Absolution

by Susannah Sandlin

  He needed to get away from Glory. The woman had no idea what she did to him, had no idea what being around him could do to her. Killing twenty people, washing off the blood, and then burying himself balls deep inside an innocent woman who had a case of hero worship was about what he’d expect of himself. It was the kind of life he’d been born to, but what seemed right—or at least acceptable—four hundred years ago wasn’t right anymore. It never had been. The gallowglass, in their arrogance, just hadn’t known it.

  But Glory wasn’t one of his Atlanta whores. There was something pure about her. Hell, even noble. She thought he was her savior, but the man she wanted didn’t exist.

  Mirren gave a harsh chuckle as he opened the hatch into his private subbasement and climbed down into the cool, quiet living area. He threw the towel on the bedroom floor on his way to the bathroom for a dry one, thought about jacking off to relieve the aching balls Glory had left him with, then decided he deserved to suffer.

  He’d pulled on a pair of loose jeans before it struck him: Glory had been locked in his basement when he’d gone to help with the fight. She must have some kind of genius for puzzles to have gotten out, or else Will needed to tighten security even more.

  As for what Mirren needed, well, he needed his routine. Snagging the towel he’d dropped earlier, he sat on the bench along the wall opposite the bed and stroked the terry cloth over the blade of his sword to remove the blood, then honed the blade with one of his old sharpening stones. Finally, using a fine grade of oil, he cleaned it from hilt to crossbar to blade tip. Once it was gleaming, he placed it back in its scabbard and hung it from a hook on the side of his armoire nearest the bed.

  While he cleaned the sword, he thought about the vampires he’d killed tonight. It was hard to hate them, even if they had been trying to do the dirty work of that damned Matthias Ludlam. They were starving. Desperate.

  They represented twenty more souls whose lives he’d taken, if vampires had souls, something of which Mirren wasn’t convinced. Aidan thought so. Then again, Aidan was a bloody romantic. Hungry souls. So the tats to remember their deaths should involve food. And food brought his mind right back to Glory.

  She’s probably upstairs crying her eyes out because you’re such an asshole. But better now than later, when it would hurt her more. Or your violence gets her killed.

  Mirren went into the living area outside the bedroom and sat at a drawing table. Pulling a charcoal pencil from the drawer at the front, he raised the tabletop to a comfortable angle and flipped open the sketchpad he always kept handy. Drawing relaxed his mind like nothing else, the smell of the charcoal pencil, the scratch of nib on paper. It was something that had always been just for himself. When he’d been a kid in Scotland, and then a youth in Ireland, the youngest of a family of gallowglass men, he’d learned quickly that elite mercenary warriors didn’t do pansy shit like drawing pictures. He’d had that lesson beaten into him early.

  Like they did with his sword when he was in his cold, gray zone, his hands seemed to work of their own accord, using the sharpened pencil tip for hard lines, the sides of the charcoal for soft, smudging some with a finger to fill in areas with color. He’d been careful to buy inks with the colors clearly written on the labels so anyone else seeing the tats wouldn’t see the grays and blacks that he did. He knew there were reds and greens on his body art, even if he couldn’t see them. Might seem silly to even care, but he wanted an apple to be the color of an apple or a leaf to be the color of a leaf, even if that wasn’t the way he saw them.

  Satisfied that the intricate circle of intertwined fruits and leaves could be inked, he glanced at his watch. Two thirty. He could etch the drawing tonight, let it ridge and scar during his daysleep, then reink tomorrow night.

  Mirren walked back into the bedroom, searching for his acid pen. He thought he’d left it on the drawing table, but it wasn’t there. Maybe the pen could do what nothing else had been able to do so far tonight—erase the feel of Glory’s slick heat surrounding him as he pounded into her, the rasp of her breath in his ear, the pressure of her teeth on his neck. That last thing, especially, had almost done him in. His balls still felt tight, and his cock ached—something he hoped a little bit of acid on his thigh would erase.

