by Lily Cahill
Brow furrowed, the nurse nodded.
“I know you know who I am. I need to get out of here right now. I can’t afford to wait. So I’m pulling the Valdez card, which, again, I recognize is pretty shitty of me. But please don’t hate me, okay? Please just…send the paperwork you need to have filled out over to my sister’s headquarters in New York. I swear to you, it will be filled out.”
“That’s not how this works, Miss Valdez.”
“And yet I’m asking for it anyway. Please?”
The nurse sighed. “If I get fired, I am also sending you the bill for my rent this month.”
“Send it anyway. That’s more than fair.” Joy grabbed Vincent by the hand and dragged him toward the exit. “You’re a goddess! Thank you!”
And then finally, finally, they were out of the damn hospital.
Chapter Six
Vincent
A COUPLE OF CABS WERE idling outside the hospital, and Vincent watched as Joy breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing them. She urgently tugged him in the direction of one nearest them, opening the back door and practically shoving him inside.
“Nearest hotel, please.”
A flare of anger burned deep in Vincent. Why was she acting like this? Why wasn’t she listening to reason?
The cab started to pull away from the curb, and Vincent opened the door. The driver swore and slammed on the breaks.
“What the hell, dude!?”
Vincent shook his head. “No. We’re not doing…whatever it is you think we are doing. We’re going to go the hell back inside of that hospital and you are going to spend the night resting, like the doctor ordered.”
Joy’s featured twisted up in stubbornness. It was ridiculous that he found the expression kind of cute. Stubbornness was not cute, it was annoying.
“Close your door. We’re going.”
“Absolutely not. You are hurt, and I will not let you do anything to endanger yourself more.”
Didn’t she understand? The policeman thought that someone was stalking her again, trying to hurt her again. She’d barely survived the last time someone had attacked her, and Vincent wouldn’t survive if any harm should come to her. Especially when she was his responsibility.
Not that she was. She was an adult, of course. She could take care of herself. But that didn’t mean that he wanted any less to shield her from all harm and keep her safe.
Whoever was out there—he was protect her from them.
Joy leaned across his lap, and his brain short circuited.
Her body was warm. He could feel the heat radiating off of her as she moved, the brush of her breasts against his chest. His cock stirred, which was—so inappropriate. He was supposed to be protecting her, not thinking about how good she felt against him.
She gripped the door handle and pulled. The door closed.
“Turn on the child safety lock,” she commanded at the cab driver, who obeyed immediately.
Vincent’s blood boiled. He glared at the eyes darting toward him in the rearview mirror.
“Unlock this fucking door right now.”
“Don’t,” Joy cut in. Vincent turned his glare on her, but she looked entirely unrepentant. “Look, I will fill you in once we’re alone, okay? But trust me. I know what I’m doing. We need to get someplace, and as soon as possible.”
Her eyes bore into his own, burning through him. He felt their echo in his soul. There was no artifice there, just—fear. Vincent frowned. What was she so afraid of?
He didn’t trust people easily; he never had. This entire day had been draining from start to finish. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been human this long. Shifting was as easy as breathing for him, his other form a constant pull, calling for him.
Now, however, he had to make decisions as the man he was. And one of those decisions involved whether or not he would trust Joy Valdez.
“Fine,” he said, his tone steely. “The nearest hotel.”
Joy’s relief was palpable. She breathed out, her body curling forward so she could rest her head in her hands. “Thank you.”
He sighed. “You’re welcome.”
The nearest hotel turned out to be a motel, and not a very nice one, either. It was the kind of place he’d stayed in a hundred times while he and his brothers were on the run, but he could tell by Joy’s face that she had never had any reason to frequent a place like this.
The lights outside were flickering or completely burned out. Broken beer bottles glittered in the moonlight in one of the parking spaces on the far side of the lot. The sign outside proudly declared that they had color television and air conditioning. What a feat.
Vincent paid the driver with the last of the cash in his wallet while Joy hovered outside the office building, looking around suspiciously. He didn’t know if she was scared of the building itself—which would be understandable, it wasn’t exactly a nice place—or of whoever it was that was stalking her. Them. Her.
He approached her, his boots crunching on the gravel parking lot. “Well, let’s go, then.”
She squared her shoulders and nodded. Vincent couldn’t help but grudgingly admire her for that. She’d had a rough day—and that was putting it mildly—but she was still walking with her head tall.
The man behind the counter barely looked up from the game of solitaire that he was playing on his very old PC. Looking at it made Vincent realize why the guy thought color TV and air conditioning were such big sells. He obviously didn’t have a lot of ideas about modern conveniences.
“Two rooms, please,” Vincent said, going again for his wallet. He’d have to put this one on his card.
“One,” Joy corrected him. He gave her a look, but she refused to meet his eye, instead staring straight ahead at the sorry excuse for a concierge.
The man behind the counter shrugged. “Fifty.”
Vincent’s card was barely out of his wallet before Joy reached out and pulled his arm down. She held out two twenties and a ten, and accepted the brass key with a smile.
