Twice Bitten: An Argeneau Novel

by Lynsay Sands

  “Oh,” she breathed and then nodded, and muttered, “Right,” as she turned to continue into the room. She almost closed the door all the way behind her by habit alone, but caught herself at the last moment and made sure it was open an inch or two. She then placed her clothes on the hook on the top of the door and set her underwear on the counter before moving to the shower and turning on the water.

  The shower was in the corner of the bathroom on the hinge side of the door. Wyatt would have had to open the door further and stuck his head in to see anything. Still, she was self-conscious about stripping with the door open even the little bit it was. Turning her back to it, she quickly stripped off her bloodstained pants and the rest of her clothes and then pretty much leapt into the shower, yanking the curtain closed as she went. Big mistake. She should have checked the water first, Elspeth realized as ice-cold water poured over her.

  Gasping in shock, she tried to back quickly out of the water, forgot about the need to step over the lip of the shower base, and tumbled backward through the shower curtain. Elspeth instinctively caught at the sheet of vinyl, trying to save herself, and heard the plink, plink, plink of the curtain holders snapping up to hit the shower rod as the vinyl tore free. The next thing Elspeth knew, she was crashing to the bathroom floor with the vinyl shower curtain as her only cushion. It didn’t do much to protect her head when it hit the tile floor.

  “El!”

  Groaning, Elspeth reached up to cover the back of her head and rolled onto her side into a fetal position as she tried to ride out the pain. It felt like her head was splitting in two, and she was positive the dampness under her fingers must be blood. God, it hurt!

  She was vaguely aware of Wyatt’s concerned voice, and then her hands were forced away so that he could examine her head. It couldn’t be as bad as she’d feared, Elspeth decided when he released a relieved sigh and slid one arm under her legs and the other around her back.

  “How is it?” she asked with a frown. The pain was beginning to recede now, surprisingly quickly, Elspeth noted. Still, it had been terrible just a moment ago, so she kept her eyes closed as he lifted her up off the ground.

  “You’re already developing a goose egg, but you didn’t break the skin, at least, and your skull seems intact,” Wyatt said solemnly as he set her on the bathroom counter.

  “But it felt damp,” she protested, lifting her head and opening her eyes with surprise.

  “Water,” he explained with a crooked smile.

  “Oh,” Elspeth grimaced. Sighing, she shifted her attention to Wyatt and then froze when she saw where his gaze had gone. His eyes were roving hungrily over her body, and she could almost feel his gaze like a touch as it burned its way over her breasts, and then down her stomach and between her legs.

  “Wyatt?” she said gently, surprised at how breathless her voice was. She was panting, Elspeth realized with amazement. The man hadn’t even touched her and she was panting like an overheated dog . . . or a horny one, she thought, recalling Alex’s description.

  “I’m sorry,” Wyatt growled, and turned away to quickly search the room. He spotted the bath towel over the towel rack, grabbed it, and turned back to offer it to her.

  Elspeth automatically reached for it, but froze when their hands touched. For a minute, they just remained like that, both silent and still as shockwaves rolled through them from where they touched, and then Wyatt cleared his throat. His voice a husky rasp of sound, he said, “I know you’re not ready for a life mate, and I—”

  That was as far as he got before Elspeth finished taking the towel from him, let it drop to the floor, and reached for him instead.

  “Oh thank God,” he growled and bent his head to kiss her.

  Kapow didn’t describe the passion that suddenly exploded inside Elspeth as his mouth covered hers. Shocked at the extent of the response her body had to such a simple caress, Elspeth slid her arms around his shoulders and held on in a dazed way as his tongue slid along the seam of her lips. When she opened her mouth and his tongue slid in to explore, she groaned in welcome and instinctively wiggled forward on the countertop, trying to get closer.

  The moment she did that, Wyatt’s hands dropped to her thighs, urging them apart. Elspeth obeyed the silent demand, and spread her legs for him. He immediately stepped between them, moving as close as he could.

