by Nalini Singh
“I’m too sated to move.”
“I’m too happy to assist.”
Feeling another smile bloom on her face, she let him unbutton her shirt. His fingers danced over her breasts as he pushed the fabric to either side of her body, half baring her . . . but making her feel far more naked than if she’d been stripped. The paradox intrigued her, but nowhere near as much as the golden heat in Dev’s eyes.
Her body beginning to coil again, she bit her lower lip as he shifted to undo her jeans. Pulling both the denim and the soft cotton of her panties down in two quick tugs, he threw the clothing to the side and returned to her—taking a seat between her thighs.
Cheeks flushing as he ran his hands down the upper slope of each thigh, his eyes locked with hers, she swallowed. “I’m not completely naked, and yet, I feel so exposed.”
“You look beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze on the unsteady rise and fall of her breasts. Reaching up, he tugged at the cup of her bra until it slid aside to reveal a nipple, taut and begging for his touch. “Beautiful,” he said again, dipping his head to take the hard nub into his mouth.
She cried out, the suction reaching straight through to the liquid heat between her thighs. Dev’s knuckles brushed over her damp curls at that very moment. “Oh.”
“So soft.” Grazing her nipple with his teeth, Dev rose to look down at her.
She felt an absolute creature of the senses at that moment, flushed and without inhibitions. Reaching up, she went to caress him, but he stopped her hands. “It’s my turn, remember?” And the wicked glint in his eye was the only warning she had before he began to kiss his way downward. She tried to grab at his shoulders, but he simply chuckled and kept going.
His kiss was hot, dark, wicked.
It was all she could do not to sob from the pleasure of it. Clutching at the sheets with desperate hands, she made no protest when he spread her thighs even farther and settled in to taste her as if she were some exotic banquet, and he a connoisseur.
“Shh.” Strong hands stroked her down as he laved kisses on the delicate skin of her inner thighs.
But just as she’d almost gotten her breath back, he kissed her with that same devastating intimacy a second time, the tenderness of his touch doing nothing to hide the possessiveness. Part of her was convinced he knew she’d decided to leave him, but that thought was less than a flicker in the back of her mind. Right now, the endorphins flooding her body left no room for anything but pleasure.
Slow, seductive, sizzling.
A single lick and it was too much. She twisted away, desperate to escape . . . yet wanting more at the same time. “Dev.”
Holding her hips in place, he pressed his lips to her navel. “Trust me.”
She trusted him more than she’d ever trusted any other being. “I need you.” It was a dangerous confession, but she had no barriers left.
His hands tightened on her, and then he was moving over her body in a molten wave of kisses, touch and pure heat. She found her lips taken again, even as he reached between them to free himself, shoving his clothing down just enough. It was still too slow—she was rubbing herself against him by then, hungry, so desperately hungry.
“Katya, baby, stop.” It was a groan. “I can’t hold on if you do that.”
She raised her lips to his again, infusing her kiss with every ounce of passion in her. Shuddering, Dev gripped her hard on one hip. “I sure hope you’re ready, sweetheart.”
“Yes, yes!” Crying out as her body stretched around the hard thrust of his entry, she wrapped both legs around his waist. And then she let him lead.
He took her on a ride that eclipsed anything they’d ever before done. Wild, untamed, and vividly physical, they danced. The last thing Katya remembered was seeing Dev’s eyes shimmer gold.
CHAPTER 46
“Shower,” Dev said, all but carrying her to the bathroom.
“Later.”
He pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “We’re both sweaty—and I need to get some work done.”
Holding on to him, she let him turn on the shower. The warm spray washed off the sweat of their lovemaking, and that was all they were capable of then. Dragging her out of the bathroom, Dev rubbed her down before doing the same to himself, while she tried to keep herself upright.
Just when her legs threatened to go out from under her, he dropped the towel and grabbed her. “We do that again,” Dev muttered, “and I might not live to tell the tale.”
