by L. E. Wilson
“Jesse—”
“Show me.” He knew she would lose her nerve if he let her, so he didn’t plan on letting her. If he had to threaten her into a fucking orgasm, he would.
Hesitant at first, she ran both hands down her stomach, then did as he told her, sliding her fingers through the curls and opening herself wider.
Jesse moaned, tightening his fist around the base of his cock again in an effort for control. He wanted to bury his nose in those curls, and run his tongue through the glistening folds of satiny skin she’d revealed. She was already so wet for him—he wanted to taste her desire. He could see her swollen clitoris, pulsing with her blood flow.
Moving around to the end of the bed, he braced his weight on his palms and leaned down until his face was as close to her as he dared. Inhaling the unique scent of her sex, he closed his eyes. “I want to taste you, Shea. So badly.”
She moaned, her hips rising off the bed in offering. “Jesse, please.”
Pushing himself away from her, he kneeled at the end between her legs, careful not to touch her skin. “Touch your breast. Only one. Leave your other hand where it is.”
She followed his order, her back arching as she massaged the firm mound.
“Pinch your nipple between your fingers. Imagine it’s my mouth on you, warm and wet, and my tongue flicking it.” He pumped his fist up and down his length.
Rolling her nipple between her fingers, Shea bared her fangs as she watched him pleasure himself.
“Lift your hips, and put one finger inside yourself.” She did, sliding it in and out as her other hand continued to play with her nipple.
Jesse cupped his balls with his free hand as he watched her, but slowed his other hand, afraid he would spend himself before she did. “Keep playing with your nipple, and move your fingers to your clit.”
Her eyes rolled back in her head and her back arched when she touched the little bundle of nerves. Jesse reached out to her, wrapping her in his aura. He felt her lust for him, and shared his with her. When her eyes opened again, they were hot and bright. She moved her fingers, her fangs bared as she played with herself, her breath coming in short pants.
Gods, she was beautiful. “I want to fuck you so badly, Shea. I want to feel your wet heat tight around my sex.” His balls tightened as he watched her work herself up. He fought for control. “I can’t hold back much longer. Come for me, love. I want you to come for me.”
She cried out. It was a frustrated sound. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. I want to see you come, Shea.”
“This isn’t enough. Jesse, I want more.”
Jesse knew what she needed. And he knew how to give it to her. Without taking his eyes from her, he held one hand out, fingers wide.
A small pairing knife lay next to his glass on the table across the room. It began to vibrate, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, until it rose from the table and flew across the distance to smack into his palm. His fingers closed around the handle.
Shea gasped, her eyes on the knife.
He released his cock on a hiss, and lifted his wrist so she could see, then pressed the knife blade against his skin.
Chapter 9
Shea was burning alive. Sliding two fingers inside herself, she felt Jesse touching her. She didn’t know how he was doing it, but it was him using her wet heat to slide his fingers across her clit as she worked herself higher and higher. Her muscles strained, the heaviness in her womb building. Pinching her nipple, she couldn’t stifle her cry as she felt it all the way to her core. The warlock had brought her right to the edge with his wicked words and hungry gaze. But she needed more.
When he pressed the blade of the small knife through the skin of his wrist, Shea’s hips bucked beneath her hand. Her fangs ached to be the thing that sliced through that tan skin, bringing forth the bright red line of blood that appeared.
Making a clean cut horizontally across his wrist, Jesse leaned forward and braced his weight over her on one powerful arm. His sex hung thick and heavy barely an inch from where she needed him to be. He held the open wound over her mouth without touching her. “Drink, love.”
Shea opened her mouth. Warm blood dripped past her fangs and onto her tongue. It was dark and sweet, with a hint of something wicked, just as she’d imagined. Shea moved restlessly beneath her own hands as his warm blood slid down her throat and his life force tore through her body. The waves of her orgasm rose higher and higher, until it slammed into her with an intensity that was almost frightening. She cried out, convulsing on the bed, feeling something hot and wet hit her chest and stomach as Jesse’s words of encouragement joined her cries.
One word crashed over and over through her mind as she came—
MINE.
Her eyes shot open and zeroed in on the rugged male leaning over her. His head had fallen forward; his warm breath coming in ragged exhales to blow across the moisture on her chest.
Her lips pulled back from her fangs as her eyes fell to the rapid pulse on the side of his throat.
MINE.
She suddenly froze beneath him.
No. No. No! It can’t be!
A ragged sob escaped from her throat as her worst nightmare came true. She was mated to a male she’d never be able to touch, or kiss, or hold.
Jesse’s head snapped up. “Shea? Shea, what’s wrong?” He ran his eyes over every inch of her, making sure he wasn’t touching her anywhere, searching desperately for whatever caused her pain. “Did I hurt you?”
He had. He had hurt her horribly. But she couldn’t answer him, could do nothing but stare up at him in horror. Everything he had done to her and Luukas and Keira…it all flashed through her head, one thing after another after another.
“Shea, talk to me, godsdammit! Or I will make you tell me.”
She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. She’d always known she had an unhealthy attraction to the warlock, but this—this was something she’d never expected. Would the fates really be so cruel as to mate her to someone she could never touch, and who could never touch her in return? Someone who she could never accept as her own?
