by Tessa Cole
Just thinking about Marcus made me want to scream in frustration, and given how cold Gideon had been toward me, I didn’t believe for one second it was all about respecting whatever I had with Marcus. That, and no matter how much I ached for Marcus, he was determined to push me away. Which I had originally thought during the mess with the archnephilim was for the best, and now… not so much.
The elevator door slid open and Jacob carried me inside.
“Marcus and I aren’t anything,” I said.
“He’s worried about you.”
The door slid closed, reminding me of the last time I’d been in this elevator with Marcus and sending a shiver of desire sliding through me.
Jacob’s grip on me tightened. “We all are.”
“I’m determined not to be a liability on the team.” Or to at least minimize my powerlessness against supers as much as possible.
“You’re hardly a liability,” he said, his rich voice sliding another sensual shiver through me. “You took down that archnephilim almost entirely by yourself.”
“So, hey.” I forced a laugh, determined to not acknowledge my growing desire for Jacob. “What’s to worry about, then?”
Jacob’s gaze locked with mine filled with—? Hunger? No, need? Longing? Desire? The emotions flitted across his expression, stealing my breath. His pupils dilated, and the temperature in the elevator shot up. It was desire in his eyes, one matching the desire sliding slow and sensual within me.
Chapter 10
I dipped my gaze to his lips, wondering what they’d feel like against mine. I already knew the bone-melting bliss of his bite and couldn’t help but think back on Victoria’s words. How would it feel to ride that bliss while he pushed inside me?
But I didn’t know if I wanted to sleep with him because he was damn hot and because I felt safe in his arms, or because of his claim.
Except I couldn’t feel the claim in my chest at all. Not even a hint of a twist. There was just the unfulfilled desire I’d been aching with since I’d left Operations a week and a half ago.
The elevator door slid open, and Jacob wrenched his gaze away from me.
He cleared his throat and strode down the fifth floor hall, lined with dark wood doors each with a card reader lock. “You’re right. There’s nothing to worry about.”
But the raised temperature didn’t decrease.
We passed the room I’d had last time, turned right at the end of the hall, and stopped at the first door. This one didn’t have a card reader but a fingerprint pad. Jacob unlocked the door with his thumb and opened it without jostling me.
Inside was a small apartment with a kitchenette smaller than the one in my apartment — and mine was small. It sat along the left side of a living room area that had a huge dark brown couch, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase packed with paperbacks, and a mahogany desk in the back corner by the large bay window. The room was done in creams and yellows, with hints of oranges and reds, reminding me of a warm summer day with the sun high in the sky. Midday, something he wouldn’t have seen for a long time until the JP had given him the enspelled silver bracelet that protected him from the sun.
He headed through the only other door in the apartment and stepped into a bedroom the complete opposite in coloring, in varying shades of gray. A California king bed with a dark gray comforter and black sheets took up most of the space, which didn’t surprise me given how big he was, but the large clear-front gun case beside it, displaying a variety of antique pistols and rifles, did. A leather hat with a wide brim, similar to the one Logan wore, hung on the corner, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that their connection was more than just being Victoria’s offspring.
The bathroom, just off the bedroom, was similar to the one that had been in my assigned room, with creams, grays, and blue with chrome fixtures. It was probably the standard design for all the rooms. The only difference for Jacob’s was instead of a tub-shower combo, he had a large standup shower.
He set me on my feet, leaning me against the glass shower wall, and shifted back, his arms crossed against his broad chest. “You good if I leave and figure out where Kol put your bag, or do you need me to stay?”
The claim returned with a vengeance, twisting in my chest. Stay. Don’t leave me. Tell me what to do. Let me please you. Damn, for a second there I’d thought it was finally easing up.
Jacob frowned. “Essie?”
“Can you please tell me to clean up,” I forced out.
“Do you think you’ll pass out?”
I opened my mouth to say no but “I’m not sure” came out instead.
Why the hell had I said that? I was fine walking in triage—
Except I hadn’t been fine. I was sore and exhausted and dizzy. I was still God damned dizzy.
He pursed his lips and frowned, his gaze boring into mine for an agonizing second as if he could see into my soul, then gave a tight nod, coming to a decision.
“Okay.” He shrugged out of his duster and pulled off his T-shirt, exposing a muscular chest with a fine dusting of pale hair that trailed down his washboard abs and into his pants.
My pulse stalled and the desire I’d felt in the elevator flared hot and entwined with his claim.
He pulled off his boots and socks, started the shower, and turned back to me. The temperature in the bathroom increased and turned humid — too soon to be from the heat of the shower.
The need to touch him and be touched by him was overwhelming. I reached out and pressed a hand above his no-longer beating heart. His breath came up short, and the muscles in his jaw clenched.
This was a bad idea. I could shower myself. It would be fine.
I straightened to prove to him I was fine — no matter what the claim had made me say — and the bathroom twisted and darkened.
He grabbed me, wrapping an arm around my waist, and pulled me close to him, steadying me. “I got you.”
God, he did, and I wanted more.
I needed a distraction.
“Tell me about Logan.” Maybe talking about the reason I was dizzy and exhausted from Gideon’s brand would cool me off.
