What Happens in Vegas...After Dark (17 page)

He took her arm again, not wanting her to go. “You used a spell to make me forget?

How is that not you messing with my head?”

“The spell isn’t mine. Spells like that one have been in place for longer than you’ve been alive and they’re in place to protect my people and those like me. Stop acting so wounded.

What is your issue anyway? You’re, like, this super-successful man. You’re handsome, well-spoken, obviously educated, rich, successful, people with pink parts seem to like you. So what is your deal? Does this Eeyore thing you’re doing make the ladies all hot and bothered? Because, I have to tell you, it makes me want to sneer at you and steal your lunch money. Buck up and stop being a pussy. This isn’t about you. Now, if you’ve wallowed enough, I have to go to work.”

She shoved the now-empty glass at him and he only barely swallowed the snarl that rose as a result of her provocation.

“Fine. I don’t like being toyed with. I’m sorry if I accused you personally. Let me come with you. Keep you safe. I promise not to say anything about what I see.”

She paused a moment, a half smile perched on her lips. “That’s quite sweet, Eeyore.

But I’m good. I have it handled. I’ll see you around.”

He sighed, annoyed with her refusal and his need to be with her just a few more minutes. “Humor me.”

“You’re going to see stuff you’ve never seen before. Can you deal with that?”

“Like what?”

“Vampires. Demons. Weres of many stripes. Mostly they’ll look just like you and me, but they’re not. I need you to understand that right now. They are not fluffy bunny paranormals like you might read about in some novel. They’re predators.”

“Like you?”

“To a certain extent, yes. Witches organized into clans do adhere to the basics of the Rede even though we’re not Wiccan. We do not use our gifts to harm or bully. But if I have to harm to save myself or protect my people, I will. I don’t feel guilty for what happened in the garage, William. It was kill or be killed.” She shrugged. “If you want to come with me, you have to take responsibility for whatever you see.”

He looked at her. A warm wind blew her curls around her heart-shaped face. Challenge glinted in her eyes and he knew if he went with her, he was taking another step into…

wel , into whatever the hell they had, or were building. Or whatever.

He should say no. Turn around and walk inside. Go on with his Nell-free life. She’d go on and do her business and eventually be gone from town and he’d never see her again.

“All right, then. Let’s go. They let, um, humans in?”

She took his hand. “If they’re with one of us, yes. Don’t look at anyone for too long, okay? And trust me. It’s different in there, but it’s safe.”

He let her lead him and it changed his entire life.

N ell spoke quietly with her contact, getting the information on where Leah and the mages were holed up. She passed him some money and walked back over to the table where Wil iam sat quietly, pretending not to be fascinated by the place.

“Come on upstairs with me. It’s quieter and you can look at the place from a better vantage point.”

She led him to one of the balconies that framed the second story of Darkness. Up there it was lush. The ultramodern chrome of the downstairs area was still there, but plush, thick banquette seating lined the wal s and the railing was built in such a way that one could sit, drink and still see much of the action below.

“So? What do you think?” she asked after they’d sunk into the cushions.

“I just had no idea. This whole universe exists and I didn’t know about it. I’m fascinated and repulsed all at once.”

She nodded. “It’s always here, just beneath the surface. Most of the time people see it and because it’s so strange their brains just reject it. I suppose that’s what keeps us safe.

Those wards aren’t to harm your kind, they’re to protect us.”

“From what? You’re the ones with superpowers. I mean, if anything, we’re the ones who need protecting.”

“From that very attitude. There are billions of humans on the earth. There are millions of us. Not hundreds of millions, either. We keep to ourselves and hide our abilities because there are those who’d hang us, put us in camps, round us up and use us if our existence was well-known. We’re wary for a reason.” She shrugged. “We have rules. We don’t harm you all unless it’s in self-defense. Some of us need more policing than others, like vampires who can pass on their state via fluid transmission.”

“There are, like, what? Cops for you guys then? More than what you do?”