Nuzzling her smiling face into the damp heat of his neck, she let him carry her to bed, lay her down on the tumbled sheets. “I’m so sleepy.”
“Yeah, might be a good idea to catch an hour’s shut-eye,” he said with a yawn. “We didn’t get much more than three hours last night.”
As he pulled the blanket over them, her lashes fluttered down. Body sated and wrung out, she tried to remember what she had to do. Leave. Yes, she had to do that.
But then Dev put an arm around her waist and pulled her close, and she surrendered to the selfishness in her that wanted another moment, another minute, another hour with him. I’ll go once he falls asleep, she promised herself, never realizing that she was sliding into the same dreamless void herself.
Dev felt Katya leave the bed, his senses coming half-awake as he waited for her to return from the bathroom. It took him too long to realize he couldn’t hear the tap running, any sounds at all. “Katya?”
He opened his eyes just in time to see her run into the room, the light from the setting sun dancing off the deadly blade in her hand. Snapping to full alertness as she lifted the murderous blade high above her head, he went to roll away, but something stopped him. The angle of the knife, it was wrong—“Katya!”
Blood spurted as she thrust the knife into her own thigh, crashing to the floor with a shattered cry of pain.
He was kneeling beside her almost before he remembered moving, his heart a hammer against his ribs, his entire body taut with adrenaline that had nowhere to go. “God damn it, baby.” His words came out harsh, angry, even as he flicked on the light and focused on the wound, trying not to let the sound of her pained breathing distract him from doing what he had to do to help her.
But he couldn’t stop the stream of angry words. “What the hell did you think you were doing? You could’ve hit your femoral artery.” He was fucking glad to see that she hadn’t. The knife, however, had gone in deep. “If you wanted to die, you should’ve told me. I’d have done it for you.”
He gripped her leg hard, holding her in place as he reached for a nearby bureau, yanking out an old but clean shirt. “Leave it,” he snapped when she went to pull out the blade. Her silent tears grated on his every protective instinct. But he was tearing the shirt and using the material to put pressure on the wound—working around the knife embedded in her—even as she sobbed. “It’ll heal fast with the proper care, though I’ve a mind to sew you up myself. The stupidity—”
“Dev.” Fingers on his stubbled jaw. Tear-stained eyes met his. “I was trying to kill you.”
“So why did the knife end up in your thigh?” Under his touch, her skin was delicate, so easily bruised. “Talk.”
A slow blink. “I couldn’t drop the knife.” She lifted her hand to her mouth as if ashamed.
He gripped her chin. “You call me next time. You fucking scream. You don’t stab yourself.”
“I couldn—”
“You could,” he said, his tone hard. “If you can fight the compulsion enough to stab yourself, then you can fight it enough to let me know something’s wrong.” Continuing to keep pressure on her thigh with one hand, he used the other to rip away the hand she’d been using to cover up a nosebleed. “How bad?”
“Not so bad.” She went to turn her head away but he forced her to face him as he used a strip of fabric to wipe away the blood.
Her cheeks pinkened. “I can do that.”
It was the sheer normality of the reaction that convinced him she wasn’t lying about the consequences of fightin
g what had clearly been an implanted suggestion. “It’s fine.” His voice was still sandpaper raw, and when she flinched, he knew it wasn’t from the pain. Putting down the strip of cloth when it became obvious her nose had stopped bleeding, he dropped his head to press a kiss to the top of her knee.
An indrawn breath . . . then gentle feminine fingers in his hair, stroking, calming. He shuddered, felt his hands clench on her thigh, forced himself to loosen his grip. “We need to get you to a medic.”
“You can do it.” Another stroke through his hair.
He lifted his head. “No. The wound’s too deep. I want someone qualified to look at it.”
“I can’t be DNA scanned.” Fear glittered in her eyes.