“Good idea.” He leaned me back against the wall, grabbed the bottom of my T-shirt, and tugged it off over my head.
I locked my gaze on the wall. If I looked in his eyes — or watched us in the mirror over the sink — I’d give in and kiss him, and that would just make a complicated situation more complicated. It was the claim. The claim. It had to be. Maybe if I said it enough times I’d completely believe it.
“Logan Dunn and I are blood brothers.”
He knelt, his warm breath feathering down my chest and stomach, and helped me take off my runners and socks. Then he reached for the button on my jeans and my breath hitched.
I grabbed his hands before be could undo my pants, my gaze leaping back to his dark eyes.
“I know the affects of the claim,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
And in that moment, with that look in his eye and the heat of his emotions, I wondered if the affects went both ways.
“But I’m not going to let you pass out in the shower.” He pushed my hands away, undid my pants, and pulled them down. “We can keep this professional.”
The claim tightened at his command, fighting my desire. He’d said to keep this professional. That would please him. Except my yearning still heated my skin.
I stepped out of my pants and turned my back to him to take off my bra and underwear. Perhaps if I wasn’t looking at him, I could embrace the claim’s command to keep it professional, except I could still sense his massive body close behind me.
“You and Logan were blood brothers?” I reached to unhook my bra, but his hands got there first, releasing the clasp and sliding the straps from my shoulders. “Is that because Victoria sired both of you?”
“We were blood brothers before we were turned.” He tugged down my underwear and I resisted the urge to press my naked body against him. “His family took in my unwed mother when she had me and her fa
ther, my grandfather, disowned her.”
“Because she had you out of wedlock?” I forced myself to move to the shower’s entrance, still clinging to the shower wall to keep standing.
Jacob stayed close, his hands on my upper arms to steady me and catch me if I fell.
Darkness shuddered at the edge of my vision, but I managed to slide inside, shuffle to the other side, and lean against the white tiled wall.
“No, because she had a Cheyenne’s baby out of wedlock.” He leaned closer and reached past me to grab a shower pouf from the hook at the bottom of his shower caddy. His bare chest pressed against my shoulder, and I struggled to stand perfectly still. He filled the pouf with soap, handed it to me, and moved back to steady me, only his hands in contact with my skin, barely skimming my hips, making the claim thrill that we were managing to keep it professional. And yet my body continued to ache with desire for him.
“Logan and I did everything together.” He blew out a heavy breath that rushed across the back of my neck.
I bit back a moan and concentrated on washing myself as fast as my dizzy head would let me.
“We were getting into trouble from the very beginning, and when his family was killed, we swore a blood oath to avenge them.” His grip on my hips tightened. “That was the night we learned he was a witch. Magic had burst around us the moment we’d cut our palms and pressed them together. Scared the shit out of both of us.”
“So he didn’t know he was a witch?” I shuffled into the spray of water to rinse myself off. Jacob shuffled with me, drawing close enough that my back brushed his chest. I bit back another moan. Even with the compulsion from the claim to keep it professional, I wasn’t going to be able to last, because in truth, my aching desire was a need to be held, to lose myself in the physical and release all my churning worries just for a moment. I wanted Marcus but he was pushing me away. I pushed away from Gideon, because I was afraid of what would happen with his mating brand if I actually got to know him.
And if I was smart, I’d keep my distance from Jacob, but even as I thought that, I leaned back, pressing my body against his. His hands slid across my skin, one wrapping across my belly, the other cupping my breast, and pulled me close. My head tipped back against his chest and this time I did release the moan. God, he felt so good. To hell if this was the claim making me desire him or not. I was going to shatter if I didn’t release the pressure inside me. Right now I could live with having claim-induced sex with him.
“Essie,” he murmured, his lips pressed to the back of my head.
“Kiss me.”
“You don’t mean that,” he said, but his hands didn’t move from my body.
The shower spray beat against my hypersensitive flesh, and I rubbed against him, savoring the feel of his hardened erection underneath his wet jeans rough against my skin. “Kiss me.”
He groaned and his hand on my breast tightened as the one on my waist trailed lower. His fingers reached the crux between my hip and thigh, and his lips dipped to the sensitive spot just behind my ear.
I trembled with anticipation and tipped my head, offering him better access. A groan rumbled low in his chest and his lips grazed against my neck. My pulse picked up. The last time he’d bitten me there, I hadn’t known how good it would feel. I hadn’t wanted to give him control of me and my body, and a part of me had fought it. Now he already had control. There was no point in fighting, only in losing myself to the sensations and forgetting about everything else.
A shudder swept through him and he released my breast, yanked the soaking wet gauze from my cheek, and slowly, firmly, raked his tongue along the wound.
Sensual heat shot straight to my core, and I gasped. I was already wet and yearning, trembling with need. There should have been pain, that should have stung, but there was only bliss, curling tighter in my womb. And all he’d done was lick me. God! I squirmed in his grasp, rubbing myself harder against his erection. He needed to take those jeans off, but his hand returned to my breast and his embrace controlled me. I couldn’t turn around to kiss him or unbutton those pants.
