by J. R. Ward
And he was close enough to coming already, thank you very much.
He slipped his tongue into her and groaned, his arms tightening around her—before he told them to loosen up or he was going to break them both off below the shoulder. Man, she was pure octane in his blood, his body in full gear and roaring. And he’d thought those dreams were hot? The real thing made that shit feel room-temperature compared to the surface of Mercury.
More with the tongue, more getting into her and pulling out, more of everything, until he had to force himself back. His hips were grinding against her tight ass in his lap—and that hardly seemed fair, given that she couldn’t feel it.
Taking a deep breath, he didn’t last long before dropping down to her neck to suck along the column of her throat—
Her nails bit so hard into his shoulders, he knew that if he’d been naked, she’d have drawn blood—and that fucking turned him on. Shit, the idea that there could be even more than just sex, that she could lock herself on his neck, and take him into her in more than just one way—
With a sharp hiss, Manny yanked himself off her skin and let his head fall back, breath shooting up and out of his lungs. “I think we need to slow it down.”
“Why,” she said, her eyes missing nothing about him. Leaning in, she growled, “You want this.”
“Oh, fuck . . . yeah.”
Her hands went to the front of his shirt. “Then let’s keep going—”
He snapped a hold on her wrists as an orgasm tingled at the tip of his erection. “You have to stop that. Right now.”
God, he could barely breathe.
Abruptly, she pulled herself out of his grip and ducked her head. Clearing her throat, she said roughly, “Verily, I am sorry.”
The shame she had made his chest raw. “No, no . . . it’s not you.”
When she didn’t respond, he tilted her chin up, and had to wonder if she had any clue what the male body did when it was this turned on. Christ, did she even know what an erection was?
“Listen carefully,” he all but growled. “I want you. Here. Back in your room. On the floor out in the hall. Up against the wall. Any way, anywhere, anytime. Clear?”
Her eyes flared. “But then why don’t—”
“I think your brother’s out in the hall, for one thing. For another, you’ve told me you’ve never been with anyone before. I, on the other hand, know exactly where this could lead, and the last thing I want to do is freak you out by going too fast.”
Their eyes stayed locked. And then after a moment, her lips lifted into a smile so far and wide that a dimple popped out on one side and her perfect white teeth gleamed—
Jesus . . . her fangs were longer. Much longer. And oh, so very sharp.
Manny couldn’t help himself: All he could do was imagine what it would feel like to have one of them dragging up the underside of his cock.
The orgasm in his shaft made yet another bid to break free.
And that was before Payne’s pink tongue came out and did a lingering sweep over the sharp points. “You like?”
Manny’s chest pumped hard. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah . . .”
All at once, the lights went off, the room plunging into darkness. And then there were two clicks . . . locks? Could it be the locks on the doors?
In the glow of the computer screen, he saw her face change. Gone was any remnant of shy, innocent passion. . . . In its place was a raw, strapping hunger that reminded him she was not human. She was a beautiful predator, a gorgeous, powerful animal that was just human enough for him to forget who and what she really was.
Moving without thought, Manny brought one of his hands up to his white coat. In the process of his sitting down with her, the stiff lapels had popped up and now he pulled them down, exposing his neck.
He was panting. Straight-up panting.
“Take me,” he ground out. “Do it . . . I want to know what it’s like.”
Now she was the one in control, her strong hands coming up to his face and dragging down his neck to his collarbone. She didn’t have to tilt his head back. He did that without direction, his throat bared and inviting.
“Are you certain,” she said, her accent rolling those Rs.
He was breathing so hard he wasn’t sure he could choke out a reply, so he nodded. And then, worried that wasn’t enough, he put his hands over hers, pressing her hold into him.
She took over from there, focusing on his jugular, her eyes seeming to light up like stars in the night. When she closed in, she did it slowly, disappearing the inches between her fangs and his flesh with aching delay.
The brush of her lips was nothing but velvet, except the anticipation of what was to come had him hyper-focusing so everything was magnified. He knew precisely where she was—
The scrape was viciously soft as she nuzzled him.
Then her hand snaked around to his nape and clamped on, holding him in place so hard, he realized she could snap his neck if she wanted.
“Oh, God,” he moaned, giving himself over completely. “Oh—fuck!”
The strike was strong and sure, two points going in deep, the sweet pain robbing him of sight and sound until all he knew was the sucking draw at his vein.
That and the massive orgasm that rolled through his balls and pumped out the head of his cock, his hips jacking up against her as his erection kicked and jerked . . . and kept going.
He wasn’t sure how long the release lasted. Ten seconds? Ten minutes? Or was it hours? All he knew was that with every drawing pull she took from him, he came some more, the pleasure so intense he was ruined by it. . . .
Because he knew he wasn’t going to find this with anyone but her. Vampire or human.
