by Alyssa Day
She listened so intensely he could almost see her desire for a pen and paper to take notes.
“What about blood? Do you need it? And do you—” She glanced at the dividing glass. “Do you eat your help?”
Just the sound of the word blood coming from her lips made his thirst start a lazy swirl inside him that he had to shove away to focus on her question. “Yes, we need blood. Not that often the older we are. And no, I never have and never will take blood from anyone who works for me, although they’ve offered before when things got rough.”
“Rough? Rough in what way?”
He shrugged. “We’ve come home at dawn a time or two in bad shape.”
She studied him, her gaze meeting his, as if trying to peer into his brain and learn his secrets. “Are they all like you? The people in the club. Even Jenks and Marisela?”
He laughed at the idea of beach-loving Jenks being a vampire. “No. Lots of them are human. The humans ride in the daylight. The vampires at night. Some in both crews help with the drug runs, depending on circumstances.”
“Do they know about you? The humans? About what you are?”
“No.”
She nodded. “Ah. The eyesight problem. That’s how you cover up not going on daytime rides with them? How do the others—do you all pretend to have eye problems?”
He laughed. “No, of course not. We maintain that the ‘mystique’ of the VMC lies in the pretense that we’re really vampires, so we can only ride at night. We’re successful enough that they are happy to go along with it.”
“Successful?” This time, it was she who turned away for a moment, no longer meeting his gaze. “The drugs, you mean? You make profits from that?”
“Ryan.” He waited for her to look at him, suddenly, urgently needing her to hear what he had to say. “There is no profit in what we do. I fund the rides, and the drugs, and the payments to the club members out of my personal accounts. If you believe anything I tell you, please believe that.”
She sighed, and her shoulders slowly relaxed. “Thank you. I—I know it might not be important to you, but it is to me.”
He understood. She was a healer. She was goodness, and light, and kindness.
He was a killer disguised as a man.
But for the children…for them, he could still find some small remnant of his lost humanity. For Jane.
“They don’t know you’re a vampire, but they respect you. They listen to you,” Ryan said, changing the subject.
“Yes. I couldn’t be the club president if they didn’t. Some of them, like Jenks and Marisela, came to the club because the name amused them, and then they stayed because they liked the people and the mission. Others came from other MCs, the criminal gangs that you no doubt imagined, where the rules are harsh, and the punishment for breaking them is vicious. They help us out with other jobs, sometimes,” he said, not about to tell her more about the damn warlocks.
“But the people in your club. None of them—”
“None of the dangerous ones ever come to the club this early in the morning,” he said, knowing what she was wondering. “For all of them, if they can’t listen to me, they’re out. The financial benefits from being in the VMC are enough to make most of them fall in line, and the ones who succeed are the best of them. Jenks and Marisela are trying to have a baby, and it’s not working. Her insurance doesn’t cover the things they need. Their VMC payments do.”
She put a hand on her chest and blinked rapidly. “Please, sir! No more of your fancy talk of charity and helping people, I do declare,” she said in a comically broad Southern accent, pretending to fan herself. “A girl can’t hardly breathe around all your awesomeness!”
Bane found himself laughing. Again.
Not understanding what was happening to him—what this woman was doing to him—but more than willing to go along for the ride.
He gave her his best lustful villain smile. “Well, fair maiden. You’re asking a lot of questions. You know what the cost is for each one.”
Ryan tilted her head and gave him a flirty little smile. “Maybe it’s your turn to pay the price. You’ve asked me a few questions, too.”
Bane suddenly found it hard to swallow. “The price?”
“And kisses aren’t necessarily all on your mouth,” she reminded him saucily, stealing his breath and his ability to think straight. “How far is it to your house?”
Before he could think, or talk, or do anything rational at all, the fierce, brilliant, and oh-so-delectable Dr. Ryan St. Cloud looked him in the eye. “I’d like to touch you now.”
He smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”
And then he took her hand and put it on his cock.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Old Reliable Ryan would never do this!
Ryan froze, shocked at her own audacity, and felt her cheeks go up in flames. She’d always been easily embarrassed and quick to blush, but putting her hand on the…enormous, very hard, really huge, oh my goodness…um, package, of a man she’d only met the night before was so shockingly out of character for her that it was a wonder she didn’t spontaneously burst into fire right there in the limousine.
Bane’s eyes flared such a hot blue, she almost expected to feel his gaze searing her skin.
“Oh, Doctor. You’re in so very much trouble now,” he growled, and surprise mixed with terrified anticipation caused her fingers to convulsively tighten around him.
Throwing gasoline on a fire would have had less of a reaction.
Faster than humanly possible—faster than thought itself—Bane lunged at her. He pulled her into his arms and onto his lap, and then he slanted his mouth over hers and took her captive with a blazingly hot kiss that shattered her defenses and blew up any idea she’d ever had that she didn’t really like sex.
This kiss was better than sex—at least, better than any sex she’d ever had. His mouth laid claim to her—burning. Almost feral.
He kissed her like she belonged to him.
