Black Dalliances (A Blushing Death Novel) (12 page)

I stepped away from Dean’s grasp and took a few careful strides back toward the kitchen door. “Nah, just tired is all.” I turned, quick, and ran up the stairs.

Striding into the bedroom, I softly closed the door behind me. I stepped inside the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub then sank down onto the toilet.

I held my head in my hands and thought about crying. I was tired of crying. I’d done enough crying over the last six months. Hell, over the last year. I couldn’t let Dean find me crying over Patrick or some whore he’d been feeding off of. It wasn’t fair to him. I wouldn’t hurt Dean the way I’d hurt Patrick. Not if I could help it.

I’d disappeared one morning with no real plan of coming back to Patrick or Dean. There was no getting around that fact. But I was back now. And I’d expected Patrick to respect me enough to not flaunt it in my face. I’d at least expected him to respect me enough to tell me it was over for good.

“You wanna tell me what’s bothering you?”

I jerked up, brushing my hair from my face and throwing my shoulders back. Plastering a smile on my face at the soft rumble of Dean’s voice, I turned bleary eyes up to meet Dean’s glare.

“Nothing. I’m fine,” I said with a brightness I didn’t feel.

Leaning on the doorjamb with his bulking arms crossed over his solid chest, he hooked his right leg casually over the left at the ankle. His shoulders tensed at my lie and his eyes closed with a sigh.

“You can’t lie to me, baby,” he said as he tapped his index finger against the side of his nose. “I can smell it.”

I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth and leaned back against the tank of the toilet. I reached over and turned off the water in the tub. As good as a bath sounded, it wasn’t going to happen.

“I don’t want to tell you,” I admitted. Even to me, my voice sounded beaten, defeated.

“Why? We’re a team,” he said, sounding so sure. So confident. His statement made complete sense but I also knew how hurt Patrick had been, helping me grieve for Danny after Midnight Ash had destroyed almost everything. But I also knew Dean, and he wouldn’t allow me to get away with suffering in silence.

“I went to see Patrick,” I said in the same defeated tone.

“Yeah? What’d he say?” The gleam in his eyes seemed so hopeful.

“I didn’t talk to him,” I answered. My voice was empty, still stunned. “Three women came down the stairs as I was going up. One of them had been marked.”

“Iris,” he growled.

My eyes shot up to him as blood rushed through my veins. “You knew?”

He took a step inside the bathroom but stopped when I reared back.

“I knew he’d started feeding from her regularly.”

“I wanted to kill her. I wanted to tear her throat out, Tre. I was very close to doing just that.”

Taking the two steps to close the distance between us, Dean yanked me up from my perch on the toilet and grasped me into his arms, trying to comfort me. I couldn’t let him do that. Stopping him with a firm hand to his chest, I shook my head.

“I cried over Danny on Patrick’s shoulder. I won’t do the same to you. I won’t hurt you like that.” My voice was flat and matter-of-fact. Cold, even to my ears.

“Sometimes, you make me crazy,” he growled.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as rage transformed into hurt and the first, hot salty tear ran down my cheek. I was sorry for a lot of things but mostly, I was sorry because I couldn’t keep it together any longer.

“Don’t be sorry. Cry!” he snapped at me. “Don’t hold this shit in or hide it from me anymore.”

I liked that I ruffled him badly enough to swear, and I smiled to myself through the tears. I brushed a few teary streaks across my cheek and giggled.

“You’re laughing! Why are you laughing?” He sounded exasperated.

“You swore at me,” I said, grinning up at him. I knew the smile on my face had actually reached my eyes.

His face softened and a chagrinned, almost embarrassed expression crinkled the corner of his eyes.

“I suppose I did. I’m sorr . . .” he started to say before I pressed my mouth roughly against his full lips.

I couldn’t let him finish that thought. He had nothing to apologize for.

His tongue thrust between my lips, licking the inside of my mouth as if he would devour me whole. I collapsed against him, clinging to his hard body. His warmth wrapped around me, comforting and solid. I backed away, breaking the kiss to tell him I loved him but I couldn’t say a word. Meeting his eyes, raw hunger reflected back at me.

Carrying me to the bed, he tossed me from his embrace. For a moment I was weightless. I crashed on the plump mattress, bouncing up and down and I laughed as my butt hit again and again. I hadn’t jumped on the bed since I was little. Somehow, he’d made me feel light and happy again without even trying.

