by Lexi Blake
I closed my mouth over the head of his cock and drew him in. My hair spread out over his thighs and I drew hard on his dick, sucking as I lowered my mouth on him. His heavy balls felt good against my palm. I rolled them up, loving the weight.
It took forever to work my way down most of him. I couldn’t take his full length. My mouth wasn’t big enough. I took as much as I could and sucked hard, letting my tongue run around his width. Silky skin played against mine, Dev’s cock thickening further even as I drew on him.
He pushed me down gently, forcing me to take another inch. His cock hit the back of my throat and I forced myself to breathe deep.
“Do you know how fucking good you feel?” Dev’s voice was hoarse, sexy and low. “Do you know how much I need you?”
It was exactly the right thing to say to keep me going. I drew back almost to his cock head, tonguing around the ridge it formed.
“Zoey?”
I let my eyes drift up and he was staring down at me, both his hands in my hair now. I didn’t say a thing, didn’t pull my mouth off him. I wouldn’t let up, simply let him know that I was listening.
“I’ll take care of you. For as long as you’ll let me, I’ll take care of you.”
I had zero intentions of him not taking care of me, but the specter of Daniel sat firmly between us. There was no doubt in my mind that was what he was talking about. Even as I worked on Dev’s cock, Daniel was there between us.
I was caught between my rage at my husband and a growing, deepening emotion that defined how I felt about Devinshea.
Desire swamped me, causing me to let go of my every inhibition. Nothing mattered except taking Dev to a place where no one but I could touch him.
My tongue ran up and down his dick. Over and over, I dragged my mouth up and down, working his flesh with my tongue and teeth and mouth. His cock filled my mouth to overflowing, invading me and overtaking me. I let my hand circle the part of his cock I didn’t have in my mouth, stroking him in time to each drag of my tongue.
His hips started to move, thrusting up to meet to my mouth as I drove his cock deep inside.
A low moan came out of his mouth and I felt the moment his balls drew up, hugging close to his body. “I’m going to come, sweetheart. If you don’t want a mouthful of me, you should lean back and let me finish this.”
Oh, but I’d been dying for a mouthful of him. I realized just how careful he’d been with me. He’d denied himself in order to please me. He’d focused on me and we’d missed out on so much because of it. I needed this as much as he did. I needed to know that I could transport him the way he could transport me. Dev could take me to another place when he made love to me. He could make all my troubles and worry drift away, take me to somewhere I didn’t have to worry about anything beyond the next dizzying peak, the orgasm that was rolling over me.
His hips rolled up, his dick filling every inch of my mouth and I heard him groan as come spurted over my tongue.
Salty sweetness overtook my senses, his orgasm making me shudder. I lapped up every ounce, swallowing him down. A deep sense of satisfaction floated through me because he was relaxed now, his muscles losing their tension.
I kept licking him, his hand softening in my hair until he was petting me.
And his cock was coming back to life.
When I looked up at him, the dark look in his eyes was gone, replaced by a smile that drew his gorgeous mouth up.
“You have the most amazing mouth, lover. But I think it’s time for a little payback. Come up here.” He pulled me up and into his lap.
This time when he kissed me it was a long, satisfying exploration. He was certain I would be what he needed me to be, and he was content to take his time.
* * * *
It was almost two in the morning when I finally slid out of bed. I hadn’t drifted to sleep the way I normally would have. Too many things were running through my mind. This night had been different. Sex with Dev was fun and playful, but this was a different Dev. He’d been demanding, and I felt, for the first time, he needed me for so much more than an orgasm. We’d made love, and it gave me so much to think about.
I thought Dev had finally fallen asleep, but he turned and propped his head on one hand. I was about to get dressed but sat back down on the bed.
“You can go, Zoey,” Dev said quietly. “I’ll be fine now.”
“I wish you would tell me what was riding you tonight.” I reached out to touch his chest, placing my hand right over his heart.
