by Lucinda Dark
I reached out, impossibly slow—too slow. I wanted to rush. I wanted to bowl over her, take away the pain and sink into her depths. I wanted to do what I’d been craving to since I realized the truth about her. She was impossible to control. Stronger than she looked. And loyal to a fault. She didn’t stop me. I didn’t give her a chance to. Her eyes widened when my fingers grazed her arm. Electricity moved from her to me. I felt it—the wave of power that was tightly contained inside the small body that housed Barbie Steele, the demon possessed vampire hunter.
“Oh Mav…” Her lips twitched, a grimace of resolve and sadness.
In a blink of movement, Barbie’s fingers had grasped me by the front of my shirt and dragged me down. Her mouth slammed into mine. Hard. One moment, we were moving slow, practically frozen in place. The next, we were barreling down a racetrack at a breakneck speed. One wrong move and we’d go up in flames.
I kissed her back, devouring the hunger in her, letting her use me to ease her agony. My hands went to her shoulders and I pushed her back onto the bed. Her spine settled into the mattress, but her lips never left mine. I traced my fingers down her arms and moved them to the hem of the big, gaping t-shirt Esperanza had changed her into. I whipped it up over her head and the keening sound that erupted from her throat as my mouth left hers would forever haunt me.
As soon as I sent the fabric flying to the floor, Barbie’s nails sank into my chest through my own shirt. The piercing sting of pain was nothing compared to the ravenous fucking hunger that threatened to devour me if I didn’t have her. I jerked my own shirt off, needing the softness of her skin against mine, and sent it in the same direction before shoving myself against her—her bra covered breasts against my pecs. Fuck, if she didn’t feel like a silken slice of heaven.
“Maverick.” Her voice was deeper, balanced on a knife’s tip.
I held off, wanting to kiss her again so fucking badly that my lips tingled. I’d hear what she had to say first and if she thought to make me stop, well, I’d cut off my own dick before I hurt her—but I wouldn’t allow her to hurt herself, not when I knew she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.
I met her eyes and even the supernatural glow of them was sexy. Like she was lasering me with her complete and utter focus.
“If we start this, I won’t be able to stop,” she warned.
“We’re not stopping,” I said with a shake of my head. “No fucking way.” My own tone was rough and low with the heaviness of my desire.
“I-I might do something that you don’t—” she started, but I cut her off.
“I want it,” I said. “Whatever you do to me, I want. Sink your fucking nails in, Barbie. I can take it.”
“I could hurt you, Mav. You’re human and I’m … not anymore.” I could tell those last two words hurt her. Even if she wanted the power of her demon, even if she was resolved to it, it bothered her. We weren’t thinking about that tonight, though. Tonight, I was going to sink past all her barriers and I was going to wreck her fears, make her forget everything but me. When she was in my arms, I wanted to be the only thing on her mind. Not her fear. Not her vengeance. Not fucking Torin. Me. Her. That was it.
“Hurt me, Barbie,” I whispered. I leaned closer, letting my breath rush over the top of her ear. “You can make me bleed for you if you want because I promise, Princess, I give as good as I get.”
An indelicate snort slipped from her, even as her lips creased with repressed pain. I pulled back and gazed down at her. “Remember what I said to you the first time you confronted me about your parents?” she asked. The glow had settled into her eyes, but more than that—it settled into her very skin. Even if I hadn’t been introduced to the dark creatures of the supernatural world—hadn’t known what she now was—I would’ve been aware that I held something very unique in my arms. Something that wasn’t of this world.
“Yeah?” I managed to grunt as her lower body shifted against mine, rubbing against my cock.
“Thou shalt not try me, Maverick Mcknight,” she said, arching her back. “I warned you.”
Teasing. This girl was fucking teasing me. Neither I nor my cock could take it any longer. “Did you?” I smirked, rolling my hips into hers.
Her hands reached up, nails biting into my shoulders as her eyes blew open wide. Her pupils dilated. Lips parted. Fuck, she was gorgeous. And for at least tonight, she was all mine.
