by Donya Lynne
Trace’s cock stiffened, and he lifted his head off his arm, staring. Just staring.
In that moment, she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, and he wanted more. Needed more. Would die if he didn’t get more.
Before he could stop himself, his mind penetrated hers, snapping in an instant to the image of him on top of her. She was dreaming about him. Him! And he was fucking her. Hard. And she liked it. She wanted it.
And then he was in his dream self, buried inside her.
For the love of God, this was more than just a wet dream. This was like an out of body experience, where his soul and hers had met up for a little nocturnal emissioning with one another.
Her scent invaded his senses. Her arms gripped him to her. Her legs locked his hammering hips in place.
“More, please more!”
And he wanted to give her more. He wanted to expend himself and fall into her body forever. God, she felt good. Hot, wet, tight.
She came again, digging her nails into the back of his shoulders as pleasure shredded her vocal chords.
Then shit got crazy.
As in crazy hot, crazy good, and crazy holy fuck!
Her fingers clawed at his bare back, her cries coming hard and fast as she fell into delirious spasms beneath his body, coming again and again, unable to stop. Cordray was a nympho. A wired-up bundle of unleashed orgasms he wanted to keep tapping into.
He thrust into her, shoving her legs apart with his knees, grabbing her arms and holding them against the bed, demanding with his clenching thrusts that she give him more. That she give him all of her. He would bleed every ounce of pleasure from her body. He would own her, possess her, claim her! She belonged to him!
As she blew apart yet again, his own climax crested, sweeping him away on a lava flow of molten delirium.
God, he’d never come so hard. So long. With such incredible intensity. He closed his eyes to savor the explosion happening between his legs and hers. Jesus, she was good. No. They were. They were good together. He was fire, and she was gasoline, and as she came again, another orgasm rocketed through his scrotum.
This was what he’d spent his whole life looking for. The one female who could put the smack down on his beast and keep it chained like she was a dragon tamer and it was a pussycat. A female who could arouse him in a way that no other female—or male—ever had.
Just . . . wham, bam, and holy-hell-oh-my-God-and-hallelujah thank you ma’am!
Cordray was the shit in bed!
He could get used to dreams like this. Fuck yeah.
Then the mood shifted. The atmosphere changed and it no longer felt like a dream.
“What the . . .?” Cordray’s sexed-up, sleep-infused voice reached him as if from a cave. “What the fuck?”
He peeled his eyes open. Something was way off here. She was awake. And under him. He had climbed on top of her.
Oh. Shit.
On a stick.
Her eyes opened wide, and she stared up at him like he was the Grim Reaper come to claim her soul.
His hips were between her thighs.
He was rocking himself against her, and she was doing the same to him.
And his cock was throbbing in his jeans.
And, oh fuck, he’d come. He’d fucking come for real, not just in her dream.
Jesus, this was bad.
Oil-spill-in-the-Gulf bad.
He stared down at her, his mind blank.
She stared up at him, mouth open, breathing hard. Then her stare turned into a glare. Then into invisible poisonous daggers.
“What the hell are you doing?” She shoved him off and jumped out of the bed, brushing her hands over her body as if she were covered in spiders. “How dare you! I can’t believe . . .” Her expression morphed into one of fear. “Oh my God, did we . . .? Did you . . .?” She stared in horror at the bed then looked down at her body as if to ensure she was still wearing clothes. Then her gaze hardened as it met his. “You’d better hope we didn’t actually fuck”—she gestured toward the bed—“or I’ll rip off your dick, asshole!”
Shock and awe sent shivers down his spine. “We’re both still dressed, for God’s sake. How could we fuck when we’re both dressed?” He scampered off the bed and toward the door, bile rising in his throat. What had he done? How could he have enjoyed that? With her? Cordray? Satan’s mistress? He must have lost his mind.
“Get out. Out!” She pointed at the door. “You’re supposed to be working, not in here molesting me.”
“Molesting you? Are you kidding? Don’t fucking flatter yourself. You’re not my type.”
Her mouth fell open. “And yet you were on top of me, dry humping me in my own bed.”
“Believe me, honey, there was nothing dry about it.” The words flew from his mouth before he could stop them, and he instantly regretted it. The last thing he wanted was for her to know he’d gotten off. Way off. Because the thick and sticky mess in his Calvin Kleins was one of the biggest loads he’d ever shot, if not the biggest. Damn shit had to be seeping down his thighs.
She gasped. “I should throw you back in Bain’s dungeon for that.”
He blew out a derisive breath. “For what? Coming without a license?”
If looks could kill, he wouldn’t just be dead. He’d already be worm shit. “No, for—”
“Besides, I didn’t hear you complaining,” he said defensively before she could get out another word. “You were getting off as much as I was, sweetheart. Or do you always come a dozen times when you dream about me?”
Her eyes flew wide. “This is your fault. You made me think I was dreaming, when actually you planted that scenario—”
Trace frowned and held up his hand. “Hold up, Maleficent. You were dreaming about me. I didn’t plant anything in your head. I simply looked inside—big fucking mistake, by the way—and there I was. Surprise, surprise. So if anyone should be crying foul, it should be me.”
