another tease of a lick that set me further on edge than I’d ever fucking been, Aric took my nipple between his teeth.
The delicate taste of pain ignited every last atom of my being.
My back arching once more, I threaded my fingers through Aric’s gorgeous hair. I clung to him as he sucked and bit, pouring pleasure into me until my entire body seemed to vibrate with the swell of another orgasm. His fingers dug into my ribs, and I pressed against him, my breaths coming out as weak, helpless moans.
