Eilidh lets out a squeal as I blur through the doorway, grab her, pin her against the wall with my body, and kiss the hell out of her.
Fuck.
I’ve.
Missed.
Her.
“You are getting one hell of a spanking, girl,” I mumble against her lips as her fingers twine in my hair, and she hooks a leg around the back of mine.
“But—”
“Shh. I’m not done kissing you yet. First the kissing, then the spanking.” With my lips slanted over hers, I take full ownership of her and her mouth. My erection strains the front of my jeans, and I press it along the notch in her thighs and start grinding. She moans into my mouth as her body molds against mine.
This. I’ve had nightmares about never holding her in my arms again, so this is blissful relief, to have her wrapped around my body once more. I grab her ass and hike her up so she can drape her legs around my waist.
Yessss. This is much better. The scent of her arousal fills my senses, and I’m already reaching down to unfasten her jeans when behind us, the vampire chuckles.
“Oh, no. Please, don’t mind me, Dexter. Make yourself right at home. Ravish my helper in my foyer. Go right ahead. It’s not like we have beds or anything for that purpose.”
I can’t quit kissing her, so she mumbles it against my lips. “Dexter, Chaldis Bianchi. Chaldis, Dexter Van Sussex.”
I blindly extend a hand behind me, and Chaldis shakes with me.
“I’ll give you two a moment,” he says, chuckling again as he steps out of the foyer.
She’s the most beautiful sight in the world. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. You are forbidden to ever leave me again.”
Her beautiful violet eyes stare up at me, all humor draining from her. “It showed up at the club,” she quietly says. “I had to lead it away from you all.”
“Lucius and I watched the security camera footage. You are never allowed to do that again. We face it together. Besides, I think we have a lead.” I lean in for another kiss, but she pushes on my chest and unwraps her legs from my waist.
“Wait, what? What lead?”
I steal another kiss and then tell her what we’ve discovered about the stone rings. “So, we need to return to Wales with your ring. I think maybe—”
“Wearing it might trigger the appearance of the thing?” she asks.
“Yes. Perhaps even during full moons. How did you know?”
“Lucky guess. You put it on that morning when we took our shower. And I think in the past that’s triggered it.”
I run her hair through my fingers. “We can leave tonight. Full moon in five days. We can try again right there.”
“No, we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have a job, Fangster Hunkadoofalus. I can’t leave until Corbin comes back. Although…” She looks thoughtful.
“Although what?”
“Chaldis!” she calls out. He almost immediately reappears, still holding the crossbow.
“Yes?”
She rolls her eyes at him. “Dude, put that down. Dexter’s fine. Listen. Where in Georgia is Corbin?”
Chaldis frowns. “Not far outside Atlanta. Why?”
My girl smiles up at me and wraps her arms around my neck. “If I agree to the spanking, can I ask a favor? Sir?”
“You’ll get the spanking regardless, girl.”
“I’m serious, Dexter.”
“So am I.” I deliver a playful swat to the seat of her jeans. “You aren’t going to sit easily for a few weeks, once I’m finished with you.”
“How’d you find me, anyway?”
“In a moment. What’s the favor?” Like I could honestly tell her no about anything within my power to give or do.
But she’s absolutely still getting the spanking.
“We need to transport Chaldis to the funeral in Georgia, so he can be with Corbin, and put him up in the appropriate housing, and get him safely back to Alaska.”
“Done. When do we need to leave?”
“Wait, what?” Chaldis asks. “Can we back up a little?”
When my girl smiles, the world feels like it’s righted itself—finally. “We’re going to fly you to Atlanta on Dexter’s private plane, so you can be with Corbin for his brother’s funeral. And we’ll put you up.” She looks like she just got another idea. “Oh! That was Mark at the gate earlier, wasn’t it? I thought I recognized the voice.”
“Yes. And Noah.” I lean in and playfully nibble the side of her neck. “And that was very naughty of you, threatening to shoot Noah after he was nice enough to agree to come with me to help track you. He’s Garrett’s cousin from Seattle.” I pull out my phone, so I can call Mark and John, but find I have no cell signal, dammit.
