by Virna DePaul
He lifted his head and stared down into her face. Her eyes, which seemed less filmy than normal—again, he caught glimpses of blue—immediately focused on his mouth. When her pink tongue peeked out and licked her bottom lip, he groaned and tried to move off of her. “I need to get back—”
“No, Caleb. Don’t leave me. Please.”
He flipped on a lamp. She automatically flinched back from the light. This close up, her eyes were definitely blue, while her skin was less so. In fact, she had a pink flush on her cheeks. One that was duplicated on the visible parts of her body. What the fuck . . . ?
“What’s going on, Wraith? Your eyes? Your skin? You look . . . you look—”
Human. Almost alive. He wanted to say it, but he didn’t dare.
She’d been calm just a few minutes ago, but now she seemed jittery. Disoriented. She reached out for him. “Kiss me, Caleb,” she breathed. “Please.”
He shook his head. “Wraith—”
“Please, Caleb. You touched me a second ago . . . You touched my chin. You touched me and it didn’t hurt. I don’t . . .” Her voice broke. “I don’t know how. But it didn’t hurt.”
Her words were like a punch in the gut. Could it be true? Was she somehow changing back to her human form? Was that why she’d slept? Had the wraith’s curse of pain left her body?
Slowly, he bent down and kissed her. The tender foray seemed more significant than intercourse. In fact, the gentle penetration of his tongue into her mouth felt like being welcomed home.
She opened her mouth immediately, sighing with relief as if she’d been waiting for him for a lifetime. He kissed her with long, smooth strokes of his tongue. She tasted sweet, like the cinnamon gum she preferred, but when he backed away he could taste the salty residue of her tears mingled with his blood. It jolted him enough that he let her arms go and tried to back away.
She wasn’t herself. And hadn’t he just sworn that he was through with this? With her?
“No.” She murmured the word and wrapped her arms around his neck. “No. Don’t go.”
“You were dreaming, Wraith. Having a nightmare. You’re obviously upset. You don’t want this. You made that more than clear earlier.”
She looked at him steadily. “I do want it, Caleb. Please. I know what I’m doing.”
She leaned up and initiated another kiss. Hesitantly sought his tongue with hers. When he didn’t respond, she backed away, looking hurt. “Don’t you want me, Caleb?”
Caleb laughed and closed his eyes for several moments. Did he want her? More than his next breath. When he opened his eyes, she was still looking at him uncertainly. He reached down and cupped her breast, and she gasped in pleasure. But when he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck to pull her close, he saw her flinch and immediately thought he must be hurting her.
He pulled away. “I’m sorry, Wraith. I can’t. Besides, we need to talk.”
“Why talk when we can—”
“Wraith. Didn’t you hear what I said about your eyes? And you were sleeping.”
She stiffened. “No. I was just resting—”
“You were more than resting. You were asleep and having a nightmare.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” He was watching her closely. Suspiciously.
“You think I lie about not being able to sleep, Caleb?”
“No, but what’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I guess it was a fluke. Or maybe a wraith needs to recharge every ten years or so. Who knows?” She stared at him as if seeking something in his expression. When she didn’t find it, her expression hardened. “Thanks for waking me, but if we’re not going to fuck, can you leave?”
Caleb clenched his teeth with fury and frustration, wondering why this kept happening to him. “Wraith, you know I want you, but I just can’t . . .” As much as he wanted her, her sudden change of heart seemed unbelievable given the way she’d pushed him away earlier. Combined with the shock of knowing she’d slept, that she was changing, it troubled him. Told him to proceed cautiously.
“Yeah, I know. You don’t want to hurt me, even though I told you the pain is gone. So why does it hurt when you’re pulling away?”
He sucked in a breath. “We can talk—”
“Leave, Caleb. Please.”
It was the way she said please that did it. She needed some space. So did he.
“We’ll talk in the morning, Wraith.”