An actual key. When was the last time he’d seen anything other than a keycard?
They walked back outside and headed for their room, the furthest from the office.
“I could have gotten the room on my card,” Vincent said, with a frown. He didn’t like that Joy had felt the need to pay for him. “It wouldn’t have made a difference to me.”
“Cash doesn’t leave a paper trail,” came Joy’s cryptic reply.
They got to room twelve, and although it took several tries, they managed to push the door open. Inside was a single bed, and a dirty, dingy looking bathroom. The tub had a ring of mildew, and Joy grimaced as she looked at it. She was not the kind of girl who had ever had to rough it.
She wasn’t the sort of woman he’d imagined he would fall for. He would have expected someone tougher, more rugged, less loud and talkative. But then, he had also never truly expected to find anyone at all.
It was so strange, then, that Vincent felt so strongly for her. Joy might very well be the one for him. It was just as both Damien and Blayze had described it—a sort of overwhelming sense of right, like he knew her inside and out while barely knowing her at all.
“I’ll take the floor,” he said, automatically. When he looked at the floor, he kind of regretted his chivalry, but there was no way he was going to let her sleep there.
Joy turned and rolled her eyes at him. “Oh please. What are you, fourteen?” She sighed. “I’m going to use the phone to make a call, let Lis know where we are so she can put a protection spell on us.”
“You think the person who tried to hurt you—“
Joy stepped in close and put her hand over his mouth. Her skin was soft against his lips.
“They weren’t after me. That’s what I couldn’t tell you at the hospital. This little witch appeared—she was the same one that helped Lis and Damien save me. You saw her, remember?”
He nodded. He wanted to mouth at her palm and work his way down her wrist, her forearm. This
would be a much easier conversation to pay attention to if she would stop touching him.
Despite his blood rushing out of his head, he could recall the strange witch, who spoke in puzzles and had ended up saving the day. Blayze had seen her, as well, and Arryn had corroborated that story. She generally showed up when the Dragomir boys needed help.
And she had just shown up.
Everything came together, and Vincent ducked out from beneath Joy’s hand.
“So the spell, the accident—it wasn’t meant for you, it was meant for me.”
“Exactly. And now we need to protect you.”
She sounded so sure, and the way she was biting her bottom lip was driving him mad. Clearly, he needed some air.
“I’m going to take a shower. You call Felicity and figure all of this out, and then we’ll go to bed. I think we could both use the rest, don’t you?”
“I really, really do.”
She turned and went to the far side of the bed, where the phone sat on the night stand. She picked it up between two fingers, frowning at it before wiping it off on her shirt.
He couldn’t help himself. “Enjoy the color television.”
She glanced over her shoulder, and the grin on her face—it hit him straight in the gut. He felt like he hadn’t seen it in years, rather than hours. It was like he could breathe as long as she seemed as happy as she did in that one, small moment.
“Don’t forget the air conditioning,” she said, laughing a bit. “I’ll definitely be using that.”
The shower was just what he needed. The grime and grit of the day was sluiced away by the water. He used the crappy motel shampoo on his hair, just glad to be clean. It was less than ideal—all of their stuff was still in the car, and who knows where that had ended up. Officer Wells probably had it in some kind of impound lot. There was no way they could get their things back before the wedding tomorrow.
The wedding. God. This was such a nightmare.
The only bright spot in all of this was Joy. Joy with that smile, and that body. She had the kind of curves an hourglass envied. Warm water ran down his body and his cock thickened, just at the thought of her. It hung heavy between his legs, and his hand wanted to travel down, circle the head, give himself a squeeze—
But Joy was literally just outside the door. That was impossible.
Instead, he turned the knob to freezing cold and finished out his shower. There was no way that sex was on Joy’s mind, and he needed to get it out of his.
He stepped out of the shower and grimaced before begrudgingly drying off with one of the towels provided. It didn’t look dirty, but in this shithole, he trusted nothing.
He stepped back into his boxers, longing for something clean to wear. He put on his jeans, hoping Joy wouldn’t mind if he slept without his shirt. It would be awkward, them sharing a bed, but he wasn’t used to sleeping in his human form. He almost always slept as a dragon; he ran too hot at night whenever he was human, and he never rested well. Despite the motel’s bragging, he didn’t have much faith in their air conditioning, either.
Throwing the towel around his neck, Vincent stepped back into the bedroom and immediately felt the need for another cold shower.
Joy’s back was to him, and she was stripping off her top layer, the fabric moving slowly up, up, up and over her body, revealing a tiny camisole underneath. Her dark tan shoulders were bare and practically glowing in the dim light of the room.
Inside, his dragon growled at the sight. For once, both sides of him agreed. They wanted to take this girl, make her theirs.
Joy turned at the sound of his footsteps on the carpet, talking as she did. “Lis said she has something jury-rigged, and it should last the—“
Her words died when she saw him. He could feel her eyes raking over his body, taking in every inch of him. Her mouth hung open, but just for a moment. She quickly closed it, her cheeks flushing prettily.
