Gideon’s lonely. Confused.
Her sultry mind voice stroked his aroused nerves.
Wants to be with us, but doesn’t know what that means.
He’s fine. We’ll take care of him later.
Daegan put her on her feet on the tile, steadied her as he turned on the water.
As her serious eyes studied his face, he unhooked her bra, slid it off her arms. He didn’t allow her to undress, but handled it himself, wanting to touch her skin as he pushed the skirt over her hips, caught the panties and took care of them. When he straightened, she placed her hands on his chest, slid them upward. Like a bird spreading out wings, she fanned her fingers, taking them under the open shirt, sliding it off his shoulders. She curved her hands over the rounded muscle as it dropped to the ground. Her gaze devoured him.
“I still smell the remains of blood on you. Faint, but it’s there. You look tired and pale. You need to feed.”
“I need to fuck you more. Hard and deep. And I want your blood on my tongue as much as your cream.”
The way her eyes flamed in response, the wave of increased arousal he inhaled from between her legs, told him it was going to take restraint to hold off on doing what he wanted to do so much. He wanted to draw it out, tease both of them with it.
Her gaze still on his, her hands lowered to his waistband. “You may open my trousers,
cher
,” he said in a husky tone, “but you won’t touch my cock. Not yet. I want you wet and begging for it.”
“Afraid you might lose control and go off like a teenager?” Her lips curved but she obeyed, her nimble fingers slipping the hook and tugging down the zipper, incidental brushes of her knuckles only on the hard organ straining beneath.
“Behave,” he warned. “Or I’ll put you under the showerhead and let it force you to climax three or four times before I put myself inside you.”
She wanted to taunt him. He heard her start the thought,
You won’t last that long
, but then she pressed her lips together at the reaction in his gaze. She knew he’d do it, no matter his own desire. He’d given her the strike with the bat as her due, given her the answer to the question she needed for her heart, but he knew the difference between those things and her testing his dominance over her.
He’d held back through her anger, her nasty comments, because he’d needed time himself to know what was right and true. No matter what she was enduring, or the guilt he carried, the give-and-take between them was what they understood best. It was when they crossed blades, engaged in that delicate fencing, that they always found the way to the center of the complicated maze shielding each of their hearts. He was done holding back.
Shifting her naked body into the heated spray, he followed her there. Inside the comforting rush of water, he took up the soap. The spray pattered drops all over her, dampened her hair, the high breasts and tight nipples, sluicing down her belly. Considering that tempting view, he dropped to one knee. It surprised her, he could tell, as he began to wash her thighs. He followed the enticing limb up to the juncture between her legs. When he pressed the heel of his soapy hand to her labia, she bit her lip. Her fingers closed over his shoulders as she leaned back against the shower wall.
“It’s all stupid games, isn’t it?”
“What is,
cher
?”
“All those times I wanted something from you.” Her voice was embellished by the water’s whisper. “A word, a promise, things you couldn’t give. So I kept myself at arm’s length, not willing to give everything of myself because you wouldn’t. It was stupid. Because all along you felt the same way.”
“A promise unspoken is a promise never broken.”
Her blue-green eyes flickered. “Like books of magic. Knowing a true name is power, which is why someone never speaks their true name. Unspoken makes it more powerful. More real.”
Rather than interpret his statement as a reluctance to say what was in his heart, she’d understood. She knew him, knew his heart. He’d never really fooled her. She’d just needed him to have the faith in her to say the words. Though she hadn’t yet completely forgiven or forgotten, it was something.
Rising, he cradled her face, staring down at her. With tenderness, he traced the bottom lip, touched the tiny lower fang, worked his way up to the longer upper canines, traced those as well. Her hand rested on his wrist, her body still, and he felt her attention like a magic of its own, closing around them both. Looking into her mind, he saw that there were so many things going on, orbiting around that center focus. Leaning in, he pressed his mouth to hers, realized how rarely they’d done this, a sweet, lingering, mouth-to-mouth, a barely touching. There was a slight tremble through her body, and maybe through his. A lot had happened these past few weeks; a lot had changed.
He’d lived in combat mode for a long time. A crisis was dealt with, handled, and then he moved on. He’d done it so well, he hadn’t allowed himself much room to realize that, this time, more was needed, and not just for her. For him, as well. And maybe for another.
Her lashes lifted. He didn’t know if she read it from him, as tightly closed as his mind always was, or if it simply moved in them both, a new synchronization to their thoughts and wishes that had perhaps always been there, but had been hampered by those shields and protections she’d referenced. Or what he was and what she hadn’t been, until now.
I want him here, too. Does that make sense?
Yes,
cher.
He’s your servant.
But he knew it was more than that. While she didn’t challenge it, her sensual lips curved, telling him she still wasn’t fooled.
“Do you think he’ll come if I call him?”
“I think so. Though keep in mind he’s more terrier than retriever. Savagely loyal, but not always predictable.”
“I think that’s what we both like about him.” Her tongue touched her lips, moistened them, and more beads of water rolled down the delicate architecture of her throat, caressing the firm, high tops of her breasts.
He’d waited long enough. In one effortless move, he had her up against the shower wall, gripping her thighs, and drove home. He knew her body so well he didn’t have to hesitate. She moaned, startled at his sudden decision but welcoming it. Her slippery channel pulled him in, her body bucking up in his arms. She wrapped her own around his back, those razored nails sliding along his flesh, raking him and splattering his feet with crimson, the smell of his own blood.
Don’t waste it,
cher
.
