Nightfall (17 page)

She was behind the bar, armed with a rag and cleaning
solution, and was rubbing vigorously.

Cleaning. She was cleaning.

When he was young, if Mom was pissed at Dad, or worried
about something, she went after dust bunnies in the deepest crevices of the
house, the ones that had been there long enough to set up house unnoticed and
have dust bunny babies. Well, they did say a man was often instinctively
attracted to someone like his mother. The thought caused a rueful twist to his
lips, though a far less humorous feeling moved inside him. He approached the
bar cautiously, gauging her mood, what was happening inside her head. Her
vigorous scrubbing was giving him a nice show, her generous breasts working
with the motion. The rhythmic way her whole body was moving with her efforts
was how she’d be moving if he was fucking her from behind, that white-knuckled
grip something entirely different.

Probably not something she’d appreciate him bringing up
right now, but in a way, she’d started it. While that hunger in her eyes hadn’t
been only about blood and sex, those components had definitely been there. Her
heated look had been sexual, possessive, needy…just the way he’d felt for her
when he woke up this morning. As big a feeling as that had been, he had an
inkling of what she meant about impulse control, because seeing all that sheer
want in her eyes was overwhelming to him.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “I get that being your servant might
sometimes suck, if we had to do that overlord thing, or a bigger, badder
vampire sauntered this way. But using your own logic on that, we’re here in the
middle of nowhere. What’s the chance of another vampire ever deciding to go to fry-an-egg-on-your-ass
middle Texas to find a low-totem-pole vampire and her servant, and asking to be
put up in the guestroom? Or up my ass?”

She came to a full stop and stared at the bar, shining like
a new penny. “Quinn, I warned you about making light of this.”

“I told you I’m not goddamn doing that.” He slammed his hand
down on the bar between her braced palms. She flinched, and it made him madder.
“You’ve been on top of me, literally and figuratively, since you arrived,
Selene. Now you’re not meeting my gaze like you’re some kind of fucking timid
virgin.
Look at me
.”

How many times had he argued with himself about whether his
acceptance of her vampire craziness was just his dick getting in the way of his
head? Then he’d gone past his dick deep into emotional territory, far faster
and deeper than he’d ever gone with a woman, and he’d been concerned that was
interfering with his judgment.

The next second ended the argument once and for all.

As if her disappearance from the office hadn’t cinched it,
this time he didn’t have any warning at all. One second she was behind the bar
cleaning, the next he found himself slammed against the wall thirty feet behind
him, her right up against him, her hand on his throat, and his toes barely
brushing the floor. The constriction on his windpipe was immediate and
life-threatening. He grabbed at her wrist, stared down into eyes that were
flickering with honest-to-God crimson flame. She had her fangs bared. What he’d
only felt when they penetrated his throat he now saw fully unsheathed.

Yeah, they could be fakes. But he knew they weren’t. No more
than her moving that fast or holding someone twice her weight up against the
wall like paper could be a trick. Holy God.

Spots had appeared in his vision and he was getting
lightheaded. “Selene,” he choked. Survival instinct trumped acting like a
gentleman. He twisted, striking out at her, and his fist met empty air as his
feet hit the ground and he fell to one knee, struggling to breathe.

When he managed to lift his head, she was standing a few
feet away, that still, expressionless look sliding chills up his spine, raising
the hair on his neck.

“This is what I am, Quinn. Take a look. You’re standing on
the tip of the iceberg for a world that can get far darker and bloodier than
you can imagine. You can’t be part of that world. I don’t want you to be part
of it. You’ve done nothing to deserve that.”

He pushed up to his feet, squared off with her. She still
didn’t move, as if she were a statue that had sprung up in the middle of his
bar. Yet as he stared at the frightening image she was projecting, he was
thinking of other ones. Her in his bed in the middle of the night. The brief
glimpses of vulnerability, the touch of humor and kindness in her makeup, her
pride in the way she ran the bar, such that he could pick on her some about it.
Her kind and firm behavior toward Maria, Carol and Manuel.