He smiled, a lascivious little grin, and his hand ran itself up my arm. “I don’t mind telling you what was riding me tonight. That would be you, and you rode me well, sweetheart.” I rolled my eyes and started to get up again but he pulled at my hand, his eyes sobering. “It happened a long time ago. I was just a kid. That fucking manipulative magic just brought back some bad memories. You drove them away with your amazing therapy.”
And that was all I was going to get. “Well, I’m glad I could be of service.”
He pulled me down and kissed me. “Thank you, my Zoey. I couldn’t have asked for more. Now, go and give Daniel hell like you want to.”
“I don’t have to go.” I didn’t want to leave him if he needed me, but Danny and I had a few things to iron out. I wanted to talk to him about the job, and I really wanted to kick his ass for letting me walk into that situation with Angelina and Justin unaware. He had to know there would be repercussions. If I was supposed to be queen to his king, I needed to start getting the debriefings.
Dev yawned and looked generally content. “If you stay, you’ll have to wait an entire day to yell at him. I don’t want to be the one who kept you waiting. Go, woman. I sleep better alone anyway. You snore.”
“I do not,” I protested, getting off the bed and finding my clothes.
“Do, too,” he insisted. “And Zoey, whatever this job is…”
“I know, I know, you want in.” Those would be the three words carved into his headstone one day. I was sure of it.
“That’s right. And you can be damn sure when you go to the Hell plane to rescue Sarah, that I want in on that, too.”
I stood staring at him. I’d been really careful to keep him entirely out of the loop on that one. I’d never mentioned it and been careful to never speak of it in the club.
Dev turned over with a satisfied smirk that had everything to do with one-upping me. “I know everything, Zoey. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And don’t kill the vampire. We’re going to need him.”
* * * *
I shut the door to the limo and listened as it drove back off into the night. Of all the people my move had inconvenienced, I was certain Dev’s driver was the worst. The night was quiet, but the light was on in the living room. My heart clenched a little bit at the thought of Neil sitting up. I let myself in and, sure enough, there he was sitting on the couch. He was still in his slacks and polo, though they weren’t as crisp as they had been. He looked more nervous than sad.
When he glanced up at me, his eyes went wide, shock replacing that haunted look.
“Zoey.” He actually shrank back a bit. “You were supposed to stay with Dev.”
“I need to talk to Daniel.” At least he was speaking to me and not shutting me out with a flippant wave of his hand. “And I definitely need to talk to you. But before we get into that, I have to tell you something. I don’t want you to hear through the grapevine. I kind of shot your dad.”
Neil perked up at that. “Really? Is he dead?”
I shook my head. “No, but he probably wishes he was. I sort of shot him in a spot most guys don’t want to get shot in.”
Neil smiled wistfully. “Thereby fulfilling many a childhood fantasy. I wish I could have been there, Z.”
“Hey, it happened at Ether so it was more than likely caught on Dev’s security tapes. We can have a watching party.”
“Cool,” Neil agreed. “You didn’t happen to shoot my brother, too?” I responded in the negative. “Next time.”
/> At least he wasn’t distraught. I could move on to other painful conversations. “Now, where is Danny?”
Neil is possibly the worst liar on the planet. Most of the time he knew better than to lie and, when faced with a situation that required fabrication, merely kept his mouth shut and allowed those of us with skill to handle it. He was up shit creek when he was left to his own devices, as nothing that came out of his lying mouth sounded believable. He couldn’t just stick with a little lie. Once Neil started talking, everything snowballed. I watched as he tried really hard to come up with something, anything, that might make me believe.
“There was a Council thing, and he forgot that he was supposed to go,” he spat out finally.
The Council was in Paris. Danny had up and gone to Paris? I just stared at him knowing that the longer I kept him pinned with that look, the worse a hole he would dig. Neil never met a silence he liked. He just had to fill it with something.
