Bailey had told her how they had broken into the offices above her print shop, gathering information about her and the others she had worked for, and how she was now being blackmailed for the hit. She had also explained why she thought it was a woman calling the shots and not a man. Mel had the guard just outside the infirmary, but not with them yet, explaining that with that many people sick at once, she didn’t want to run the chance of it being a plot against her.
“Nothing. If you do, then you will alert the leader or they will. You have to trust me on this,
your grace, I know what I’m doing. Anything we do from this point on will be watched, and not
only will it be watched, but someone may lose their life if we screw up.”
Mel could hear Bailey’s frustration. She knew the girl was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to take. People were going to be killed; she had no doubt about that. It was the people who may be killed that had her terrified. And she couldn’t do a damned thing about it. “So tell me the plan. I want to know every last detail.”
Bailey groaned and James flopped back onto his back. This was going to be a long morning.
~CHAPTER FIFTEEN~
“I swear, where I’m taking him, no one will be able to feel his presence and no one can breach the area. He will be safe.” Bailey had said this same thing a total of twenty-three times since sunrise. Her head hurt, she was tired, and she just wanted to be left alone to be able to do her job.
“I know you’re frustrated. I can feel that, but do you realize what is going to happen once everyone thinks that he is dead? They are going to come for you, and when they do, I can’t help you because you made me promise to stay out of it. Damn it, Bailey, what do I tell Tristan?”
Bailey looked up sharply and saw the look of
oh shit
on Mel’s face. “What do you mean, what do you tell Tristan? Have you been talking with Tristan? About me?” Her heart rate picked up fast, and her mind was dizzy with the things she could be telling Tristan about her. “Your grace, what have you been telling Tristan?”
“He came to me through Sara. It was just after you told him what you were. He was upset and didn’t know what to do about you. We wanted to help him.” Mel shifted again.
“So you and Mrs. MacManus, what, gave him advice? Told him how to tame me? What?”
Bailey was hurting. These women, they had helped Tristan, and he now had a woman willing to kill for him. Maybe she was going about this all wrong. Maybe the queen was part of the plot to get her killed.
“For the sake of all the Fates, you don’t really believe that, do you? Why would I try and have you killed? You are a value to us. We need your skills.”
If the queen thought she was helping, thought Bailey, she was so wrong. These people had been in her life since the beginning, she just realized. Tristan being able to contact her by her cell phone, him knowing where she was at all times. Things were beginning to fall into place and Bailey wasn’t at all happy about it. She had a fleeting thought that maybe they had arranged her to meet him but dismissed that immediately. No, the Fates had done that; otherwise Bailey wouldn’t have this strange connection with him. But it still smacked of interference from this woman.
“When this is over, and if I live, I will never do another contract for you again. Never. You should have kept your mouth shut and out of my business.” Bailey gathered her things from the room and left the castle. Mel’s pleading followed her all the way out into the human world.
~~~
“Fine Printing, may I help you?”
“Griff?” Tristan had been trying to contact Bailey for several hours. He wasn’t worried, not yet at any rate. She could block him when she was working. He didn’t like it, but he was trying hard to understand. But now, he needed her.
“This is Fine Printing, may I help you?” Tristan noticed that the voice had gotten harder.
“It’s Tristan St. James, Bailey’s mate. I’m trying…she told me to contact you if…I was trying to find her. Do you, can you tell me where she is?” It was like Oliver Twist begging for more, please, he thought. Damn it, what the hell had gone wrong?
“My lord. Yes, my mistress is here. We are setting up the new offices. The equipment arrived a few hours ago and the men have gone now.”
“I couldn’t reach her. She’s blocked…I mean, can she come to the phone?” Tristan was hungry. He’d waited nearly two weeks this time. It was childish on his part, he knew, but he also knew that if he saw her, they’d argue and he didn’t want that either.
“That is my fault, my lord. I’ve taken the liberty of warding the building so that no one will know when we are in residence. It seemed much safer after the last time. She is here, but I am loath to wake her. She has not been sleeping well.” Tristan could hear the tone in his voice, and felt that he had deserved it.