Leaning forward, he gripped her nape and held her in place for a kiss that had no tenderness in it, he was so fucking scared for her. “I’ll take care of it.” But first he wanted her dressed, warm. “Keep the pressure on.” Slapping her hand onto her thigh, he found his T-shirt, pulled it over her head, then wrapped her in a blanket.
She took a gasping breath and watched as he grabbed his cell phone from the bedside table without getting up. Flipping it open, he coded in a familiar number. “Connor,” he said when the phone was answered on the other end. “Can you make a run to my place?”
“You hurt?” Instant alertness.
He could hear movement, as if Connor was already grabbing his gear. “No. But bring your full kit. Knife wound, deep.”
“Bleeding?”
He glanced down, parting the blanket. The cotton of the shirt wasn’t soaked through. “Contained, but there was some loss of blood before I got it stopped.” Holding the phone between ear and shoulder, he used a couple of strips of fabric to wrap the makeshift pads into place.
“Patient conscious?”
He looked into hazel eyes gone a muddy green with pain. “Yes.”
“Keep him that way. I’ll be at your place in ten.”
Hanging up without correcting Connor’s assumption on the gender of his patient, Dev put the cell phone back on the table and got up. “Connor lives close. He’ll be here soon.” As he bent to pick her up, she protested. He ignored her. “Katya, I’m going to do exactly what I want, and you’re going to let me.”
She held on to his shoulders as he carried her to the bed and sat down with her in his lap. “I am?”
“Yes.” His lips were on hers before he even knew he was going to kiss her, his hand once more at her nape, his knuckles brushed by the soft fall of her hair. He licked his tongue across the seam of her lips, gained entrance, and then he turned the raging animal in him loose. Because, how dare she hurt herself?
Katya just held on as Dev took total possession. Not long before, she’d thought she’d scaled the greatest heights of emotion with this man. She’d been wrong. Never before had she felt so utterly overwhelmed. Dev was no longer holding back even an iota of what made him the powerful man he was.
Trembling from the wild fury of the kiss, she gripped the solid muscles of his shoulders and did precisely what he’d told her she would—she let him do exactly what he wanted. Because this man was as wild as any changeling, as dangerous, and right now, so on edge, she had a feeling any resistance would be read as the wrong kind of challenge.
Not that she wanted to resist. His kiss, it was melting her from the inside out, the ice of the compulsion no kind of a barrier. She shifted even closer, wanting to strip off the T-shirt and press her body to his, to soak in the essence of him. Nothing and no one would stop Dev from taking what he wanted.
And right now, he wanted her.
But he broke the kiss far too soon. “How bad does it hurt?”
It took her a few seconds to realize what he was asking her. “Hardly.”
“Shock.” Lips compressing, he raised one hand to push her hair off her face. “Are you cold?”
“Not when you kiss me.”
His eyes flared with a deeply sexual fire. “Oh, I plan to kiss you. After Connor’s gone.”
Dev watched as Connor cleaned out Katya’s wound. When the man’s long-fingered hands touched her skin, Dev had to grit his teeth to keep himself from ripping Connor’s damn arm out of its socket. The reaction made no rational sense—not only was the quiet male a friend, he was also a highly qualified doctor. Though he chose to live in Vermont, he was a critical part of Shine’s diagnostic team. It was Connor who’d worked out a way to pinpoint those at risk of the Talin Process Degeneration. Taking its name from the first identified case, TPD came about because of a lack of biofeedback—biofeedback the victims weren’t aware they needed, because their need was so very small.
Dev knew all that. He also knew he wasn’t rational. “How bad is it?” he snapped when Connor finished and turned to get something from his kit.
The other man arched an eyebrow at Dev’s tone, but his own response was civil. “Not serious. The sealant will repair most of the damage, but I’m going to have to put in stitches first.” He took out the stitch stapler.
“Those things hurt like a son of a bitch,” Dev said, walking over to place his hand on Katya’s hair. “Put yourself under,” he told her, having already explained her genetic makeup to Connor.