When at last, she settled, her teeth visible as she sank her canine into her lower lip and looked up at me with so much desire, I was actually worried for a moment that it would be the death of me. What a way to fucking go. Hell, I’d let her fucking devour me whole if she would just look at me like that.
“You didn’t take my warning,” she whispered. “You tried me, Maverick.”
A grin overtook my face and I leaned down close. “What’s my prize?” I whispered back.
Twenty-Nine
Barbie
This was it. My last chance to back out. His last chance to back out. And he didn’t fucking take it. I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to punch him or ravish him. From the way my body responded, it seemed that the second option was definitely likely. Even before he leaned down and rolled his hips into mine, I knew the fight was over and I couldn’t have been more relieved. I was tired of fighting it, fighting him. This time, when he touched me—when his skin brushed against mine—it didn’t hurt. Instead, it chased the pain away.
I cupped the back of his head and drew him down to my mouth once more. This kiss was different than the first in that it wasn’t quite as damaging—it wasn’t hard, but flexible. His hands burned illicit paths down my body. I didn’t know how my clothes had been changed, but I didn’t care. I was grateful. The ease with which he’d taken the shirt from my body earlier left me wet and panting. I wanted more of him, over me, around and surrounding, and inside me.
In a burst of speed, I shoved my hips up and spun the two of us until I was over him, my white-blonde hair falling over our faces as I ground myself against the hardness pressing up through his jeans. He groaned, the sound transferring from his mouth to mine when I refused to stop kissing him.
“Maverick…” I whispered his name as I pulled away and reached back. I flicked the hooks of my bra open and let the straps holding it up slide down my arms. One breath. It was gone. Two breaths. His eyes focused on me, dropping first to my chest and then raising back to my face. My heart raced in my chest, pounding out an unsteady rhythm.
“Fuck, Barbie.” Maverick moved up, his mouth seeking my flesh as he kissed a path across my naked collarbone. I closed my eyes and sank my fingers through the short strands of his dark hair. I craved this.
When his mouth found my nipple, I jerked in his arms. He shushed me and flicked his tongue against the tight, turgid peak. My hips swiveled, power rising within me. A bolt of lightning lit me up inside. I arched up and cried out. It was a mixture of intense pleasure and sharp, piercing agony.
“I got you, Princess.” His whispered promise only served to make me burn even hotter. I was wet, soaking the front placket of his pants even through the thin scrap of underwear I wore. Panting, I released his head and pushed him back until his spine hit the mattress. I reached for the button of his jeans. I popped it open and slid the zipper down as he came back up on his elbows, watching me with dark, dangerous eyes.
My hand whispered against his skin inside the waistband of his underwear. Grasping him firmly and feeling the heat of him in my palm, my lips parted. “Barbie, let me—” Maverick reached down and unconsciously, a dark, threatening growl slid up from my throat. He stopped and his eyes widened. I tried to warn him. I wasn’t completely in control anymore. I wanted to do this. He’d ignored every out I’d tried to give him. I would take this. He was mine.
I pumped Maverick’s cock in my grip a few times, loving the velvety feel of him in my hand. I moved down, shifting my hips and reaching up with my other hand to snag the top of his pants, pulling them with me. Maverick helped me, shifting his h
ips up and down, side to side, until I managed to get both his jeans and his underwear off. I had to let go of him to complete the task, but as soon as I was done, I was back, my hands going to his cock. He threw back his head, groaning as I fisted him and leaned down.
My mouth hovered over the tip. Maverick’s head snapped up, his eyes catching mine as I parted my lips and licked the crown of his shaft, tasting him. A hiss pushed through his gritted teeth, veins popped up as he clenched his hands in the sheets beneath him. This was a new kind of power, one I hadn’t felt my first time. Hell, I hadn’t felt much of anything; I was just drunk and tired and lonely. This was nothing like that. For one thing, as much as I wished we were, we weren’t alone.