TWENTY-THREE
It took Lucy several minutes and some bullshit about not being dressed to get herself composed. Now, standing in her hotel doorway, Dex looked at her with his moody hazel eyes, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw no judgment or recrimination in their depths. He had a stack of files tucked under his arm, which she assumed was the intel they needed on the clubs. She opened the door wider and motioned for him to come in. Even though her flesh was burning and the cramps were getting worse, she forced herself to act as if everything was normal. It wasn’t that tough given that she’d had years of experience.
“Any word from Mahone?” she said.
“No. He’s gone back to D.C. We’re on our own.”
She nodded her head at the files. “Are Caleb and Wraith on their way?”
“No.”
Lucy paused and turned to look at him, confused. “Don’t you think they should be? We all need to get up to speed.”
“They can get up to speed on their own. Right now, we need to get a few things settled, Lucy.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He looked at her chidingly. “Sure you do, sugar.”
“Look, if this is about the one-on-one touch training I asked Mahone about—”
“As a matter of fact, it is. You know O’Flare isn’t going to do it, Lucy. Even if he got it into his head to do it for your benefit and the mission’s, Wraith wouldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t. The connection between those two is too strong, no matter what the other thinks.”
“Wraith seemed to convince Caleb otherwise.”
“Yeah, she’s a trooper. We already know that. But then again, so are you.”
The admiration in his voice made her even more ashamed. She was a liar, that’s what she was. A liar and a slut, just like her mother. Just because she didn’t act on her need for sexual release didn’t mean she didn’t crave it with every ounce of her being. When she was in heat, anyway. Which seemed like always. “What do you mean?”
“I know you . . . have feelings for Caleb, Lucy, but nothing would have made you do what you did without a greater reason. A reason that was making you desperate.”
Fear made Lucy tense. Oh God. Had Dex guessed about her secret? If he had, she didn’t know what she would do. She hated her body’s weakness. How could he ever respect her if he knew what she was? Praying that he was just fishing, she said, “I just don’t want to mess things up for the team because of my own inexperience.”
“It’s more than inexperience, isn’t it?”
She said nothing.
“Lucy,” he said softly. “I know.”
No. No, no, no. “You know what?”
“I know you’re a feline. That you’re in heat. And that’s the reason you think you’re going to endanger the mission. Because if you don’t get some kind of sexual release beforehand, that’s all you’re going to be able to think about.”
“I don’t know what . . .” She swallowed her words because looking at Dex’s face told her they would be useless. Unable to look at him, she sat on her bed and stared at the carpet. “How do you know? Did Mahone . . .”
Dex walked up to her, crouched in front of her, and thumbed her chin up so she couldn’t avoid looking at him. “I suspected right from the beginning. I’m a dog. We can sense a cat more strongly than others. Makes sense, right? You gonna be honest with me now?”
“You’ve got a good nose,” she said bitterly.
“It’s okay, Lucy. You’re still the same mag
e I liked and respected the day I met you.”
She pulled her chin away from his grasp and stepped around him. “The same whore, yes.”
Dex snorted. “A virgin whore. That’s a new one.”
“Stop it. You know what I mean. What my destiny is!”
“What? Sexual pleasure? You’ve fought your nature for a long time, haven’t you? Why?”
She whirled on him. “Because I don’t want to be a prisoner to my sexuality, just like the rest of my race.”
“It’s part of you, Lucy, and it doesn’t make you a whore.”
“Just like being a were is part of you? Come on, Dex, if you could get rid of that part of you, be either fully human or fully were, wouldn’t you do it? Instead, you’re caught right in the middle, just like I am. Not wanted by either race because you’re different.”
“The felines don’t want you?”
“Not as I am. Not when I’m a mage and I reject my sexual urges. They think it’s unnatural. A rejection of what they are. And they’re right.”
He nodded. “Okay. So let me ask you this. You’d trust Caleb to touch you. Will you trust me?”
Stunned, she stared at him. “You can’t mean . . . I wasn’t going to ask Caleb to . . .”
