This Time Tomorrow

by Bailey, Tessa

  Right?

  Definitely.

  “We are getting ahead of ourselves.” Roksana blurted, her body flushed, heated, her lips full and aching for contact. “What about kissing?”

  A mixture of shock and hope shone in Elias’s eyes. “You’re asking to kiss me?” An eyebrow went up. “Voluntarily?”

  Of course he was surprised. He should be surprised. This vampire was supposed to be her enemy and she was all, yeah, but can we, like, make out and stuff? Silly girl. “Technically I owe you a favor for teaching me how to play poker,” she said, sliding even further into irredeemable territory.

  Even as his hands molded to her waist, keeping Roksana steady for a grind from his hips, he shook his head. “I’m not collecting a kiss as a favor.” Eager lips raced up the slope of her throat, forcing her head back. “It’ll give you an excuse later to say you didn’t really want it.”

  “Not if you use the favor wisely,” she said, finishing on a whimper when he lapped at the sensitive skin beneath her ear. Her legs moved restlessly around his hips, her core contracting, heels digging into his hard butt.

  Elias pressed their foreheads together and remained silent for several beats. Then his eyes lifted to hers and there was so much gravity swirling in their depths, she held her breath. “Here’s the favor I’d collect from you, Roks. Forget for a little while that you hate me.” He crowded her tight, tight to the wall. Their lips brushed and the flesh between her thighs turned even more slick. Desperate. “Just forget for five minutes, huh? Whether you’re letting me touch you or not. Just forget.”

  “See, I knew you could be creative,” Roksana hiccupped.

  His big hands raked down over her ass, kneading it roughly, using that hold to rock her against his lap. “How are you going to spend your five minutes not hating me?”

  The seam of his jeans dragged over Roksana’s clit and her eyes almost crossed. “Y-you know how.”

  “Uh-uh, baby. Need to hear you say it.”

  “Kiss me, vampire,” she whispered.

  The second Elias’s lips opened over hers, pressure bloomed in her throat. There was a part of her that wondered if she’d exaggerated their connection in Vegas. Exaggerated the perfection of their kiss. But when their tongues brushed and they melted into one another like chocolate in a saucepan, the truth became wildly obvious. Her memory hadn’t been doing Elias’s kiss sufficient justice. He was infinitely better.

  This was not a kiss for the sake of kissing. It was memorization. Seeking. Trying to find what she liked, locating it, giving her so much that she could barely stand the pleasure. She liked Elias looming over her, kissing down into her mouth. Roughly. She tipped her face up to receive the hot, sensual treatment and he gave, allowing her no time for thought, for breath. There was only her femininity being savored by his maleness. There was only demands being made and met and satisfaction wracking her.

  There was a major difference this time. His hands clutched the flesh of her bare derriere tightly and his hands were so large, the pads of his fingertips were nearly on top of her exposed back entrance—no, they were. They brushed against it and she whined in his grip, her heels unhooking, thighs widening so he could hit more of her with every thrust.

  “I don’t know much longer I get of this heaven.” His voice emerged thick against her lips. Choked. “Let me spend it making you come.”

  The lust was too much to bear. She didn’t want to think about why giving him another piece of her was a bad idea, she only wanted to feel. “If you don’t, I’m going to die.”

  Elias tucked her head under his chin protectively and in a blur of darkness and shadows, she was laid down on the bed. She could barely see a thing, only the barest outline of Elias as he dropped into a kneel, gripping her knees and dragging her to the edge of the bed with strong, insistent hands. The action caused the wet T-shirt to bunch above her breasts, leaving her naked from the neck down before Elias and it struck her how right it felt. Showing him. Being seen by him.

  And she couldn’t pause to consider why. Not when his hot mouth landed on her inner right thigh, branding her, licking the sensitive flesh. “Tell me you’ve ached for me. Admit it to me now when it’s just the two of us and you’re finally giving me a taste of this pussy.”