She takes the phone from me, quickly swipes into settings, and plugs me into the house’s Wi-Fi. “There. No cell service out here, sorry.”
I reach down and swat her ass again, enough to make her playfully yelp. “Thank you, love.”
Chaldis points to her. “You owe her dinner, by the way. I’d promised to grill us steaks on the deck tonight, but we thought you were coming to attack us, so she got homemade chicken pot pie instead.”
Yeah, I do feel a little bad about that. “Sorry.”
She sticks her tongue out at me, but the way her eyes crease at the outer edges tells me she’s trying not to laugh. “Be really sorry about the crispy truffle potatoes. That really torqued me.”
“Can we let Mark, John, and Noah in?” I ask. “They’re down at the gate.”
I notice Chaldis looks to Eilidh, who gives him a thumbs up before he nods in response. She walks over to a control panel and hits the intercom button. “Mark, John, it’s Eilidh. Come on down to the house. Everything’s fine. We didn’t shoot Fangster Hunkadoofalus. And you can bring your wolf friend, Noah, if he’s not still pissing himself after I scared him. I promise I won’t shoot him, either.”
“Thanks,” Mark replies, when he gets done laughing. “We’ll be right there.”
Chaldis wears an annoying smirk. “You let your girl call you Fangster Hunkadoofalus, hmm? Interesting pet name. My boy just calls me Master. Perhaps I should renegotiate that.”
“It’s not so much a matter of ‘let’ as it is we’re still in the early stages of defining our dynamic.” I reach out and swat her ass again. “It’s growing on me. Although I think I prefer Sir.”
“Hold up,” she says, looking at me. “That was you in the crate I saw getting off-loaded from the plane earlier today, wasn’t it?”
“Guilty.”
“You mean you’ve been hanging out in the back of a fricking panel van until it got dark?”
“Well, yes. You nearly shot poor Noah.”
“‘Poor Noah’ could’ve nutted up and said he was with you, you know. They could’ve backed the van into the garage and we could’ve unloaded you there. It’s light-proof. The whole house is vampire-safe during daylight.”
“I told him not to reveal who he was, unless you tried to kill him. I didn’t want you to run again before I could speak with you in person. I’m considering handcuffing you to me, by the way.”
Chaldis looks far too amused by this turn of events. “I’ll loan you a pair of ours if you promise to return them cleaned of bodily fluids.”
Outside, I hear the men arrive. I let them in and make the introductions to Chaldis, and formally introduce Noah to Eilidh.
Noah chuffs. “Lady, all due credit, you gotta set of balls on you,” he says as he shakes with her. “Garrett warned me you can handle yourself, but that’s the first time a human’s ever got the jump on me. Especially a human female.”
“I recognized your voice from the gate intercom. Also, I smelled you in town, at the grocery store.”
He scowls. “How?”
I lean in. “I did warn you she’s not your average human.”
The wolf carefully eyes her. “I’m gettin’ that.”
“Let me call Luciu
s and Garrett and tell them you’ve been found,” I add.
She sticks her tongue out at me again and I pull her in for another long, deep kiss, followed by another hard smack on her ass. “You, baby, are in sooo much trouble.”
“How did you find me, anyway?”
“Jackson King’s mate, Kylie. She’s a hacker. She finally discovered you’d taken the ferry to Alaska. Spotted your license plate and then was able to trace that you were a passenger, and where you disembarked. From there, we tracked down blood shipments coming to this area and narrowed the options.”
“Goddammit,” she mutters. “I knew I should’ve stolen a license plate somewhere.”
John laughs. “Good job, by the way. You should give classes in hiding out. I have never seen this man so frustrated as he has been searching for you.”
“Frustrated, hmm?”
“Very,” I growl as I give her another long kiss.
“I take it this means my blood shipment wasn’t tampered with?” Chaldis asks.
