Hunter by Night (19 page)

Lee’s hand tightened into a fist.

“What the frick do you mean I’ll go insane?” The look on Alexia’s face showed her disbelief. Hell, her expression suggested she thought he might be the one who was nuts. Certainly a possibility.

As he held her there in his grasp, her eyes went back and forth, searching for an answer she couldn’t quite seem to find. Her body pulled against his hands, but his fingers held tight. He couldn’t let her go, and this was beyond simple duty.

Lee had chewed on this shit the entire drive home from the hospital. He had pounded the steering wheel and clawed the leather seat, even dented the car door with his rage. His confusion. He didn’t trust Nessa’s motives or the story she’d supplied on the ride to the hospital that what she had done with Alexia had been well-intentioned. For Lee’s
good
? The excuse sounded far too convenient.

“Please,” he said, “sit down.” He trusted his legs and their ability to bear weight about as much as he trusted his ex at that moment.

He could not pull his arms from around her body. He knew the feel and shape of Alexia intimately now. Every slope, every curve. After the encounter he’d had with Nessa at the hospital, he was raw and worn enough that he could admit to needing Alexia’s comfort. She had kept up with him through a hell of a lot these past nights, far more than he’d given her credit for. He’d been so busy pushing her away since her arrival at the estate that he’d failed to truly see her.

He could claim it was because she was human. “Lexi…” Certainly Alexia’s humanity complicated things beyond measure. But Lee had to stop denying it changed the bone-deep want inside.

Her blonde and brown hair tumbled around her shoulders. Dark eyes narrowed at him, in search of answers. He could always say he loved her attitude. Even when it drove him to distraction, her toughness and her fortitude made him smile deep inside. He swept a palm across her cheek and into her hair, gratified when she pushed the cheek against his hand and closed her eyes.

“Do you feel that, Lexi?”

“What am I feeling?”

That
I’m hard for you. Hungry for you. That you are the closest I will ever come to tasting daylight, and I still have the memory of your skin and your blood on my tongue. In my veins. Just as you have the memory of me in yours.

Lee sucked in a breath, waiting.

Her eyes stayed closed while his fingers ran through her hair and down her back. He wrapped his hand around her hair and tipped her head, leaning close until their bodies pressed together every place they possibly could. He nuzzled along her jaw, her throat. “Because of our blood, my body knows yours. Inside and out. Whatever you may think of me, I am not one to play games. Being near you stirs my veins. Makes me want things I shouldn’t.” He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Please. Open your eyes. Look at me.”

She did. Her dark pupils enlarged against the whites of her eyes. He pushed her backward against the pillows of her bed. They carried Siddoh’s scent and Lee’s anger rose in response. “Now do you feel what I’m feeling?”

She stiffened in his grasp, likely pissed off even as her body’s want overrode her anger. Heat pulsed from between her legs. “What I’m feeling is frustrated. You said yourself you and I couldn’t—”

“Dammit.” He resisted the urge to tighten his grip. To push harder. “Deep in your blood, Lexi.
What
do
you
feel
?”

She played along this time, going still and quiet. Her eyes lost focus and she went limp in his arms.

Lee took another deep inhale, sucking down Siddoh’s lingering scent. The other vampire’s smell remained on her skin as well. Faint, but there. They hadn’t been intimate. If they had, Siddoh’s familiar odor would cling more tenaciously to her skin. Still, anger and possessive jealousy swirled deep inside of Lee. This wasn’t something he’d had with Nessa. Lee’s issues with his ex had been about pride. Saving face.

What Alexia stirred in Lee’s veins was… molten. Need.

Her next breath shook. Her gaze refocused on his. “You’re angry. But you… you’re horny? And you’re calling
me
nuts.”

He snarled deeply, unfathomably pleased. “So are you,” he whispered in her ear. “I can smell Siddoh on your bed. On your skin.”

“Sure.” She frowned. The light of understanding didn’t seem to have dawned yet in her mind. “We were watching a movie. We sat next to each other. It’s not like anything happened—”

His nose went to her hair. Threats rumbled from his chest. “I can’t stand knowing he was so close to you, Lexi. It makes my blood boil to smell another on your skin.” He nuzzled along her low neckline. One whiff of her honeyed blood and his dick got hard. God, she’d changed into a long, sleeveless dress. Fucking gorgeous. So feminine, and so easy to reach down and push up the thin material. To claim her.