He shrugged. “I’ll admit it’s a little weird. I know you don’t feel that way about me, and I don’t feel that way about you. But I care about you, little one. And I want to help. The only way you’re going to keep others from guessing about your little problem and be able to do your job in those clubs tomorrow is to gain some physical release. I can do that for you.”
Her confusion was genuine. “Why would you want to?”
Dex laughed long and hard. He actually wiped his eyes when he was done and shook his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lucy. It might not be a romance between us, but you’re incredibly beautiful.”
Dex thought she was beautiful? “So you find me attractive?”
“Who wouldn’t? How about you? Is the thought of being touched by me unsavory? I’m not pretty like O’Flare. I’m rougher. With touch and words. Hell, I really am part dog . . .”
“Don’t you dare put yourself down!” Lucy strode up to him until she was toe-to-toe with him, having to look up a long way to meet his gaze. “Not when you’re being so generous with me, Dex. You’re extremely attractive, and any female would be lucky to have that kind of gift from you. But I . . . I don’t know. What about when you’re gone? What if I become dependent on needing release? Then I could turn into the very thing that I hate . . .”
“I promise, little one, I’ll always be here for you if you need me.”
“You promise?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
She looked at the bed, then back at him.
“Will you find your pleasure . . . ?”
He shook his head.
“Why not? I’d want you to. That would only be fair.”
“I want this to be about giving you what you need. I’m not going to use you or take my pleasure from you when your heart isn’t in it.”
“You can make me want you. I know you can.”
“Oh yeah. I will, you can count on that. And that’s all you need to worry about.”
She swallowed hard. “What are the ground rules?”
“You put yourself in my hands. You do everything I ask. You don’t question me. Full trust not to hurt you. Full trust to teach you the pleasure I can bring you. Can you give me that, Lucy?”
She thought for a second of Caleb. She wanted it to be him saying those words to her, but she knew Dex was right. It was never going to happen that way. But she cared for Dex and knew he cared for her. Perhaps the way to beat her need was to accept it and work with it rather than against it. On her terms.
She nodded. “Okay. Everything you ask.”
Dex narrowed his eyes at her, his expression edged with a heat that made her shiver. “Be sure you understand what you’re saying. I can give you relief, Lucy, but I’m still going to be who I am. With sex, just as in every other aspect of my life, I need to dominate. That’s how it is with weres. I need you to do what I say. If you challenge me, that’s going to—going to bring out something in me that I don’t want you to see, little one. You’re not ready for it. Do you understand?”
He said it so calmly. So confidently. So she answered him just as calmly. Just as confidently. “I understand.”
“Okay. Then strip.”
Lucy’s heart hammered against her chest and the prickles of heat that had taunted her all day exploded into an inferno. Doubt crawled up her spine, and she stepped back despite herself.
“If you can’t even listen to me when I ask you to undress, Lucy, then this isn’t going to work. Is that what you want? Do you want me to leave?”
Panic rose in her throat. Her heart was beating so fast that her body seemed to vibrate from the impact. She couldn’t let him leave. She needed him. He was her best chance at controlling the heat that was overtaking her. Her best hope for doing what she needed to for her team.
She met his challenging stare. “No, I don’t want you to leave.”
She raised her hand to unbutton her shirt.
Dex forced his breathing to remain steady. He’d thought for sure that Lucy was going to bolt, but he’d underestimated her. And now his gaze was riveted to the sight of her small, elegant fingers slowly working her shirt buttons out of one hole and then the next. As each button loosened, a new patch of creamy skin was revealed.
Suddenly, despite his reluctance to make this offer, despite his doubts that he could actually have sex with a woman he cared for but didn’t strongly desire, he was glad. Because his body didn’t care what his mind didn’t feel. It saw Lucy for what she was—a sexy, vulnerable female who’d never been with a man before but so clearly needed one now. He needed to give her what she needed, and that meant forgetting that he was her friend for now. He needed to treat her like a lover, and that’s what he was going to do.
