And then he felt an uncontrollable wave of possessiveness because he wanted to remain the only one who’d ever told her such a thing and truly meant it.
Now and forever.
You’ll know it.
It was just sex, he reminded himself as he touched her bottom lip with the pad of his finger. She drew him into her mouth and suckled him and all the soft feelings faded into a rush of desire.
Need hit him like a solid punch to the stomach and he closed his eyes. He groaned, his arousal throbbing, pressing between her buttocks, hot and desperate for entry.
“Wait—” she cried, but he was already pulling away from her. He reached his jeans in record time, retrieved a condom and slid it onto his rock-hard length. He drew back the curtains on one massive window.
Shay started to protest, but he took her hand, urged her up against the glass and stepped up behind her so fast that she’d barely managed a breathless “I really like it dark,” before he pressed his erection between her ass cheeks and rubbed.
Her protest ended on a sharp gasp. Her bottom lifted in sweet invitation as she leaned forward and planted her palms flat on the glass.
“It’s plenty dark,” he reassured her. He rubbed against her, once, twice, and felt the moisture slide around his cock. Pleasure splintered through him and a groan rumbled from his throat. He caught his reflection in the window. Two pinpoints of neon blue light gleamed back at him, a frantic change from the fierce predatory red typical of a werewolf.
He blinked, frantically trying to force the light away, but he couldn’t. Years of controlling what he was slipped away in the next few seconds as his primitive instincts took over.
Before she could blink, he swept her into his arms and headed for the bedroom. He urged her forward onto the mattress until she was on all fours, her bottom raised in undeniable invitation.
He stroked her, his fingertips trailing over the wet heat between her legs. She shivered and rotated her hips. He locked his arm around her, anchoring her for a full upward thrust until he was buried to the hilt.
The blood drummed so loudly in his ears, he barely heard her gasp of pleasure. Her body was warm and ripe, milking him even though they were both standing so perfectly still. For several deep, shallow breaths, he poised behind her, not moving or breathing. Simply relishing the sensation.
It was unlike anything he’d ever felt before. The pulsing warmth. The stirring energy. He could feel it bubbling deep inside her and he had the sudden urge to stoke the fire until she exploded.
This was crazy. It was all about his pleasure. His release. His explosion.
Shay gasped, her body drawing him deliciously deeper as she arched back against him.
He felt the sharp graze of his teeth against his tongue and he chanced a glance in the dresser mirror to see the white gleam of fangs and the fierce purple of his eyes—
Holy shit! He had fangs!
Sure, he had fangs during the full moon. And a snout. And a body full of hair. But this…This was different.
He closed his eyes and remembered the feel of a similar pair of fangs sinking into his neck. He knew then that he hadn’t just been attacked by that vampire. He’d been changed—the eyes, the fangs, the perpetual hard-on, the sex.
Sex had always been great for him. But what he was experiencing with Shay gave new meaning to the word. It was hotter. Wetter. Wilder.
“She’ll fill your head. Your heart.”
The words echoed in his head a split second before Shay moved again and desperation rolled through him. Suddenly he couldn’t get deep enough, fast enough. He thrust into her, over and over, until he hovered on the brink of explosion.
She came quickly, crying his name as violent tremors racked her body. Heat rippled through him, feeding the hunger inside him even though he hadn’t had his own climax.
Ecstasy drenched him, sucking him under and holding him prisoner for several long moments. But then he wanted more. He pushed into her again, once, twice, there. His heart gave a wild kapow and his own climax hit him hard and fast.
A growl rumbled from his throat and she stiffened in his arms.
“What was that—” she started to ask, the question catching on a gasp as he whirled her around and kissed her long and slow and deep.
He urged her back down into the mattress and eased down beside her. Folding her body close to his own, he closed his eyes. He needed to think. To make some sense out of what he’d just experienced.
The change in his eye color. The fangs. The damned hunger.
