“Whatever.” Vash tried to refocus after feeling Elijah’s “joystick” flex inside her when referenced to. “You’re one to talk. I know you’re just into me for my tits.”
“So we’ll deal. I’ll grant you exclusive and convenient access to what I’ve got in return for the same from you.”
“That’s it?” she asked suspiciously. Exclusivity and convenience tied in a lot of different things, she knew, but she still had to ask.
His gaze was steady, all human, and infinitely patient. “What more can you live with?”
“Well…” She ran a hand through her hair. “I can’t live with the cold shoulder. Made me crazy. You were such an ass yesterday.”
“I was the ass?”
She sighed and knew she had to lay it all out there or risk losing him. The beast might be infatuated, but the man wasn’t the type to be strung along. “I want you. Not just for the sex, but for you. I respect you. I respect how you are with your people. But that’s exactly why I can’t keep you. And I’m afraid to want you more. I’m afraid to get hurt again.”
He reached up with both hands and brushed her hair back from her face. “You’re thinking about my responsibilities as an Alpha.”
“Tell me you’re not,” she shot back. “And if you aren’t, you should be.”
“At this point, I’m wondering if there hasn’t been a big fucking mistake. This makes twice now I’ve lost it over you.”
Vash frowned. “When was the other time?”
“Doesn’t matter when. It happened.” His firm, beautifully shaped mouth brushed across hers. “The hunt began the moment I first saw you. It won’t end until you admit you’re mine or I stop breathing. That’s what the beast wants and what I want it to have. As for the man, I admire your strength and your courage. I’m grateful for your advice and that you’ve always been willing to share it with me. I’m addicted to your body, but I also enjoy just being with you. You’re the perfect amount of crazy for me. There’s never a dull moment with you, sweetheart.”
She leaned into him, something inside her cracking open at what he was saying. Her body tightened around him, hugging him from the inside.
He growled softly. “I could come again just like this. Just holding you and being held by you. Even if I go on as the Alpha, I couldn’t pretend to take on a mate now. The thought of being intimate with another woman repulses me.”
Her eyes closed as relief and tenderness flooded her. “There was only Char. Then you. I want this to work. I want to make it work.”
“So commit to this, Vashti—sleeping together, working together, staying together. None of which is anyone else’s business. We just have to talk to each other and make each other a priority.”
“There isn’t a lycan alive who doesn’t want to kill me, including you sometimes.”
“And there are very few vamps who wouldn’t put me down if they thought they could get away with it. Every relationship has its problems and hostile in-laws.”
“Ha! You’re a riot.”
“And I’m stubborn and arrogant.” He nipped her lower lip between even, white teeth. “You’re mine, Vash. I dare anyone to challenge me otherwise. Even you.”
“You suck.” Her mouth tingled deliciously; the flavor of him spread richly across her tongue. “You knew what you were doing to me yesterday and last night. You knew it would break me down to lose you, that I wouldn’t be able to take it.”
“I hoped,” he corrected. “And kicked myself with doubts about drawing a line I wasn’t sure you’d cross. When I offered my room last night and you didn’t take it, I could’ve strangled you. You tore into a hotel room in a territorial rage, but you wouldn’t take that one step I needed you to take. I started to think there was no way to have you the way I need you. Then you came to me at breakfast and I was too damn close to telling you I’d take whatever I could get.”
“I was too damn close to begging you to stop punishing me.” Her vision blurred and she turned her head. “You shut me out. It…hurt. I hate hurting. It makes me crazy. Crazier.”
He exhaled and leaned into her. “You’re damned stubborn.”
Stung by the truth, she said, “And you’re rolling over and exposing your belly without much of a fight, puppy.”
“You’ve been here before, with Charron. Of course you’d be wary of putting yourself out there again and making yourself vulnerable. This is new to me. I’ve never had this, and I want it. I can’t imagine not having it. Not having you.”
Vash pressed her palm over his strongly beating heart. “Has it occurred to you that I might be seducing you and making you care so you won’t be able to kill me?”