“Whatever. If that’s the way it really happened, the last I heard, dreaming of having sex with someone isn’t a crime. But you were physically on top of me when I woke up.” She slapped her palm on her chest then shivered as if recalling the way she’d come undone beneath him.
He made sure to stay across the room from her, even though every bone in his body, including the one still straining for more between his legs, wanted nothing more than for him to storm her, toss her on the bed, and bury himself inside her for real for a week.
“We didn’t have sex! Jesus!” He swiped his palm over his scalp. “Get over yourself.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and practically cowered away from him.
God, he wasn’t that bad, was he? Surely, she could think of someone worse to fuck than him. Even though, technically, they hadn’t fucked. After all, dreaming about fucking wasn’t the same as actually fucking.
But, man, it had sure felt real.
After a few long, tense moments passed, she seemed to calm from a rapid boil to a simmer. “Okay, okay. Fine. Whatever. Let’s just . . . this never happened, okay?”
Like hell it never happened! His dick was still letting him know that, yes, it had happened. And that it should happen again. Sooner rather than later. Christ! His dick was in heaven. Wow. That had been unbelievably hot!
But he nodded, anyway. “Whatever you say, chief.” He slashed his hand horizontally through the air like he was karate chopping a slab of plywood and wiping the proverbial slate clean. “Never happened.” It was better to pretend than to acknowledge that major fireworks had gone off inside his balls and that they wanted an encore. “I’m heading down to eat lunch, and then I’m going to bed.” Right after he changed his clothes again.
At this rate, he’d go through every piece of clothing he’d brought with him in less than twenty-four hours.
In his room, he shut the door and plopped his ass onto the edge of the bed and lowered his head into his hands. For the first time in five minutes, he was able to take a deep enough breath to fill his lungs
.
Jesus, that female was something. A sexy, infuriating, scorching, aggravating, remarkable, offensive, blood-pumping-in-a-good-and-bad-way something.
Chapter 16
Cordray sank onto her bed and collapsed forward, her palm pressed to her forehead.
Her body still hummed from the orgasms Trace had given her, both in her dream and in real life. What they’d done had been incredible. Mind-numbing, body-blasting incredible. But as the seconds ticked by now that he was gone, her sense of touch gradually faded, leaving her in an unfeeling void again.
How would she survive three months with him? She’d barely survived the first twelve hours. All she wanted to do was march down the hall, throw open the door to his bedroom, throw him on the bed, and demand that he fuck her until she saw stars, passed out, or both.
Taking a deep breath, she folded herself back into her sheets and clutched a pillow to the front of her body. Maybe if she closed her eyes and fantasized hard enough, she could pretend the pillow was Trace. Except she still wouldn’t be able to feel anything. If the pillow really were Trace, she’d be in sensory overload.
Waking up to find him on top of her, pouring warmth and pleasure into her body, had both thrilled and terrified her. His weight had felt so right pressing down on her, and yet inexplicably horrifying.
For thirty minutes, she fought to go back to sleep. Just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to, she finally drifted off.
Four hours later, with the smell of fried chicken and homemade dinner rolls drifting up from the kitchen, she awoke.
Thankfully, she’d had no more dreams about Trace, sexual or otherwise.
After taking a quick shower, she slipped into black pencil pants that laced from her outer thighs to the insides of her knees and cinched snugly around her ankles. A jacquard skull pattern stretched up the front of her thighs. Over her black-lace bra, she pulled on a black, short-sleeved top decorated with the image of a giant white skull covered in rhinestones.
As she brushed her hair and pulled it into a ponytail, her mind drifted back to what had happened with Trace. She would have to face him tonight. He would be at dinner, and she would have to look at him. Would he see in her face how much she’d enjoyed what he’d done to her?
She flipped off the bathroom light and returned to her bedroom, where she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on her boots.
What if she had wrapped her arms around him instead of pushed him away? What if she’d allowed herself to feel him . . . hold him . . . God forbid, kiss him? What would have happened? Where would their dream-induced interlude have led?
She closed her eyes, letting herself float among the possibilities. These moments were precious. So incredibly rare. If only she didn’t need Trace to be near for her to actually feel.
Her phone chimed on her nightstand, and her eyes popped open. She swiped the phone into her palm and checked the screen.
She had one new e-mail.
We’re pleased to invite you to audition for membership to Grudge Match. Auditions are performed by running the gauntlet, where you will face some of our toughest members. If you pass, you’re in. If you don’t, membership will be denied.
You’re scheduled to run the gauntlet tonight at 9:00 p.m. If you are unable to audition at this time, please reply to this text and request another audition. We’ll do our best to accommodate you. Attached are the rules for the gauntlet, as well as the address where your audition will take place. We hope to see you this evening.
Cordray raised her eyebrows. This wasn’t the kind of message she’d expected from an underground fight club. She’d assumed her correspondence with the coordinators of Grudge Match would consist of monosyllabic words and a lot of Neanderthal grunting. This message was polite and spoke to a level of refinement more appropriate for royalty than someone in charge of an army of UFC fighters.
