by R. M. Walker
When I look up, the other vampires have taken off. Brad’s face is a bleeding, bruised mess. Connor has struggled to his feet, and both men are looking at me like I’m insane.
Too late, I realize my mistake. Did they see what I did? Do they know what I am?
“Jules…” Connor begins.
“Are you guys okay?” I ask, feeling cold dread trickle down my spine.
“Well, yeah,” Connor continues.
And… they actually are. Holy fuck. My mind goes through the fight. How the hell did these two hold up against the vampires? The vampires must have wanted them alive for some reason.
“Good.”
“Jules.” Brad says my name in a way I don’t like.
“Well, that was weird,” I laugh uneasily. “But I need to go.”
Turning around, I race off. I hear them calling my name, but reality is starting to settle in. No one is supposed to know what I am. If they find out, Drake will kill them without hesitation. I need time away from these men, to come up with a lie, to determine how much they know.
I mean, they didn’t seem surprised about the super-fast, strong vampires, but that doesn’t mean they knew the creatures that they faced weren’t human. If they couldn’t even imagine that possibility, they probably don’t have a clue what I am either.
My hands are shaking by the time I reach my house.
And it hits me. How many lives did I take? The answer is too many. Too many strong healthy lives.
I’m buzzing now, on a high like I’ve only felt once before. I need to get rid of this feeling, but I already know what’s coming. The warmth moves through me and the energy I feel is overwhelming. Not just the energy, but the need to release it.
I turn away from my house and head down the street, looking for a bar. There’s only one thing to do when a Reaper overfeeds.
Have sex. And lots of it.
Fucking hell.
4
Connor
We head down the street, and I know Brad is as confused as I am. It’s not strange for us to get jumped by vampires. The bastards are pretty angry at us right now. They claim Brad and I swindled them out of a major card game. Which wouldn’t have been too bad if they weren’t already mad at us for reasons that go much deeper.
“What do you think?” Brad asks, frowning as we reach the end of the street.
“About the fight? Or Jules?”
“Fuck the fight,” he says, and his expression is troubled. “What happened to those vampires? They just… dropped dead.”
“Maybe she’s some kind of witch?”
He shakes his head. “No witch has that kind of power.”
Brad’s been a part of the immortal world a hell of a lot longer than I am, so I’m just guessing.
“I think we need to go talk to someone.”
“Ajax would know,” I say, kicking a piece of trash out of my way.
His nose wrinkles. “But Gods always talk in riddles. We’ll never get a straight answer out of him.”
I shrug. “So what do we do?”
He turns away from our house. “I have an idea of who we can see. She knows about everything.”
After a long day at work, the last thing I want to do is go on some hunt for answers, but the thing is, I’m more than a little curious. Ever since Jules walked into the hospital, I’ve been a bit obsessed with her. It isn’t just that she’s beautiful, although she is. I mean, she’s so fucking beautiful that every head turns when she walks past. The problem is that she’s got that whole “damaged and in need of protection” air going on, and that’s a serious weakness of mine.
So, I follow Brad down the street. Several quiet minutes tick by before something finally occurs to me.
“Why do you care what she is? I thought you said she wasn’t your type.”
I can see his guard go up. “Because she’s working at our hospital. What if she’s dangerous?”
I laugh. “Come on, I see the way you look at her.”
“I don’t look at her any specific way,” he says.
“Yeah, right.”
He’s ticked I saw right through him. “Until that fight, she was just like any other woman to me.”
“I heard you asked her to have dinner with you.”
He glares. “Where did you hear that?”
I shrug. “You know the walls talk.”
“Fucking ghosts,” he mutters. “Okay, maybe I think she’s hot. But it’s all about those big breasts of hers and that nice round ass.”
“You just keep telling yourself that.”
His glare gets darker, and his pace increases.
I follow him, loving every second of this. Brad’s the kind of guy who gets any girl he wants, and then moves on from them. I’m pretty sure being immortal means he really has, “been there, done that,” with just about everything. So whenever he takes a special interest in someone or something, it intrigues me, especially since it happens so rarely.
And then something occurs to me. “Do you think she suspects what we are?”
Brad freezes for a half a second, then continues walking. “No, otherwise she wouldn’t have rushed in to save us like some badass hero.”
She did seem pretty concerned.
I think back to her face. Her fucking beautiful face. The one that’s so filled with expressions when she doesn’t have her guard up. One of my favorite times with her is after one of her healing sessions, when she opens her eyes and looks at me like… like, I don’t know. Like she’s experiencing every possible emotion. It creates this tension between us, and I could swear we have a connection…
But then her guard goes up again and I can’t figure out for the life of me what she’s feeling.
But when she rushed in to save us? She looked scared. And angry. Either she really hates vampires… or maybe she really likes us.
I smile and walk a little faster to catch up with Brad.
5
Jules
I don’t pay attention to where I’m walking. The buzzing beneath my skin that shoots to the space between my thighs is a demanding bitch. If I don’t calm her soon, I might do something really dangerous. I learned about this unfortunate consequence in overindulging in lives just once in Reaper training, but it was more than enough. I fucked three guys I was in training with and woke the next day feeling amazing.