Palming the back of her head, he pushed her down tighter, holding her to him, not caring whether she drank him dry. What a way to die—
Too soon, she went to pull away, but he was desperate for her to keep going, and tried to force her to stay at his throat. It was no contest, though. She was so strong physically, it was as if he had put up no protest at all. And didn’t that make him come again.
As overrun as his nervous system was, he still felt the retraction of her fangs from his neck and knew the exact moment she was out of him. Then the biting pain was replaced with a soft, lapping stroke, as if she were sealing him closed.
Falling into a semi-trance, Manny’s lids lowered and his head lolled on the top of his spine like a deflated balloon. From out of the corner of his eye, he looked at her perfect profile, the illumination from the monitor giving him plenty of light to watch her lick her lower lip—
Except it was not the computer.
The screen saver had come on and all that was showing was a black background with a Windows logo.
She was glowing. All over. From head to foot.
He guessed they did that, and how . . . extraordinary.
Except she was frowning. “Are you all right? Mayhap I took too much. . . .”
“I’m . . .” He swallowed. Twice. His tongue felt numb in his mouth. “I am . . .”
Panic set into her beautiful face. “Oh, fates, what have I done—”
He forced his head upright. “Payne . . . the only way it could have been better is if I’d come inside of you.”
She was momentarily relieved. And then she asked, “What is coming?”
TWENTY-TWO
Up at the Pit, Jane was moving fast through her bedroom. Opening the closet’s double doors, she started pulling white shirts out and throwing them over her shoulder onto the bed. In her haste, hangers flipped off the rod and bounced on the floor, or twisted around and got pinned at the back of the closet—and she couldn’t have cared less.
There were no tears. Which she was proud of.
On the other hand, her whole body was shaking so badly it was all she could do to keep her hands corporeal.
As her stethoscope slipped off her neck and landed on the carpet, she stopped only so she didn’t step on it. “God . . . damn it—”
&nb
sp; Straightening after she picked the thing up, she glanced at the bed and thought, right, maybe it was time to quit with the white shirts. There was a mountain of them on the black satin sheets.
Backing across the room, she sat down next to her Mount Hanesmore and stared at the closet. V’s muscle shirts and leathers were still all arranged; her side was a train wreck.
Wasn’t that a perfect metaphor.
Except . . . he was a mess, too, wasn’t he.
God . . . what the hell was she doing? Moving down to the clinic, even temporarily, was not the answer. When you were married, you stayed and worked it out. That was how relationships survived.
She left now? No telling where they were going to end up.
God, they’d had what, all of two hours of back-to-normal? Great. Frickin’ great.
Taking out her phone, she called up a blank text and stared at the screen. Two minutes later, she flipped the cell shut. It was hard to put everything she had to say into 160 characters. Or even six pages of 160s.
Payne was her patient, and she had a duty to her. Vishous was her mate, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for him. And V’s twin had not been prepared to give her any time whatsoever.
Although apparently that was something she was willing to grant her brother. And obviously, Vishous had gone to their mother.
God only knew what was going to come of that.
Staring at the mess she’d made of the closet, Jane ran through the situation over and over again, and kept coming to the same conclusion : Payne’s right to choose her destiny superseded anyone’s right to trap her in her own life. Was that harsh? Yes. Was it fair on those who loved her? Absolutely not.
Would the female have hurt herself worse if there hadn’t been a humane way of doing it? One hundred percent, yes.
Jane didn’t agree with the female’s thinking or of her choice. But she was clear on the ethics, as tragic as they were.
And she was determined that Vishous hear her side of it.
Instead of running, she was going to stay put so that when he came home, she would be waiting for him and they could see if there was anything left of their life together. She wasn’t fooling herself. This might well not be something they could work through, and she didn’t blame him if that was the case. Family was family, after all. But she had done what the situation had called for according to the duty she had to her patient. Which was what doctors did, even when it cost them . . . everything they had.
Getting up, she picked hangers off the floor until she got to the closet. There were a lot of them in and around the boots and shoes, so she bent down, reaching into the back—
Her hand hit something soft. Leather—but it was not shitkicker.
Sitting back on her heels, she brought whatever it was with her.
“What the hell?” V’s fighting leathers didn’t belong shoved behind the shoes—
There was something on the cowhide—Wait. It was wax. It was black wax. And . . .
Jane put her hand over her mouth and let the pants slip out of her grip.
She’d given him enough orgasms to know what they looked like on his leathers. And that wasn’t the only stain. There was blood. Red blood.
With a dreadful sense of inevitability, she reached into the closet once more and patted around until she felt a shirt. Pulling it out, she found more blood and wax.
The night he’d gone to the Commodore. It was the only explanation : These were not ancient, forgotten relics, the dusty remnant of a life he’d previously led. Hell, the scent of the wax still clung to the fibers and hide.
She knew the instant Vishous walked into the doorway behind her.
Without looking up, she said, “I thought you weren’t with anyone else.”
His response was a long time coming. “I wasn’t.”
“Then can you explain these?” She held up the leathers, but come on, like there was anything else in the room?
