“Are you saying that I’m not strong?” she asked, staring him down.
“No, I’m saying that that’s not all you are. Of course you’re strong, and of course you’re tough. Living in this family and with that father, I can’t imagine you being any other way. Kazimir is no joke. I’m just saying I’m sure you’re also kind and sweet and compassionate, and I know for a fact you’re funny. You’ve cracked me up more than a few times. I just think you should loosen those constraints a little bit and let yourself be an honest version of you.” He smiled softly and took her tiny porcelain hand into his big brown ones.
“I know what you’re saying, but in my life, those things aren’t considered ‘honest’ or ‘being real.’ They’re considered weaknesses. If you crack too many jokes, you’re an idiot. If you’re nice, you’re weak. Letting your personality out might be mentally healthier, but it’s going to get you shot.” She laughed a little as she said it, knowing how ridiculous it all really was.
“Then, just let it out in private, to me.” He pulled her closer, and she let the bottle slide down her hand and hit the floor.
“Why would I do that?” she asked in a breathy voice.
“Because, then I can become your happy place. In my arms, you can be free and open; you can truly speak your mind. I’ll be the warm, sunny beach your mind vacations on from all of its cold winters. And most importantly, because I want you to.” With that, he sealed his lips over hers.
He couldn’t truly express to her in words how much he needed her to depend on him. To let him love her. She wasn’t ready to hear that, and they both knew it. But through this kiss, and well into the night, he could tell her in a different way.
Their kiss was soft and slow, and looking down as they pulled apart, he could see her mind was swimming.
“You don’t have to overthink this, Snakebite.” He couldn’t help but smile at her. Always on guard, always trying to figure out his angle. “My angle is that I want to kiss you and touch you and rub you and maybe get a little bit dirtier from there.”
She bit her lip a little but nodded her head.
“Do you want that, too?” He brushed her dark hair away from her face.
“Yes.” She was barely able to get the word out.
She didn’t want to admit just how much she wanted it, but she also couldn’t let herself lose this night. She had never been able to relax with a man, or any person, but she knew she could do it tonight. She knew she could with Kai… and she wanted that. Even if it was only for one night, she wanted to drop the heavy load her shoulders carried. She wanted to be swept away, and she wanted him.
“Just tonight, though,” she added on, worried.
“We’ll start with tonight. Tomorrow, you can fight me on tomorrow.” This time, he kissed her hard.
Her shoulders slumped for what felt like the first time in her life, and she leaned into the kiss.
He was strong and solid and surrounded her completely. She had to reach up on her tiptoes, but for some reason, tonight she liked that.
For tonight only, Katya was going to enjoy feeling small and dainty. Tomorrow, she could go back to being a murdering drug king’s daughter.
In one swift motion, Kai lifted her up against him, and she wrapped her legs around him. Moaning against his lips, she told him that this was exactly what she needed from him.
Her bony fingers slid through the back of his hair and tugged hard, causing him to grunt.
“You wanna go down that road?” he asked against her lips, “because if you want it rough, we can go rough.”
“Always.” She pulled his hair harder, and he gripped her ass in his strong hands.
Pricking her lip on them, she felt his fangs pull down and run against her tender flesh. If anyone had asked her about his fangs yesterday, she might have felt grossed out, but not tonight. Tonight, they were sexy, and she needed more of them.
Pulling away from the kiss, she angled her neck upwards. She didn’t want him to take her blood… not yet, but she did want to feel those fangs everywhere.
“I’m glad you like them.” His voice was dark as he ran his fangs along her neck.
“I don’t know why I do,” she confessed. “I should be scared of how easily you could kill me.”
“Maybe that’s why you like them,” he laughed lowly. “My girl seems to like a little bit of danger.”
“I’m not your girl,” she moaned.
“You are tonight.” He gripped her harder.
“Just tonight,” she whispered and felt his tongue tracing the line his fangs had just made.
His arms opened under her, and she slid to the ground, her legs like Jell-O beneath her, but his arms were there to keep her upright.
Kai began to strip his clothes off, his eyes never leaving hers as he did. Her breathing was shallow and hard to control as his skin was revealed, piece by piece.
Tattoos covered his skin. She could follow their patterns for hours, but his hands began to take apart the thick belt at his waist, and she couldn’t stop watching. She had to resist the urge to push his hands away and undo the belt herself.
Did she want it slow and sweet or fast and rough? Fuck if she could decide. She wanted it all and all of it at the same time.
Could he do that for her? Something about the dark, glowing lust in his eyes told her that yes… yes, he could.
Licking her lips, she stared as his cock sprung forward for her eyes.
“You look good enough to eat.” She bit the corner of her lip.
“If you bite me, I’ll bite you back,” he warned, flashing a little fang.
His cock was big, painfully so, but she knew she would enjoy every second of that pain. Part of her wanted to rush into it, to throw everything to the side and just climb on. The other part, however, was enjoying the slow heat building between them.
“Your turn.” He stood proudly naked in front of her and wanted her to be the same.