He covered her hand with his. “What kind of asshole do you take me for? Think I could nail you six ways from Sunday, then nail you again with a stake? I let that go before we went at each other in the warehouse. Micah’s dead. What you did to him was wrong, because your assumptions about me were wrong. But I can’t say I would’ve acted differently. If I kill you on his behalf, I’d just be doing exactly what you did to him for Nikki’s sake. It’s a vicious cycle that won’t bring either of them back, but would destroy both of us.”
She nuzzled into his neck, breathing him in. “Some will ask that question and ascribe that motive to me. More will think about it.”
“Fuck ’em.”
“Nooo…” she crooned, nibbling behind his ear. “We have a deal: exclusivity and convenience. You fuck no one but me.”
Elijah’s hands cupped her shoulder blades, keeping her close. He tilted his head to the side, giving her total access to the thick artery in his neck that carried his life’s blood. Such a submissive gesture by so dominant a male—one that came at great cost, she knew—stirred her blood. The hunter in her stretched in anticipation, while the woman in her melted.
With perfectly gauged strokes of her tongue, Vash expertly plumped his vein. She felt him swallow hard and she smiled. “Did you know a vampire’s bite can give the sweetest sexual ecstasy?”
“Why do you think I won’t let you feed off anyone else?”
“I was too far gone to see to your pleasure in Vegas. I’m sorry for that. I want to please you, Elijah. I want to make you happy.”
“Trust me. I got mine in Vegas.” His hands, those warm and wonderful hands, slid down her back and cupped her buttocks, rocking her onto his raging erection. “And you please me all the time, in so many ways. But if you want to make it up to me anyway, I won’t mind.”
“Don’t you?” As she dragged her fangs delicately across his throat, she couldn’t fail to feel the fine tremors rippling through him. “You’re an apex predator, and you’re about to be another predator’s snack.”
“I’m a man,” he retorted gruffly, “who’s about to lie back, relax, and enjoy his woman riding him to a mind-blowing orgasm.”
“Why, you chauvinist,” she scolded with laughter in her voice. But her smile faded when she pulled back to look at him. His face was etched into tense lines and his eyes, those jeweled eyes that saw right through her, were aglow. The man could tease, but the beast inside him was struggling with being food for another being. She gentled him with soothing strokes of her hands through his hair. “You don’t have to do this, Elijah. I can take a wrist from someone else. Quick and clean.”
“No.”
“A woman, if you prefer. We could go to a den. You could fuck me while I feed. It might turn you on to watch—”
“No, damn you.” His voice was deep and rumbling, nearly a snarl. He caught her by the back of the neck and yanked her to his throat. “I’ll be the one who gives you what you need. Do it.”
Closing her eyes, she sucked in a deep, shaky breath and found her focus. His pleasure was more paramount than her need to eat, because she understood the gift he was giving her and how much it violated the very core of the predator he was. Taking pleasure from penetration took time for an Alpha male to adjust to. Some never did. She couldn’t bear for Elijah to regret feeding her. And if she
was honest, she would admit she hoped he’d enjoy it enough to want to do it again. To ask her to do it to him.
Vash licked her dry lips and parted them, her tongue stroking along the vein in a lover’s caress. Twining her arms around his torso, she distracted him with the press of her breasts into his chest. Then she struck, sliding her fangs into the wildly pumping surge of rich, intoxicating blood.
He cursed and stiffened, then groaned as the rhythmic pull of her mouth was echoed by her sex around his cock. Holding his head motionless with one arm wrapped around his nape, she ran her other hand up and down his rigid back. She withdrew her fangs and licked the wound closed, sucking softly on his skin. Her mouth brushed along his throat, nibbling and kissing. When he relaxed, she struck again in a different place, sinking her fangs deep. Her cheeks hollowed on a long, drawing pull as he began to come.
He hissed, grinding her hips onto him, spilling into her.
Drunk on him, she fell into the memories carried by his blood, selfishly seeking out his thoughts of her—the possessiveness, the pleasure, the pain. In return, she flooded his mind with her own thoughts of him. Making him see how he felt inside her, the fire that burned through her when she looked at him, the deep respect and admiration he inspired in her, and the ache that only his passion could sate.