  He opened the nightstand drawer and frowned at the sight of the empty pen case. What had he done with it? He didn’t give a shit where he threw his clothes, but he took care of stuff like this.

  “This what you’re looking for?”

  Mirren straightened, closed his eyes, and prayed for control. He turned to find Glory wearing one of his shirts from the pile of laundry upstairs—and nothing else, he suspected. In her right hand was his acid pen; in her left, the sketch he’d just finished and left on his drafting table.

  What did the woman want from him? “Glory…” He let his voice dive into its deepest registers. He’d scared many a truant vampire with that growl. She just stood there with a raised eyebrow.

  “Lie down on the bed, Mirren.” Glory smiled at him, but it wasn’t her usual half-shy, half-teasing smile. It was…well, if he had to come up with a word for it, predatory came to mind. Her full lips might be smiling, but her dark eyes met his without finching.

  He should enthrall her and lock her out again…but apparently, she could go wherever she wanted, locks or no locks, and he didn’t like enthralling people, especially women.

  He didn’t know what to do first: ask how she’d gotten back into his private space when he knew damned well he’d locked the hatches, yell at her for plundering in his stuff, or demand to know what the hell she wanted. Because whatever it was, he couldn’t give it to her.

  “The pen—hand it over.” He took a step toward her, and she backed up, holding the slender piece of steel in front of her face. He had the pens specially made in Atlanta by a guy who built battery-powered etching tools for cutting into metal. It was the only thing that gave him the control he wanted, let him blend ink with the acid, and ate deeply enough into his skin to leave a mark he could heal but couldn’t erase. If she slipped up and let it touch her skin, it would not only mark her; it could kill her.

  He took another step toward her, and Glory flipped on the battery, the buzz of the pen filling the room. She wasn’t being nearly careful enough with it. Even the least bit of pressure against her skin and she’d do a lot of damage.

  She studied the buzzing pen briefly before turning her gaze back to him. “How much do you think this will hurt? I’m betting it hurts a lot. Take another step closer to me, and we’ll find out.”

  “You think you can control me by threatening me with pain?” Mirren crossed the room in three long steps, but halted again when she lifted the pen to her own cheek.

  “I didn’t mean that I wondered how much it might hurt you. I wondered how much it would hurt me. Get on the bed, Mirren, unless you want me to use it on myself and find out.”

  Mirren froze. The woman was a certifiable batshit-crazy head case. “What do you want from me?”

  “Lie down on the bed and find out. On your back.” Glory’s voice was low and calm. Sexy as hell. He could overpower her easily, take the damned pen. But she might mark herself first. She was fruitcakes enough to do it.

  “Bloody hell.” He walked to the bed and sat, but couldn’t bring himself to lie back. It was too…submissive. He might not think of himself as the Slayer anymore, but he wasn’t going to lie on his back and let a woman stand over him with a weapon, even if it was herself she was threatening to use it on.

  “Mirren. On your back.” Glory walked toward him, twirling the pen enough to make the pitch of its buzz warble. “I think a little heart here on my arm might be a good place to start, one to match yours.”

  Damned if she wasn’t holding the pen over the sensitive skin on the inside of her arm, just below the crook. That spot would hurt like a son of a bitch. She’d burn a deep hole in her arm before she could even begin to draw a shape, and might do more damage to herself than even Krys could treat. />
  “Don’t know what you think this’ll do for you.” He ground his teeth and stretched out on his back, glaring at her as she walked to the bedside.

  She grinned at him. “I’m going to move your arm, and you aren’t going to fight me or try to overpower me. I can have this pen on my skin faster than you might think.”

  Mirren was torn between knocking her out of the way and getting to one of his safe houses she didn’t know about or throwing her to the bed and taking her. Because lying here, with her issuing orders, was way sexier than he’d expected.

  Still. “Glory, you’re fuckin’ nuts.”

  She grinned at him again, this time with a hint of her old playfulness. “Yep. And don’t forget it.”

  She took his left wrist in her right hand and stretched his arm toward the nearest bedpost. Mirren craned his neck to see

  the pen; she had the damned thing stuck in her mouth, still turned on and buzzing. If she dropped it…“What the hell are you doing?”