Like he’d never let her go.
She dug her fingers into his hair and pulled him even tighter, wanting to climb inside him—inside the passion and wonder and pure hunger he ignited in her. She moaned, or he did, and the sound was swallowed up in the kiss, where air and sound and feeling and wanting danced and sang in the space between them.
And then the car door opened.
“Oh! I, ah, I didn’t know—um. I’ll just close this back up, shall I?” Mr. Cassidy slammed the door shut, but not before Ryan wrenched her head away from Bane, gasping for breath.
“I—You—”
“He’s fired,” Bane growled, pulling her back to him, back into the kiss, back into pure, sensual pleasure.
He kissed her until she forgot why she shouldn’t be sitting in the backseat of a limo kissing a man—a vampire—she’d just met.
He kissed her until she forgot her own name.
When they finally, reluctantly, paused to gulp in long, deep breaths, she was more aroused than she had ever been in her entire life. Her nipples were hard points scraping at the fabric of her shirt, and she had to clench her thighs together against the throbbing that all but demanded she rip Bane’s pants off—the ones he wore and the ones she wore—and beg him to fuck her.
“Bane,” she said, his name a talisman or a revelation on her lips. “I need you.”
“I need you, too.” He kissed her again, a gentle, cherishing kiss, and then pulled back and rested his forehead against hers, breathing hard. “But not here. I can’t—you’re too important for me to take in a car.”
He’d spoken as if the words were being wrenched out of him, and she responded with a gasp of laughter. “I don’t know about important, but I can tell you I’ve never before in my life wanted sex as badly as I do right this very second. Wanted anyone as much as I want you. Right now, right here, hell, in the
middle of the parking lot, I don’t care, but oh, please, please, don’t stop now!”
Before he could refuse, she shifted a leg and straddled him, and finally, all that lovely huge hardness was centered right where she wanted it.
Where she needed it.
And then, completely involuntarily, her body jerked in reaction to every single nerve ending being massively over-sensitized, bucking against him. She gasped and tightened her arms around his neck, clinging to him, helpless to do anything else but ride the wave of need. Oh, dear lord, she was on the verge of an orgasm, and she hadn’t even touched his bare skin yet.
“You’re going to kill me,” he rasped, grabbing her butt and squeezing, pulling her even closer, moving her up and down against his hardness.
She could feel her body going up in flames, her mind melting into a puddle of lust and need and sheer carnal desire. “Need you,” she moaned, shocked by the dark, husky sound of her own voice. “Need you so much.”
Suddenly, as if her words had broken something in him, Bane flipped her over and onto her back on the long, leather seat.
“Yes. Now.” His eyes were glowing blue flames, and when his lips parted, she could see the tips of his fangs, which should have terrified her, but instead the sight pushed her completely over the edge of reason into insanity.
“Now,” she demanded. “Take me, do me, fuck me, now, now, now, please, oh my God, please, now.”
His smile was so brilliant—so wicked—that she wondered it didn’t light up the world.
“You said please,” he growled.
And then he took hold of her shirt—his shirt that she wore—with both hands and ripped it apart. Buttons flew everywhere, but he paid them no attention, because he was staring at her breasts the way a man dying of thirst in the desert might stare at water.
“You’re a goddess,” he breathed, and he captured the tip of one breast in his mouth and licked it and sucked it and blew air on her nipple until she wanted to scream or beg, until she was twisting and squirming in the seat.
And then he did the same to the other breast, using his clever fingers on the one no longer getting attention from his mouth, pinching and teasing and stroking her nipple until she thought she might orgasm on the spot.
“Bane, Bane, Bane,” she panted, helplessly aroused, helplessly jerking her body against his, where he held her firmly down. She couldn’t move, couldn’t reach his cock, which she was desperate to get her hands on, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. She could only feel, and feel, and feel, until she thought she might die from the pleasure of it.
When he lifted his head, an expression of such sheer male triumph was stamped on his face that she almost laughed, but then he reached into her pocket and snatched out the knife she’d forgotten she’d stolen—borrowed—and held it up between them.
“I never liked that tie, anyway,” he growled, and then he sliced through his tie that she’d been using as a belt, tossed the knife on the floor, and yanked the pants off her body so fast she almost didn’t know what was happening.
“Are you wet for me, Dr. St. Cloud?” His voice was dark seduction itself, and she found herself caught almost hypnotically in a haze of desire that was far more potent than any compulsion he’d tried to use on her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “So wet. Please…please.” She didn’t even know how to ask for what she wanted, only that she wanted it so very badly. “Please.”
But when she tried to reach for his belt, he stopped her, and now she heard the rasp of an almost-feral desire in his voice. “No. Right now, I’m going to put my mouth on you and lick the honey from your body. I’m going to tease you and taste you and suck on your plump little clit until you scream my name, and then I’m going to make you come again and again and again.”
She almost came just listening to him talk about what he was going to do to her. “I—oh—”
He smiled so wickedly that she knew she’d somehow fallen into a trap. “But it’s like your hair, Ryan.”
