by Tamara Hogan
The commute from Marine on St. Croix to Chanhassen was a haul and a half under the best of conditions. “Okay, I’ll take a rain check.” She innocently lathered her breasts.
Swearing under his breath, he reached for the shampoo. “What are your plans for the night?”
Biceps and triceps flexed as he worked the shampoo into his hair. The ice water scent sharpened, intensified. White lather drifted down the wet strands, fell to his shoulders, slipped down his chest—
“Tia? What are your plans for tonight?” he repeated.
With a blink, she dragged her gaze back to his face. “I have a story to write for ILQ. Then some paperwork, and some phone calls to make.” She had to start researching property records—who owned the suburban home-turned-sex-dungeon where Robert Johnson had been killed?—and she needed to return a call from one of her street contacts, who’d tipped her off to possible trafficking activity out of a motel in Maplewood. Scarlett had left a voice mail saying she going stir-crazy, that she wanted some company at Underbelly that night.
And her mother had left a message, asking whether she was attending a party that Lyudmila and Stanton were having over Labor Day weekend. She hadn’t seen an invitation yet, but of course she was going; the glamorous and powerful vampires were two of the foundation’s most generous patrons. She’d have to dress up. Network. Work the room.
A light film of guilt settled over. She hadn’t talked to her mom since she moved into Vamp Central. Her mother wouldn’t need a blood bond to know she and Wyland were lovers. The woman was shock-proof, but…what would she think about her daughter sleeping with the Vampire Second? The mismatch seemed obvious, until one had the privilege of seeing beyond Wyland’s austere surface.
What could she say to ease her parents’ minds? “I’ve seen his O-face” probably wouldn’t cut it.
He rinsed the last of the shampoo from his hair. “Do you have everything you need to work from here?”
Shaking off the worry, she nodded. “Your network is lightning-fast.” And incredibly secure, given the highly sensitive work Wyland did from his home office. “Does Valerian use computers?” She hadn’t seen one in his bedroom or sitting room.
“He used to, but no longer.” A wisp of sadness, there then gone. “If he wants to use the Internet, Thane or I help him.”
Tia pumped shampoo into her hand, and started washing her own hair. “After work, I’m starting some boundary training with Valerian and Thane.”
Wyland reached for the conditioner. “Thane will start off with machine training, but it shouldn’t be long before you’re ready to move on to advanced techniques.”
Of course he knew the details; he’d probably worked with Thane on the damned lesson plan. Was there no aspect of her life he hadn’t utterly invaded?
No. There wasn’t. She was living under his roof. Working with him. Sleeping with him, in his bed, sharing her body and her mind. An overwhelming need to wrest some control back nearly knocked her sideways. She started scrubbing again, her movements sharp and jerky. “And I need to go to my house for a while.”
“Why?”
Because it’s my house. Because I live there. Because that’s where I’ll return after this is over. “Because I say so,” she said flatly. “The why doesn’t matter.”
He looked at her, no doubt trying to navigate the minefield she’d laid with her tone. “Of course the why matters,” he said. “Nick, or one of the other guards, can retrieve whatever you need.”
And surf on the comfortable wave of his power? His money? I don’t think so. “I don’t want Nick, or one of the other guards, digging through my underwear drawer.”
Something feral flitted through his eyes. “Thane can launder what you brought with you—”
“No. He won’t.” The thought of Thane, or anyone else, doing her laundry absolutely horrified her. “It’s not just the panties.” She needed to pick up her mail. Lyudmila’s party invitation no doubt waited, and a text message RSVP would not suffice. She needed to check her closet to see if she had anything to wear. She suspected not—her last donation to the prom dress place had been a sizable one. “Am I supposed to drag Nick, or a guard, dress shopping with me?”
“Yes,” he replied. “Whenever you leave this house, if Thane or I aren’t with you, Nick or one of his guards is.”
She goggled at him. “For how long?”
“Until I know you’re safe, damn it!”
She jerked as his voice ricocheted off the tiles. As his fear filled the enclosure.