He raked his tongue across the wound again, and his fingers on my thigh brushed through my curls and skimmed my folds. The heat jerked taut within me.
“Oh, yes,” I gasped. My thoughts whirled. Take me, control me, satisfy me. And I wasn’t sure if it was the claim or not. All my aching heart and soul was gone, burned away in a blaze of pleasure.
He pressed his lips to my wound and sucked as he slid a finger inside me. My climax shuddered already on the edge from his magic. He added a second finger, filling me, and rubbed circles on my clit.
I moaned, my breath fast, and he took another pull on my cheek. His thumb pressed hard against my clit, the circles faster, matching the pace with my breath and pulse, and his fingers worked inside me building the heat into a tightly formed supernova that exploded with a cry of pleasure.
He held me tight as I rode the wave, his lips still pressed to my cheek, but instead of sucking, this time a wave of warmth seeped across it, his miniscule bit of healing magic closing my wound just enough to stop the bleeding.
“Thank you,” he whispered against my cheek, then lifted me and carried me out of the shower. He set me on my feet long enough to wrap me in a towel, and carried me to his bed. Now I couldn’t tell if I was dizzy because of Gideon getting shot or Jacob bringing me to climax.
He pulled back the covers and laid me on the bed. “I’ll go find your clothes.”
I grabbed his hand before he could leave and tugged him back to me. “I meant what I started in the shower.”
His pupils dilated, his desire raw in his eyes, and the temperature, still hot and humid with desire, spiked to sweltering for a heartbeat. “You won’t know that until the power of my claim has eased enough for you to say no to it.”
He tugged his hand free, grabbed a dry pair of pants and a T-shirt from his closet, and left.
I groaned. He was right, and yet I didn’t want to fight my attraction to him. Just like I didn’t want to fight my attraction to Marcus.
Jeez, and they weren’t the one I was supposedly destined to be with.
I tugged the sheet and comforter over me and curled up in Jacob’s bed. It smelled like him, masculine, rich with a hint of freshness that I now knew came from his body wash. My skin still tingled from my climax, and I closed my eyes and embraced the sensation. There was nothing I could do until Jacob found me a clean set of clothes, and for just a few minutes, I didn’t want to worry about Marcus and Gideon. So I focused on Jacob’s arms around me, his wet body pressed against mine, and his hands on me.
I imagined him finishing what we’d started in the shower, his power sliding through me as he drove into me, bringing me to climax again, my name on his lips as he came.
“Essie.” A sensual rumble of his deep, resonant voice that fed his claim, entwining his essence more than it already was with mine, and attuning me perfectly to him.
“Essie.”
God, I felt so good.
A weight settled on my shoulder, and another, bigger one on the bed.
“Essie,” Jacob said, his voice clearer, no longer soft and dreamy.
I opened my eyes and met Jacob’s gaze. For a second I’d thought he’d returned to take me up on my offer. There was a tenderness in his expression I hadn’t seen before, one that warmed me to my core. But he drew his hand away from me and shifted back. He still sat on the edge of the bed beside me, but the distance between us was clear.
Which, as much as I was disappointed, was probably for the best. I’d had, if not a full reprieve, at least some reprieve from the emotional mess with Marcus and Gideon. But I wouldn’t be able to ignore it. As much as I might want to at the moment.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Still a little boneless and definitely satisfied. But that wasn’t what he was really asking about.
I stretched, testing my aching muscles, which weren’t nearly as achy as they had been before or should
be after lying down for—?
I had no idea how long I’d been out. If Jacob had just contacted Kol and found my bag, it should have only been a few minutes, but my eyes felt gritty, as if I’d slept with my contacts in for at least an hour.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Almost three hours.” He shifted back even farther. “Try sitting up. See if you’re still dizzy.”
“You let me sleep for three hours.” I held the comforter to my chest and eased into a sitting position. The room remained perfectly steady. There wasn’t even a hint of exhaustion from the brand, only the gentle hum that I recognized as Gideon’s magic felt between the skin-crawling bites from my buzz.
“Recovering was the best thing you could do. You should get dressed.” He stood, headed to the doorway to the living room, and leaned against the frame with his back to me. “Kol and Marcus will be back in about ten minutes and Amiah is about to wake Gideon.”
My duffle bag sat beside the bed with a keycard and my holstered Glock on top.
“You found out which room I was assigned?”
“Same as before.”
“Well, that’ll make it easy to remember the next time Gideon gets shot and I’m too exhausted to think straight.” I set the Glock and the keycard on the nightstand beside a paperback with a planet and a spaceship on the cover, and opened my bag.
“If that happens, you don’t honestly think anyone on the team is going to let you stagger up to your room by yourself?”
Probably not. It depended on what condition the rest of the team was in and if Marcus was still doing everything in his power to push me away.
Except I knew that wasn’t true. If it really came down to keeping me safe, Marcus would step up in a heartbeat.
“So what’s the plan?’ I dressed in the only other set of clothes I had at Operations, and did a quick search for my shoes. They sat beside the bathroom door without a drop of blood on them. “You cleaned my shoes, too?” And I hadn’t noticed him return to the room to grab my stuff from the bathroom.