Even as her breath deepened and the flush of arousal crept across the tops of her breasts and up her neck, her eyes narrowed. That challenging stare again. Her hands, so small and pale compared to his, pushed against his chest. “Okay, I’ve got the memo,” she whispered. “I’m super flattered, but that’s not a reason for me to stay here. You said yourself it can’t work.”

A growl rumbled out of his chest. “You aren’t hearing me. That you can read me in your blood is our problem. You can erase me from your thoughts…” He ran a hand over her hair, her throat, the valley between her breasts. His hand stopped over her heart. “You can never erase me from
here
. When I am angry, when I am in pain. Heaven forbid I die before you die, and I very well might. My agonies will be your agonies. My joys will be your joys—”

“You experience joy?” This said with a maddening curl to her lips.

Lee stared hard into her eyes. “For fuck’s sake. Without your memories of me and this place, you would have rage and pain and a whole fuck-ton of emotions inside you that you can’t begin to make sense of or process. You would lose your fucking mind. Is that what you want?”

Moisture rimmed her eyes. “So I’m screwed then? If I stay here, I’ll lose my fucking mind regardless. I am alone in a crowd constantly. I never get to see daylight unless I sneak out without telling anybody, which of course is dangerous. My best friend never has time to speak to me anymore because she’s the queen of an entire race of vampires.” She blinked rapidly. “Not to be selfish, but I do miss her.”

A dull ache spread through Lee’s chest. Not his own pain this time. Alexia’s.

“You didn’t want me before because I was genetically inferior,” she continued. “Now you do want me because my blood apparently is helpful to you somehow, but you still don’t trust me because I’m buddies with your ex and I’m human.”

“That’s not true.” But it had been. At the beginning, at least, it had been.

She sniffled. “What if things change between us? Now that we’ve been together, I guarantee no other vampire on this estate will touch me for love or money. So I’m screwed if I stay, and not in the fun way.” For a moment, her face twisted into a bitter mask. “Besides, you claim it’s safer for me here, but I know for a fact that sometimes the safest place winds up being the place you get hurt the most, so I’ll never know for sure what or who to trust. That kinda leaves me without options, doesn’t it? So I’ll take my chances with insanity.”

Fuck. Lee had said similar words to the doctor at St. Anne’s, and if things had been different, he’d almost be willing to respect her decision and let things go. But things were not different.

Desperation like he’d never known clogged Lee’s throat. His fingers tangled in her hair. The white at the top of Alexia’s dress clung to her skin because the wet of his clothes had seeped into hers. So damned gorgeous it killed him. His pride had difficulty with the words, but he said them anyway: “Alexia, please. I’m begging you to stay. Not for duty. For me. I want you to stay for me.”

With that, Lee crushed his lips against hers.

***

Alexia’s brain went “Kaboom.” No other explanation for why one second her hands pushed against Lee’s shoulders, why her eyes narrowed at him in disbelief for the ridiculous way he’d barged into her room and started spouting all sorts of nonsense… And then the next thing her hands gripped tightly to his damp shirt with the purpose of pulling him forward. Her thighs widened, one foot sliding up the bed to prop her knee on his lean, muscular hip. Her body, her blood thrumming in time with his.

That same blood rushed in her ear. Urged her to agree, and fuck the cost. Saying no to Lee felt like tearing up a winning lottery ticket. Tearing away a piece of her soul.

Deep in her core she couldn’t deny what he’d said. Even as his hard-on nudged between her legs through the barrier of his wet clothes, the hum of his inner desire stirred from someplace inside that she couldn’t pinpoint. She swallowed, gasping in shallow breaths as he pushed the hem of her skirt up her legs bit by bit.

She could have stopped him. She should have stopped him. Lee, for all his posturing, would have walked away if she’d told him she wanted him to leave her alone. If she’d said she didn’t want him. Making love to him again would only make it harder to walk away.

“You wear dresses so rarely,” he murmured. One hand skimmed her bare shoulder.

“It was easy,” she said. Sometimes a sundress was nice because she could just throw it on. No effort. She hadn’t thought about the benefit of a rabidly horny vampire gaining easy access after her shower.