“Vashti.” He jolted as she milked him into another climax, his big body shuddering as she came along with him, delicate muscles gripping him in the most intimate of embraces. Raw sounds of pleasure vibrated from his throat against her lips, rough groans of desire, a craving that was never fully appeased.
Her hunger quenched, Vash retracted her fangs and sealed the twin punctures, massaging the vein that hammered with his roaring blood. With her hands on his shoulders, she shoved him back, her mouth curving as he sprawled beneath her. He was panting, his eyes bright and hot. Leaning over him, she raked her nails down his chest and lifted her hips, then lowered again, stroking his length with the slick clasp of her body.
She didn’t have the words this time around. She’d had them with Char. She’d had them as an angel. But she didn’t have them now, with him. They were bottled up in her throat, burning.
But the beauty of Elijah was that he didn’t need them. He knew. He accepted her and wanted her the way she was. He grasped that her body could say all the things she couldn’t voice aloud. Her vampire body, which so perfectly connected to the primal sexuality of her lycan’s.
“Take what you need,” he said gruffly, understanding. “Whatever you need. And give me everything in return.”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, riding him slow and sure, absorbing the powerful shock of pleasure every time she took him to the hilt. “I need you to come again. I need to feel it inside me.”
“I’m a man,” he pointed out, clearly amused. “There’s only so often I can do this without recovery time.”
Her mouth curved in a slow, delighted smile. “You’re still hard.”
“You’re still naked and fucking me.” He cupped her breasts, rolling and tugging her painfully tight nipples with his forefingers and thumbs. “Don’t worry about me. I’m getting mine watching you get yours. Feeling you squeezing me like a fist. A hot, tight, perfect little fist. An orgasm is a just a bonus when the ride is this good.”
Vash straightened and ran her splayed hands down his taut pectorals and rippling abs. Pine needles dug into her knees, but she didn’t care. She had him again, right where she needed him—with her, connected to her, with nothing at all between them. No rank, no roles, no half truths or evasions. They were as bared as they would ever be. Committed. He was hers; she could make that claim now. And she was proud to be his.
“Once more,” she coaxed, rolling her hips. “For me. I want to come again, Elijah, but I can’t without you.”
Arching up, he wrapped himself around her and rolled, taking her beneath him. His forearms buffered her shoulders and back from the prickly ground, once again displaying the awareness and consideration that she so admired.
She was pinned yet cushioned as he took over, sliding in and out, his powerful muscles flexing and contracting against her. His eyes stayed on hers, his searching gaze more intimate than even the erotic flux and flow of his body’s possession of hers.
“Mine,” he said. “Say it.”
Her neck arched as her senses overloaded. She couldn’t see, could barely hear beyond the rushing of blood in her ears.
“Say it, Vashti,” he purred darkly with his lips to her throat, his breath gusting hotly over her skin. “Say it and I’ll come for you.”
“Mine,” she gasped, wrapping her legs around him. “You’re mine.”
Cleansed and strengthened, Adrian slowly lowered into the backyard with a limp and satiated Lindsay in his arms. For the first time in days, he was thinking clearly, and he was grateful for that when he spotted an unknown car in the driveway. “Someone’s here.”
Lindsay lifted her head from his chest. “Can you do that mind-flashy-thingy and put some real clothes on me?”
He thought of the clothes she’d packed for the trip and willed a pair of black pants and an off-the-shoulder T-shirt on her. For himself, he went with slacks and an untucked white dress shirt. He was rolling up the sleeves as he moved to open the back door for his mate.
“You forgot my underwear,” she whispered fiercely as they stepped into the kitchen.
His mouth curved. “No, I didn’t.”
Their guest was waiting in the living room, laughing over something shared with his guards. The two lycans stood at attention when he entered the room, but the lovely Asian woman who’d been entertaining them rose to her feet much more leisurely. Dressed in a pinstripe pencil skirt, silk blouse, and Louboutins, Raguel Gadara’s messenger was dressed for her secular life. In her celestial one, she favored worn jeans, a 9mm, and Doc Martens.
