“Slade.”
He sighed and resumed his stroking. “I’ll have to talk to him about spilling secrets.”
“Why is it a secret? Do you have a problem with it?”
“Nope.” His hand glided back up her spine. His laugh, as deep and as sexy as always, brushed past her ear. “It’s just not a spectator sport.” A shiver traveled from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. God, he was too damn sexy.
“Why do you do it?”
He shrugged. “Because I like the taste of food even if it doesn’t agree with me anymore.”
“And there’s nothing more to it than that?”
“Not a thing.”
She didn’t believe him. Slade was right. Caleb ate food for the same reason she cooked on that stupid stove. It made her feel connected to what she’d lost. It made her feel normal.
“Now that I’ve told you my secret,” Caleb whispered in that deep drawl of his that was seduction itself, “why don’t you tell me yours?”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
The stillness of his body should have been a warning, but she was so focused on the sparks of desire dancing in the wake of his touch, she never saw it coming.
“Tell me about the dream.”
She dropped her head back into the cradle of his palm. He’d been distracting her all right, but not for sex. “Oh, you’re good.”
“Thank you.” Beneath the lingering amusement in his gaze, there was an unmistakable seriousness.
She touched the indentation of his smile. “I suppose Slade put you up to this?”
“He’s not pleased with you right now. He wants to run those tests.”
She trailed her finger down over his chin to his neck, tracing the strong tendons under the collar of his shirt to the ridge of his collarbone. She didn’t particularly care what Slade wanted. She did not want to be poked and prodded and maybe found deficient. “Which concerns me, how?”
He stared at her sternly. “His displeasure is mine.”
She shook her head. Who did he think he was fooling, with that intimidation thingy? “I’m shaking in my shoes.”
His hand shaped to the curve of her ribs. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to get that cute little ass paddled.”
Only Caleb would describe her ass as cute. She kissed his chin, wiggling her rear on his thighs. “Promises, promises.”
Beneath her, his muscles clenched along with the tightness of his grasp. The smile she loved mellowed his drawl. “You are a wild woman.”
Other areas of their relationship might keep her up nights, but not this one. The sex between them was good. Very good. “You like it.”
“I do, but it doesn’t mean I won’t take you in hand if you need it.”
She rolled her eyes. “That is so archaic.”
His fingers caught her chin and brought her gaze to his. “I’m not one of your modern men, Allie. I protect what’s mine. However I have to.”
She jerked her chin. Caleb didn’t let her go. She knocked his hand away. She didn’t need his support. Annoyance worked just fine. “How? By spanking me?”
“If necessary.”
Good God, he meant it! “And when that doesn’t work, what’s plan B? Locking me in the tower with no food and water?”
“What makes you think it won’t work?”
She grabbed his wrist, letting him into her mind, letting him see her reaction to just the thought. “Just a hunch.”
His gaze sharpened to that razor intensity she felt deep inside. She let him read to his heart’s content.
His grip tightened, then softened as he backed off mentally. “You are one damn stubborn woman, Allie Johnson.”
She ignored the long-suffering sigh that punctuated the statement. “You like that, too.”
His lips quirked. “Sometimes.”
She shrugged, relaxing her own grip. “And it’s Allie Sanders.”
His body tightened in that way that was at once sexy and intimidating. “Like hell it is.”
This probably wasn’t the time to bring it up, but since the door had been opened, there was something Caleb needed to understand, and sooner was better than later. “I do not consider a blood exchange as binding as marriage vows.”
The squaring of his shoulders and the set of his chin spoke volumes. “We’re married.”
“No.” She shook her head. “We’re not. You’re handsome, sexy, and you’ve got the best-tasting blood around, but I personally do not regard those as sound qualities around which to build a marriage.”
“Then you’d better find something you do like and hold tight, baby, because you’re well and truly hitched.”
She sat up straighter. “We’re not married until I consider us married. And I don’t.”
He pulled her in until her groin mated to his. He was aroused, angry, and determined, and her body reacted with an ecstatic, hopeful pulse. “Would you like me to prove it?”
She dismissed the reaction of her body with a wave of her hand. “That’s just sex.”
He pressed her hips down over his, drawing a moan past her lips. He felt so good. “This sexy little body reacts to me, and me alone.”
“All that means is we’re compatible in bed.”
“In my day, two people who’d exercised that compatibility to the level we have were married.”
She patted his cheek, feeling his frustration. “But your day has come and gone. Times have changed and women with it.”
“Not that much.”
“Oh yeah, that much.”
His thumbnail sliced through the crotch of her jeans, the talon retracting as he slid his thumb into the wet folds pressed against him—rubbing, searching—until she gasped and jerked above him. “I disagree.”
“I repeat—this is just sex, mindless chemistry.”
But he was right. It did have uses. He was no longer hassling her about her dreams and Slade’s experiments.
Caleb shook his head, his green eyes locked with hers, challenging her with the truth he obviously believed inviolate. She studied him more closely, remembering that fear she’d sensed in him. Maybe a truth he even needed to believe was inviolate.