“I need to see her, Griff. Do you know when she might be rising? I could come to her if that would help. I don’t want to take her from her work.”
That wasn’t true. He wanted to take her from everything. He wanted to hide her away and have his way with her until she was too sated to work. Then when he was rested, start all over again.
“She has been sleeping soundly for about twenty hours now, sire. As I said, she has not been sleeping well and what little sleep she gets seems to be fitful and not restful. Also, I believe she needs to feed as well. She has been a little slower of late.”
Tristan’s whole body froze. Bailey needed to feed? No, he couldn’t have heard him correctly. He leaned his head against the wall were he stood. He calmed his voice as he asked again. “Did you say she needs to feed? Griff, does Bailey need to feed like I do?” Chanting in his head was
, no, no, no.
“Yes, my lord. Not as often, I believe, as you do, but she needs to feed at least once a week.
More if she is hurt or weak. It is my understanding that she can no longer feed from anyone but you, am I correct?”
Tristan heard the panic in Griff’s voice and would have calmed him, but his own was rising.
She was asleep and had been for nearly twenty-four hours. She was shutting down and he knew it. If she didn’t get some blood soon then—
“Griff, I need you to go and see if you can wake her. Give me the address and I will be there in seconds, but try and wake her.” Tristan was terrified. “Griff? Please keep her safe until I can get there. Please?”
“Yes, my lord. I shall. I am sorry. I did not think…I had assumed she was getting her nourishment from you.”
“I’m coming. I’ll be there very soon.” Tristan closed his eyes and willed himself there. He was outside the building within moments. He had to pound on the door for several more because he couldn’t come in without an invite, both the wards and being a vampire preventing him from entering.
Griff granted him access and he went to her. She was weak and her body had started conserving, shutting itself down when food wasn’t replacing what she used. The deep sleep had been necessary and had replenished her somewhat.
“You fool!” he screamed at her when she opened her eyes. “You nearly scared ten years off my life!” Tristan was mad, no longer as scared as he had been now that he could see that she was alive. He shook her hard, and he could swear he heard her teeth rattle together. She smacked his hands away weakly.
“Stop that, I’m fine.” She pulled away from him, only to stagger slightly. “So what, I forget to stop at Mickey D’s, so sue me. It’s not like I haven’t been a tad busy the past few days.”
“You haven’t fed. You haven’t fed in nearly three weeks, and I know as well as you do that whatever the fuck Mickey D’s is isn’t going to cut it. You should have fed from me. Me, damn it.” He found himself pacing. He never paced, and made himself sit down.
“Oh, and who the fuck have you been feeding from? Huh? Got yourself a little snack and fuck somewhere else? I’ve been busy!” He was stunned to see her fangs. Her eyes had turned as well. Need, incredible need, slammed into him, making the beast in him surface and snarl for release.
He leapt from the chair and had her pinned against the wall in seconds. They were both breathing hard, their hearts pounding. He could feel it now, her hunger. His need jumped to a new level.
Tristan put his hands to her throat and his fingers against her pulse. Slowly, he ran his fingers down the long column of her neck and touched the collar of her t-shirt as it rested on both of her shoulders. His eyes were blazing when he met hers.
“Bailey, I want you. I want to make love to you, in a bed. I want to feel your body surrounding mine while I’m deep inside of you, your heat wrapped around me. I want to bury my cock into your pussy while you ride me and come on me, with me. Then I want to feed from you.
I want to have you sink your teeth into my flesh and drink and long from me.”
He pulled the shirt apart, ripping it from the collar to the hem. He looked down at her breasts, heaving now, cupped in a bright orange bra that barely contained their bounty. He hooked his finger in the front of it, extended a single claw, and sliced it open. Tenderly, he pulled the opening apart and she spilled from the confining material.
Her breasts tightened and her nipples hardened as he gazed at them. His mouth watered and his fangs elongated, his need to taste, to bite, strong; his need to worship stronger.
