Forget About Midnight (7 page)

That subtle action was crazy sexy. I heard his question, but my focus was elsewhere. I saw what I wanted, and I was going to have it.

Feeling brazen and daring, I grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled it up and over my head. I let it drop beside me before hooking my thumbs in the waist of my leggings.

“Alexa?” Kale’s voice was hoarse. He watched me kick off my boots and slide the leggings off.

I sauntered over to his car, step by slow step, never taking my eyes off him. Next to hit the ground was my bra and panties. When I perched on the hood in nothing at all, Kale swore and ran a hand over his face.

Biting my lower lip, I lay back on the hood, reveling in the way the cool metal felt against my bare skin. With a bent finger I called him to me.

His gaze slid over me from head to toe. There was no hesitation when he came to me. He pulled his jacket off and tossed it on the Camaro’s roof. Then he stepped between my legs and leaned down to kiss me.

With our bodies aligned and his mouth on mine, we let go of resistance and let the forbidden fire consume us. I tore at his shirt in my haste to touch his hard chest. His hand was warm on my skin. Across my stomach and up between my breasts, Kale’s gentle caress was the answer to a deep-rooted longing.

He kissed my neck, lingering over my jugular before whispering, “Tell me this means more to you than a power trip.” He stared at me intently, waiting for me to break his heart.

I peered up at him through a haze of desire. I knew it was wrong that I couldn’t let him go, but he had a place in my heart, no matter what. This was not about taking what he had to give. I was offering myself to him. Feasting on Kale’s lively essence was a bonus I planned to enjoy, but it wasn’t my sole reason for seeking out this intimacy.

“The only time I feel alive anymore is when I kill,” I said. “I need to feel something real that is born of love, not death.”

I thought he might refuse or overthink the situation until the moment slipped away. Whatever had happened during our time apart tonight, it had done something to him. I could see it in the way he looked at me, like I was his wildest dream and his worst nightmare.

“This is love,” he murmured right before he buried his face in my breasts. His hands were on me, touching me in ways he never had before.

Staring up at the night sky, I felt liberated by Kale’s passionate touch. With my fingers entangled in his hair, I trembled beneath him. My arousal burned with a preternatural intensity. I suspected that making love as a vampire was going to be more mind blowing than it had been as a shifter.

Kale’s hands were everywhere: in my hair, caressing my stomach and finally, between my legs. His touch was gentle, so delicate I barely felt it. Then he grew more demanding.

My back arched as a finger slid inside me. An explosion of pleasure rocked me, and he’d barely begun. A low growl rumbled in my throat.

His mouth followed the same path as his hands until he descended between my thighs. A wave of power splashed over us as I writhed atop the Camaro. Kale dragged his tongue over me, targeting my sensitive place and bringing me to a near whimper. We had never been so close, so intimate, not even during our one previous sexual encounter. It was better than I’d dared to let myself imagine it would be.

The wind picked up, blowing my hair about. It was only around us though. Beyond the car everything remained calm.

It felt so good to have Kale touch me in such a manner. With both fingers and tongue, he explored me, coaxing throaty cries from me. Opening myself up to him felt right. It was what I wanted.

A sharp and sudden sting on the inside of my thigh gave me a jolt of pained pleasure. The warmth of his mouth quickly followed as he licked the blood that spilled from the small bite.

I had questioned whether or not my vampires would still hunger for my blood. Jenner hadn’t given any indication of interest in it when we’d spoken, but he had remarkable self-control. Now I had my answer. My blood was no longer mortal, but it was powerful, and Kale still wanted it.

It was more than I could take. I climaxed with a cry, my body racked with tremors. There was satisfaction in Kale’s lovely eyes when he looked up at me with my blood smeared on his lips. There was also a torrent of emotion swimming in those brown and blue orbs. It echoed in his energy, a heady rush fueled by genuine affection.

He never took his gaze off me when his hands went to his belt. Then he hooked a hand under my leg and pulled me closer to the edge of the hood. I grabbed for him when his beautiful erection pressed against me.