“This is us together,” Caleb growled. The rough pad of his thumb began a gentle massage that sparked an anything-but-gentle response. A whole chorus of yeses took off in her core, riding the timbre of his growl as well as the knowing stroke. “This is how I know you’re mine.”
No amount of deep breathing could control the surging passion, the drive for the magic moment he invariably delivered. She didn’t even try, giving him this “win” because he needed it so much, letting him bring her to the orgasm he wanted. As her body jerked and contracted, his stroking slowed, but didn’t stop, keeping her humming in the aftermath. He pulled her against his chest, enfolding her in his strength as if he knew what a lure it was to her. “This is how I know your protests to the contrary are just so much pride-puffing hot air.”
“Why is it so hard for you to separate sex from love?”
“I’m not talking love.”
He could have fooled her. “Then what are you talking about?”
“Commitment, and the fact that the primitive vampire in me is wild about the primitive vampire in you and, that being the case, neither of us has a choice on being together from here on out.”
“You mean you didn’t choose me?”
“No more than you chose me.”
Oh hell, that hurt. She might not be up to marriage commitment but she’d definitely been leading with her heart. She shoved against his chest. Caleb didn’t let go. She bared her talons. He just gazed at her, infuriatingly calm in the face of her threat. Allie dug the points into his chest. He winced, but instead of pulling away, he sat there, letting her do as she willed, strange lights swirling in his gaze. His thumb stroked her harder as blood seeped into his shirt. “Sheathe your claws.”
“No.” She wanted to hurt him the way he’d just hurt her. Deeply. Permanently.
“You’r
e just making him happy.”
“Who?”
“The vampire.”
“You’re the vampire.”
“I’m not.”
He was. “Let me go.”
“Just as soon as you accept what’s going on, I will.”
She raked her nails down his torso, glad when he grunted in pain, furious when he wedged his hand farther between them, his thumb stroking as his fingers probed. Her body’s immediate betrayal galled her pride. “Fuck you.”
“If you keep this up, the only one who’s going to be fucked is you.”
“Go to hell.”
“I’m already there.”
“You are so clichéd.” Despite her anger, her body opened for the thrust of his fingers and her mind opened for the intrusion of his.
“But you want me.”
“No. I don’t.”
It was a lie. No matter how angry she was, it didn’t matter to her body. It wanted him, and nothing she did dimmed that fire.
“But she does,” he whispered in her ear as he lifted her. “And you can’t fight her, can you?”
“Yes.” She could. She was mistress of her body.
He held her still while he unzipped his jeans, then pulled her back against him until his hard cock pressed against the well of her vagina. A little pulse and jerk slid silky fluid across her flesh, burning hot as it imprinted his need into her skin.
“Prove it,” he whispered in a hard, tight drawl. “Tell me to stop.”
Stop.
The order never made it past her throat as her body wept and pleaded for the inch she needed to complete the union. The burn spread inside, burrowing deep into her need, amplifying it.
“C’mon, baby. Tell me to stop.” Caleb lowered her a fraction more, just enough to tease her with the fulfillment she craved. “Before it’s too late.”
Oh God, she couldn’t. She couldn’t. Her entire body throbbed and ached, begged for the potential joining with mindless fervor. She wanted him, needed him, with a yearning that went so much deeper than anger or lust. Whether he felt the same or not. Whether he differentiated what part of him wanted what or not, she knew what she needed. Him. She wrapped her legs around his waist. The back of the chair bit into her calves. The sharp pain blended into the moment, driving her need higher.
He gave her a fraction more, the whimper that slipped past her lips a deeper betrayal than the internal need. There was compassion mixed with the lust in his drawl as he lowered her hard onto his erection. Her high-pitched cry wrapped around the truth as he said quietly, “In this, Allie girl, we’re both fucked.”
11
“I do not consider myself fucked.”
“Your body hasn’t even stopped pulsing around mine,” Caleb said, his drawl sleepy and sensual, “and you’re already arguing?”
She nodded against his bare chest, her muscles like Jell-O, unable to do more. “Yup.”
His hand on her back stroked softly. “Fess up, you just like to argue.”
“Not really, but I have a genetic incompatibility with lies.”
“Meaning?”
“I can’t just let something go if I don’t believe in it.”
He grunted. The chair creaked as he shifted her higher. The shiver that went through her as her body adjusted to his was echoed in his moan. “So what aren’t you agreeing with?”
“I don’t agree that I’m now schizophrenic. There isn’t a vampire me and a ‘me’ me.”
“Then what do you see?”
“Me with a slightly altered reality.”
“Slightly?” She didn’t need to look to know he arched his right eyebrow. His sleepy, dry tone said it all. “How do you figure that?”
She traced the ridge of his pectoral, pushing the edge of his shirt aside, noting the missing buttons as she did. She had a vague recollection of them popping off as she’d ripped it open, anxious to get to his skin. She really was a wild woman with him. “I’m still in this world, still in touch with who I am, and still in control.”
“Except when you dream.”