Another harsh sob escaped her.
Jesse reached toward her face, remembered he couldn’t touch her, and pulled at his own hair in frustration. “Dammit, Shea. Tell me what the fuck is wrong! Tell me right now, or I will come in and see for myself.”
Scooting away from him, she pulled the blanket over her nakedness, looking anywhere but at him. It took her a moment to get a grip on her emotions, and her voice was thin when she finally answered him. “I’m fine. I’m just being stupid because I can’t do what I really want.” She tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but more kept falling. “I’m fine.”
He was off the bed and across the room at a speed that should only be attainable by vampires or werewolves, of which he was neither. Pulling on his pants, he grabbed a box of tissues from the shelf in the nightstand and handed it to her. “You’re not fine.” He sat down on the bed beside her while she wiped at face. “Please, talk to me, Shea. What did I do?”
She shook her head, unable to say the words aloud. “Nothing. You did nothing.”
“Then what didn’t I do?”
She just shook her head again. What the hell was she supposed to say? And what had she done to deserve this? And then another thought occurred to her, one that made her breath freeze in her lungs.
He’d given her his blood. She’d fed on the blood of her mate. Shea pressed her hands to either side of her skull and rocked back and forth. No, no, no! She couldn’t leave him now. Ever. He couldn’t leave her. She needed his blood to survive, would literally die without it. What the hell was she going to do?
Luukas, Nik—she couldn’t go back there. Not with Jesse. They would never allow this male to be anywhere near them. And she couldn’t say that she blamed either one of them. Luukas would never allow Jesse near her. She’d be lucky if he didn’t kill him on sight. He wouldn’t give her the chance t
o explain first. But what other choice did she have?
She would have to run, they would both have to run. It was the only chance she had to survive. Shea put her head in her hands and rocked back and forth.
What the hell had she been thinking? Coming anywhere near this male was a stupid, stupid, fucking mistake.
Shea suddenly realized that Jesse had stopped asking her to tell him what was wrong. Lifting her head, she pushed her hair back off her face.
He was sitting eerily still, the expression on his face unreadable, golden eyes intense as she felt him probing around in her head.
She held up one hand, palm out. “No, Jesse! Don’t—”
“Is this true?”
Shit. It was too late. She took a deep breath.
He knew. He knew everything she’d just been thinking. Everything.
Swallowing hard, she let her hand fall back down to her lap. “Yes,” she whispered.
Rising from the bed, he returned to the other side of the room and picked up his sweater from the floor. Without a word, he shrugged into it and slipped his bare feet into his shoes.
Shea watched him, confused, as he headed to the door. “Where are you going?”
Pausing with one hand on the knob, he said, “I’m sorry that fate did not give you the mate you would’ve wished for.” Then he opened the door and walked out, closing it behind him.
His cool collectiveness hurt her more than any touch she’d ever had to endure. As the door shut with a soft click, her soul shattered into a million pieces.
Jumping from the bed, Shea flung open the door and ran down the passageway after him with the comforter trailing along on the floor behind her. “Jesse! Jesse, stop!”
He was already at the end of the tunnel, heading back the way they’d come in.
Shea caught up to him easily just as he exited the mountain. “Jesse, where are you going?” The rain was cold on her bare head and shoulders, the mossy ground sucking at her feet like a sponge as she followed him outside.
He didn’t stop, or acknowledge her in any way as he made his way across the small clearing to the SUV where it was hidden just inside the tree line.
He was leaving her there?
In a spurt of panic, she rushed around him at vamp speed, placing herself between him and the driver’s side door. He pulled up short, just in time.
“Shea, please get out of the way.” His voice was quiet, controlled. Always so fucking controlled.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not just going to let you take off and leave me here.”
“The sun is coming up soon. You won’t have a choice.”
The iciness that emanated from him made her blood run cold. She could sense nothing of what he was thinking or feeling, although she now shared his blood. She didn’t know how he was doing it. “Jesse—”
“Move, Shea.”
“No. Come back inside—”
Suddenly, his fist flew past her head and through the back passenger window. Golden eyes burned through her, glowing with fury. The muscles in his jaw jumped as he gritted out, “Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”
Shea didn’t move. His anger didn’t frighten her, because she knew it was only a disguise to cover up what he was really feeling—hurt. She felt something akin to satisfaction that she had finally managed to break that calm façade he always wore like armor, although this wasn’t the way she’d wanted to do it. “Come back inside and let me explain.”
He tilted his head, a quizzical expression on his face. “Explain? Explain what, exactly? How I repulse you? How you hate yourself for being attracted to me? How you would rather the gods had mated you to a slug than me?”
Her heart squeezed in her chest. That’s exactly what she had been thinking. “That’s not all there is to it, and you know it.”
“Ah, yes.” He nodded, his brows drawn and his forehead creased in thought. “There’s the problem of Luukas, your maker. You think he will kill me before you can tell him that you need me to survive, therefore ending your life in the process.” He threw his head back and laughed. “I’m half-tempted to let him. Just to see his face when he realizes what he’s done.” In the next second, he grew perfectly serious. “Except that it will never happen, Shea. Luukas cannot kill me. And I know you already suspected as much. So, the real issue here isn’t what Luukas thinks of me, but what you do.”