“Marcus called and said he was late,” Neil continued, unable to stay silent while I stared. “And that there was a big vampire emergency and all the vampires had to go to this meeting because of the emergency. It was a very important meeting but Daniel finished what he was doing, ‘cause you know Daniel, he’s all ‘nobody tells me what to do’ and then he decided to go ahead and go anyway because…”
“It was a vampire emergency,” I finished, sarcasm dripping. I looked down at my still-lime green carpet. The boxes of flooring hadn’t been touched and his tools were right where he’d left them. “Neil, he didn’t even start the project. Where is he? Is he out finding more little wolves to feed to his vamps? Is he at least getting a finder’s fee?”
Neil’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, shit, you know about that. I told him you would find out. Zoey, you don’t understand.”
No, I didn’t and somebody had better start explaining it to me. I stalked through my house, searching for my secretive vampire husband. He was playing some sort of game, and I wanted to know what it was. His truck was still parked outside, so despite Neil’s sad efforts, I knew he was here. Neil followed behind me, begging me to wait.
“Daniel is going to explain everything, Z.”
It wasn’t until I got to the kitchen that I realized just how much explaining Daniel would be doing.
I looked out the window in my back door and saw Daniel talking to Chad in the moonlight. They stood in the yard, and Daniel had one hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. It looked like Daniel was giving the other man some advice. I say “looked like” because I was so deeply wrong.
In the next second, Daniel’s free hand stabbed a knife straight through Chad’s heart.
Chapter Ten
I was out the door and flying across the porch before Chad’s dead body could hit the ground. Daniel stood over the corpse, but I was pleased to see a look of pure terror cross his handsome face when he realized I was coming his way. He let the knife drop and actually tried to back away.
“Daniel Donovan,” I screamed without thought. It didn’t matter. My nearest neighbor was a mile and a half down the road. Of course, that neighbor was Chad, and he wouldn’t be calling the police any time soon. “You murdering son of a bitch.”
I swung and caught him in the chest, and he had the very good sense to try to look wounded. Neil stood in the background with plenty of distance between himself and whatever violence I was about to visit on my husband.
“Zoey, it’s not what you think.” Daniel’s voice was calm, his breathing steady.
“Not what I think? You stabbed him through the heart! He’s dead on my lawn, Daniel. What are you going to tell me, that he committed suicide?”
“Would you believe me if I tried?” he asked, his voice slightly hopeful.
I slapped at his chest again. “No, I will not believe that he ran at the knife you just happened to be holding out at the very exact level his heart was at. I can’t believe this. What the hell are we going to do with that body?”
The trouble with human bodies is that unlike most supernaturals, they decompose very slowly. Most vampires will turn to ash if hit by enough ultraviolet light, or they have been known to explode from time to time when staked. If you’re going to stake a vampire, don’t wear your best clothes because no amount of dry cleaning will ever get that shit out. Werewolves and other shifters decompose very quickly, so if you take one down you really only have to keep prying eyes out of your kill zone for a day or two. Chad would not be going down so easily. Chad would hang around for years just waiting for some snotty CSI wannabe to solve his untimely murder.
“Don’t worry about the body,” Daniel said with assurance. “I got that covered, baby.”
I laughed a little hysterically. “Good, I’m really glad you thought this out. I wouldn’t want you to go around murdering our neighbors without a really good plan in place.”
Neil tried to interject some reason. “Zoey, if you would just let us explain.”
I turned on him, and he shrank back. “You stay out of this. You don’t want to be on my radar right now. I already shot one wolf in the balls tonight. Don’t think I can’t make it two.”
Neil gulped. “You’re on your own, Daniel.”
I rounded on my husband again. “Yes, you are because I am so not taking the fall for this one, Danny. Those guys earlier this year in the hotel room I will concede deserved to die.”
They’d tried to kill all of us, but Danny and Neil took them out. Luckily a nice group of fairies took care of those bodies since we’d been too busy to do our own cleanup. I didn’t like having to deal with bodies. Bodies were messy.