“Touch…I want you to touch them.” He watched as her hands moved up her ribs slowly to just under the weight of her. Cupping her hands, she lifted them up and brushed her thumbs across the tight nubs of her nipples. Her moan shot through him, shot need straight to his cock.
“Tristan, I…what do you want me to do? I’ve never…I want to…it feels good.” She pushed them together and using her thumb and finger, gently pinched her left nipple and then rolled it between her fingers.
He bent his head and captured the right nipple with his lips, nibbling hard, biting but not breaking skin yet. When she arched her back and bowed toward him, he pulled back and stepped away. “No, not this time. I’m not taking you against the wall like an animal again. I want you beneath me, not writhing against the wall.” And he took another step back.
Tristan picked her up in his arms and when her bare breasts rubbed against his shirt, he felt the heat as though she were touching his bare skin.
“Where is your bed, Bailey? I don’t care if it’s halfway around the world, we are going to make love in a proper bed.” After three tries of her voice not working, she gave him her address.
They were there in seconds.
He sat her down on her feet next to the big bed. Of course it wasn’t made, but right now he didn’t care. All he could think about was her, her body, and them.
“Help me undress. But we’re going to go slowly. We have all night. And I plan to spend it inside of you.”
He watched as she brought her shaking hands up to his tie and worked at the knot. When she was shaking so badly she couldn’t undo the buttons, he wrapped his hands over hers just to calm her. When he felt them work easily again, he slid his hands down her arms and encircled her tiny waist.
“I want to…can I taste your skin, Tristan? I want to lick your skin and taste you.” Her fingers running through the hair on his chest were hot and making him hotter with her tentative touches and caresses. “Your blood is so hot to me, and when I taste your skin on my tongue, it’s everything I can do not to take a bite of you.”
“I want you to do what you need, what you feel. I’m as much yours as you are mine. Touch me, Bailey, taste me. I’m certainly going to do the same to you.”
Her fingers toyed with his nipple until he thought he’d scream, and then she ran her tongue around the dark areola before taking it into her mouth and sucking. When he hissed his approval, she pulled away. Cupping her head, he pulled her back. A frown furrowed her brow.
“Christ, don’t stop. Please, don’t stop. I love your mouth on me. The way your tongue heats my flesh everywhere it touches me. I want you to bite me, Bailey, bite me hard.”
He felt her teeth scrape against his swollen peak, then her tongue rasped wetly over it before she sank her fangs deep into him. His growl was deep, rumbling though his chest and out his mouth. He let her drink from him there, let her taste her first of many bites he hoped they’d share tonight.
He pulled her to his body and crushed her breasts to him. Cupping her ass, he pulled her tighter against his cock and rode her up and down him while she continued to caress his body.
When she wrapped her legs around him, he lowered them to the bed, him nestled between her thighs.
“Please, our pants, we need…oh, Tristan I want you inside of me.” She wrapped her armed tighter around his neck as she moved harder into his groin.
“I want this to last. If I get you naked now, I won’t be able to stop from entering you.” He moved against her again, pushing into her and pressing her into the bed.
“Next time, you can make it last next time. Inside of me, please, Tristan. I really need to feel you inside of me. I want to feel your thick cock stretching me, filling me. I want to feel you touch me deep inside, then your cum, I want to feel your hot cum shooting inside of me, filling me. Please?”
He rolled to his back, stripped the belt from its loops, and had his pants down and off in nanoseconds. He was pulling hers down her legs and standing before her naked body mere seconds later. His cock was straining straight out from his body, hard, thick and hot. She licked her lips as she stared at him.
“Roll over.” When she didn’t move, but continued to stare at his now weeping cock, he picked her up and sat down with her across his lap. “You are going to pay for that, my dear. My control is nearly gone. Your disobedience must stop or you will face the consequences.”
He was going to spank her. Actually spank her! She struggled to sit up, to get off his lap but he held her down and smacked his hand hard against her bare ass cheek. She stopped moving. He slapped again, harder this time.
“When I give you an order, I expect it to be obeyed without question, understand?” He rubbed the area he had hit as he spoke to her.
“Fuck you, you miserable prick”