Even now, it waged a tug-o-war inside of him, demanding more than the sex.
His gaze hooked on the throb of her pulse and it was all he could do not to taste her.
Even crazier were the damned feelings churning inside him.
As much as he wanted to bite Shay, he wanted to hold her close. To tell her how beautiful she was. To kill any and every man who’d ever hurt her. To never let her go.
The vampire bite.
He knew that was to blame for the wild changes he was going through—emotionally and physically—and he fully intended to prove it. As soon as Shay dozed off, he was heading into town to talk to a certain pair of vampires.
In the meantime, he was going to do his damndest to keep from sinking his fangs or his cock into the woman falling fast asleep in his arms.
5
“YOU LOOK TERRIBLE,” Viviana Darland told him the minute he walked into the business office of Skull Creek Choppers later that night.
The custom motorcycle shop was owned by the town’s three resident male vampires—Garret Sawyer, Jake McCann and Dillon Cash. Garret handled the actual build. Jake took care of the design. And Dillon dealt with the high-tech computer software blazing on the various computer screens throughout the monstrous fabrication shop.
“I feel terrible,” Matt said as he sank into one of the chairs. Viviana signaled Garret through the wall-to-wall window that separated the office from the actual production area. A few seconds later, he walked through the door. He gave Viv a long, lingering kiss before turning his attention to Matt.
“What’s up, guy?”
Matt ran a hand over his face and tried to ignore the scent of Shay on his hands and his skin. In his head. “Something’s happening to me.” When Garret arched an eyebrow, he added, “Something other than the usual werewolf stuff.”
“We saw the pic,” Viv winked. “Nice tush.”
“I’m not talking about the streaking.” He shook his head. “Well, yes I am.” He leveled a stare at her. “The full moon triggers everything for me. I know it. I can anticipate it. But this happened during a quarter moon. One minute I’m out at my place and the next I’m standing in the middle of town square. I was hairy and horny. That vampire bite did something to me.” He pushed to his feet and started to pace in the small area. “I’m having these urges.” He shook his head. “I’m horny as hell. And I’m hungry.” His gaze locked with Garret’s. “For more than a thick, juicy steak.” His gaze shifted to Viv’s. “Do you think I’m turning into a vampire?”
“You can’t be,” Viv told him. “To fully turn, you have to drink the blood of a vampire while you’re dying. You breathe your last breath, your humanity slips away and then the vamp blood kicks in and you open your eyes to a new life—the afterlife.” She shook her head. “A nonfatal bite isn’t enough.”
“For the average human,” Garret spoke then. “But Matt isn’t anywhere close, babe. His DNA is different. Which means—” his gaze zeroed in on Matt “—anything is possible.”
“I suppose.” Viv eyed him. “What did you do today?”
Matt shrugged. “I spent the afternoon clearing the area around the cabin.”
“Outside, right?”
“Yeah.”
Viv exchanged glances with Garret. “Vampires can’t tolerate the sunlight.”
“We can’t tolerate the sunlight,” Garret said, slipping an arm around her. “Matt’s something different.” His gaze collided with Matt
’s. “You’re still a werewolf, right?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I did grow the hair, which is standard operating procedure for werewolves. But I didn’t actually morph into a wolf, which is what usually happens once a month. First the hair, then the change. But only during the full moon. When I was younger, I used to sprout hair every now and then, but that’s because my hormones were raging. I never sprout hair now unless I’m supposed to.”
“Vampires don’t grow hair,” Viv pointed out.
“But we do crave sex,” Garret countered before shifting his attention back to Matt. “It’s part of what we are. We can sate the bloodlust with sexual energy. It helps us go longer so that we don’t have to feed off the red stuff as often. Let me guess, you tried jacking off and it didn’t work.”