“I’m glad you approve.” Daniel was far too calm for the situation. I knew he’d been forced to do wet work for the Council as part of his parole, but now I wondered just how much it was affecting him.
“I do not approve of this. He didn’t do anything, Danny. He tried to kiss me once.” I whirled on Neil. “And you! I thought you liked him. He makes one mistake and you let Danny murder him? No one is going to be hot to date you after this makes the rounds.”
Daniel laughed outright. “You think I killed the kid because he kissed you? Seriously? I sent you off with Dev, who was obviously horny out of his mind, so I could murder some gay dude who kissed you and then spent the rest of the night salivating over me and Neil?”
Put like that, it did sound stupid. However, there was still a dead lawyer at my feet. I sidestepped the ever-growing pool of blood, praying I didn’t track it back into the house. I remembered something Michael had said a couple of days earlier. “I believe the term is righteous kill.”
It was the term the Council used for legal executions.
Danny actually bent over laughing. “This is not a righteous kill, Z. Dev, who flagrantly screws my wife at every given opportunity, would be a righteous kill if we hadn’t reached an agreement. Chad here is an idiot who didn’t know better. The Council doesn’t let us run around killing every human who happens to hit on our wives. I know you haven’t met any other companions, but as a class of females, you tend to rate high on the hot scale. There would be a lot of male bodies piling up if we did that.”
He’d said a lot, but I really only caught one part of it. “Agreement?”
Vampires really can pale when they get scared. “Yeah, I agreed to not kill him.”
There was way more to that story. “That was our agreement, Danny. What was your agreement with Dev?” And why the hell hadn’t Dev mentioned it?
Daniel crossed his arms and frowned. “You couldn’t just expect me not to talk to him. I had to find out what his intentions were.”
“If I know Dev, he was ridiculously, vulgarly detailed in describing his intentions to you, Danny.” The man had no sense of self-preservation.
“It really wasn’t like that, Z,” Daniel said defensively. “We both care about you. I love you, and the truth is I can’t watch over you during the day.”
“Son of a bitch! He hired a PI to follow me, didn’t he?” That was how he knew every
thing.
“I couldn’t be sure Halfer wouldn’t come back. You hurt him last spring, Zoey. You hurt his pride. He’s not going to let that stand. I can make sure he can’t get to you during the night, so Dev takes the day shift or he makes sure someone does. You can’t expect us to just let you walk around with a big neon sign on your back saying get your revenge here, can you?”
“How about discussing the situation with me like adults?”
Daniel rolled his baby blues. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re so reasonable. It’s why I didn’t tell you I was gonna kill Chad.”
“Fuck me! That was really horrible.” A low moan rose from the ground. Chad coughed, sitting up.
I screamed and jumped behind Daniel. Even in my line of work, I don’t deal with a whole lot of reanimated corpses. “He came back.”
Neil moved from behind me, reaching toward Chad.
“Not yet, Neil. He’s not ready.” Daniel placed himself between me and Neil and the reanimated corpse.
Chad managed to get to his knees, and he patted the hole in his chest. “You were right. I should have picked strangulation. Anything would be better than that.”
Daniel shrugged. “Nobody ever listens to me about strangulation. You think the whole knife thing will be quicker, but I promise I could have cut off that oxygen pretty damn fast.”
“Fine, next time I get my pick of method of death, I’ll listen to you.” Chad caught sight of me. His fangs lengthened for the first time, hunger etched on his face. “I want her. She glows. It’s so pretty.”
Daniel walked over to Chad and pulled him up roughly by the back of his shirt. Daniel’s fangs were fully out, a savage look on his face. Chad struggled in Daniel’s grip, but couldn’t break the hold.
Daniel turned his eyes to me. “Zoey, I have things I have to do. There are certain rituals that must be performed. You should go inside.”