Before I realized that I didn’t like what I’d done. No, Reapers couldn’t get pregnant or catch diseases, but then I’d had to finish the rest of my training with the three assholes constantly grinning at me. I hated the way they looked at me, like I’ve seen you naked.
So, I was going to find a man I wouldn’t regret hooking up with too terribly, spend this energy, and remember never to do shit like this again.
Up ahead I see a neon sign. Hell, yes, a bar!
I rush toward it and push open the doors into the dark dwelling. I looked around at the men in the bar, most of them unattached. Yes, this would do. This would do nicely.
At least two of the men are decent candidates. They’re young enough for me and good enough looking. They’re not Adonis personified, but they don’t make my skin crawl either.
I sit down at the bar, but immediately my feet start tapping and moving about. I can’t sit still, and it’s only going to get worse.
“What are you drinking?” The bartender asks, giving me a flirtatious smile.
He’s not bad, but he won’t be able to just leave with me. “Vodka. Lots of it.” I tell him, then toss a bill from my pocket onto the bar.
The buzzing is getting worse. I can feel myself growing wet and swollen. My nipples harden, and I have to bite down on a hiss.
I can’t believe the other Reapers consider this high I’m feeling a little bonus. As far as I'm concerned, it’s a fucking curse.
The bartender sets my drink down, and I slam it in one shot. It burns on the way down, but almost instantly calms my nerves. That couldn’t have been a double… a triple?
“I thought you didn�
��t want a drink.”
Oh, shit! I whirl around.
“Ajax,” I say, and even I can hear the husky note to my voice.
“So you wanted a drink, just not with me?”
His rough voice runs across my skin, sending every hair standing on end. My eyes are locked onto his dark eyes. His light brown hair, secured at the back of his neck in a bun is strangely sexy, even though I’m not usually into man-buns. There’s just something about this man. He radiates power and masculine energy. Every woman who looks at him instantly knows he has a big cock and knows how to use it.
“I—.” What did he ask? I can’t remember for the life of me.
“What do you want, Jules?” he asks.
I slide off my chair and close the space between us. I press my hands to his muscular chest, and I’m satisfied when he makes a little surprised sound and places his hands on my hips.
“I want something uncomplicated. Just for tonight. And then we both forget about it.”
Fuck. How is this happening? Sleeping with someone I work with is a terrible idea. A worse than terrible idea. I was supposed to come here and find someone I’d never have to see again, someone who would scratch this itch and leave me the hell alone.
His gaze locks with mine. “I was asking what you wanted to drink.”
Jerking back from him, I realize what I was about to do. This is stupid. I came here looking for one thing and one thing only. Ajax does not fit the bill. He is way more complicated than a quickie with a stranger.
I look around the room and my gaze meets a businessman with a skewed tie. He perks up when he sees me looking. Turning, I start toward him.
Ajax catches my wrist. “I was kidding.”
His expression is absolutely confused, maybe even panicked. Those aren’t two emotions I ever thought I’d see on him, but I don’t have time to care.
“No,” I say, pulling my wrist free of him. “Forget that. I made a mistake.”
I start back toward the businessman. He watches my every move like a predator observing his prey, and I don’t even care.
When I lean over his table, his gaze goes straight to my chest. I use that to my advantage.
“Want to get out of here?” I ask.
His chair scrapes along the floor as he stands. “Hell, yeah!”
I turn and slam into a big chest. My gaze goes up, and I’m staring into Ajax’s dark eyes. Only, now they’re darker, and he looks pissed as hell.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he asks.
For one second, I curl against his body. God, he smells so damn good. Leaning up, I let my lips trail along his jaw. My body heats up, and I know my nipples are hard against his chest.
“You smell… amazing,” I whisper, then bite his ear.
He groans, and his breathing increases. I want to lick my way down his neck and cup his dick, just to see if it’s hard. Oh god, I bet he’s hard. And huge. I bet he has the kind of cock a woman wants to lick like a popsicle.
“Are we leaving or not?”
I stiffen at the sound of the guy’s voice behind me. He sounds annoyed, and I don’t blame him.
He’s my ‘something simple and uncomplicated.’ Not Ajax.
Pulling back from Ajax, I close my eyes and take several deep breaths. I’m going to explode if I’m not fucking someone soon. I need to make the smart choice, the choice I won’t regret as much tomorrow.
“See you around,” I say to Ajax, then gesture to the other man to follow me.
The man tries to follow, but Ajax catches him with an arm across the chest.
“I don’t think so.” His voice is deadly calm.
Shit. “Ajax—“
“You’re not leaving with this guy.” Then, he turns to the man. “Be smart. Go sit back down.”
The businessman looks between me and Ajax. I’m shocked when he draws himself up taller. “She wants to leave with me.”
My heart’s racing. I need to let this energy out. I need to fuck.
“Ajax,” I’m breathing hard. “Just walk away.”
He looks at me in the most possessive way imaginable, a way that makes me hot all over.