She scanned the attachment and plotted the location on her map app. Hopefully, this meant she was one step closer to gathering much-needed evidence against Premier Royce. Bain needed proof that the drecks’ leader was, in fact, conspiring against him and violating the truce that had existed between their two races for centuries. Once they had proof, Bain’s monthly meetings with Royce could take a decidedly different course, because until now, Bain had been required to play nice with that bastard. And she knew playing nice with Royce had just about tapped out Bain’s patience, especially when Royce was obviously hiding incriminating evidence.
Standing, she tucked her phone into her pocket and made her way into the hall. Nine o’clock was still hours away, but if she was going to have the energy to fight, she needed to pack in a good dinner.
Downstairs, she stopped at her office and checked the backtrace she’d run on Skeletor. Just as she’d suspected, it had come up empty. She still had nothing to go on to discover his identity or where he was hiding. He wouldn’t remain hidden for long. In her experience as a bounty hunter, the bad guys always turned up. Maybe it would take a while, and maybe he’d run her in circles, but eventually, Skeletor would fall into her path. When he did, she would be ready for him.
She shut off her computer and headed toward the chatter coming from the dining room. Trace was already seated at the table between Aiden and Null. Now that the school day was over, the other kids seemed as fascinated with him as the twins. He was the center of attention.
“Where are you from?”
“All over, but I live in Chicago now.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m an AKM enforcer.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“A couple.”
“Cordray has a gun.”
“Oh?”
“Are you Cordray’s boyfriend?”
“Um…”
Cordray stepped in. “Okay kids, that’s enough of the twenty questions. Let’s let Trace out of the hot seat and get ready to eat. Books off the table.” She pointed at the random textbooks beside the plates, and then called into the living room to Leon and Riley, who were too busy crushing on one another to pay Trace much attention. “Leon? Riley? Come on, you two. Time for dinner.”
Leon and Riley thought she wasn’t aware of just how strong their puppy love was, but they didn’t know she saw all, knew all. Neither had developed the awareness to sense when she was digging through their minds.
Their infatuation with one another was endearing, but also troubling. They were in young love. For humans, young love could easily turn into something more permanent, but for vampires, young love often ended badly. Very, very badly. And didn’t Cordray know how true that was?
Sighing inwardly, she turned her attention back to the table as the others settled into their seats. There was no need to think about her past right now—or the pain that went with it. She tried not to dwell on those old memories, but they still filtered through on occasion. And now that Trace was around, those memories seemed to be filtering in more and more, as if he were an antenna tugging at her brain waves to pull her most painful memories to the forefront.
As Mya and Brenna carried platters and bowls of food to the table, she took an accounting of the kids. “Where’s Gavin?”
Gavin, the resident loner. The resident firebug. He’d grown unusually fascinated with fire in the last year, and she was struggling to figure out how to put a stop to his pyromaniac tendencies. She, Mya, and Brenna had to keep a close eye on him at all times to ensure he didn’t burn the whole place down.
Brenna set down a large serving dish of green beans and looked around then glanced in the direction of the back door. “He was just here.”
“I’d better go look for him.” As she stepped out on the deck, she was thankful to have something to do to keep her away from Trace a little bit longer.
Lifting her nose, she inhaled, locating Gavin’s scent, as well as the telltale sulfuric odor of matches and smoke, coming from behind the dorm.
“Gavin!” She leaped off the deck and sprinted toward the smell.
She’d told h
im countless times not to play with fire, and yet, there he was, doing it anyway. Again. For about the tenth time in four weeks.
How the hell was he getting to the matches? Hadn’t they all been put up where he couldn’t reach them? They must have missed a stash somewhere.
She rushed around the corner in time to see him lift a lit match to the corner of a piece of paper.
“GAVIN!”
He jumped and dropped the burning paper in the grass.
Cordray darted forward and stamped her boot on it, putting out the flames. “I’ve told you a thousand times to stop playing with fire, Gavin.” She snatched the box of wooden matches from his hand. “Where did you get these?”
Tears welled in his eyes as he lowered his head, his bottom lip trembling. He didn’t answer her.
“Where, Gavin? Where did you find these?” She shook the box of matches.
Then it dawned on her. These were Trace’s matches.
She took a deep breath and calmed herself as she tucked the box into the cup of her bra. Then she gave Gavin’s hand a light tug. “Never mind, it’s time for dinner. We’ll talk about this later.” But first, she and Trace needed to have a little chat about leaving his matches where Gavin could find them and feed his fire addiction. “Come on.”
Gavin sniffled, stood, and fell in step beside her as she led him back to the house.
He was so quiet, hardly ever speaking, hardly looking anyone in the eye. But the poor kid had watched both his parents fall into cobalt’s grip and die tragic deaths when he’d only been five years old. The trauma had been enough to shut him inside himself.
But you could only shutter the pain from the past for so long before it seeped through, making itself known. And the longer you bottled up the past, the more destructive it became when it broke free from its bonds.
She looked toward the back of the house, thinking about Trace. She’d seen his fear. She’d seen what had happened to his mom and that he’d never talked to anyone about it. He’d held that shit inside him for two hundred years. Sooner or later, it was going to come out. Maybe it already was. Perhaps that’s what caused his seizure at Micah’s house.