“I’m a cop of sorts for my Clan. For witches. I don’t go out and hunt werewolves or vampires who go rogue. There are those who do that though, yes.”

“Tell me about it.”

She laughed. “I really can’t. In the first place I don’t know that much and in the second place, it’s not my story to tel .” She shifted, putting her beer down on the low table, feeling the pulse of the music low and deep, in the same place where her need for him resided. Her skirt rode up to just below the fold of her lap and she let it.

“Why are you here with me now, William?”

He put his drink down, sliding his palm up her thigh. “I don’t know. I can’t not be. I want to touch you so bad. What is it about you that draws me this way?”

She widened her thighs in invitation, and in the low light she noted his pupils swallowing nearly all the color in his eyes.

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. So just touch me and let yourself want. Give it free rein. You’ve got nothing to lose.” Her voice was a whisper, but she knew he heard her, even above the music.

He closed his eyes a moment, the war within himself clear on his face. But when he looked at her again, it was clear which side had won.

“Open all the way.” His normally smooth voice had gone rough, sending a thrill through her.

His fingers glided up the supersensitive skin of her inner thigh, his eyes stil locked on hers.

“Are you wet?”

“Touch my pussy and see for yourself.” Please.

“Here?”

“Why not? We’re alone up here. For now. It is Las Vegas, after all.” That, and if he didn’t touch her she thought she might die.

He got to his knees, pushing hers wide until her skirt hiked up, exposing her panties. “I find myself needing to own you, Nell. It’s…unusual for me. I don’t need to possess the women I’m with. But you’re unusual.”

The tips of his fingers brushed against the slit of her pussy, sliding gently back and forth. Even through the material of the panties she knew he felt how wet she was. For him.

“Well, cat got your tongue then, witch?” A smile canted his mouth and the suave veneer slid away just a bit, exposing the more carefree man just beneath. Crap, she was in deep with him.

“I could ask if you need help getting those off. But I figure you’ve got more than enough practice in the removal of panties department.”

“You’re quick with the comments there for a woman whose pussy is wet and ready.” He raised a brow at her.

Reaching down, she made quick work of removing her panties before taking his hand and putting it back over her cunt. “Whatever it takes to get you working.”

Spreading her pussy wide open, he leaned his head down and took a taste, just the barest whisper of a tongue flick against her clit. It sent her up an inch with a gasp.

William heard nothing more than her breathing, felt nothing more than her flesh against his hands and mouth. Her taste filled his senses, her scent drowned him. She was everything as he knelt there and worshiped her. Her body was magic, wending her taste through him, addicting, sharp and ultimately her. So unique he knew he’d miss her every time he took a breath for the rest of his days.

The idea of her walking away gripped him, scared him, made him want to ask her to stay so they could explore what they might make together as a couple.

As if she felt his panic, she reached down and sifted gentle fingers through his hair, soothing even as they inflamed his need for more.

Nell felt the cool air against the flesh of her slick pussy as he ran his thumbs through her, bringing her honey up and over her clit. William didn’t just touch her, he consumed and she didn’t know what do to with it al .

A groan from deep inside pushed through her lips as he began to lap at her. Slowly, gently, but voraciously.

There weren’t any words, but they didn’t need them. He told her how he felt with his mouth against her as surely as she did by offering herself to him so openly. Whether or not the other fully accepted that, she didn’t want to face just then.

William told her so much in his touch. With the slight rasp of the shadow of his beard as he ran his chin against the sensitive skin where thighs met body. Delight trilled through her when he began to flick the underside of her swollen clit quick and hard with the tip of his tongue like some secret language.

She’d ceased to notice they were in public, ceased worrying about whether anyone would come up the nearby stairs. All that mattered was his mouth, his hands, their union of the physical and emotional.

Nell knew she was sliding quickly toward an orgasm—not just any orgasm, but a big one. It built in her toes, slid down from her scalp. Her thighs trembled against his palms as he held her open.