He was deathly afraid. Afraid for her.
She stepped into his arms. Felt them wrap, too tightly, around her.
Water streamed over them. She rested her cheek against his chest, waiting until his heart stopped thundering against her ear. “Okay,” she murmured. “I’ll allow Nick or one of the other guards to accompany me when I leave the house.” She could give him that much. “I’ll take reasonable precautions, but Wyland? I will live my life.”
“Thank you.” He kissed her temple. “You still have shampoo in your hair.”
His lips were skating down her cheekbone, and his penis was rock hard. Mere millimeters separated their wet, slippery bodies. “You have a meeting,” she reminded him, drawing away. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“Can’t finish?”
“Hurry along to work now,” she teased, making a shooing motion with her hands. “I’m going to enjoy this playground of a shower for a bit longer.” She brushed away a fleck of foam clinging to her nipple. “All by my lonesome.”
He kissed her, a soft, lingering kiss with barely-banked sexual heat. She’d just opened her mouth to stoke the fire when he backed away with a groan of the damned and left the shower. He grabbed a towel, slung it around his hips, and with a curse and a final backwards glance, walked out of the room.
She stared at his terry-covered ass until it disappeared from view. Giving herself a mental shake, she moved under the waterfall, planning her evening as she finished rinsing her hair. After spending some time with Scarlett at Underbelly, she’d swing by her house, if only for a while.
If only to prove that she could.
Chapter Thirteen
Gangsta rap pounded out of Underbelly’s legendary sound system, but it was the scent that hit Dominic like an uppercut. Perfume and cologne, musk and sweat. Beer, wine, top-shelf liquor.
Sex.
“Thanks so much for celebrating with me,” Mila said. They walked single file through the metal detector, then joined hands as they entered the club.
“Hey, it’s not every day someone gets such a nice promotion. Of course we have to celebrate.” Though when Mila had called him with the news, celebrating had been the very last thing on his mind.
His father had tried to shift earlier that day. It hadn’t gone well.
After the doctors left his hospital room, his dad, face etched with fatigue and hair damp with sweat, had gestured him closer to the bed. “I know I can count on you to do the right thing when the time comes.” What the fuck did that mean? Just as he’d been about to ask, a team of too-cheerful nurses had come in to bathe his father, and see to his bladder and bowel needs.
He’d never been so glad to leave a room in his life. His father deserved a better son.
“I love Guilty Pleasures night,” Mila said.
She wasn’t the only one. Once a month, Sasha Sebastiani let her freak flag fly, pleasing herself and everyone else with her eclectic music choices. The place was packed. The mass of writhing bodies overflowed the dance floor; people were dancing on the stage. Up on the second and third floors, all the tables were full, and people who couldn’t find seats were wedged into spaces along the balcony rails. Every chair, table, booth, and banquette was taken, and the area around the nearest bar looked like a rugby scrum. “Back bar?” he half-hollered into her ear. “There might be fewer people back there.” She nodded. Grasping her hand more firmly, he shouldered his way through the crowd.
�
��Hey, Dom.”
He turned toward the raised voice. Over near the wall, some buddies from work sipped beer. “Hey,” he called back, waving but not stopping. Their brows lifted when they saw whose hand he held. Craned even higher when they noticed what she was wearing.
Never in a million years would he have guessed that Mila Stanton owned a pair of leather pants, much less that she’d look so fucking hot wearing them. She wasn’t wearing a bra, either. Her tiny breasts shifted beneath the silky, long-sleeved blouse, and her nipples jutted against the fabric. In a club where there was so much skin on display, somehow she, fully covered, was the one who made him want to howl and rut. Her scent, a mysterious combination of shampoo, leather, and pheromones, grabbed him by the balls.
Her fingers tightened around his.
Why was she here with him? Whatever the reason, he wasn’t about to question his luck.