In answer to my plea for closeness, Kale leaned over me so that my naked body was covered with his. Like he had when we’d made love in the rain, he searched me for just a moment, ensuring I knew this was the point of no return.

With a silent nod, I traced a finger along his cheek. Our gazes were locked when he slid inside me. A ragged groan escaped him. For a moment he didn’t move. He just took a second to enjoy being connected in such a powerful way.

“Kale,” I whispered, feeling overwhelmed by the intensity of our connection. With him inside me and his saccharine essence all around me, I felt our bond in a whole new way. He was mine, and right then every part of me knew it.

Slowly he began to move. His steady, deep thrusts fed the wind that blew around us. I drew on his heady energy, taking it into me to a dark place that feasted upon him.

He buried his face in my hair, his lips on my neck. With one arm flung around him, I held him close. With the other hand I gripped his hip, loving the way he felt between my legs.

I began to slip away from myself. The passion we shared was all-consuming, swallowing me whole. There was no me anymore. There was just two lost souls entwined as one in an erotic embrace driven by forbidden love.

Kale was all over me, all around me. I drank him in. The rush of his desire and the tenderness of his caress brought me to a dizzying place of detachment where I could pretend for just a moment that this was all there was in the world, just this moment of untamed emotion. It was a beautiful expression of the things neither of us could say.

Slow and sensual, he moved inside me. Kale made love to me as if it were our final moment on earth. Staring up into his gorgeous eyes, I saw the genuine emotion that drove him. It echoed within me. I loved him. I did. And still, even in that moment of absolution, I heard a small voice inside me whisper,
But he is not the one
.

I bit my tongue to hold back a whimper. Losing myself in Kale hadn’t brought me the illusions I sought. If anything, it forced me to see everything much more clearly.

My name was a husky murmur as he grazed my neck with his fangs. There was no living sustenance in vampire blood, but there was a hell of a lot of power to bask in. The ultimate drug.

The rhythm of his thrusts steadily increased as we climbed that climactic mountain. The sensations that engulfed me were intense, greater than anything my mortal body had known. My cries echoed around us, the only sound other than the mystical wind.

Kale’s arms shook with the tension thrumming through him as he held himself atop me. His energy was loud in my head, an untamed force that filled me until it seemed that we floated, weightless.

The rush of white noise was deafening in my ears, drowning out the wind and my own cries of pleasure. He moaned, and I felt him tense inside me. With a low murmur, he gripped my hips and filled me with a ferocity that brought a smile to my face. I clutched him with claws, raking his back as I came with a shudder.

A moment later he joined me, and we lay there enjoying the brief afterglow. Unfortunately, being perched on the hood of a car limited the snuggle time.

“We’ve really got to try this in a bed sometime,” I said with a laugh.

Kale straightened up and tugged his pants back into place, though he didn’t look happy about it. I sat up, feeling both vulnerable and too damn high on him to give a shit.

It would’ve been easier to gather myself if he hadn’t been staring at me like he was considering round two. I felt like I was flying. My head swam in the nicest way. It was hard to feel sorry for anything we’d just done.

He pulled me into a warm embrace, pressing a kiss to my cheek before releasing me to finish dressing. “We should get out of here before the FPA show up. I’m sure they’re tracking you.”

I eyed him, my gaze drifting over the faint marks marring his face. “Did Arys say that?” When he looked up sharply, I added, “I mean, he’s the one who hit you. Right?” I slid off the hood of the car, doing my best to keep my butt from sticking to the paint. That would sure ruin the seductress vibe I’d had going on.

“There was an exchange of hits,” he said with a nod. “He did mention your sister. She’s been tracking our kills.”

Slipping into my underwear, I frowned. This was not good after-lovemaking conversation. “Well, I guess that fits with what Falon said.”

An awkwardness settled, and I hated it for tainting what should have been a special moment. Kale slipped into his leather jacket, looking like he wanted to say more. I motioned for him to go ahead and spit it out. Might as well now.

“Juliet said they’ll be hunting you if the public kills don’t stop.”