She might be twenty years older than him, but he’d been
around long enough to know people weren’t just monsters or saints, but a whole
compilation of things in between. If they projected themselves as a monster,
there was a reason for it.

She said she didn’t want him to be a part of her world, but
she hadn’t packed her bags either. She wanted this bar. She wanted him.

“You know, I don’t get the whole ‘o woe is me, I’m a
vampire’ vibe off you,” he said. “So there’s a big part of you that’s embraced
that world, tangled it up with the type of woman you are. The type of Mistress
you are.”

Her gaze flickered, but he continued. “I think what’s got
you so pissed is you want something bad and you don’t like not being in control
of your impulses. Humans are all about figuring out which impulses to follow
and which to contain.”

As he spoke, he was closing the distance between the two of
them. He might be crazy, because she wasn’t moving, retracting the fangs or
looking one whit less scary. But with every step he made toward her, he saw
that hunger rising in her eyes. He even noted a slight tremor sweeping through
her body, like the quiver before a predator sprang. God help him, it drew him
like a magnet. He stopped in front of her, toe to toe.

Her lashes rose, those fiery eyes resting on his face. No,
not his face. She was staring at his throat. He swallowed.

“I’m not doing it,” she said, sharp as a razor blade. “I
won’t make you my full servant, Quinn.”

“I’m saying yes, Selene. Maybe I haven’t thought it through.
Maybe I’m not supposed to. It’s like the decision to have kids, get married,
name-your-life-fork moment. Some level of thinking is smart, but at a certain
point, when the desire is strong enough, you just push past it all and say fuck
it, make the leap. You’re not turning me to a vampire against my will, like
your sire. I’m so goddamn sorry that happened to you. But we’re talking about
you turning me into your servant, and I’m saying yes.”

“You need to leave.” She looked as if she were made of
glass, and if he so much as touched her, she’d shatter like an explosion,
cutting them both to pieces.

“How about this?” Despite the volatility of their emotions,
he went with a conversational tone. “Concede I have enough of a point about us
being in the middle of nowhere to give me the second mark. Let me at least lend
you energy and connect to you that way.”

“When I leave, if you encounter another vampire and they
detect that second mark, they would kill you. Or make you their servant.”

He digested that, took a breath. “Again, what are the
chances, if you move on,” not happening without him, but that was another
argument for another day, “that some vampire will be in this part of the world
someday and get close enough to me to find that out? The risk has got to be
pretty low, right? Let me make that choice, accept that risk. Let me help you,
be close to you. This is where I live, where I’m going to be, Selene.”

His yearning to connect so intimately to her was rising hard
and strong, impossible to resist. He willed her not to resist it as well. He
wasn’t the type of man who petitioned or pleaded, begged for anything. But as
he exhorted her to give him that second mark, he knew he was striking a match
against the Mistress side of her, the one that would have a hard time resisting
a plea from the man she knew belonged to her.

Because he knew it now too and that made it even more
potent.

At long last, she lifted her gaze. “Quinn.”

“Do it. Please.” He whispered it, sliding his arm around her
waist, drawing her closer. Cupping her face, he caressed her cheek with his
thumb, found the tip of her fang. It was sharp enough to prick, and thinking on
that, he pressed harder. The drop of blood welled up, and he traced her lips
with it, watched them part and her delicate tongue take the drop away, making
his cock get even harder, though it was pretty much at full tilt now. She’d
gone even more still, yet he sensed a soul-deep tremor from her, the energy
building, close to conflagration point. He pushed his thumb into her mouth,
drew in a breath as her lips closed over it, sucked, making him bite back a
groan.

He wanted whatever would bind her to him. The intense
feeling of possession he felt for her was so unusual it rocked him.

“Selene. Please. Mistress.” If she didn’t stop running her
sweet tongue over his thumb he was going to strip off her clothes and bury his
face in her cunt.

With a cry, she wrested away from him, but this time an
answering fire surged up in him. Before she could do that vampire sprint, he’d
seized her wrist, turned her and slammed her against the same wall she’d held
him against. He saw her eyes fire at the challenge, but he was the one on the
bull now, not her.