As she finished unbuttoning her blouse, his mind went blank with lust. She was no longer Lucy, but a sexy, warm, willing female willing to follow his every command for her own pleasure.
She removed her shirt, revealing small, rounded breasts encased in a utilitarian white sports bra. Her shoulders and arms looked smooth and creamy, her collarbone protruding delicately from one shoulder to the other.
He raised his gaze to hers and swallowed hard. Desire pooled in his belly, a heated simmer that slowly spread to his limbs, concentrating hotly between his legs. “Keep going.”
She unbuttoned the fly to her jeans and pushed them down. Her legs were gorgeous. Not overly long but toned. She stepped out of her jeans and stood in front of him. Chin high. Back straight. Her body quivered and her face was flushed, telling him that she was starting to feel more than think, as well.
Good girl.
“Lose the bra.”
She seemed to deflate before his eyes. For a second, she looked dazed, like a small animal caught in the beam of an oncoming semi. Dex refused to back down. If he was soft with her, tender, she’d associate this act with those emotions. He didn’t want to take the risk of creating that kind of emotional bond between them. It was for her sake as much as for his. One thing was for sure; he was going to give her so much pleasure, she’d think she was going to die.
“Take it off, Lucy. Now.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It gave him second thoughts. Maybe this wasn’t what she needed. Hell, maybe she could find someone at the club tomorrow that attracted her. A stranger . . . He was just about to tell her to forget the whole thing when she raised her hands to her bra and pulled it over her head.
Her breasts were tidy. Sweet. They wouldn’t fill his hands, but he bet they’d taste amazing. She held her arms stiffly to her sides, as if stopping herself from covering her chest only by sheer force of will.
“Now the panties.”
“Dex . . .” she whispered.
He steeled himself against compassio
n. “We’re almost there, Lucy. Take off your underwear and it’s a done deal. You won’t need to worry about not being yourself tomorrow or about writhing in pain because of the heat that you can’t satisfy. Instead, you’ll writhe with pleasure. Don’t you want that?”
She looked at him, and her mouth formed the word even though she didn’t utter a sound. “Yes.”
She pushed down her panties.
TWENTY-FOUR
Wraith didn’t sleep again, but the fact that she had before—and despite her denials to Caleb, she knew she had—troubled her for two reasons. First, it had to mean she was going to die soon—sooner than she’d thought. Second, it had resulted in something else that had never happened to her—a dream. She’d been dreaming when Caleb had shaken her awake. Or having a nightmare, more precisely. Flashes of the nightmare flickered in and out of her mind, but they were fuzzy. Didn’t make any sense. Blond hair. A ballet slipper charm hanging on a gold chain. All innocuous objects. All filled her with a sense of fear and grief.
They were clues, she’d realized. Clues to who she was. Who she’d been before she’d been a wraith.
She’d desperately tried to fall asleep again, but couldn’t. She kept thinking of Caleb. Replaying the way she’d jerked off in front of him. Then later . . .
She was too worried about what the morning was going to bring. That she was going to have to face Caleb, and that meant facing the fact that she’d practically begged him to take her and he’d declined. True, after what she’d said to him after he’d helped her come the first time, she couldn’t blame him, but logic wasn’t controlling her. Embarrassment was.
Finally accepting that morning had arrived, Wraith dressed quickly, then cautiously stepped into the opening of the doorway adjoining their rooms and peeked in. Caleb wasn’t inside, but he’d left a note on the door.
“Gone to gym. Fourth floor. Come down if you want to let off some steam.”
Despite herself, her mouth quirked.
Leave it to Caleb to know exactly what she’d need to get through the morning with her pride intact. Without bothering to change out of her leathers or heels, she made her way down to the fourth floor. The gym turned out to be behind a solid closed door with no transoms, as was often the case in hotels. She was expecting it to be a typical hotel gym with a wimpy weight bench and an outdated treadmill. It wasn’t.