“No, it wasn’t,” I tell him. “Sorry about intercepting it. I charmed and bribed a guy at the freight company in Anchorage to let us take it. Please, don’t be upset with him.”
“Couldn’t have hijacked my cocotte, I suppose?” He sighs. “I would have thrown you a literal hero’s welcome had you done that.”
“What?”
Eilidh groans and rubs her forehead like she’s trying to hold on to her patience. “Dude. You have three other fricking Dutch ovens you could use. Pick one!”
“But I wish to use that one!”
I leave them to their friendly bickering, which apparently also has something to do with Star Wars, and step into the living room to make my calls to Lucius and Garrett, so they can call off the search.
By the time I return, Eilidh’s detailing to John and Mark the logistics she wants arranged for Chaldis and Corbin—who I assume is the vampire’s human partner—and my men are already making notes.
“Needless to say,” Chaldis says, “you are all welcome to stay here. The night is rather short, and we have plenty of room.”
Noah clears his throat. “If it’s all the same to you, no offense, I’d prefer to stay back in town at the hotel. Garret vouches for you, Dexter, but in all honesty, I won’t get a bit of sleep here. Sorry. Nothing personal.”
“No worries,” I tell him. “Meet us here around four in the afternoon.”
“Will do.” He bids us all good-night and departs.
Eilidh looks at Chaldis. “Remind me to tell Jarred in the morning that Noah’s okay after all. I might have given him shoot-to-kill orders. I’ll tell them he’s an old friend of Corbin’s.”
Chaldis laughs. “I shall remember that.”
After Eilidh shows John and Mark to their guest rooms, I pull her into her room and close the door. “About that spanking, love.”
“Can we do it later? I want to get these arrangements nailed down while you’re still awake.”
I kiss her again. I cannot stop kissing her. “Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
* * *
Eilidh
“Yeah, well, I do feel a little guilty about that.”
I really do. But hey, this works out all right, if we have a chance of solving my phantom dog problem.
And if we can get Chaldis to Corbin’s side.
“Never run from me again, Eilidh,” he growls. “I will always chase you, love.” Dexter sits on the side of my bed. Before I can even process it, he’s unfastened my jeans, yanked them and my panties down, and pulls me face down over his lap. “For starters, I love you.” SMACK!
“Ow! Motherfucker!” That was no playful swat. I try to sit up, but it’s like pushing against a damned glacier. “That hurt!”
“It was supposed to, love.” SMACK! That one hurts nearly as much. “Either take it, or safeword. You scared the hell out of me. I love you, and apparently I need to do a better job of showing you.” SMACK! At least he rubs that one in.
I twist around enough so I can stare up into his eyes. “You…love me?”
“Yes. I thought I’d made that clear to you, but apparently, I didn’t.” He meets my gaze with a steady one of his own. “So, either safeword and tell me I completely misread you, or settle in, girl, and take your spanking.”
Epic.
Stare-down.
I break first. “I love you, too,” I whisper.
He flips me over and sits me upright, so he can kiss me again. “I don’t know what part of ‘I am sinfully rich and will figure this out for you’ didn’t clearly come through in my actions before, but I am, and I will. Do you want to be mine?”
I nod. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, though.”
“That is not your worry. It’s mine. Step one is you stop running and let me take care of you.”
“What’s step two?”
His gaze narrows as his lips curve in a very predatory smile. “We’re going to finish this spanking. Which, to be clear, is only the first of many. This is a ‘fuck I’m glad I found you and you’re safe’ spanking. And you will take it.”
“So, I just, what, let go and let Dex be Dex?”
“Exactly, sweetheart.” His gaze softens and I realize he’s listening to my pulse.
To my fear.
“Are you scared of me?” he softly asks.
I shake my head.
One left eyebrow—arched.
“No, Sir,” I whisper.
“Good. But you should be.” He immediately flips me face down over his lap again. “You belong to me, Eilidh. You’re never to run away like that again. We face threats together, understand?” He resumes spanking me.