“Undress me,” she commanded, and his lips kicked up at the ends with the order.
“Anything for you, little Snakebite.” He hooked his fingers into her waistband and pulled her close.
His hands brushed her sides as he lifted her shirt up, slow and intentional. She shivered from the sensation and, for once, didn’t try to cover it up as a weakness. Fuck it, she thought to herself. If she was weak tonight, than she would be just that.
Kai was enjoying slowly teasing her. She could see it in his face, and she liked the look. She liked the fact that a man wanted her so badly and wanted to pleasure her so much.
“I think you’re blushing, girl,” he murmured as he bent to unzip her pants with his teeth.
“No, I think that’s just going to be the color of my face for the rest of the night.” She breathed heavily as he pushed her legs apart.
She stood in only her bra and panties, painfully excited for what he would do to her next.
Softly, he kissed her stomach, his hands sliding over her panties, rubbing her over the fabric.
Why bother holding in the moans? she thought to herself and let them fly. He was doing an excellent job with her tonight. The least she could do was let him know that.
“I think there’s still a lot on your mind.” She looked down and realized that he had been watching her reaction.
“I’m just trying to be in the moment, which is hard when I’ve never done that at any time in my life, and all my instincts are screaming for me to do something completely different.” She looked away from him, not wanting him to see her face anymore.
“What are your instincts telling you? I want them to want me, too.” He sat down on the cold stone floor and tugged her hand so she would follow.
“They do. They have since I met you, which is alarming to me.” She let out a frustrated sigh. “I’ve never been relaxed and open during sex. You’re going to laugh at me, but I always try to just make sex quick and efficient. Get in and get out, and don’t worry about things like foreplay because I don’t have time. And do
n’t moan and shiver and show them how much you like it because you don’t want them to lord this power over you. You want them to know that they are simply a tool that you’re using, and once that is done, you don’t care to see them again even if you really do. My sex life has been very… business casual, I would say.”
Kai nearly keeled over for a moment at those last words.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Not exactly romance novel material, but it’s gotten the job done.” She crossed her arms over herself.
“No, no, don’t do that.” He pulled her arms apart and wrapped his arms around her. “I won’t take the piss out of you. I just can’t not laugh at that for a minute. Which, I’ll add, is not me laughing at you. I just wish I had gotten to you sooner, love. Think of all those orgasms I could have saved.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize I was dealing with the orgasm whisperer here.” She rolled her eyes.
“You’ll know it by the end of the night.” He gave her an overdramatic wink, and she was ready to leave. “I’m just being a goof, but with sincerity, please don’t hide your moans or your orgasms from me. And please let me have lots and lots of foreplay with you. In return, you can be as mean as you want to me in the morning. Just let me get you off a few times, and let me hold you while you sleep.”
“A few times?” Her eyebrow arched. Now that was something she definitely wouldn’t have let someone do in the past.
“At least two or three, or my ego will be terribly bruised,” he purred against her neck.
“Ah, well, as long as we’re doing it to keep your ego together, I guess I could allow it to happen. I suppose I could be gracious and polite for once.” She shivered hard against his lips.
“You would be doing me a great kindness.” He nodded as his hands began to trek their way across her body again.
Like always, she started to tense up, and anxiety began to poke its head out. But she watched him, and it seemed to soothe her.
Yes, other people in her life would try to use any situation, even a sexual one, to gain an advantage over her, but she knew Kai wasn’t one of those people. She didn’t know how she knew, but from the moment he had reemerged into her life, back from the dead, and he hadn’t been angry with her, she had felt like she was dealing with something different.
A person who she didn’t have to be constantly on guard with, a person who wasn’t waiting to write down her every flaw and sell the information to the highest bidder. A person who she could simply breathe with and even laugh around. Who she could maybe be herself around if she could even remember who that person was anymore.
“Okay, but you’ll owe me a favor later for this kindness,” she laughed, knowing exactly what he would ask for as a favor.
She straddled his lap and pulled off her bra, ready to feel his lips elsewhere. He didn’t keep her waiting for long.
With hard, teasing strokes, he lapped at her nipples, causing them to harden. She held his head there, engulfed in the feeling of him and not yet ready to let it go.
The two of them fell in together in a rough and easy rhythm of mouths and touches. They wanted each other badly, and nothing was going to stand in their way now. They had come too far emotionally to worry about anything else tonight.
When he finally thrust himself inside her, he stared deeply into her eyes. Her instinct was to look away, but a new feeling emerged. Something strong and consuming that wanted her to look. This was the most romance she had ever experienced in her life, and it frightened her, but not enough to make her stop.
His cock was thick, and gave her her favorite kind of pain. He murmured things to her in a language she didn’t understand, and she got drunk off of it.
Off of his voice and all of the things he could have been saying. Off of the hard, powerful strokes he slammed into her, off of his nails biting into her skin and her mouth so hungry for him.
She took another hard swig of the wine bottle and began to ride him. His eyes were there again, searching hers out.