Open your mouth and take him inside, Satrina’s voice intruded, urging me. And like a good little demon possessed hunter, I did. I let my eyes slide shut as I descended and sucked Maverick deep into my mouth. I hollowed out my cheeks as I let my tongue trail up and down his shaft.
“Fuck!” Maverick’s hips pumped up as if he couldn’t help himself. Another few inches slid inside. I didn’t mind. He tasted good. So fucking good. Delicious on my tongue. Thick and heady. The taste of all the control I had over him.
Just like that—I shoved Satrina away and once again locked her away. Maverick was mine. Not hers. Mine. Mine. Mine.
“Barbie, oh fuck, Barbie.” My eyes popped open when Maverick’s hands delved into my hair. I looked up at him as I sucked him up and down. I couldn’t quite reach the base, he was far too big for that. “No,” Maverick snapped through gritted teeth, his fingers fisting in my hair as he yanked me up and away. Another snarl ripped from my throat, but Maverick wasn’t stopping me. He shoved me back, his hands coming to my panties. He gripped the sides and yanked them down and off my legs.
The fabric left marks on my pale skin where it had been yanked and stretched too hard. I didn’t care. Mav could bruise me as much as he wanted so long as he never stopped touching me. I looked up as Maverick came down over me after retrieving something from his pants. I turned my head and realized what it was. A condom.
“Last chance,” he said.
“That’s my line,” I countered.
The corner of his mouth lifted, but he nodded and tore the package open. As soon as he had it on, my hands slid up and over his broad shoulders. Sweat slicked against our bodies as my chest rose and fell. Mav reached down and lined up, the head of him against my core. He pushed and my lips parted on a moan. My back arched, my head went back. I was lost as he consumed me.
I thought it was the other way around. I was the one with the demon inside her, but he was different as he thrust forward. He found my hips, his fingers digging into my skin. More bruises. My breath sawed through my lungs, making my chest hurt. My head spun as I gazed up at the ceiling, my vision blurring. He withdrew and thrust forward once more, rocking me across the bed. We weren’t even laying down properly—head to headboard, feet to footboard. Instead, we were sprawled across it and for some reason, that made me laugh.
“Barbie?” He slowed in his movements, his fingers tangling in my hair and pulling my face towards his once more. “Are you okay?”
I chuckled, scraping my nails across the back of his neck, eliciting shivers of desire that rolled through him as his eyes slid shut and he inhaled sharply. “Shut up and fuck me,” I demanded.
“Oh, Barbie.” Mav’s eyes opened and centered on me. His pupils were blown wide, the brown of his irises practically swallowed up. His nostrils flared as his chest eased down and his cock pressed inside, filling me up. My throat tightened. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you beg like that.”
“I wasn’t beg—” He didn’t let me finish the sentence. Maverick withdrew from me almost completely, and automatically my nails dug into him, trying desperately to pull him back. But I needn’t have worried. The challenge I’d thrown down had more than happily been picked up.
My breath left me on a rush of air as he surged forward. My eyes widened. My mouth opened on a cry as Maverick set a pace I didn’t know how he was able to keep up. He slid in and out of me, moving fast at first and then slowing until tears rose to the corners of my eyes. I spread my legs even wider, hooking them up and over his hips as he drove me into the mattress in sharp, jerky movements.
Pleasure raced through my veins, the molten blood beneath my skin heating and warming me from the inside out. “Mav…” I gasped out his name as I felt something crest within me. A brilliant release barreling me towards the edge of a jagged, rocky cliff. Fragments of myself cracked and shattered against the pressure as Maverick thrust once more and I was ripped from his arms and sent hurdling over the brink.
My body locked up, coiling tightly as the release rushed through me. “Barbie,” I heard his responding groan, but couldn’t find it in myself to answer. My head relaxed against the lumpy mattress as my body sagged. All of the power left me in a rapid rush, leaving me altogether feeling both empty and satisfied.
My limbs no longer tingled because of the barely contained demonic power. Instead, they tingled for a completely different reason as I lifted my arm and threaded my fingers through Mav’s short strands as he bowed his head down to my chest and pressed a quick, tired kiss to the upper swell of my breast.