  Elspeth gasped, and jerked back a bit, though, when her naked breasts brushed across the cold metal of the guns in his double chest holster.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, and pulled back enough to unsnap and remove the gear.

  Elspeth let her hands glide over his T-shirt–covered chest as he set the gun holster in the sink next to her. When he then turned his attention to the holster at his hip, she let her hands drop to grab the material of his T-shirt just above his belt and began to tug it upward. Dragging the cloth out of his jeans, she pushed it up until she could run her hands over the skin she’d bared.

  Now it was Wyatt’s turn to groan as her fingers skimmed lightly over the rippling muscles of his stomach and up to explore and caress his pecs. The man had some muscle on him, Elspeth noted with appreciation as she squeezed and caressed him, and then she moaned in protest when he broke their kiss.

  “Be careful not to accidentally turn on the taps,” he warned, his voice a sexy growl as he set the hip holster with its gun in the sink as well. He then began to remove his T-shirt. Elspeth helped eagerly, taking over tugging it up over his head. She then let it drop to the floor and covered his hands with an encouraging moan as they suddenly closed over her breasts.

  “God, I thought surely it couldn’t have been as good as I remembered,” he growled, watching her face as he caressed her breasts and rolled her nipples. “I thought I’d built it up in my head, or just gone briefly mad or something, but dear God, just touching you is . . .”

  Rather than finish, he bent to kiss her again. This time the kiss didn’t start softly or as a sweet caress. It was a hungry, almost violent taking on both their parts, a violent battle of tongues as his body urged hers back until she was at a fifty-degree angle to the counter. Giving up her hold on his hands, Elspeth clutched at his shoulders to keep from falling, and then he broke the kiss again, this time to lower his mouth and claim one breast.

  “Oh God,” Elspeth gasped, her hips jumping and then sliding forward on the counter until his body stopped her. They both groaned then as their groins met, pressing against each other through his jeans, and then Elspeth wrapped her legs around his hips and used her hold to urge him tighter still. He began to grind against her as he suckled at her breast.

  It wasn’t long before they both wanted more, though. At least, Elspeth wanted more, and reached for his face with one hand, trying to urge him back up for a kiss. Wyatt responded to the silent request, but not before nipping at the nipple he’d been laving. He let it slip from his mouth then, and raised his head to kiss her again. The moment he did, Elspeth reached for his belt buckle and began feeling around blindly, trying to undo it, a difficult task when she couldn’t see it. Fortunately, Wyatt urged her hands away after a moment of fumbling and quickly undid the belt, and then the button and zipper of his jeans as well. He reached for the material on each side to push his jeans down, but jerked to a halt, even his mouth freezing midkiss as she reached into the open jeans, found him, and carefully pulled him out.

  When Elspeth had him out and was finally able to close her hand around his hard erection, he gasped into her mouth, a sound she echoed as the excitement she’d caused in him reverberated through her own body.

  Once that first shock had slid through her and begun to fade, Elspeth moved her hand, groaning along with him as his pleasure rang through her, making her wiggle on the countertop with excitement and need. She knew he was about to find his satisfaction, because she was too, when Wyatt suddenly caught her hand and jerked it away from him.

  Panting heavily, he leaned his forehead against hers briefly to catch his breath. He then kissed her hard and quick, b
efore dropping to his knees in front of her and burying his face between her legs. When he began to rasp his tongue across her soaking and sensitive skin, Elspeth cried out and grabbed for his head, trying to get him to stop, but it was too late. She was too excited. They both were, and she’d barely touched his head when she felt something press into her. Elspeth froze, her body arching so far back now she was sure it would snap, and then something did snap, something deep inside, a fine gossamer string that had been holding back her release. Without it, she screamed and began to thrash on the countertop, vaguely aware that Wyatt was doing the same between her legs as her release poured over him, pushing him into his own, and then she slid away into the unconsciousness new life mates experienced.

  Eleven

  Wyatt shifted sleepily, and grimaced as his body complained at the hard, cold bed he’d chosen to sleep on. He was getting too old for the rough living necessitated by being in the JTF2, he thought wearily, shifting again and barely restraining a moan when his hip began to throb.