“Evangeline.” Adrian greeted her, clasping her extended hands and sifting through her thoughts via that connection, learning all he needed to know. “Good to see you.”
She smiled. “You say that so smoothly, I could almost believe you.”
He pivoted to bring Lindsay into the conversation. “Lindsay, meet Evangeline Hollis. Eve’s presently overseeing the interior design of the Mondego casino. Eve, Lindsay was briefly the assistant manager of Raguel’s Belladonna property in Anaheim. Now she’s mine.”
Eve shook Lindsay’s hand. “Count yourself lucky to have dodged the bullet of working for Gadara.”
Lindsay frowned, confused by the other woman’s statement because she didn’t yet know that Gadara’s underlings were conscripted rather than indentured like the lycans. Adrian would catch her up later.
“What brings you by?” he asked Eve, diverting the conversation from explanations he didn’t want to get into now.
She pointed at the tiny biohazard cooler at her feet. “Archangel blood. I watched Gadara draw it and place it inside. He said you’d believe me that he hadn’t tampered with it or made a switch. I figured you’d mind-rape me when you touched me and prove it for yourself.”
“You know me so well.”
Eve laughed, but her dark gaze was hard. “There’s some comfort in knowing most angels are predictable.”
Lindsay looked at the cooler. “Why didn’t Gadara give us the blood when we asked for it yesterday?”
“Control,” Eve and Adrian responded simultaneously.
“Hell,” Lindsay muttered. “This isn’t a game.”
“In a way it is,” Eve explained. “A game Gadara doesn’t want Adrian to lose, but he doesn’t want Adrian to win without his help. Ambition is the Achilles’ heel of every archangel. In this case, Gadara knew he had the upper hand because it was his blood to give…or not. He just wanted to make sure Adrian knew it, and that Adrian understands he now owes Gadara something for giving it up—it’s always good to have a favor from a seraph in your pocket.”
Lindsay looked at Adrian. “Well, shit.”
“Lucky you, neshama,
” he teased her. “You have an entire seraph in your…pocket.”
She shoved at his shoulder. “Why not come himself and rub it in?”
Eve’s mouth twisted ruefully. “To put me in my place while insulting Adrian by sending an emissary from the bottom of the totem pole. Two birds, one stone. He’s good at that.”
“Wouldn’t it irritate him,” Adrian murmured, “if he knew how delighted I was instead?”
Eve shot a deliberate glance at the two lycans. “There are rumors. I’ve heard a large portion of your workforce has gone on strike. Gadara’s hoping to step in and help you out with that, of course. But if you’re looking to avoid his hefty commission and don’t mind working with grunts under the table, I can get you some referrals. Just let me know.”
Adrian deciphered the message clearly and was grateful for it. His Sentinels weren’t completely hanging in the wind without his lycan “workforce.” There was help available, if he decided they needed it. Whether or not he did anything with that knowledge wasn’t as important as possessing it to begin with.
Eve moved toward the door. “I brought your paper in,” she said, gesturing at the folded newspaper in a plastic bag dotted with morning dew. “And you should have someone pull your trash cans off the curb. I figured you’re probably not used to worrying about that at Angels’ Point, but some neighborhoods penalize residents who leave them out after trash day. Mortal lives are a bitch.”
He stared at the newspaper as the door shut behind her. Air-conditioning…newspapers…trash…
“Someone’s been staying here,” Lindsay muttered. “We lost track of that with Vashti showing up, but she wouldn’t mind the heat, would she? She wouldn’t even think about messing with the AC.”
“No.”
“Who would dare use someone else’s place like this?”
“Perhaps it’s not daring,” he murmured. “Perhaps it’s desperation. Navajo Lake is only a few hours’ drive away.”
“Oh.” The compassion in her eyes stirred his soul.
He could stay and wait them out, but if they feared reprisal, they’d steer clear. They would need reassurance of a different sort.