This, I knew, changed everything.
Thirty
Torin
There was something inside of me tearing into two separate halves. Two pieces of myself. The vampire and the human sides of who I was were both being split down the middle. In one hand, I held a thin letter sized envelope addressed to me from an unknown address in Rome, Italy. It didn’t matter that I didn’t recognize the address, I knew who it was from. In the other hand, the screen of my cell phone flickered as I tightened my hold on it and reread the message that had come in from Maverick hours ago. I hadn’t seen it until now.
I had a choice to make. Open the envelope and read it or get to Esperanza’s. It wasn’t really a choice at all. I shoved the envelope into the inside pocket of my jacket, stuffed my cell in my pocket, and snatched up the keys to my motorcycle.
It was them. I chose them.
I raced down the nearly abandoned highway and backroads, pushing the little pointer on my speedometer up to a hundred and then past it. Whenever a car popped up in front of me—regardless of whether or not I was flying down a two lane road—I swerved around them and ignored their outraged honks. Faster. Faster. I had to go faster.
If I were human, I might have slowed down. I might have been afraid that one wrong move would land me in the hospital or worse, the grave. But I wasn’t human and I felt no fear except the fear that my father and Barbie both instilled in me. Did he know about her? I wondered. Was it already too late? Had Katalin told him? I wanted to know what the letter said, but at the same time, I was terrified to read it. It was easier to focus on Barbie.
I hoped like hell my father was still ignorant to her existence. Because if not, she was nothing more than a dead girl walking. Once my father had targeted a threat, it was only a matter of time before they were eliminated. And time was something he had in spades.
I should’ve known something would happen sooner or later. The fact that Maverick had given me no details, merely telling me that she was hurt and they were at Esperanza’s, made my gut clench.
Esperanza’s house was lit up from within. The soft glow of yellow light spilling onto her front lawn. I roared up on my motorcycle, stopping behind Maverick’s familiar black truck, and cut the engine. I was at the front door, my fist raised in less time than it took me to swing my leg over the side of the bike. My knuckles rapped on the hardwood and seconds later, Esperanza appeared in the doorway, gesturing me inside.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“She’s upstairs.” I froze as Maverick’s voice came down from the stairwell along with … something else.
Tilting my head to the side, I inhaled as he cleared the landing and came to stop at the bottom of the staircase, giving me an enigmat
ic look. Even as I recognized the scent on him, I tried to repel it. Sex. Lust. Arousal. All of it wafted from his skin. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was the second scent that accompanied his, a softer, feminine scent of need and release. Barbie’s scent.
My fists were in his shirt before I knew what I was doing. Red flashed across my vision and when I spoke, my voice wasn’t mine any longer. “What. Have. You. Done?”
Maverick’s eyes widened as his brows drew down low. I didn’t give him a chance to answer me. I couldn’t. Rage spiraled within me. My vampire rushed to the surface, seeking blood. I growled low in my throat as my fangs punched through my gums, slicing through my lower lip as I snarled at him.
“What have you done!” I yelled.
“It was her fucking choice!” he yelled back. “She needed it or she would’ve died.”
I slammed my fist into his face, relishing in the crunch of cartilage as blood poured from his nose and his skull snapped to the side. I pulled back again, my intent clear—bloodlust burned inside me. My vampire demanded vengeance.
Mine, he snarled. And this was no longer the man I’d once considered a friend. I didn’t recognize him any longer. My anger was too strong. All I knew was that he’d touched what was ours.
“That is quite enough,” the sharp voice of Esperanza reprimanded. The world slowed and froze. My muscles clenched and refused to move, no matter that my enemy’s face was inches from my fist.
Maverick looked back at me, his own anger reflected in the darkest depths of his eyes. I saw it coming before he even did it. As frozen as I was with Esperanza’s thick chains of magic roped around me, I could do nothing to stop it. He reared back and punched me across the jaw. Pain lanced through my skull as my head was forced to the side.