I laughed hard then. With the power buzzing so hard through my system that my hands shook and my head fogged with the high of it all, I found it impossible to take Juliet’s threat seriously.

“They can try,” I snickered.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Like hell I don’t.”

Kale surprised me by grabbing my arm and forcing me to meet his gaze. I was half-dressed, about to slip my shirt on.

“Don’t laugh this off,” he said, stern and hard. “I would never forgive myself if you ended up inside that building. Trust me. You don’t want that.”

I might have been power drunk and too cocky for my own good, but I wasn’t stupid. “No, I don’t. You’re right. It has to stop. I don’t want to be one of the vampires that I’ve spent so many years hunting.”

Kale’s face fell. “That’s why you shouldn’t be with me. I can’t help you. I am one of those vampires. You’ve just never been willing to accept that.”

“Kale, don’t.”

We stared at one another until he let go. I finished dressing and ran my fingers through my tangled hair but gave up. So quickly we’d gone from mad passion to sobering discomfort.

“I’ll meet you back at the house?” Kale lingered, clearly waiting for me to leave the graveyard first.

“Yeah. I’ll see you there.”

Feeling confused, I got into my car and started the engine. My good mood crashed hard as I swung from one extreme to another. My emotions were scattered, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh, scream, or cry.

On impulse, I reached for my phone and called Jez who answered on the first ring. “Alexa? It’s about damn time you called. Are you ok?”

“No,” I said, crumbling at the sound of her voice. “I don’t think I am.”

I felt better after a brief talk with Jez. She promised to meet me the following evening. I needed to see someone who could talk me down from the ledge I’d been walking.

The rest of the drive back to Kale’s was spent wrestling with my inner demons. I took a longer route than necessary, needing the time to think. Or to try to stop thinking.

I missed the musky smell of wolf when I awoke next to Shaz. My wolf longed for the forest outside my house. She also longed to break free of this vampire form, to run wild through the night. It had been too long since my last shift.

The way my house smelled after a rain with the windows open. The sound of birds in the trees outside my bedroom. Watching my wolf and my vampire argue about everything from something as mundane as a sports game to something as serious as my life and death. All of these things I missed dreadfully.

The last time I saw Shaz, I had tried to kill him. Out of my mind on that first night as a vampire, I’d acted on instinct with no conscious thought to guide me. Would it be like that next time?

As I drove through the quiet streets, I tortured myself with questions that had no answer. What the hell was I doing with Kale? Did I think we could terrorize the city without repercussion? And why didn’t I care more about going so far off the rails?

This wasn’t what I wanted for either Kale or me. We didn’t belong together. I belonged somewhere else, with someone else. However, going home and expecting to step back into my life like I’d never left would be delusional.

Arys was being so patient. For the first few nights, I had expected him to come for me. When he didn’t, I realized he was leaving this entirely in my hands. It couldn’t have been easy for him. He was so headstrong and always ready to challenge me. Not this time.

Arys was giving me space because it was what I wanted. And yet, I almost wished he wouldn’t because, the longer I went without seeing him, the more certain I grew that without him I would continue this descent into madness.

After taking a few rides on the emotional rollercoaster, I was ready to get off. When I pulled up in front of Kale’s house, I was calm. I’d reached a place of temporary acceptance. My world had changed. I had changed.

I glanced at the house. A dim light glowed beyond the heavy drapes. Kale waited in there for me, and I would go to him. This time together would be short lived. I could feel it. This time of transition was important for me, even though parts of it hurt like hell.

I strode up the front walk with a purposeful gait. I left my emotional turmoil back in the car. Kale had enough of his own without having to face mine too.

The sound of the shower greeted me when I stepped inside. I made my way through the house, stripping off clothing as I went. Without hesitation I let myself into the bathroom.

Steam filled the air and fogged the mirror. The small bathroom was hot. Kale poked his head out the side of the shower curtain.

“Alexa, are you sure we should be—” he began, but I silenced him with a finger.

I stepped into the shower with him and placed my hand on his cheek. Peering into his eyes, I saw my own pain reflected there.