He gawked at me for a long moment with a pleased grin curving the corners of his mouth. The stern expression he usually wore disappeared. Only I got to see that smile. It made promises I wanted him to fulfill.

Once I stopped bouncing, I crawled up onto my knees, tugging the T-shirt I wore up over my head. The black lace balconette bra cupping my breasts hugged the curves of my body and accentuated my already ample cleavage. I trailed my finger over the curve of my mound and stroked my index finger lightly across the deep pink of my areola, watching his body react to the light touch of my own fingers caressing my skin. He leaned into the bed and a hungry, soft growl rippled through the room.

Sliding my hand lower, beneath the waist of my jeans, I sank my fingers into my own wetness. His eyes faded to the crystal blue of his wolf as my hand disappeared from view.

I slid my finger across the slick, wet heat of my sex, throwing my head back as I moaned. The hard mound of my clit slipped between my fingers, sending shots of pure pleasure through my body. Cupping my breast with my other hand, I dipped my fingers deep into my pussy. His eyes fell on me like a hot, lead weight and I sucked my bottom lip between my teeth.

His large fingers fumbled with the button of my jeans and I started to withdraw my fingers to help him. Gripping my wrist, he stopped my hand from leaving my panties.

“I want to watch you,” he grunted, a husky growl vibrating the words through my being.

I sat back on the bed, spreading my legs out over the edge of the bed in front of me. Sinking my fingers back into my warmth, I gasped with the pure pleasure of the desire in his gaze as it burned a hole through me.

He unzipped my jeans and ripped them from my legs. My panties followed as he kissed, licked, and caressed a line down my thighs. I stroked myself, sliding my fingers deep as he ripped his crisp white T-shirt over his head. Shoving his jeans down over his hips, his boxers followed. They had little shamrocks all over them, and I guess they worked. He was definitely getting lucky.

Taking himself in his hand, Dean stroked up and down his thick shaft, matching the slow rhythm of my fingers delving into my depths.

God, I want him inside me.

My breath came in ragged starts and stops as my fingers slid in and out of me, rubbing my sensitive clit with the palm of my hand. His intense blue gaze bore into me, overwhelming me with heat and unrestrained desire as he watched me stroke myself to a panting, sparking ball of need. I thrust my fingers deeper as the first tingle of orgasm made my bottom lip quiver and my knees shake.

“I want to watch you come,” he growled, stroking his shaft faster.

I matched his rhythm. Finally crying out as the world disappeared and my insides shattered around my fingers.

“Oh, God,” I cried, bucking on the bed. My body gripped at my fingers, quaking with my climax and all thought fled from my mind.

Dean gripped my wrist, sliding my fingers from my body. He sucked them into his mouth, tasting me, lapping me up like candy. His tongue slid between my index and middle finger, sucking every drop of pleasure from my skin. His tongue was warm and thorough, sending a fresh pulse of desire through me as he licked my essence from my fingers. Angling my hips up to meet him, I wanted him inside of me more than I wanted to breathe.

Sliding my fingers from his mouth, his hand caressed down my chest and over my breast, cupping it gently. He trailed his thumb over my hard nipple, sending shivers through me. I gasped at the quick, delicious sensation as he took it in-between his thumb and index finger, squeezing and pinching. His other hand was still in a tight fist around his cock, stroking.

His hand left my breast and stroked down the side of my body, over my ribcage, down the line of my hip, and over my thigh. He slung my leg over and turned me on my side. “I want you on your knees,” he growled.

I turned over on my stomach and propped myself up onto my knees and elbows, waving my ass in his face. His hands clamped down on my ass, digging rough, shaking fingers into my soft flesh as he spread me apart.

He lapped at my warmth once, twice, and a third time, making me quiver as his tongue twirled inside my heat.

“Tastes so good.”

“Please,” I begged, moaning the only word I could get out. I felt the absence of his tongue for only a split second before he was up on the bed, his knees pressed against the back of my legs. He thrust into me, filling me up with his hard, delicious dick. Sliding out slowly, he teased me as every long, hard inch of him left my body. He drove into me, setting a pace that was leisurely and controlled. Again and again, he thrust, touching every bit of me.