  “Elspeth! Wyatt!”

  Frowning, he opened his eyes and peered with confusion around the smoky room . . . until his brain woke up enough to realize that the smoke in the air was a bad thing and that the room he was in was Elspeth’s bathroom. Cursing, Wyatt sat up abruptly, bumping his shoulder against something as he did. He looked to see what it was and paused, his eyes widening as he saw that it was Elspeth’s knee. She was still seated on the counter; her upper body slumped against the mirror.

  “Wyatt! Elspeth!”

  He turned his head and peered out into the bedroom to find the source of the shouting. He didn’t see anyone, but he did see flames filling the next room. Cursing, Wyatt lunged to his feet and moved to the door, doing up his pants as he went.

  “Thank God!”

  That cry drew his gaze to the door, where Sam and Alex were looking in from the hall. Their faces were riddled with anxiety as they peered at him across the burning room, he saw, coughing in reaction to the smoke he was inhaling now that he was off the floor.

  “Where’s Elspeth?” Sam asked anxiously. “You have to get her out of here.”

  “I’ve got it!” he assured them, an icy calm settling over him as it always did in a crisis. “You get the twins and my grandmother out, and make sure Martine is out of the basement apartment as well. Go!” he barked when they didn’t move at once. “Get everyone else. I’ll see to Elspeth.”

  The women left then, disappearing away up the hall. Wyatt turned back into the bathroom and quickly turned on the shower taps, allowing the water to pour down over him before he stepped out and grabbed the hand towel off the rack beside the sink. He tied the hand towel around his head so that it covered his mouth and nose, offering some protection from the smoke. He grabbed the bath towels off the rack, and tossed them under the spray to soak up the water pouring down, again taking extra time to stick his legs under the spray while there—first one and then the other. Wyatt then grabbed his T-shirt off the floor and stepped under the water with it to let the spray soak the shirt as well as his body and jeans before he stepped out and moved to Elspeth.

  “El, love, wake up,” he murmured, catching her by the shoulders and pulling her upright so that he could put his wet T-shirt on her.

  “Wyatt?” she said sleepily, and then blinked her eyes open with shock as the cold, wet material touched her skin. Wyatt pulled the shirt over her head. Her eyes were closed when he tugged it down to her neck, but opened again as he began to urge one of her arms into a sleeve.

  “What’s happening?” she asked with confusion. “I smell smoke. Do you smoke? I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “Not me, sugar,” he said with a crooked smile as she helped him get her other arm into its sleeve. “The house is smoking. It’s on fire.”

  “What?” That brought her awake in a hurry, a sudden rush of adrenaline no doubt helping as she sat up straight and peered around. When she looked out into the bedroom and saw the fire licking across the floors and up the one wall they could see, she issued a foul curse that made him smile. Damn . . . beautiful, smart, sweet, sexy as hell, mind-blowing in bed—or on the bathroom counter, to be more accurate—and she had a potty mouth. He could love this woman, Wyatt thought with a smile.

  “What happened?” Elspeth growled, slipping off the counter. She was not smiling, he noted, and he couldn’t blame her. His grandmother’s house was going up in smoke, taking Elspeth’s home and belongings with it. It was nothing to smile about, and yet he’d found his El again. After four years of searching, and long after he’d given up on ever having her back, here she was. Nothing was going to take her from him again, not her mother, and not even this fire. He wasn’t letting her go.

  Pulling her away from the door, Wyatt moved back to the shower and retrieved the towels. They were sopping wet and heavy as he quickly wrapped them around her, leaving only a small hole for her to breathe through. He then scooped her up and carried her to the bedroom door. The fire was following a starburst pattern from the middle of the room outward, and he was pretty sure he could smell gas. A Molotov cocktail, then. Nice, he thought with disgust. Definitely not an accident.