  Her body fairly vibrated, her teeth chattering. “I’ve ached for it.”

  “For me, damn you.” He bashed a fist off his chest. “For me.”

  Roksana bit down on her lower lip to keep the confession, the truth, from escaping.

  Elias laughed darkly, his mouth traveling to the opposite thigh, pushing it open and exposing her further. The very tip of his tongue licked a path to her femininity, parting the folds and teasing up and back. “Admit you’re wet every time you pass me in a room. Wishing I’d tug that pretty ass up against my lap. Wishing I’d cup you through those leather pants and play with all this sweetness until you scream. I need to hear you say it.”

  She could hear her own heartbeat rapping in her ear, could hear the acceleration of her breath and all she could do was grip the bedclothes, arch her back and pray he would end her suffering without demanding the price of her soul.

  “Elias, please.”

  “Roksana.” He kissed her hungrily, dragging his stiff upper lip side to side on her throbbing clit, groaning at whatever he tasted. Whatever discovery he made. His tongue swirled around the rim of her entrance, mouth opening so wide she could feel the rasp of his chiseled chin on her backside. He licked, prodded and lapped without cease. “Please.”

  She shook her head, trying to fight through the long-awaited sensations that cascaded through her. God, she needed this. Needed him. Release. But she wasn’t going to strip herself down to nothing to have it, was she?

  You have the heart of a pathetic, sniveling woman, instead of a warrior.

  You chose a man over loyalty.

  Inessa’s words came back to her in a blinding rush and guilt flooded in from all sides. She jackknifed on the bed, twisting and bounding off the other side. Cold air met the feverish heat of her body and she didn’t know whether she was hot or freezing. Betrayer. Traitor. To her friends and their memory. To her mother who gave her chances she didn’t deserve. Her arms came up to shield her breasts, sexual frustration making a sob stick in her throat.

  “I have to get out of here.” She turned in an awkward circle, her body still engulfed in flames. “I-I have to get out of here. What am I doing?”

  “Roksana,” he rasped, followed by the sound of his fist bashing into the wall, busting the plaster wide open. “I…fucked this up. Just wait.”

  “No. I have the game in a couple of hours and I don’t even have a weapon. I am unworthy of this task. I am unprepared.” Hating the way her voice shook, she felt her way around the room, locating a candle and matches on the kitchen counter, lighting them.

  Elias was across the room, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, the muscles of his shoulders in a permanent flex. As if he was trying to get himself under control. “By the door,” he said tightly. “There’s a bag.”

  Dragging her attention off Elias was almost impossible, but she crossed to the black backpack, zipping it open to find a gun, several makeshift stakes and…another bottle of Baikal.

  He’d packed her a fight bag.

  And it made her knees weaker than any bouquet of roses would.

  “Thank you.”

  Silence resulted.

  Roksana had no choice but to pass Elias to collect her clothes and boots. She dressed as quickly as possible, still staunchly fighting the urge to get back on the bed and make the admissions he needed. God knew they would feel good…and they would satisfy him. Would a minute pass for the rest of her life where she didn’t wonder what it would be like to quench Elias’s thirst?

  I can’t stand this. I thought if I fed, the worst of my cravings for you would stop…but they persist in the fucking extreme.

  A hot shiver shot down her spine and Elias must have sensed it, be
cause his head finally came up and he pinned her with a look that was possessive and promissory. “Your taste will stay in my mouth for the rest of my life.” He stood, his height making Roksana tip her head back. “The hunger for more will never stop. Not for a single second.”

  Her knees almost gave out.

  She wished they would.

  Wished to be back in his arms, cared for and…not judged.

  Instead, made to feel strong. Clever. Worthy. Invincible.

  All those things she never truly got while slaying.

  The fervency of her need to stay with Elias alarmed her into backing away. “I, um…” She reached the door and shouldered the backpack. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, so keep it real, I guess—”

  He turned and braced rough hands on the window frame, leaving his rippling back exposed. Open. She was almost insulted that he would give a slayer such a blatant opening, especially when she held a bag full of weapons in her hands. He resembled a man waiting for a whip to fall…

  Was he doing it on purpose?