Alexia shivered and clamped her mouth tight. No, she couldn’t tell him she wanted him to stop, because it would be such a lie. More than a lie. As he gathered her skirt and she mapped out an exposed section of his hard, ridged belly with her hand, she couldn’t have stopped touching him for anything in the world. He held her with the intensity of his stare and made her stomach do loop-de-loops. Made her warm inside and out in a way she hadn’t been in absolutely forever. Maybe never ever.

He hunched down, his lips pressing to hers again. Oh, good effing Lord, Lee could kiss. That large mouth could be so unbearably firm and gentle all at the same time. Hot. Lush. His tongue slid alongside hers, pushing and challenging. Dueling.

Lee’s long fangs nicked Alexia’s lip. The tang of her blood barely touched her own tongue before he sucked it off. He growled with pleasure, a deep noise in the back of his throat. Suddenly he lifted her hips, pushing her deep into the mattress, and there was nothing she wanted to do more than wrap around and hang on.

“So fucking delicious.” Light and shadow played over his face. “I don’t know how I didn’t realize. How I withstood tasting you for so long.” His growl echoed through her body and dampened her underwear.

Holy frickin’ Toledo. Vampire foreplay.

She reached between them. “Your pants…”

“Let me,” he said. His hands went to work, tugging at his shirt, unbuttoning his pants.

She gasped at the delicious slide of his golden, lightly furred skin against her inner thighs. At the stretch and burn as he pushed inside her.
Oh
God.
At the fire in his eyes. “Lee…”

He rocked into her, slowly and gently, never breaking eye contact. “God, Lexi… Nobody has ever been in my blood like this.”

God, the things he said could turn her brain inside out. Alexia bit her lips together. As he thrust deeper, she dug her heels into his ass and her fingernails into his shoulders. She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Right then, with them both half naked and his voice so raw, she would promise him the world. And if she stayed only because he asked her to, would she be giving up every shred of her independence, the thing she perceived as safety, in the process?

Lee shifted, gripping her, pushing them both harder into the bed so he was deep inside. Pressing in all the right places. His free hand caressed her arm, stroking over her shoulder, running a thumb over her throat. Oh… yes.

Alexia’s legs tightened around Lee’s waist, spurring him deeper. Together, they both groaned. Lee dug his fingers into her hips and thrust faster. Alexia smiled into his eyes, loving the way she turned him on in that moment. Any minute now, her heart was going to bust out of her chest in its effort to get to him.

If only there was a way for them to be together. Really be together.

The sexy dips and curves of his chest pumped in and out right in front of her, rising and falling with each hard breath he took. She longed to sink her teeth into the firm muscle. Remembering how he’d responded before, how he’d enjoyed the pain, she raked her fingers down his back.

“God. Fuck. Yes.” Lee adjusted his grip on her. Faster. Sweat collected between the places where their bodies touched, slicking their movement. Fangs long, Lee hissed and threw his head back for a moment. The struggle played over his face as the muscles and veins bulged in his neck.

She remembered the way he’d responded when his fang nicked her lip. “Lee.” Her hands came to the sides of his face. She needed to see his eyes. Everything made sense when she could look into them.

His golden skin took on a red cast as his muscles flexed and his body shook. Alexia’s pleasure climbed with his. Her legs tightened around him, and as she stared into Lee’s eyes, as his pupils dilated, she let her head relax on the pillow. “Take what you need, it’s okay.”

“What?” He barely panted the word.

“My blood. It’s yours. It’s okay.” More than okay. Right then she wanted to give him everything. Absolutely everything.

His hesitation rippled through both of them. His body tensed and she clamped her thighs around him. They both rode the edge, the pleasure in every nerve coiling tighter. Climbing with every breath, every thrust.

The moment he gave in was the moment she flew into a thousand tiny pieces. Hands under her back, he thrust hard inside her as he pulled close and sank his fangs into her throat, setting off a rolling wave of pleasure. The pinch of his bite created an unexpected shock wave, spurring her to squeeze every muscle, and she was rewarded with the roar of his release as he pulsed inside her. Bruising fingers dug into her flesh but she couldn’t bring herself to care. In that moment, knowing she’d wear his marks carried a strange sense of pride.