He’d felt her hunger. She had a moment of hesitation, remembering he needed to feed, but he had no patience for her coddling. He brought her mouth to his throat, cupping the back of her neck, fingers tangled hard in her hair. She read his need and answered it, puncturing him with those dainty fangs, making a sound in her throat as his blood rushed into her mouth. He surged back into her, holding her so close she was pressed flush to him, from groin to breast, as he hammered into her body. This first time, it wasn’t about pleasure or climax. It was a deep-seated need being met, conveying how much he’d missed her, had wanted to be here, that brought her to an emotional pinnacle that overflowed in her mind, spilled over to his. More images than thoughts, but all of them were the things she’d wanted and missed so much while he was away.
Because of that, he was able to slow himself down enough to reach between them, stroke her, tease the stretched opening, caress her spread thighs, the tingling nerves there. When she dropped her head back against the tile, he caught her mouth, tasting his blood on her tongue.
He moved to her throat, but didn’t bite, stroking the artery with his fangs as the hot water rained on them. He maintained a steady stroke, knowing her body so well, feeling every incremental shift up toward climax, the way her body was tightening on his, responding in kind, goading him higher. Her legs were locked over his hips, her vampire strength holding her easily on him, such that with the brace of the wall behind her he could curve his back, work his way down her sternum and issue the command in his mind.
Bring your breasts up to my mouth. Display them to me.
She didn’t want to let go of him, but she did, cupping their weight and tilting them upward to increase the sensitivity of the nerves as his mouth closed over one. It took bravery for a woman to put her nipple in a vampire’s mouth, but Anwyn had no fear when she surrendered her body to him.
“Oh.” Her moans increased, her body undulating up against his. “Daegan. Come with me. Go over . . . together. Please.”
Normally, he’d order her to come before him, but he didn’t mind letting her have her way. He wanted to go over that cliff together. “Go,
cher
. I’m with you.”
She renewed her efforts against him, and he drove her harder against the wall, straightening so that he braced one hand on the tile and kept the other cinched low and hard on her waist. Powerful thighs and buttocks flexed under her heels as he thrust into her, strong and sure, stroking those tissues, striking her deep inside, bringing her hot, slippery core to the flash point. His cock got impossibly harder, his balls drawing up. If Gideon came in right now, Daegan wouldn’t care if the hunter staked him in the center of the back. He wasn’t stopping, wasn’t pulling back.
She cried out as his cock spasmed, jetting the first stream of hot seed into her. He felt the rippling of her clit, the clutch of her cunt, and he pushed harder, wanting to give her some pain amid the delightful pleasure, the flavoring he knew would take her soaring even higher.
“Daegan . . .”
I missed you missed you missed you . . . Oh God . . . Don’t leave me don’t ever leave me again . . .
Those shadow creatures didn’t just cower back into the shadows. They were sent scuttling, disappearing down the tunnels and holes of her mind as the flash of climax detonated there. It was a fierce warrior’s satisfaction to give her that, give her that moment of peace and pleasure, something that could be hers, if she trusted him to be in control.
The emotions such trust elicited made his heart ache. It was good to be home.
There were so many meanings to that handful of words, he was glad their aftermath didn’t require speech. They leaned against the wall, Anwyn still held securely in his arms, holding him right back, hearts thundering and bodies still shuddering with those delicious aftershocks, her pussy rippling against his cock.
Have you ever had a home before me, Daegan?
He hadn’t realized he’d opened his mind to give her that thought, but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe she was so deeply in his heart, she knew what he was feeling. She had her head tilted back against the wall, but now she brought her chin down to gaze into his eyes.
“No,
cher.
” It was the simple truth. He’d never considered anyplace home, not until her, though he realized he’d never thought of it until she asked the question. “Not since I left my mother’s home to go out on my own.”
Her blue-green eyes softened and her hand lifted to cup his face. It was trembling, so he closed his own over her wrist, steadying her, still holding her securely about the waist. “No woman you’ve loved has ever given you a home?” she asked softly.
He stared down into her lovely face, wanting to press his lips to every cherished inch. Nuzzle her brow, tug her head back with that silky hair and touch his mouth to her throat, to the life-giving carotid. He knew at some point he’d piss her off. She’d do the same to him. He’d hurt her, make her laugh, cry, frustrated, annoyed, happy, content . . . It didn’t matter. He wanted to be everything for her, every emotion, good or bad.
“I’ve never loved another woman, Anwyn. You’re the first.”
And the last
. He wasn’t sure why he was so certain of that, but since he was seven hundred years old and she was his first love, he didn’t think it was a wrong assumption.
The stunned amazement that crossed her face was a gift, one that he took with a kiss, another of those that lingered. As they held that way, she at last reached out with her mind. He followed that tendril, felt it touch Gideon, tug him to her. Slowly, Daegan let her down, sliding her off his now-semierect cock. He held her against the wall still, though, caged within his arms so he could indulge that desire to taste her neck beneath her ear, work his way to the collarbone.
He sensed when Gideon was standing in the bathroom doorway. Anwyn beckoned him forward. “Take off your clothes and come join us, Gideon.”
The vampire hunter shifted. “You look like you’re done. I can bring Daegan a towel if he’d like one.”
When she slid her gaze toward him, Daegan noted the slight tightening of her lips at the evasion and felt that warning simmer to her blood, what he’d felt at the airport when Gideon had somehow thwarted her intent. She spoke calmly, but he could tell as well as Gideon that it was deceptive.
“Daegan needs blood. There’s a reserve in the refrigerator, but I want to offer him the blood of my servant, hot and fresh from the source. He needs that, for his strength. I want you to allow him to drink from you while I bring you to climax with my hands, my body.”
“No,” Gideon said. While his response was quiet, his tone even, there was a leashed resolve that would detonate if she pushed it. “You already know I won’t feed him, or any other vampire. Not ever. Only you.”