  She’d tied his wrist to the bedpost using his own goddamned silver rope, which she had to have pulled out of his upstairs weapons case. Which meant she’d been planning this all the time he was gone. Not planning—plotting, more like.

  “Now, here’s the situation as I see it,” she said, walking to the other side of the bed. She held the acid pen up where he could see it, then stretched out his right arm and secured the other wrist.

  He fought a sense of panic, then rationality settled in. The bedposts weren’t that strong. The silver-twined rope would reduce his strength to that of a human, but he had been a very, very strong human. As soon as he realized he could get out of this little attempt at bondage anytime he wanted, he settled back, waiting to see what she would do.

  She was magnificent.

  CHAPTER 21

  Glory walked to the bedside table, turned off the pen, and laid it beside the lamp. So far, so good. She’d been right to think Mirren wouldn’t care that she might use the pen on him but would want to keep her from using it on herself.

  Only problem was, she wasn’t a naturally dominant woman. She was independent. She was willing to work for what she wanted—in fact, she insisted on it. But now she had this big warrior tied to a bed and she suddenly felt self-conscious. What had made her think she could do this? She didn’t think she really had an inner dominatrix to channel.

  Mirren lay quietly, muscular arms stretched up, big hands relaxed in their prisons of rope. He watched her through hooded eyes, and she could tell from the bulge in those low-hanging jeans that at least his body, if not his mind, was ready for her to see this through.

  She sat on the bed next to him, running her nails across his chest, the ridges of the tattoos rough against her fingertips. He licked his lips, and the muscles of his abs clenched beneath her hand as she slid it down toward the top of his jeans. He didn’t say anything.

  She hated silence. Sometimes—like now, when she was nervous—it was awkward and she felt the need to fill it. “I think your tats are sexy, but I hate why you do them.” She leaned over and unbuttoned his jeans, and watched his muscles tighten further as she lowered the zipper, exposing a sexy line of dark hair. “Hips up.”

  Mirren opened his mouth, and she waited for his favorite F-word to pop out, but he closed it again, and raised his hips off the bed enough for her to tug his jeans off—not easy with the raging hard-on.

  “Take your shirt off.” His voice was more growl than words.

  “Hey, who’s giving the orders here, buddy? I think that would be me. But I am kinda overdressed.” She unbuttoned the shirt slowly, starting with the bottom button, and noted with satisfaction his eyes tracking her movements and his irises growing way more silver than gray. Oh yeah, he wanted her.

  She finally reached the top button and let the long black shirt slide off her shoulders to the floor.

  Mirren closed his eyes, and Glory stifled a laugh. He looked like he was in pain, and she knew just what to do to push him further. She sat on the bed again, reached over, and traced the fine line of hair from his belly button downward with her tongue.

  “Aw, fuck me.” Mirren sounded like someone was killing him.

  “I plan to.” Glory wrapped her fingers around the satiny skin of his cock and swiped her tongue across the tip. Mirren gritted his teeth, and the big muscles of his thighs tensed. “You can do better than that.” She swiped her tongue across him again, and his back arched, inviting her to continue nibbling.

  He was big, bigger than she’d realized upstairs, and she couldn’t take all of him into her mouth, but she did what she could using her hands and lips and tongue until Mirren was cursing, but not in an angry way, clenching and unclenching his fists in their silver ropes.

  “Stop. You’ve gotta stop.” Mirren gasped the words, which garbled into something incoherent. Another language. Oh well, if she couldn’t understand what he was saying, she didn’t have to listen to him.

  She closed her eyes and ignored the throbbing at the junction between her own legs while she tended to him.

  He shifted back into English. “Hey. Look at me.”

  Glory raised her head and took in the gray eyes that had lightened to silver.

  He smiled at her—the first true smile she’d ever seen on his face—and it transformed him from ruggedly handsome to beautiful. “You think you’re in charge here, don’t you, woman?”