His top teeth abraded, ever so lightly, over the hood of her clit, against the bare, sensitized clit itself as he stroked his tongue against the underside at the same time. She’d never experienced anything like it. Like this man. She didn’t know what to do or even what she was feeling.

Nearly frozen, totally overwhelmed by sensation and emotion, noises came unheeded from the back of her throat as she opened her mouth to speak but had no words.

A flash of pleasure so exquisite it was nearly pain sliced through her and suddenly she drowned in her climax. But he didn’t stop; his mouth stayed on her, kept moving as his fingers slid into her.

Finally she moved up a bit and kept her hand on his shoulder to hold him off. Her eyes remained closed because she was afraid of what she’d say if she saw him right then.

William sat back for a long moment, wondering what the hell had just happened. It shouldn’t be so much, this thing between them. This hunger for her shouldn’t be there, not like a swell that threatened to swallow him whole. This started as joking and now he was under her spell.

He paused. Was he? Had she done something to him? He looked at her and knew that wasn’t the case. Her eyes held the same surprise, the same skittishness at the depth of what lay between them that he felt.

Shoving it aside to puzzle over later, he stood. “Stand up. Go to the rail and hold on.

How far are you willing to take this, Nell?”

Her eyes opened and met his challenge head-on. She stood, leaving her panties behind.

“You’re the one hesitating. I’d fuck you down there on a table if you asked. I want you, William. And I don’t care who knows it.”

She sauntered past him and went to grip the railing, her ass so very tantalizingly on display. Would she?

A clear vision of spreading her out on the table downstairs, sliding his cock into her cunt in open view of every man in the place, shook him. He’d not considered himself an exhibitionist before, but making such a clear mark of his possession appealed to him.

They’d all watch, cocks hard, as he fucked this gorgeous, wil ful woman. This woman who gave herself to him in full view.

Christ.

Moving to her, he dug into his wallet and found what he needed. The bass of the pounding house music in the club throbbed neatly with his pulse, driving him on. Strobes backlit her body, the smooth line of her bare ass and legs to the top of her boots.

Conversation, music, the scent of cigarettes and alcohol, of sex and sweat burned his senses.

The sound of foil being torn open sliced through her, bringing a small echoing gasp from her lips. Anticipation coiled low in her belly as she heard him roll the condom on.

A gentle but firm hand arranged her so that she was wide open to him, hips tipped so her ass canted high, thighs spread wide. She loved the way his hands on her felt. Loved that he touched her not with disinterest, but with intent. With possession. That touch from any other man would be infuriating and humiliating, but from him? Pride warmed her that he’d want her so deeply.

She closed her eyes a moment as the broad head of him brushed against the slick, hot gate to her pussy. Opening again as he pushed in slowly, her gaze locked on the people below.

She sucked in her breath sharply as she caught the eye of a man at the bar. Oh my, what a lovely experience warred with her fascination at being seen this way. Her grip on the railing tightened at the pleasure of his thickness filling her up, stroking those nerve endings deep inside her.

Wickedly wanton, Nell rolled her hips back and pushed against him to meet his thrusts.

The man at the bar had turned fully to stare up at them. She caught the glint, knew he was a Were of some sort and had the vision to see just exactly what was happening.

“Yeah. So tight,” William said softly as he’d worked all the way inside her. He didn’t thrust for long moments, instead, running his hands along her back and around to her breasts.

“He’s watching us,” she murmured, tipping her chin at the male below at the bar.

William chuckled, leaning around her. “Mmmm. Does that bother you?”

“It should. I don’t do this. Fuck in public. But,” she swallowed hard, “it makes me hot.”

He hissed, taking in his breath. “Me, too, beautiful.” He pulled out and pressed all the way in so hard her breasts nearly bounced out of her bodice. “Let’s give him something to remember, shall we?”

He filled her in more ways than one, his cock, his body, his presence smoothing over an ache she’d had since their argument in the garage the week before. When she wasn’t with him she was empty. It should frighten her, the way he made her feel, like the absence of it would gut her utterly. But it didn’t. Nell was sure of this. Of him and his place in her life.