She pursed her lips in exasperation. “You’re like a dog with a bone, Johnson.”
He lifted her off him and settled her against his side. “It’s important.”
She clenched her thighs against the sense of loss. She felt so empty without him. So incomplete. She cuddled into his warmth, her hand dropping to the top of his stomach and then down to his washboard abs. She pressed. There was no give. The man was hardheaded and hard-bodied. “I don’t see how. It’s not even a dream, more like a delusion brought on by pain and chemical deprivation.”
One arm curved around her shoulder. “So you hope.”
He had her there. She was seriously hoping that’s all it was. “It can’t be more.”
“Haven’t you figured out by now that anything is possible?”
“Then, if anything is possible, it’s possible the dream is just an illusion.”
He looked at her from under his lashes. “So why aren’t we talking about it?”
“Because you’ll go all eighteen sixties on me and will want to wrap me tighter in cotton wool than you already have.”
“It’s that bad?”
“It’s weird, the way all dreams are.”
“In a way that has you worried.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The way you cling to me when you come out of it.”
With the sliver of strength that returned to her muscles, she pushed back. She reached the bend of his elbow before he put a stop to her retreat. Looking up, she realized he’d allowed her that much just so he could see her face. She poked her finger at his chest. “One of these days I’m going to perfect my poker face, and you are so going to be out of luck.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to read your mind.”
Not if she learned to block him first, he wouldn’t. “An alternative would be to just allow me some space in which to work out my own problems.”
The small smile faded. “There’s no such thing as your problems. Everything that happens to you is my concern.”
“Just because everyone else indulges your nosiness doesn’t mean I have to.”
His finger under her chin again had her looking him in the eye. “Keeping abreast of all potential threats has kept us alive for the last two centuries.”
“The phrasing of that sentence would imply a threat exists.”
“There’s always something ready to come at what a man has.”
He said that with the utter calm of a man used to conflict, who regarded it as a way of life. She didn’t know whether to be comforted or be dismayed by that point of view. “War doesn’t have to be a way of life.”
“I’m not at war.”
Allie blinked, checked his expression, and checked again, but nothing had changed. “You’re serious.”
“Don’t I look it?”
He always looked serious. “If you’re not at war, why do you hole up here with your army of weres behind a wall of illusion, guns always at the ready?” She shook her head. “Either you’re at war with something or you’re highly paranoid.”
“Implying what?”
“Implying I don’t think you’re paranoid.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Some would argue with you on that.”
“Then they would be wrong, but that just leaves the question, what are you?”
“Careful.” A floorboard creaked as he adjusted their position. “Very careful.”
Allie hitched herself higher. “Maybe too careful?”
Caleb laughed and kissed her lips. “There’s no such thing.”
She kissed him back before she realized what she was doing. “Statements like that will get you another argument.”
He shrugged, unconcerned, his fingers ruffling her hair. “I can handle it.”
Yes, he could. Allie was beginning to believe he could handle anything. Except her, because he had this idea that she needed peace. All the time.
“Caleb?”
“What?”
“You know this stress-free zone you’re trying to set up around me?”
The ruffling stopped. “Yeah.”
“It’s one of the things that’s fraying my nerves.”
“I think you’ve had enough excitement for this year.”
She opened her mouth to retort when a commotion in the hall redirected her energy. Allie grabbed her jeans and tugged them on, shooting Caleb a resentful glare when all he had to do was adjust and button. She wasn’t going to fight with Caleb as his brothers bore witness. Not because she feared a public discussion, but one thing she’d learned over the last two weeks—the Johnson brothers stuck together. Didn’t matter if they all agreed on the point under discussion, let an outsider disagree with one of them, and they all landed squarely on the same spot in an astounding display of loyalty. Something one rarely saw today in society’s more “open” mentality. It was one of the things she really liked about the Johnsons. It was just a pain in the butt that they saw her as an absolute outsider when it came to disagreeing with Caleb.
She pushed Caleb’s hands aside as he pulled her T-shirt down over her breasts. Jumping to her feet, she snapped her jeans just as the kitchen door opened. Jared tipped his hat as he strolled in. Jace wasn’t far behind, their smiles letting her know they knew what she and Caleb had been doing. She smiled back. The werewolf who brought up the rear got a glare. She still hadn’t forgiven Derek for imprisoning her that first night.
Derek reached for a bear claw as he cleared the door. Allie snatched the plate from beneath his hand. Caleb cocked an eyebrow at her as he rolled to his feet with lazy grace.
“They’re not good enough for company yet.”
Derek smiled. “I’m not picky.”
She met his slate gray eyes squarely. “But I am.”
She put the plate on the stove out of his reach. Behind her, she heard one of the men chuckle, and then Jace said, “Looks like you’ve got a bit of ground to make up, Derek, before you get baked goods.”
A chair scraped across the floor. “Don’t see why. It was Jared’s order I was following.”
Allie turned in time to see Derek settle his big frame into the chair, dwarfing it with nothing more than muscle and bone. “Next time you might consider exercising independent thought.”
Caleb Page 15