  Giving her a chance to slay him?

  Roksana choked a sound, her hand fumbling on the doorknob.

  “You will see me,” she heard him say, just before she closed the door.

  Her heart was frantic in her chest as she ran down the hallway, down the stairs and out into the night. She couldn’t think of the vampire who’d nursed her back to health. Couldn’t think of his mouth, his words, the behavior so at odds with what she knew about him. She had to put it out of her mind until later. After all, there was a poker game to play and a marriage decree for a madwoman to win.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Moscow, 2018

  Eternal life was a curse.

  Elias stared down at a crack in the concrete floor of his prison, wishing it would widen and swallow him whole. Then maybe he’d be in hell where creatures like him belonged. He’d spent the day fighting, as he’d spent every other day of his life for the last…

  How long had he been there?

  Did it matter? It wasn’t as though he had any idea where to go after his year as Inessa’s punching bag was over. He couldn’t go back to Los Angeles and show up at the department like nothing ever happened. His livelihood there no longer existed for him. Those friendships he’d only been on the verge of solidifying with his teammates were a thing of the past. His daylight allergy would make it impossible to operate with any sense of normalcy anywhere. There was also the slight problem of him never aging.

  Putting roots down or settling in was henceforth a thing of the past.

  He rolled over onto his back and tried to concentrate on a roach scuttling along the far wall. From ten feet away, he could count the tiny legs, watch the toggle of the antennae. Anything to take his mind off the thirst. The never-abating thirst.

  After that nightmarish evening in Vegas, after he’d been left alone among the carnage in the chapel, no choice but to speed out the back door or risk feeding on Roksana, he’d gone back to his hotel room, no idea what else to do. He’d knelt on the floor trying to abate the hunger with breathing exercises to no avail. Inessa had shown up eventually and tossed him a plastic bag of blood and he still burned with shame, remembering how he’d dove on it like a salivating beggar, ripping into it like a savage.

  She’d brought him back to Moscow on a plane that allowed no sunlight, transferring him to a stone cage with no sunlight and there he remained, in the bowels of some manner of slayer training facility where everyone spoke Russian. He held no delusions that Inessa would actually hold up her end of the bargain and let him out after a single year. She’d already proven herself to be a lying sociopath and anyway…Roksana was here. So leaving hadn’t crossed his mind.

  Not that he’d seen her even once. But he’d sensed her, smelled her about a week after his arrival. His beliefs were proven correct when one of the trainees said her name. Elias had pinned the motherfucker in the dirt and demanded to know where she was. The slayer had spat in Elias’s face, but finally yielded, pointing upstairs.

  Training, he’d said.

  Training to be a slayer. Of course she would be after what happened.

  Her hatred for him and his kind must be the stuff of legends.

  Eventually, Elias would need to go somewhere. Breaking out wouldn’t be that challenging considering his supernatural speed and strength. But the idea of leaving her vicinity cleaved his skin from his bones.

  The roach he’d been watching disappeared into a crack and Elias let his eyelids fall…

  And there she was.

  Roksana.

  Strutting past him in the casino with her sweater clutched tightly over her breasts, an air of mischief surrounding her like an aura. A shoe dropped in her wake and as he’d done countless times when replaying his first meeting with Roksana, he questioned his past self.

  Knowing what happens, knowing your life will be stolen thanks to your association with Roksana, will you still follow her?

  Yes.

  Yes, the Elias in his memory rose every time, picked up the shoe and went.

  He went over and over again. Would for all eternity.

  Elias let his mind drift to the kiss, how breathless she’d been returning to him in the bar, leaving her friends staring after her. How she’d mimicked the movements of his tongue, so enthusiastic, but so unpracticed, her breath hitching, body softening—

  “I’m here to kill you, vampire.”