The crowd thinned as they approached the back bar, and he soon saw the reason why. The big table located adjacent to the bar was crawling with Underworld Council members and their bondmates. Before he realized what was happening, a man and a woman who hadn’t been there a second ago blocked their path. He, Mila, and the people walking alongside them found themselves redirected to a path well away from the table.
Security. Very subtle, very slick—and given the importance of the people who sat at that table, very, very smart.
How many people knew he was responsible for putting that fearsome expression on Lukas Sebastiani’s face? With his heavily pregnant bondmate at his side, the big man positively radiated menace.
“There,” Mila suddenly said, pointing at an opening that had appeared at the bar.
He bulldozed his way into the gap. “What would you like to drink?”
“Tequila shot, please. ”
He ordered two. As they waited, Mila tucked herself under his arm and told him about her new office. “It has a door! And bookshelves! And a leather chair!” As she spoke, he took occasional glances at the big table. Sebastiani’s attention was glued to his bondmate. Seated at Scarlett Fontaine’s other side, Jack Kirkland coolly eyed the crowd. Behind Jack, Antonia Sebastiani swayed to the music, her arms looped around the waist of a woman with silver lips and a punky crew cut. The rest of the table—Bailey Brown, Rafe Sebastiani, Lorin Schlessinger, and her bondmate, Gabe Lupinsky—talked, drank, and laughed up a storm. In a massive case of the randoms, Chadden, the vampire chef, sat next to Bailey Brown. His hand rested on the hip of the curvy brunette using his thigh as a chair.
Tia Quinn, socializing and sucking up instead of speaking truth to power.
A spike of rage hammered him. Lukas Sebastiani suddenly angled his head, his nostrils flaring.
Shit.
“Dominic?” Mila pointed to their shots, now sitting on the bar.
Calm down. He paid for the drinks, handed her one of the small glasses, then lifted his in a toast. “To your well-deserved promotion.”
Mila laughed. “You don’t know whether it’s well-deserved or not.”
“Of course I know.” She had beauty and brains, something it paid to remember. “Skol.” He tossed back the shot, savoring the smooth, silky burn. “That’s good.”
“Right?” After a tiny, testing sip, she slammed the shot. After a gasp, she flashed him a happy grin.
Looked like the woman could handle her liquor.
“Let’s dance,” she said.
He set the empty glasses on the bar, then led her toward the packed dance floor. As they melted into the crowd, the music slowed to the lazy, sexy grind that seemed to be Sasha Sebastiani’s specialty.
Mila wound her arms around his neck, flattening her breasts against his chest. “Finally,” she murmured against his ear. “An excuse to get my hands on you in public.”
Excitement sizzled under his skin, and he draped his arms around her narrow waist. She was so small, but her muscles were strong and lithe. As the music played on, he pulled her closer, losing himself in sensation, in lights, in motion. In the feel and smell of her. He was an okay dancer, but she was a natural. All he had to do was hold her, and sway to the sound. Give her something to grind against. She was riding his thigh like a saddled pony.
Beneath his jeans, he was hard as a barbell. He clenched his jaw and scanned the room, looking for something—anything—to distract himself. Much more of this and he’d come in his pants, right here on the damn dance floor— “Shit.” He stumbled.
There, at the edge of the dance floor, Jacoby Woolf sat in one of those electric scooter things, a statuesque blonde draped across his lap. One of the Beta’s hands worked the controls so the chair moved with the music, and the other rested low on the woman’s hip. Their heads were close together. Whatever she whispered made him smile.
They looked…happy.
A wave of helpless fury nearly blasted him broadside.
Mila grinned. “They look like they’re having fun.”
If the rumors were true, the Beta could barely walk anymore, but damned if Woolf and the sexy blonde didn’t make dancing on a high-end Hoveround look pretty damn hot. Dom was tempted to whip out his phone and take a picture.
He could show his father that it was possible to have…a life.
“Hey.” When Mila lifted a hand to his cheek, he realized they weren’t dancing anymore. “Are you okay?”
A giant hand was squeezing his throat, and his chest was about to explode. “Could we get out of here?” There were too many incubi, succubi, and faeries here who could too easily get an emotional bead on him. On the other hand, it might be nice if someone could tell him exactly what he felt.