“The, um. It should last the night. And.” She huffed out a sigh, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she was glaring. She motioned at his body. “And that is not fair.”
He looked down, then back up. “What isn’t?”
“You can’t go all GQ on me right now. I mean. Holy shit, that’s playing so dirty.”
He was playing dirty? Which one of them had just stripped off her shirt with agonizing, tempting slowness?
He couldn’t help but smirk a little. He liked that his form pleased her. He liked that she wanted him. And she did want him. He could see it in her blown-out pupils, in the way she fidgeted on the bed.
“How is that playing dirty?”
“Don’t act innocent,” she ordered, standing and putting her hands on her hips. “You know exactly what you’re doing, looking like that.”
“I could say the same for you.”
This seemed to take Joy aback. She blinked, shifting her gaze to the floor. Did she not realize…? But that was ridiculous. He hadn’t actively looked for rumors about her, but gossip got around to everyone in Augustus eventually. He knew she’d been quite the heartbreaker herself, always on the arm of one rich man or another, always leaving clubs with different guys.
He didn’t care about it, of course. She could do whatever she wanted. But it just didn’t make sense—she could obviously have anyone she wanted. So why was she suddenly shy when he was showing interest?
“You don’t believe me?”
Joy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe before all this, but now I’m all…”
She motioned at her body like it would explain what she was saying when it blatantly didn’t.
“You’re perfect,” he told her. He couldn’t hold the words in because they were true. The truest things he’d ever said. She was beautiful, every single inch of her. To him, she was the most perfect woman he’d ever seen.
“I’m certainly not that. It’s just…” She hesitated. “The potions I have to take. They slow down my metabolism. And everything’s changed, you know, in terms of my diet. Pixie Dust is an appetite suppressant, among other things, and when I got off of it, I started gaining weight like crazy, and now I look like this.”
Whatever she saw in the mirror when she looked at herself was clearly different than what he saw when he looked at her. At that moment, all he wanted to do was sweep her up in his arms and make love to her until she felt as beautiful as she was.
“I know how you used to look,” he said, his voice steady. “And you’ve always been gorgeous. But the way you are now—I’ve never seen a woman like you before. You are…singular.” He paused, forced the words out of his mouth before he could let them scare him quiet. “I’ve never been so attracted to anyone before. I’ve never…felt like this about anyone before.”
Joy’s eyes snapped to his. She studied him, her gaze running over his face. He wasn’t sure what she saw there, but her hands grasped the bottom of her camisole and lifted it over her head, letting it drop down to the floor beside her.
“Vincent,” she said. Her voice was suddenly high and breathy. “Make love to me.”
He crossed the room in two strides and then she met him, her body against his, her thigh wedging its way between his legs. He could feel the pressure of her leg against his cock, her warm skin, her soft body. He wanted more of it, more of her.
But she’d just gotten out of the hospital. He hesitated and put an inch of space between them.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he told her, reaching a hand up to touch her face. “You’re still in pain.”
She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. “I don’t care about that.”
The dragon inside of him growled, and he could barely keep himself from doing the same. “I care. I never want to do something that could harm you.”
A small smile came across Joy’s face, and she opened her eyes, just a little bit. “I understand that, but I am an adult. I know my limits, and we haven’t even approached them. I want you so bad ….”
Hearing the words was too much. He hel
d back for just another moment. “You’re sure?”
As soon as she nodded, he closed the gap between them, kissing her, licking his way into her mouth.
Joy threw her arms around his neck, bringing their bodies together. Her breasts pressed up against his chest, and with each heaving gasp, she brought them closer together. He leaned down to kiss her, her mouth hot and hungry against his own. She moaned in the back of her throat and the sound went straight to his cock.
He held her against him, on palm against her lower back while the other traced down the delicious curve of her side and rested against her ass. He squeezed, loving the shudder that ran through her. Every sound she made, every reaction was enough to drive him out of his mind with lust.
She ripped her lips away from his, her hot breath against his cheek. Vincent kissed down the line of her jaw to her neck and nibbled at her pulse point.
“Please,” she said, little more than a groan. Her leg hitched up his thigh, bringing him against her hot center.
“You want it, baby?”
Joy nodded, but then she sucked in a deep breath. She sounded—pained.
Vincent paused and drew back just enough to see her face. She looked so flushed and lovely, her lips swollen from his kisses, her neck just the slightest bit pink where he’d used his teeth. It was hard to think straight when she was standing there, just begging for more.
“I want it,” she told him. Her voice had that ring of confidence it had been missing when she had been talking about her body. “I do. But—the accident. They gave me some ibuprofen in the hospital, but I’m a little bit sore. So maybe, just…go slow?”
He could do that. He was fairly sure he could do anything for her.
In lieu of answering, Vincent leaned in and kissed her slowly, tenderly. Her mouth melted into his as they moved in sync, his hands softer on her body. He healed a bit more quickly than the average person—a perk of being a powerful shifter—and so it was sometimes easy to forget how painful it was to be mortal.
He never wanted to hurt her. Anything but that.