“Stop looking. It’s too much,” she whispered, he was taking her too far. Farther than she had ever wanted to go.
“No,” he took both of her hands into his and pulled her forward, flush against him, then thrust hard. “You have to take my love, Snakebite. I need you to take all of me.”
“I can’t,” she growled, her hard thrusts meeting his.
“You will,” he commanded, pressing his forehead against her sweat slicked brow.
Harder and faster, they met each other’s bodies, two waves crashing against each other in the ocean, until she began to break apart, her orgasm so hard it pulled him down with her.
They were tumbling now, falling to a place so deep neither of them could run now.
~
Two days later, Ari and Tama returned with the information everyone was waiting on, but it wasn’t pretty.
“We know where they went, but we don’t want to go.” Ari pulled a face.
“How bad could it possibly be?” Kai frowned.
“The Arctic circle, bro,” Tama announced, looking absolutely devastated. “We’ll fucking die out there, mate.”
“What’s so bad about the arctic circle?” Katya asked. “I’m dangerously close to calling you guys pussies.”
“It’s fucking cold there.” Kai looked offended by her question. “It’s cold enough here as it is.”
“They killed my brother and just tried to kill me. We’re going,” she demanded, stubbornly putting her foot down. Even if she had to go alone, she was going.
“Well, of course we’re going. We’re just going to piss and moan about it the whole way.” Kai gave her a brilliant smile.
“You guys are so weird.” She shook her head. “When do we leave?”
“I’m assuming as soon as you clear it with your father and pack your stuff?” Kai’s smile had vanished, but she knew she could bring it back easily enough.
Without any more conversation on the topic, she headed off to tell her father, not only where she was going but that she couldn’t be stopped. She also wouldn’t hesitate to inform him of who had tracked down the rival cartel when all her brothers had done was run them out of town.
“I should be the one going with you. This journey is one of vengeance for our family,” Kazimir said, disappointed with the news of their new location. “At my age, I think I would be more of a hindrance than a help to you. Is there any way you can bring them back alive?”
“I will try my best for you, papa.” Katya nodded, knowing how important it would be for him to get his own revenge.
“And take your brothers with you,” her father added, wanting as many members of their family on this journey as they could get.
“Yes, I’ll take them. Though, it’s their fault these men have run off to the arctic to begin with,” she said with a glare. Everyone could have simply let the Maori do what they were best at and bring home the perpetrators to them, but now wasn’t the time for arguing.
“Having to travel by nightfall will be dangerous, but we will get you all the supplies we can. We’ve already bought a rig large enough to hold all of you and make it through the subzero temperatures.” Her father’s face was full of regret, and she knew it was killing him that he couldn’t go.
“We shouldn’t be gone more than a week, papa.” She did her best to comfort him in the only way she knew how. “And I’m not worried about my safety with the Maori around. They’ve proven their loyalty more than once, and if anyone is capable of tracking men through the frozen tundra, it’s the warriors.”
“I still don’t like you going out alone, so far away from help.” Her father scowled, but they dropped the subject. They weren’t about to start discussing deep feelings now, so there was really nothing else to do about it but accept the situation they were in and move on.
“I’ll be back within two weeks,” she promised.
Katya was not an idiot. She knew the journey would be the roughest one she had ever taken. She also knew that she could die, simply from
the elements, and never even make it to their target, but it was all a risk she was willing to take.
No point in chickening out now.
~
Kai had never felt dumber in his entire life than he did riding a massive mountain of machinery, through the dark in temperatures so cold that even the Russians were having a hard time with it.
Their journey had taken slightly longer than expected, thanks to having to drive in poor visibility. Even with their enhanced vampire sight, things had gotten difficult.
The only positive to the entire trip was his time spent with Katya. When he first met her, he thought their romance would take years to blossom, that she would fight him tooth and nail every step of the way.
After their night in the wine cellar, however, she had begun easing into their relationship. As they were surrounded by other people; nothing else overtly intimate had happened, but she had begun reaching for his hand and holding it without him making the first move. More than once, he had caught her staring at his face, and when he had silently raised his eyebrows at her for her actions, she had simply replied with, “Sometimes you just don’t realize how lonely you’ve been, until the right person comes along.”
“I feel the same Snakebite… I feel the same,” he murmured in response, and she lightly placed her head on his shoulder.
His men had not taken to the journey well. Though they hadn’t complained, their normal cheery disposition had vanished. While they were all vampires and never spent any time out during the day, the sun and its heat were always in their veins. These temperatures and the awful frozen wasteland around them could ruin even the most optimistic of temperaments.
With all things considered, the moment they finally saw tents on their horizon, they may as well have been religious zealots finally looking upon Mecca.
They stopped all movement immediately. If they weren’t relying on the vampires enhanced vision, they may already have been seen, but thanks to the Maori warriors, they had more than one upper hand on their enemies.
Leaving their vehicle behind, they began the painstaking process of making their way to the enemy camp.
Immortal Protector: Vampire Mates Page 6