He was right. She held one hand out in front of her in supplication, keeping the blanket from falling with the other. “I just wasn’t expecting this.” It was a lame excuse, and she knew it, but she didn’t know what else to say.
“But, weren’t you? Come on now, Shea. I felt it—this thing between us—the first time I laid eyes on you. I knew there was something there. I just didn’t know what it was. Although, looking back, I should have guessed, especially knowing what was happening with the others. However, I’m not a vampire.” His eyes came back to her. “Can you honestly tell me that you had no idea?”
Shea looked away, but it was impossible to hide the guilt that weighed on her.
“Yes. You knew.” He released his breath on a heavy exhale. “And yet you came with me, anyway. What were you hoping to get out of taking such a risk?”
Wiping at a tear that fell from the corner of her eye, she shook her head. But there was no use denying it. She had known. She’d known the moment she saw him, with the hood of his robe covering half of his face and that silly bird on his shoulder. He’d protected her from Leeha, and she’d never questioned why he had done it. Not really. Because she’d known.
“The sun is coming up. You should get inside.”
She shook her head again. “Not without you.”
He narrowed his gaze in warning. “If you don’t go inside now, I will carry you in myself, and I won’t care how much you scream.”
“Jesse—”
“Go, Shea. NOW.”
The sky was beginning to lighten, the clouds clearing away, taking the rain with them. Shea looked up at him beseechingly, but was at a complete loss as to what to say to make it fix what she had done. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to. For that would mean betraying Luukas and the others.
“There’s nothing more to say,” he answered her frazzled thoughts. “Not right now. I’ll ask you again. Please, go inside.”
The pain he was trying so hard to hide tore at her soul. The pain she had caused. “Are you coming back?” she whispered.
He just looked at her for a moment, his expression unreadable. “I will have to. Eventually. If I don’t want to let you die.”
Shea swallowed hard. He was referring to her need of his blood. The first rays of the sun began to peek up over the horizon, still hidden behind the surrounding mountains. Her skin began to tingle and burn where it was exposed to the elements.
“Shea.” There was a warning in his tone, and a stubborn set to his jaw.
“Okay. I’m going.” Stepping to the side and out of his way, she paused to look over at him. She opened her mouth to say something, although she had no idea what it was.
But he didn’t give her the chance. As soon as she was out of the way, Jesse wrenched open the door of the SUV and got inside. He started the engine and put his hands on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead for a brief second before throwing the vehicle into reverse and backing out of the hidden spot.
Shea pulled the blanket up over her head, staying where she was until he was out of sight. Then she ran back inside just as the sun broke through the trees.
Cruthú greeted her from her perch, her beady, black eyes looking past her for Jesse. When he didn’t come, she flew over to where Shea had collapsed on the bed.
Shea sat staring straight ahead, numb from all that happened, until exhaustion overtook her and she curled up with the raven to sleep.
Chapter 10
Jesse floored the gas pedal, projecting the chaos raging inside of him onto the vehicle he was currently abusing. He flew down the dirt road through the mountain pass like the demons of hell were chasi
ng him, and perhaps they were, at least theoretically.
Unconcerned with the danger he was putting himself in, Jesse sent the vehicle careening wildly around a corner. He was hard to kill, if not impossible. Unless the thing burst into flames, which wasn’t very likely despite what the movies would like you to think, he would survive this day. And for the first time in his life, he wanted to survive. He needed to survive. His being alive didn’t just affect him anymore. Shea’s life now depended on him, too.
For a moment, the overwhelming responsibility of it felt like one of the boulders teetering on the edge of rock above the road had worked its way loose and landed on his chest.
The sun was well in the sky now, and for a moment he felt a flash of fear. Had she listened to him and gone inside? Had she made it in time? But deep down he knew Shea was safe. He would feel it if anything happened to her.
Especially now.
The road began to climb, but Jesse didn’t let up on the speed. Yanking the wheel to the right, he suddenly veered off the road and stomped on the brake, sending the back end spinning around in a tight circle. When the SUV finally skidded to a stop, the back tires were balanced precariously on the edge of a drop-off. Jesse got out and slammed the door behind him, leaving the vehicle rocking and small rocks cascading down the side of the cliff beneath the tires.
Walking to the edge, he stood beside the back tire and looked out over the valley below, breathing in the cool mountain air. The breeze had a bite of winter coming down from the snow-capped peaks towering above him, even though it was months away yet. The birds sang back and forth between the hemlock trees below, welcoming the new day. And the morning sun warmed the back of his bare neck.
Amongst all that natural beauty, Jesse clenched his fists at his sides, threw back his head, and released the pent-up frustration, anger, and hurt he’d been hoarding inside for months now. Flocks of black clouds rose from the trees as birds took flight in every direction. Small animals scattered, fleeing through the underbrush surrounding him. Even the wind picked up, spraying him with lingering raindrops that clung to the trees as it whipped around him.