“I was not with anyone else.”
She threw them back into the closet and tossed the muscle shirt in there as well. “To coin a phrase you yourself have used, I have nothing to say right now. I truly don’t.”
“You honestly think I could fuck something on the side.”
“What the hell are those clothes, then?”
He didn’t respond. He just stood there looming over her, so tall and strong . . . and strangely foreign, even though she knew his body and face as well as her own.
She waited for him to speak. Waited some more. And to pass the time, she reminded herself that his upbringing had been a bitch and that remaining stoic and unyielding had been the only way to survive.
Except that rationale simply wasn’t enough. At some point, the love they had deserved better than silence that was grounded in the past.
“Was it Butch?” she said, hoping that was the case. At least if it was V’s best friend, she knew that any release had been incidental. Butch was a totally faithful guy to his mate and he would do any Doming only because it was the strange, dark medicine V needed to keep level. As bizarre as it sounded, that she could understand and get past.
“Was it?” she said. “Because I can deal with that.”
Vishous seemed momentarily surprised, but then he shook his head. “Nothing happened.”
“Then are you telling me I’m blind?” she croaked. “Because unless you give me a better explanation, all I have are these leathers . . . and the pictures in my mind that are making me sick.”
Silence, only silence.
“Oh, God . . . how could you?” she whispered.
V just shook his head, and said in the same tone, “Right back at you.”
Well, at least she had a reason for what had happened with Payne. And she hadn’t lied about it.
After a moment, V stepped into the room and picked up a duffel bag that was empty of his gym clothes. “Here. You’re going to need this.”
With that, he tossed it over . . . and walked away.
TWENTY-THREE
Down in the exam room, Payne’s healer was looking halfdead, but entirely happy with his partial demise.
As she waited for him to answer her question, she was rather more concerned with his condition than he was. His blood had been shockingly rich on her tongue, the dark wine slipping to the back of her throat and tunneling into her, flooding not just her gut but her whole body.
It was the first time she’d ever taken a vein at the neck. Chosen, when they were in the Sanctuary, required not the sustenance of blood, nor did they cycle through their needings. And that was when one wasn’t in suspended animation, as she had been.
And she barely remembered feeding from Wrath’s wrist.
Strange . . . the two bloods had tasted much the same, though the flavor of the king’s had been bolder.
“What is this coming?” she repeated.
Her healer cleared his throat. “It’s . . . ah, what happens when you’re into someone and you’re with them.”
“Show me.”
The laughter that came out of him was velvety and deep. “I would love to. Trust me.”
“Is it something I . . . can make you do?”
He coughed a little. “You already have.”
“Really?”
Her healer nodded slowly, his eyelids dropping low. “You most certainly did. So I need a shower.”
“And then you will show me.” It wasn’t a request; it was a demand. And as his arms tightened up on her, she had the sense he was aroused. “Yes,” she growled. “You shall show me everything.”
“I’ll so fucking do that,” he said darkly. “Everything.”
When he stared at her as if he knew secrets she couldn’t begin to guess at, she realized, even with the paralysis, that this was worth living for. This connection and excitement were worth more than her legs, and she had a sudden, stark terror that she had nearly missed this.
She had to thank her twin properly. But however could she balance this gift?
“Let me take you
back to your room.” Her healer stood up smoothly, in spite of her weight. “After I’m cleaned off, we’ll start with a sponge bath for you.”
Her nose crinkled in distaste. “How clinical.”
There was more of that secret smile of his. “Not the way I’m going to do it. Trust me.” He paused. “Hey, any chance you can hit the lights for me so I don’t bump us into something? You’re glowing, but I’m not sure it’s enough to go by.”
Payne had a moment of confusion—until she lifted her arm. Her healer was right. She was softly aglow, her skin casting a faint phosphorescence. . . . Perhaps this was her sexual response?
Logical, she thought. For the way he made her feel on the inside was as uncontainable as happiness and as luminous as hope.
When she willed the lights back on and unlocked the doors, he shook his head and started walking. “Damn. You’ve got some fancy tricks there, woman.”
Perhaps, but not the ones she wanted. She would love to give him back what he had shared with her . . . but she had no secrets to teach him and no blood to gift him with, as not only did humans not require such a thing, but it was capable of killing them.
“I wish I could repay you,” she murmured.
“For what?”
“Coming herein and showing me . . .”
“My buddy? Yeah, he’s an inspiration.”
For truth, ’twas more about the man in the flesh than the one on the screen. “Indeed,” Payne demurred.
Back in the recovery room, he took her to the bed and laid her out with such care, arranging the sheeting and blankets so that no part of her was bare . . . taking the time to resettle the equipment that dealt with her bodily functions . . . plumping the pillows behind her head.
Whilst he worked, he always covered his hips with something. A part of the bedding. The two halves of his coat. And then he stood on the far side of the rolling table.
“Comfortable?” When she nodded, he said, “I’ll be right back. Holler if you need me, okay?”