  Mouth compressing, Wyatt tightened his hold on Elspeth and launched himself into hell. That’s what it felt like. The air was so hot it was painful to breathe, so Wyatt held his breath. But there was nothing he could do about the fire that licked at his feet and lower legs as he ran through the flames to the bed. When he reached it, Wyatt simply leapt on top and ran across the soft mattress. He pushed off hard, and leapt high when he reached the side nearest the French doors. Still, he came down several feet short of them, his feet disappearing in the flames as he landed, but Wyatt simply continued forward, charging through the broken glass from the shattered door to get out onto the balcony where cool night air greeted them.

  Wyatt didn’t stop until he reached the railing. Pausing then, he set Elspeth down and quickly unwound the towel from around her legs. She needed mobility for him to lower her down to his grandmother’s porch.

  Wyatt straightened from the task to find Elspeth had removed the upper towel as well and was now peering sadly back into her burning bedroom.

  “El?” he said gently. “We have to go.”

  Nodding, she turned back to him and then frowned as she looked him over. “You got burned.”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her and urged her closer to the rail. “I’m going to lower you to Gran’s porch and—”

  “I can climb,” she interrupted. “Do you want me to help you?”

  Wyatt smiled crookedly at the offer, but shook his head. “I’m good. Let’s get moving. The fire hasn’t spread to the porch yet, but it still could.”

  Elspeth nodded and began to climb over the rail. Wyatt followed suit, throwing one leg over the rail and then quickly lowering himself even as Elspeth did. When she swung out and dropped to the grass in front of his grandmother’s porch, he did as well, and then he caught her arm to urge her away.

  “Oh thank God!”

  Wyatt glanced down with surprise as he was suddenly caught up in a ridiculously tight hug by Alex, he saw. She’d approached so quickly he hadn’t even seen her coming, and now she lifted him off his feet briefly, and then set him back down and clasped his face, pulling him down to buss his cheek. “You saved her. And yourself. We’re so glad you’re both okay.”

  Alex had barely finished saying that before she released him and switched places with Sam, whom he now saw releasing Elspeth. Alex caught El up in a hug now even as Sam rushed around her to hug him as well. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! And thank God you were here! We never could have got to her.”

  Wyatt chuckled and patted the woman’s back, his gaze now moving around the backyard just in time to see Julianna and Victoria rush around the corner of the burning house and hurry toward them. His grandmother and Martine followed, the two women moving at almost a jog, which was as good as a full-on run for his elderly grandmother. She looked fine, though, he note
d with relief. They all did.

  “How are you?” Sam asked, pulling back to look up at him with concern.

  “I’m good,” he assured her, stepping back. “I—” The word ended on a grunt as the twins reached them and both threw themselves at him at once, nearly knocking him over before he managed to regain his balance.

  “Thank you for saving Elspeth, Wyatt,” Julianna said, hugging him tightly. “And thank goodness you’re all right too.”

  “How do you know she didn’t save me?” he asked with amusement.

  “I read it from your mind as we rushed up,” she said easily, and then gave him another squeeze, and slid away to hug Elspeth.

  “Thank you,” Victoria said simply and gave him another squeeze as well before following Julianna.

  “Wyatt?”

  Turning back at that anxious cry, Wyatt hurried toward his grandmother, intent on making sure she was okay too.

  “You’re good?”

  Elspeth smiled at that question from Julianna. “Yes. Perfect. Not a blister or splinter.”

  “Good, good.” Julianna hugged her again and then said, “But Wyatt was hurt.”

  “Yes, I saw that he had a bit of scorching on one arm,” Elspeth admitted, her worried gaze sliding to the man as he greeted his grandmother. She noticed her mother standing next to the pair, talking on the phone, but then glanced back to Julianna as she continued speaking.

  “Not his arms, although he has more than a bit of scorching there,” she said solemnly. “His feet and lower legs are badly burned from running through the fire, and his feet are cut up pretty bad too . . . from the broken glass from the French door.”

  Cursing, Elspeth turned and rushed over to where Wyatt was talking quietly with Meredith.

  “I’m fine, Gran, really,” he was saying as she reached them.