“Goddamn it, Selene.” He gripped her slender shoulders,
holding her. “This is what I want. Whatever you have to do, do it, so I’ll know
every minute of every day and night you are mine, and only mine.”

He took her mouth with a voracious hunger so intense it
shook him. Lifting her off her feet, he shoved himself against her core, ground
there with crude, undeniable intent. As he did, he stroked his tongue in her
mouth. He was doing his own feeding now, drawing her into himself. His fingers
dug into her shoulders as he pressed his body hard against hers.

“Feel that?” he gasped when he lifted his mouth. “Feel my
cock? I’m so damn hard for you one touch and I could explode.” He nipped the
tender line of her jaw. “And that? I’m doing my own marking. Here.” He trailed
his mouth down her neck and tasted a delicious morsel of skin. “And here?” He
licked the spot then scored her with his teeth. “And here?” He nipped at the
hollow of her throat, the beat of her pulse thrumming against his tongue.

“Quinn.” She shook her head, a wild thrashing. “It’s not—”

“The same thing?” He stared into her eyes, knowing he was as
close to being out of control as she was. “I don’t care. I’m giving you my
mark. I want yours, damn it.”

Frantically, as if she’d disappear unless he branded her in
some way, he reached down and yanked up the hem of her dress. Though she could
work a pair of jeans well enough to make a man drool, he was glad she was
wearing one of her short dresses tonight. He thrust his hand between her
slender thighs, searching for the wet heat of her pussy. Yanked so hard on the
insubstantial silk of her panties that the fabric tore and he tossed it aside.
When he thrust his fingers into her and her muscles clamped down on him it took
every shred of his control not to come in his jeans.

This woman was not only addictive. She brought out an
over-the-top sense of possessiveness he’d never felt with any other woman.

But then she gave him what he wanted. She turned the tables
to possess him.

He hit the table behind him as she shoved him back, but she
was following right behind, and put him through the damn thing, turning it into
kindling as she brought him down on the debris and straddled him. He felt rough
wood dig into his back and didn’t care.

She held him down, stared at him. “Second mark,” she said.
“That’s it.”

Whatever helps you sleep at night, honey
, he thought.
Then he realized if she was going to be in his mind soon, he’d probably have to
learn how to curtail such thoughts. Unless he wanted one of those broken table
legs shoved up his ass.

He slid one hand up her thigh, back under the edge of her
skirt. He slowly, slowly, pushed his fingers into her wet core. She bit her
lip, eyes fastened on his. As he stroked her, she made a little humming noise.
Her heavy-lidded eyes heated, her kiss-swollen lips curving in a tiny smile. It
told him her decision had been made. His gut loosened as he saw she was back in
control.

“My cowboy takes what he wants,” she told him, “but only
because I allow it. Remember that.”

Sliding his fingers free, he tightened his stomach muscles and
used them to lever himself up to a sitting position. Once there, he twisted a
hand in her hair, used that hold to tilt her head back as his other arm banded
hard around her waist. His heart was pounding so hard he could barely get the
words out.

“Is that right?” he growled.

“Yes. It is. And if you want to fuck me, you’ll wait for my
permission.”

* * * * *

She was going to do it. She knew she was. Praying she was
not making a mistake that would betray them both, reassuring herself this was
just the second mark, not one that irreparably bound his life to hers, she bent
forward, brought her lips to his cheek. A bolt of sweet inevitability hit her
as he raised his jaw, his hands gripping her hips. Now that she was certain of
her course, the clawing urge morphed to anticipation. She straightened with
just a tiny scrape of his skin and eyed him. Her restless male animal, trapped
between her thighs.

“Take off your shirt, Quinn.”

As he managed it, she rode the sinuous rolls of his muscular
body, feeling the shift of his hard cock beneath denim. “Now put me up against
the wall. I want to see all those fine muscles working for me. A bit more
gently this time. You were rough with your Mistress.”

He gave her a tight half chuckle at that. “I think she likes
that.”