Matt shook his head. “It made me want it more.” He remembered climbing from the bed after Shay had fallen asleep. He’d taken one look at her and he’d been hard all over again. Desperate. Hungry. “Shit,” he muttered, sinking down on the edge of the couch. “Shit, shit, shit.” He shook his head. “So you really think I’m turning into a vampire?” he asked Garret.
“I think that the vamp blood mingling with yours sparked some sort of transition. How far it will go, I don’t know. Will you lose the werewolf and become a full-fledged vampire? That remains to be seen.”
“So what do I do?”
“You feed,” Viv told him. She walked over to a nearby mini-fridge and pulled out a plastic bag of blood. A few seconds later, she’d poured the contents into a wine glass and handed it to him. “The more you feed the beast, the more in control you’ll feel.”
“Where did you get this?”
“Garret’s got connections at a blood bank in Austin. We bag it as much as we can. The rest we take from each other.”
“Only each other,” Garret added.
“You can do that?” His gaze went from one vampire to the other.
Viv smiled at her significant other. “It’s worked so far. But you’ll need to supplement with sex.”
“Lots of sex,” Garret added, sliding an arm around Viv. “But no sex and blood at the same time. It forges an unbreakable bond that can be more trouble than it’s worth.”
“If it’s with the wrong person,” Viv added. “But if it’s the right person…” She let her sentence trail off as she smiled at Garret.
He pulled her even closer. “If it’s the right person, you’re one lucky sonofabitch.” He lifted his gaze to Matt. “Stick with variety for now while you’re figuring things out. Maybe check out a few of the bars out on the interstate. There’s plenty of women there who can help you until you get a handle on this.”
“And we’ll help, too.” Viv pulled away from Garret to retrieve another bag from the fridge. “You can have dinner with us so you don’t have to worry about draining anyone.”
“I would never do that.”
“You’d be surprised what you’re capable of doing when the hunger gets to you.”
He thought of Shay and her voluptuous body. Her pulse echoed in his head and he saw her creamy white throat, her lifeblood pumping just below the surface of her pale, translucent skin. He’d wanted so badly to sink his fangs into her, to feel her heat filling his mouth the way her silky wet warmth had milked his body. His groin tightened, hunger sliced through him and he reached for the glass.
He downed a long gulp. The liquid was salty and sweet at the same time, and his taste buds came alive. Several more gulps and he finished off the glass. Still, it wasn’t enough to sate the beast that now lived and breathed inside of him. Nor was it enough to kill the image of Shay spread out on his bed, waiting for him. So warm and sweet and—
“Can I have another?” he blurted, cutting off the dangerous train of thought.
“Another glass?”
“Another bag.” He needed all the sustenance he could get before he headed back to the cabin to deal with Shay Briggs.
Deal as in finishing up their bargain by sharing a few of the crazy hair growth treatments he’d learned over the years. She’d kept her end of the agreement, and now he had to keep his.
No way was he going to head back home, crawl into bed with her, and have sex with her all over again. Or drink from her. Or both. Christ, he had enough problems. He didn’t need to be mentally linked to a woman he hardly knew. Even if there was something about her that drew him.
Her scent. Her feel. Her.
“You’ll know it.”
He fought the truth and focused on Garret while Viv emptied a bag into his now empty glass. “How often will I have to feed?”
“You’re new at this, so I’d say every few days. Older vampires can go longer.”
“So this will cut the craving for a little while?” He held up the glass she handed him.
“Not by itself. But if you have sex, you should be good for a few days at least.”
“What if I already had sex?”
Garret winked. “Then you’re good to go for at least forty-eight hours.”
Long enough for Matt to fulfill his end of the bargain with Shay—without falling into bed with her again. Then he would call it quits. She would go back to her life and he would go back to looking for his mate, and all would be right with the world.
If only the notion didn’t depress him even more than the possibility that he was turning into a full-fledged vampire.
6
HE WAS GONE.