“Either we’re walking out of here right now together, or I’ll break a few bones in this asshole’s face and then take you home. Your choice.”
I hate that his words turn me on. “I need—simple.”
It’s hard to catch my breath and my head feels light. The urge is strong, overwhelming everything I am and have.
“I can give you simple, babe.”
Despite all logic, I nod.
Ajax steps away from the man and toward me. I hear a sound like a thud and my mouth drops open. The guy punched him in the back. Ajax turns very slowly around. The businessman won’t give up. His fists are clenched and his expression angry, but hitting Ajax was like hitting a brick wall.
And just as stupid as hitting a wall.
Ajax’s mouth curls into a smile before he hits the guy.
The businessman goes down like a sack of potatoes.
“Sorry,” I mutter to him, but Ajax is already pulling me out of the bar.
When we escape into the windy air outside, Ajax leads me into the closest alley, until we’re far from the noise and the lights of the street. Until I can barely make out his face in the shadows.
“What the fuck has gotten into you, Jules?”
In answer, I reach out and cup him through his pants. He groans, and I’m far too satisfied to feel him hard and ready.
“Are you drunk?” he asks, the question tortured.
I unbutton his pants. “Not even close.”
He digs a hand into the back of my hair, while I stroke him through his pants. When he tilts my head, I completely submit to him. His strong lips crush mine. I open up until his tongue dip into my mouth and tangles with my own tongue. His kiss is relentless, building my desire in ways that are completely unnecessary. I want to tell him that I’m ready, but instead I unfasten his pants and drop them around his ankles.
Oh fuck, of course the man goes commando underneath.
I drop out of his touch and onto my knees. He makes a sound of protest, and then my lips close over his cock.
His protest dies and his hand tangles in my hair, forcing me to take him deeper. And oh hell, this man is long, and hard, and big, everything this buzzing inside of me needs.
Even the taste of him drives me wild. I suck him like I’m starved. Like his cum is the only thing I’ve ever wanted.
When he yanks me back from his cock and pulls me to my feet, I crumble against him.
“I need to take you home,” he pants into my ear.
“No,” I whisper. “You need to take me here.”
He lets loose a strong of curses, his hands tightening around me. “You sure?”
In answer, I take off my shirt, dropping it on the ground beside me.
He reaches out and cups my breasts through my bra, flicking my hard nipples and drawing a moan from my lips. Then, he tugs the material down, leans in closer, and starts to suck.
I wrap my legs around his back and his hands lift me up. I bounce against his naked cock, hating that I’m still wearing pants and underwear. Hating that I can’t let this delicious man sink deeply inside of me. But loving his incredible tongue as it lavishes my breasts, and sucks my nipples in the most amazing way imaginable.
Suddenly, he raises his head, and his hands tear at my clothes, pulling my pants and underwear off and onto the ground. He turns and pushes me against the cool brick behind me.
“Ready?” he asks.
In response, I wiggle and press the head of his cock into my wet folds.
He swears again, grabs my bare ass tighter, and slides me down onto him.
I gasp, my nails digging into his back. I’m wet and ready as fuck, but this massive man is still a tight fit.
“Big cocked bastard!”
I hear him chuckle low. “Oh, you love it.”
He finally reaches his hilt, and pauses as I coll
ect myself. Shock waves of pleasure roll through me, pleasure unlike anything I’ve felt before. The pleasure feels like something alive and powerful.
Yes, I had this Reaper High when I fucked three guys in my training group, but it wasn’t like this. That was rushed and messy, an unmitigated disaster.
This is… amazing. Fast. Hard. Everything I needed.
Suddenly, he’s pulling back out again. I lean my head back, preparing for him to plunge deeply back in, and he doesn’t disappoint. His big shaft comes back, and I thrash against him, loving the explosion of pleasure.
“Harder!”
“Shit, Jules!”
I move against him, taking him deeper with every thrust. Riding this man like a madwoman. Every time he tries to slow, I keep moving against him.
At last, my orgasm washes over me.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I’m shouting like I don’t give a damn. Because I don’t. I don’t care who hears. I only care that this pleasure never ends, that the waves of satisfaction keep coming. My muscles keep tightening around him, swollen with pleasure.
And when my name tears from his lips, and I feel him fill me with his hot seed, I continue to move against him for a long time, until every wave inside my body has calmed.
The cool night air moves over my flesh. His body, hot against mine, shudders.
“That was… amazing.” He kisses my neck softly, lovingly.
“We should get dressed,” I say.
He stiffens. “So you can try to fuck some other guy in the bar?”
I laugh, feeling the buzzing beneath my skin growing more powerful. “No, so the next time we’re in a bed, instead of an alley.”
He’s quiet for a long second. “I’m going to take you home, Jules, but don’t pull anything like that again. Understand me? This pussy of yours, it’s mine.”
“Alright,” I agree without argument.
He pulls out of me and we dress.
My mind is spinning with desire again. With need. All I can think about is a soft bed and this man’s hard cock.
But then something else occurs to me, something in the back of my hazy mind. When this man said I was his, he meant tonight, right?