I cried out in frustration, needing something harder, something more primal than the controlled pleasure tingling through my body. Glaring back over my shoulder at him, our eyes met as he thrust repeatedly. He slid his hands down the side of my body and clamped my hips to him fiercely, possessively. Dean picked up his pace, slamming into me, leaving me breathless with each smack of his body against mine. I ached with each thrust and was thankful for the sting of his nails digging into my hips as his cock strummed my body until I thought I’d burst from the roaring hum of pleasure.

“Dahlia!” he growled as his body bucked and jerked.

Swelling against my walls as he spilled hot and fierce, the heat of him soaked into me, warming me from the inside out. I screamed my own pleasure and my body convulsed, liquefied into oblivion.

Dean slid his hands up under my body, caressing me as he lifted me off my elbows and pressed my back against his rock hard chest. Wrapping his arms around my stomach and my breasts, he nuzzled his nose deep into my hair. His warm, full lips pressed against my neck behind my ear and he sighed, happy.

I relaxed against him and slid my arms over his, hugging him to me. I felt a sense of home, like nothing could touch me.

“I love you,” he whispered, his breath warm and comforting on my neck.

He knew the exact words I needed to hear, to know that someone loved me even if Patrick didn’t.

“I love you, too,” I answered.

He kissed the back of my neck and reluctantly let me go. Falling face first onto the bed, a lump of dead weight, my arms stretched out wide over the mattress. He chuckled behind me as he stepped back off the bed. I couldn’t move. Hell, I didn’t want to move. I had a delightful tingle all over and felt as if all my troubles were just out of reach. I could worry about everything else later, when I could feel my legs again.

A steady stream of water splashing from the bathroom caught my attention and I glanced back over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of him standing at the toilet. Dean was attractive, even when he peed. The man seemed imposing with his large muscled body, broad shoulders and bald head. He was intimidating, virile, and he was mine.

I rolled over onto my back and watched him.

“So, are there any non-threatening shifters?” I asked with a grin.

“What?” he asked, turning on the water at the sink, washing his hands and cleaning my fluids from his cock.

“I mean, I know there are werewolves, and Raiden shifts into a coyote, so are there other things?” I rolled onto my side and propped my head up on my hand, watching him. Lithe and graceful, he moved like the predator he was, each stride in strong liquid movements. Soundless. Beautiful.

“Sure, I know there’s a lion pride in Oklahoma City. They like the wide open grasses. There are tigers in Louisiana and Mississippi. They like the humidity. They’re solitary creatures by nature but they need the pack structure to police themselves from humans. I hear they only get together a couple of times a year and have the southern states split up into territories. If another tiger comes into a territory, the tiger living there has the right to kill the intruder.”

“Okay, but those are all predators. And don’t get me wrong, I like a predator,” I said, winking at him with a mischievous grin on my face. “Is there anything a little more friendly?” I was teasing him but he didn’t notice.

“Like what?” Turning to me, he stopped at the threshold with his arms up over his head gripping the doorjamb, stretching his long muscular body out. Every muscle in his bulky frame rippled with the movement.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe a squirrel.” I smiled at him. A glimmer of humor twinkled in my eyes and I knew by the upward turn of his lips that he saw it too.

“A weresquirrel?” he asked, disbelief in his voice.

“Yeah, a weresquirrel.”

“I hear the females store nuts in their mouths,” he uttered with a hint of a growl making his words rough and sexual.

My laughter echoed through the room, eating up the silence as if it was oxygen. He chuckled, too, and it warmed me.

The air temperature dropped in a cold rush as the frigid chill of power wrapped around me. I rolled over to cover my body with the duvet as gooseflesh spread across my naked skin and froze. Laughter died in my throat as my gaze met cold, dark obsidian.

Patrick stood in the doorway, my helmet in his hand. His eyes raked over my naked body as if it was painful for him to see.

Placing the helmet on the dresser by the bedroom door with the precision required for controlled violence, his power prickled along my skin in icy needles. The cool pressure I’d come to know, to love the feel of against my flesh, had shifted into something more dangerous and much more volatile. My body pulsed in places his power had never touched before and my breath caught at the back of my throat when I realized I liked it.

Patrick turned without a word and was gone in the blink of an eye.

“Shit.”