She shook her head, and that stubborn angle to her jaw made it clear she wouldn’t be changing her mind. Instead of forcing the issue, he nodded at Connor. “You got anything that’ll numb the area?”
“Sure,” the other man said, “but full-bloods react badly to anesthetics. Even that much might mess her up.”
“Just do the stitches,” Katya said. “It’ll be a quick, fast pain, and then it’ll be over.”
Connor gave her a long look. “The wound will ache overnight, while the sealant works. After that, it shouldn’t be worse than a deep bruise.”
Katya gave a small nod and reached up. Instead of letting her take his hand, Dev sat down on the bed so he could look into her eyes, and tugged her face to the curve of his shoulder. “Do it,” he ordered Connor.
As the other man went to work, Katya flinched and wrapped her arms around Dev in an iron-tight embrace. But she didn’t make a sound, and a few seconds later, Connor was finished. Dev felt her body go limp as the doctor put a thin-skin bandage around her thigh.
“The staples will dissolve as the skin knits,” Connor told him. “The bandage is waterproof so she can shower with it. No need to change it for three days unless she complains of heat or severe pain in that area—call me if that happens.”
“I’ve got some of those bandages,” Dev said when Connor held up a pack.
Nodding, the other man put them back in his kit. “Good night’s sleep and she’ll be fine.” He got up.
Stroking a hand down the back of Katya’s head, Dev settled her on the pillow and stood. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She didn’t say anything, but her eyes followed him as he exited the room. It took everything he had to leave her there, but Connor obviously needed to talk to him. The other man didn’t say anything until they reached his car. “You going to tell me what you’re doing with a full-blood?”
“No.” The fewer people who knew the truth, the better. “You didn’t see her.”
“See who?” Throwing his medical kit into the passenger seat, Connor slid his lean form into the vehicle. “Let her rest.”
Dev stopped in the process of turning around. “That’s none of your business.”
Connor met his eyes, the lines of his face even more austere in the early evening light. “Never thought I’d have to tell you how to take care of your woman.”
Dev felt his fingers curl into a tight fist. “Lot of assumptions in that statement, Connor.”
“Just telling it like I see it.” He pulled the door shut.
Dev was inside the house before the other man finished reversing down the drive. Closing and locking the door, he strode down to the bedroom. Katya wasn’t on the bed.
CHAPTER 47
Dev’s eyes zeroed in on the bar of light showing under the bathroom
door. He pushed through without knocking.
“Dev!” She pulled a towel in front of her body.
Lust kicked him hard—as if he hadn’t all but killed himself with her mere hours ago. Every bit of the anger, the rage he’d felt at seeing her hurt seemed to have transmuted into pure need. Ignoring the savage hunger to teach her exactly how badly he took her hurting herself, he walked over and wrapped the towel more firmly around her damp body. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I wanted to wash off the blood that dripped down my leg,” she said. “It only took a minute.”
“Then why are you trembling?” He swung her up in his arms without waiting for an answer. “If you’ve pulled out the stitches, I’m going to redo them, and I’m not as gentle as Connor.”
Instead of snapping back at him, Katya nuzzled her face into his neck and said, “I’m sorry.”
He knew she wasn’t talking about the shower. “It wasn’t your fault.” Placing her on the bed with all the tenderness he had in him, he lay down beside her. “They messed with your head.”
Shimmering green-gold eyes met his as she shook her head. “I’m a walking weapon. I knew this was coming and I stayed. I should’ve left yesterday!”
He knew she was right. But he also knew it was far too late. “I told you—you’re mine. I don’t let go of what’s mine.” Pressing a kiss to her temple, he raised himself up on his arms.
She gripped his biceps. “Don’t leave.”
“I need to clean up the floor. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
But the cleanup took a little longer than he’d expected, and she was asleep by the time he returned to the bed, curled up on her uninjured side. Sliding in beside her, he tugged away the towel with careful hands—he needed to wrap his body around her instead, feel her safe and warm, protected in his arms.