  Glory laughed and climbed astride him, letting him feel how wet she was, how ready. She planned to ride him like a freaking horse. “Well, duh. Yeah, of course I’m in charge. Who’s the one tied up to the bedpo—”

  With a tremendous crack, Mirren jerked both arms downward, leaving a bedpost dangling from each wrist. Glory watched, openmouthed, as he shook them loose. Each one dropped to the floor with a thud, taking the slackened rope with them. Now, Mirren wasn’t smiling. He was grinning, broadly enough that she could see fangs.

  Uh-oh. “You were playing me all along? Well, guess what? I don’t care.” Glory needed to get this moving before he did something crazy like push her off him and run like a big chicken. She propped one hand on his chest and used the other to guide him inside her, lowering herself onto him until she rested on him and the little bundle of nerves at her core was pulled taut. She began moving slowly, propping both hands on his chest.

  “I don’t care what you did tonight. Like I said before, I want you.” Her voice failed her, and she felt the pressure already building back up. He’d left her so ready to come while they were upstairs it wasn’t going to take much now. “You aren’t getting away from me this time.”

  “Who says I’m trying to?” The world tilted as Mirren reached up, grabbed her hips, and flipped her on her back, slipping out of her and then pressing back inside with enough force to take her breath away. He set up a steady rhythm that had her writhing, the hard muscles of his chest with their light dusting of dark hair causing a delicious friction against her breasts.

  Glory wrapped her legs around his hips and moaned as he changed angles so his thrusts went deeper and scraped across the spot guaranteed to send her over the edge.

  “You always get what you want, little Glory?” Mirren lowered his mouth to her neck, his goatee scraping a rough heat across her collarbones. His tongue swept a ragged path across her neck, behind the old vampire scars, just before he bit.

  Glory didn’t recognize the sounds coming from her as the world exploded around her. She was vaguely aware of Mirren’s mouth at her neck. His hips pistoned against her, frantic, feral, until her orgasm seized her around him so tightly he released her neck and yelled in his guttural language. Caught in her own wave of pleasure, she wrapped her arms around his arching back and held tight while he throbbed and jerked inside her.

  Finally, he collapsed, his own gasps matching her attempts to catch her breath. His tongue lapped at her neck where he’d bit. He was healing her. Maybe in more ways than he knew.

  He rolled off her, but took her with him so she rested on his chest. “You ar
e the stubbornest, most pigheaded woman I’ve ever met.” His voice was soft, and Glory smiled against his skin.

  “Yeah, aren’t you glad?”

  He chuckled, sending a rumbling tingle through her still-sensitive nerve endings. “Gotta say yeah. But it doesn’t change anything. It’s still too dangerous for you to be with me. I’ll end up hurting you.”

  Glory raised her head and met his gaze. His eyes had darkened back to thundercloud gray and were tinged with sadness. She didn’t want to argue with him, but she couldn’t let it go. “You would not hurt me. Even if you don’t know that, I do. If anything, me being here makes things more dangerous for you.”

  If she weren’t such a chicken—a selfish chicken—she’d leave on her own while the vampires were in their daysleep. Not so Mirren wouldn’t hurt her, but so she wouldn’t lead Matthias Ludlam right to Penton. But she believed Will when he said his father could find her no matter where she went. And she’d spent too many years thinking she’d never even have friends who accepted her for what she was, much less a lover. Mirren had never tried to use her, had never even suggested it. He had a gentle, tender side he had buried so deeply he didn’t realize it was there.

  “You’re too quiet, which means you’re up to something.” Mirren wrapped those strong arms around her, his fingers stroking her back in small circles that made her squirm. “And we’ve gotta talk about what happened tonight.”

  Oh no. He was going to rag on her for getting into his private space and touching his stuff. “I really didn’t go through your things.” She sat up and wrapped the edge of the sheet around her. “I was just practicing moving things, you know? I tried it on the locks, and it worked. I came downstairs and saw the pen, and then I got the idea about the rope things because I knew you—”

  Mirren sat up, fast as lightning, and clamped a big hand over her mouth. “Stop.”