“My—my hair?”
“I need your consent. Tell me yes. Ask me to do it. Ask me to taste you. Ask me to suck on you until you come in my mouth.”
“I—I—I can’t…I’ve never—” She almost cried with frustration. She needed him now, but could she make herself say such things? She’d never…
He reached down between their bodies and slid one finger into the wet heat of her body, and she arched up off the seat in reaction, crying out.
“Well? Tell me, Ryan. What do you want?” He moved his finger, sliding up, spreading her wetness on her clit, but pulling his hand away when she cried out again.
“Tell me,” he demanded. “What do you want?”
“I—I want you,” she moaned. “Yes, all of that. Taste me. Suck me. Make me come. Make me scream. Please, please, please.”
But, by the third “please,” he’d put his mouth on her, and coherent thought fragmented into shards of such exquisite pleasure she thought she might die from it. His tongue was a revelation, and his fingers delved inside her, stroking reaction after reaction from her, until she was shivering and moaning, mindlessly whipping her head back and forth on the seat.
In the car—we’re still in the car, some remnant of sanity tried to shout at her, but she told sanity to go to hell, and instead she clenched her hands in his hair and pulled his head closer to her.
He was taking her—claiming, in the most primal way possible, the very core of her body, and all she wanted was more and more and more, and then he licked a swirling motion around her clit, just before he closed his lips on it and sucked, hard, and she shattered beneath him, riding a crest of such powerful pleasure that it was almost pain, and she did, she did, she did scream his name, over and over, coming and coming and coming until she thought she might die from the sheer ecstasy of it.
And when her body finally began, just the tiniest bit, to calm down from the tidal waves of earthshaking orgasm pounding through it, Bane lifted his head and stared into her eyes.
“Tell me to bite you, Ryan. Please,” he demanded, his voice stark, his expression gone feral.
She didn’t hesitate for a single second. “Bite me, Bane. Now,” she ordered him, feeling more powerful than she ever had in her life. Claiming what she wanted from him yet again.
She turned her head and pushed her hair away from her neck with a hand that was still trembling with aftershocks, but he bared his teeth, fangs now fully descended, and shook his head.
“Not your neck.”
Then he bent his head back down and sucked her clitoris back into his mouth, one more time.
And then he bit her.
Ecstasy poured through her like molten gold, spreading from the most sensitive part of her body, and Ryan disintegrated from a being of conscious thought into a tornado of blazing sensation.
He sucked, hard, and she could feel the pull of his mouth drawing blood from her body, and a screaming orgasm smashed into her with the force of a tsunami, hammering a frenzy of pleasure into her and through her until she was afraid she couldn’t survive it.
She screamed as the orgasm peaked, a sound beyond his name, beyond words, her entire body arching up off the seat, and Bane finally stopped biting her, stopped sucking on her, stopped destroying her, and sat up, pulling her into his arms as she shuddered through the aftershocks.
She clutched at his shirt, only then realizing that she was nude and he was still fully dressed, which might have made her feel embarrassed if she hadn’t just experienced the most mind-bending orgasm—orgasms—of her life.
When she looked up at him, dazed, he was studying her with a look of wide-eyed wonder on his face. “Your blood,” he whispered, so quietly that she almost didn’t hear him. “Your skin…what are you?”
It took a long time for her breathing to calm down enough for her to speak, and then she found that she felt suddenly
, ridiculously shy and couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I don’t—what?”
He paused and then shook his head, his laughter a warm rumble beneath her cheek. “I think you just discovered that you really do like sex after all.”
She couldn’t help it. Her innate sense of humor broke through, and she started to laugh, too. “I’d find that hard to deny right now. But I—we’re still in the car.”
Oh my God.
“We’re still in the car! Are we parked on the street? Oh no, what will Mr. Cassidy think?” She was too limp with pleasure to be nearly as mortified as she ought to be, considering what had just happened and how everyone in the house would almost certainly know what they’d been doing.
“Oh, this is insane. I have to get dressed right now!” She grabbed at what was left of Bane’s shirt and pants that she’d been wearing and dressed as best as she could, tying the shirt together since the buttons were gone. “How are we going to explain this? I mean—”
He snorted.
No, wait.
That wasn’t a snort.
She whipped her head around to stare at him, and he was…sound asleep.
He was asleep? After that? He hadn’t even—they hadn’t—it had been all about her, and he must have…
Daylight. Vampire.
Right. He was a vampire, it was now mid-morning, and so it was probably perfectly natural that, after giving her the most mind-bending orgasm of her life, he’d fallen asleep.
She started to laugh.
This was definitely down the rabbit hole territory. Old Reliable Ryan would have fallen over dead at the shock of it all.
The new Ryan felt like the queen of the world.
She leaned over and gently kissed his beautiful mouth. “All right, Sleeping Beauty. Let’s figure out how to get you inside. I’ll just rest my eyes for a moment, until the world stops spinning, and then we’ll definitely do…something.”
She curled up against him, her body still pulsing with aftershock, and closed her eyes. Just for a moment.