Shay stared at the empty bed and tried to stifle her disappointment. Gone was a good thing. Dawn had already crept over the horizon and pushed its way inside the bedroom. The shadows hovered in the corners, too far away to afford her any decent cover once she threw back the sheets and sprinted for the bathroom.
She strained her ears for some evidence that Matt Keller hadn’t jumped ship like every other man in her life. The familiar sounds whispered through her head. The hum of the air conditioner. The chirp of birds. The buzz of crickets.
There was nothing else. No rush of water in the bathroom. No early morning news coming from the living room TV. No swish of newspapers. No glug of orange juice.
The rat bastard.
Not because she’d fallen for him or anything ridiculous like that. Sure, he was a bad boy and the sex had been phenomenal. But she hardly knew him. No, she felt like crying because he’d bailed before sharing his hair secrets.
She blinked away the burning in her eyes and steeled herself. She would hunt him down if she had to. No way was she going home empty-handed.
She kicked the sheets to her ankles and climbed from the bed. She’d just leaned over to scoop up her undies when she felt the whisper of awareness up her spine. Her fingers brushed lace just as Matt’s sexy voice echoed in her ears.
“And here I thought the view from the porch was pretty incredible.”
Hope rushed through her, followed by a burst of uh, oh. She made a mad grab for the sheet, tucking it up under her arms as she whirled. The moment her gaze collided with his, her stomach hollowed out and her heart seemed to pause.
There was just something about the way he looked at her—as if he wanted to look—that made her want to let go of the sheet and her inhibitions.
Never again.
She summoned her irritation and nailed him with a glare. “You should try knocking next time.”
“It’s my bedroom, sugar.” His green eyes sparkled.
“Last I heard, possession was nine-tenths of the law.”
She meant to piss him off, but the comment drew a flash of admiration and a grin. “Good comeback.”
“I do my best work when I’m half-naked.”
His gaze dropped to the sheet and his grin faded into an almost wistful expression. “Get dressed. I’ll be in the kitchen.” And then he turned and walked away.
Once he was out of sight, she inched forward and shut the bedroom door. Throwing the lock on the knob, she snatched up her clothes and ditched the sheet. His scent clung to her T-shirt as she slid it over her head and her thig
hs trembled. She had half a mind to toss the clothes aside and meet him in the kitchen wearing nothing but a smile.
No, her conscience reminded her. No more chances. No more heartache. No more getting wild and crazy with the wrong men.
She finished dressing, then unlocked the door and went out. She found Matt standing near the counter, an open carton of eggs next to him. Bacon sizzled in a nearby frying pan and the smell of coffee curled through the air.
“Have a seat.”
Warmth curled around her and filled the small space as she folded herself into a nearby chair.
“I like my eggs over-easy,” she blurted, eager to distract herself from the crazy thoughts dancing in her head.
Like how sexy he looked with a frying pan in his hands and how she wouldn’t mind seeing him like this each and every morning.
He grinned at her as strong, tanned fingers closed around one of the delicate white eggs. “You’re not eating them, sugar.” He added a few teaspoons of flour to the mixture and whipped it into a thick paste. “You’re wearing them.” He picked up the bowl and stepped toward her.
“Excuse me?”
“The hair shaft is made up of protein,” he told her matter-of-factly. “An egg is protein which feeds the follicle and promotes hair growth.” He set the bowl on the table in front of her. “You spread the paste over your head, wrap it in a warm towel and leave it on for thirty minutes.”
“How many times do you have to do it?”
“Two to three times a week for six weeks is usually enough to see some pretty incredible results. But you’ll see minimal results in as little as a few treatments.”
“This is the secret?” She took a whiff of the egg paste and her nose wrinkled.
“Listen, I know you’re after one ground-breaking cause, but I don’t think it’s any one thing. I do lots of things that promote hair growth,” he said as he came around her, setting the bowl in front of her.
She became acutely aware of his strong, powerful body directly behind her and her nipples tightened.
Love at First Bite Bundle Page 58