I try kicking my feet, but that’s not doing anything except earning me harder smacks. “Yes, Sir!”
“I love you, Eilidh, and you will let me take care of you and protect you.” SMACK SMACK SMACK! “I promise you, I will figure out what this is, and keep you safe.”
Kicking and squirming is difficult when my jeans are still bunched up around my feet and shoes, but then he slides two fingers between my legs and straight into my pussy.
Which is wet for him.
The cooter can’t lie. At least, mine can’t. Damn sure can’t lie to him.
All the squirmy fight goes right out of me, making him chuckle. “That’s right, sweetheart. This belongs to me, too. The pain and the pleasure.”
He fingers me and gets me nearly to the point of coming when he yanks his hand out and starts spanking me again.
Holy fates!
Time folds and compresses as he repeats this, spanking and fingering me but not letting me come. By the time he finishes the spanking, my ass feels hot and stinging, making the contrast of his cool hand rubbing and massaging my ass cheeks much more dramatic.
“Are we in agreement, girl? No more running?”
I sniffle back tears. “Yes, Sir.”
“Repeat after me, ‘Sir will take care of and protect me.’”
Saying that terrifies me. How stupid is that? “Sir will take care of and protect me.”
“Good girl. Now say, ‘I will not run from Sir.’”
“I will not run from Sir.”
“Excellent.” When he sits me up, I wobble a little, and he’s smiling as he steadies me. “That’s just a starter. You will be getting a much harder one later.”
I’m not even mad. “Okay.”
“Okay?” He arches an eyebrow at me.
“Yes…Sir?”
That earns me another kiss. “Sooo much better, baby.” He nuzzles his nose against mine. “I’ll let you come later, when we go to bed. For now, let’s rejoin the others.”
I nod. “Yes, Sir.”
He stares into my eyes. “You have me, and Garrett, and Lucius ready to fight for you. I know you’ve been alone a long time. So have I. But I swear to you, I would not give you hope if I didn’t think we can figure this out and beat it. I will never lie to you. Ever. I just need you to trust me.”
I t
hrow my arms around him, burying my face against his neck. “I missed you so much. I’m sorry I scared you.”
He wraps his arms around me, holding me. “I hope you’re still happy to see me after your next spanking, love.”
He helps me put myself back together. By the time we return to the living room, John’s already notified the pilot about our plans to fly to Atlanta, and has reserved several suites for us not far from where we need to be. With that handled, Chaldis retreats to his bedroom to call Corbin and tell him.
When he returns a few minutes later, I can tell he’s been crying. He walks over and hugs me, then Dexter. “Thank you so much. My boy and I are forever in your debt for this kindness.”
What little alpha male-Dom-vamp-whatever posturing Dex might have still been feeling evaporates, because I see the way he relaxes and genuinely hugs Chaldis back. “It is I who am in your debt for keeping my girl safe.”
They end their embrace and both of them look at me. “I’m not sure how much assistance she needs in that department, Dexter. She’s amazing. Truly. It’s been wonderful having her here helping me. I can see why Neimus spoke so very highly of her.”
Dexter looks shocked as he returns to my side. “You know Neimus?”
“Um, yeeeah? He was my first vampire boss. The one who taught me the pencil trick. He hooked me up with Chaldis. Why?”
Dexter looks shook. “I just…” He takes a deep breath, his gaze unfocusing for a moment. “I told you about my grandson.” I’m guessing he means the one he turned, so I nod. “They were friends. Neimus is the one who told me of his death.”
“Oh.”
Dexter runs a hand through his hair. “Once life settles down, love, please remind me that I wish to reconnect with him.”
“Yeah, will do.”
Dawn quickly catches up with the vampires. Chaldis locks himself in his bedroom, and Dexter and I retreat to mine after Mark and John bring him his things.
“I must admit, love, you found a perfect hideaway. Except for the hellishly unreasonable hours.” We strip, and I let him pull me into his arms, where he kisses me. “You’re still getting another thorough spanking.”
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