  The command in the darkness didn’t startle him at all. Voices in his head had become the standard, especially Roksana’s husky voice. Inessa often left him in the cell for weeks on end without sustenance. The amount she fed him depended on the strength with which she wanted him to battle her slayers. This time was the longest he’d gone without blood, so the voice didn’t even cause him to stir. Instead, he savored the sound of her, let it coast over him like a cool wave.

  “I said, I’m here to kill you!” Something nudged him in the ribcage—and that was new.

  Elias opened his eyes to find an angry angel staring down at him, a wooden stake held high over her head. Roksana.

  The dead organ in his chest leapt and squeezed, before going back to unfortunate rest.

  The scent of her battered his senses, making his veins shriek.

  Even if his mind was in a fog, his body knew. She was really there.

  Beautiful. God. So beautiful, she ravaged him. Made him want to roar at her and grovel at her feet at the same time. Would his instincts ever make sense again?

  Still in shock, Elias bolted upright, his lack of strength making him stagger when he gained his feet. Shame over his weakened state strangled him around the throat. He’d been pathetically inexperienced the night he’d failed her. The night he’d let her heart be ripped to shreds. Now here he was again, unworthy of her.

  Roksana still held the stake above her head, but she seemed stunned by what she saw.

  What did she see?

  Time and place and existence had become inconsequential to him. He could only fight when he was told to fight. That’s what Inessa demanded. Train her slayers to combat vampiric abilities. Do it without killing them, no matter how badly he had to war with his instincts to hold back. Doing her bidding for a year, in exchange for Roksana’s life, was the deal he’d made.

  The deal he would make a million times again.

  Greedily, his eyes ran over her new haircut, the softer sweep of her bangs. The tight leather clothing she wore. The sadness and rage and confusion she carried in her eyes.

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

  But he couldn’t say it out loud. He couldn’t tell Roksana he hated himself for the turmoil he’d put her through. The pain. His lack of aid. And God, the screaming.

  No, he could offer her no apologies, because he might have to answer questions. His memory of the night alone could lead her to the truth—and the truth would spell her death.

  Inessa was in league with the vampires.

  Oh, she might hate vamp
ires with the fire of a thousand suns, but she loved money and power more. If calling a truce with them meant a payday or an elevation in status, she did it without hesitation. He’d learned a lot while playing an authentic opponent to her training slayers. And Roksana had no idea her mother was nothing but a politician, giving and receiving favors. Not some noble avenger of humankind.

  How many times had Inessa reminded Elias that Roksana learning the truth would result in her death? Hundreds at least.

  Elias had been given a lot of time to think and he’d come to some conclusions. Inessa didn’t merely want Elias to keep their secret because it could destroy her relationship with Roksana. No, it had to be more than that. Perhaps a fear that Roksana wouldn’t fall into line and jeopardize the organization she’d built on lies. Because he remembered every single word of their conversation that night in the casino.

  “What about you, havoc wreaker? Are you made up of darkness or light?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to find out, so I run.”

  Had she been forced to find out by now?

  His middle ached at the thought.

  Through listening to the slayers chitchat, he’d also learned a lot about the structure of the underworld, though he still needed some crucial blanks filled in. So far, he knew the vampires were ruled by the High Order and there was at least two of them. One in Russia, one back in the United States. The slayers were also divided by country and called themselves contingents. As Inessa had explained the night she had him Silenced, she ruled the Russian branch.

  Of which Roksana was now a card-carrying member.

  He burned as he stared at Roksana from a short distance away, his voice was hoarse, unrecognizable when he spoke. “Who are you?”

  It was as if the oxygen was wrenched from her lungs. “Liar,” she said, sounding choked.

  “You know who I am and you know why I’ve come.” She scanned the cell, her brows knitting together. “You are finished scourging the earth, like the rest of your kind.” She advanced a step, balancing on the balls of her feet. “You are welcome to fight me, bloodsucker. I will win.”