He was so fucking confused.
“Sure,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Weaving through the jostling crowd, they worked their way to the perimeter of the room, giving the Beta, and the big table in the back, a very wide berth. They walked toward the exit. When the doors closed behind them, leaving them in the lobby of the Sebastiani Building, there was sudden, blessed silence.
Mila sidled close, her lips grazing his jaw. “Could I interest you in a tour of my new office? And of what I’m not wearing under these pants?”
Lust kicked high and hard. He spared a thought to the piled-up laundry at home, to the mound of dishes he told his mom he’d take care of. To the hours of research awaiting him behind his father’s closed office door, and to the next set of letters he needed to write. He still had to figure out what was going on at that storage facility—
“Dom.” She cupped his cock.
Hell, if Scarlett Fontaine, Jacoby Woolf, and Tia Quinn could laugh and relax and enjoy themselves despite everything happening in their lives, so could he.
Damn it, so could he.
He leaned over, clasped her head, and gave her a tongue-tangling kiss. “Lead the way.” He couldn’t wait to lose himself in Mila’s body. Grab onto her.
Grab onto something, just for a little while.
Standing just outside the door to Valerian and Thane’s sitting room, Wyland watched Tia and Thane stare into each other’s eyes. Valerian was nowhere in sight, and the biofeedback machine sat, abandoned, in the corner.
“Block me, Tia.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re trying too hard,” Thane said.
It looked like it. Tia’s hair was up in a sloppy bun, and the curly tendrils at her hairline were damp with sweat. If Thane had abandoned machine training already, Tia was progressing at a highly accelerated pace.
“Just relax, use your instincts. You’re part faerie; you know how to do this.” Thane’s voice was as smooth as melted chocolate. Tia might not recognize the slight bit of thrall, but he did.
“But trying to repel you is like using my instincts in reverse. My instinct, my default, is to stay wide-open. To absorb, to perceive.”
“But you’ll react—protect—when you perceive people are in danger?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
Plenty of people, but that was beside the p
oint. In one training session, Thane had identified her instinctive lever, her primal trigger. He’d mined the deepest veins of her mind, and had hit pay dirt.
“Visualize the castle moat,” Thane murmured. “The castle is under attack. The people inside are in danger.”
The moat, the drawbridge. Thane was trying to use the same visualization technique to teach Tia as he’d used with him, hundreds of years ago. The same technique Wyland used to this day.
“The castle is mine,” Thane rumbled. “You cannot succeed.”
“This isn’t working,” Tia said, exasperated. “I keep visualizing the Enterprise dropping its shields.”
“Okay, forget the castle,” Thane said. “I’m a…Kardashian, attacking the Enterprise.”
Tia snorted a laugh. “I think you mean a Cardassian.”
“Bah, they’re both toast. Protect your ship, girlie.”
Her smile dissolved. “Bring it.”
The fanciful cuckoo clock in the corner ticked off the seconds as they dueled with their eyes, with their thoughts. Thane kept his expression neutral, but Tia’s face reflected the effort it took for her to stave off Thane’s mental bludgeoning. Her eyes narrowed, then bulged. Her lips tightened. Her fangs flashed as she gritted her teeth.
When she groaned, he barely held himself back.
“Extraordinary, isn’t she?” Valerian murmured from behind him. “She’s really giving him a workout.”
Wyland clutched the door jamb with tense fingers, ready to leap. Across the room, Thane narrowed his eyes, testing, then grinned. “Your shields are holding.” He wiped a bead of perspiration from his temple. “Congratulations.”
Shoving to her feet, she did a victory dance around Thane’s chair, nearly losing her balance when she spiked an imaginary football. “I did it! I raised my shields and vanquished your Bird of Prey.”
“Yes, you did.” Thane gave her a high-five, followed by a hearty hug.
“What’s a Bird of Prey?” he murmured to Val.
“Klingon warship. From Star Trek.”
