by L. J. Red
“Help me get these off,” I said as I struggled with my pants. Obligingly, he ran his hands down my side, making me shiver, before pulling my pants loose. I kicked them off somewhere behind the couch. Then he pulled my top off and unhooked my bra in one deft move, flinging them off somewhere above my head. “God,” he said, his voice rough and humming with arousal. “You don’t know how you look.” He rose up for a moment and stared down at me. I couldn’t hide my body’s reaction to his heavy-lidded gaze, my nipples pebbling, my muscles pulling taut. The way he looked at me, like he was drinking me in. I felt vulnerable, turned on and trembling with desire. His palms were hot on my sides, striking over my skin like he couldn’t bear to let go.
I couldn’t stop touching him either, reaching out and tracing the lines of his muscles, trailing my fingers over his shoulders, down his chest. His hair was tousled, not thanks to the wind for once but thanks to me. His lips were a bruised red from our kisses. I wanted to lick and bite and mark him up like I was an artist and he was my canvas, but the look in his eyes, I couldn’t bear it a moment longer. It was too much. I arched up against him and kissed him deeply, pulling back to meet his eyes. “I want you inside me.”
“As my lady desires,” he said, and rolled his hips against mine, his hard length coming teasingly close to my entrance.
He pinned me down with his bulk but instead of entering me like I yearned for him to do, he slipped his hand between my legs, quick clever fingers teasing open my swollen lips and darting inside, gently, slowly building a sweet burn in my core until I was jerking my hips against his hand, movements uncoordinated, ready and wet for him, hazy with desire. Desperate for something harder, thicker, faster. Hot, so hot, I was burning up. It had been so long, so fucking long, and no one played my body like he did. He knew every inch of me, every twist and flick to make me lose myself. I didn’t stand a chance. I flexed my hips, unable to get any real leverage. He had me completely pinned and at his mercy. “For fuck’s sake, Valerian,” I growled, gripping his shoulders tight. “Stop being such a fucking tease.” He laughed low and rough and I both loved and hated the sound. “I know you get off on this shit,” I said, “but if you don’t get me off right fucking now, I’m going to—” I broke off as his fingers thrust deep inside me, a delightful twist at the end of every stroke that rubbed against that centre of pleasure deep inside me.
Still gasping, my breath escaped into his mouth as he captured mine in a kiss, lifting his lips and raising slick fingers to trail against my bottom lip before thrusting them inside my mouth. I sucked his fingers into my mouth, tasting myself, feverish with desire. I caught his eyes and held them, curling my tongue around the pads of his fingers. He wanted to play dirty? Two could play at that game. I looked up at him from under my eyelashes and hollowed my cheeks, sucking on his fingers and at the same time arching against the couch cushions so that my breasts pressed against his chest.
He literally shuddered around me, his eyes so black with lust they were almost all pupil. “Fuck, Tiana, you, you’re so… you don’t know what you do to me,” he said, breaking off into a curse.
I pulled my lips from his fingers, arching my head back. I had a moment to realize I was baring my neck to a vampire. His eyes dark, his fangs white against his lips. I gasped as he bent his head to me, but he didn’t bite, just pressed a kiss to the choker that was still tied around my neck, so close to the scar he had left on my skin four years ago. The memory caught, shattered, and fell apart under the onslaught of his lips. He nipped and licked his way across from the underside of my jaw down my throat and across my collarbone, erasing, just for tonight, the memory of what had gone before. But I was done with kisses, done with foreplay. I needed him inside me.
I hooked my legs around his torso and flexed so that our bodies were flush and he could feel how hot and wet I was for him. “Stop playing around, Valerian,” I whispered. “Get inside me.” I finished with a quick flick of my tongue to the curve of his ear.
Finally, finally, he did as I urged, holding me tight and pushing into me. I exhaled roughly, all the air leaving my lungs at once. The stretch was indescribable. I spread my legs wider, welcoming him in. Feeling invaded in all the best ways, tilting my hips toward him, wanting more.
My grip on his shoulders was tight and a good thing too, because he didn’t give me a moment to catch my breath, but started to ride me hard. My body shuddered with every thrust as he drove me deeper into the couch cushions. His hands roamed over my body until I was drowning in sensation, like all my insides had turn molten.
I raked my nails down his back as he invaded my senses and assaulted my every nerve. He filled me up until I overflowed with pleasure, until I had no choice but to surrender to the feelings scattering and fracturing through my body. Rough stubble against my cheek, the tightening curl of arousal, the smooth glide of his hand over my body, the blunt pressure of his cock inside me, all of it joining and building, higher and higher, until finally it burst over me like an explosion. Blinding and heady. I could barely breathe, I was delirious with pleasure. I felt dangerous, untamed and feral as I shook through aftershock upon aftershock. I felt Valerian pulse deep inside me, hot and powerful, and he clutched me close, his body racked with shudders as his orgasm met mine.
The connection between us seemed not just in the air, but in our bodies, our bones, our flesh, our blood. Reflecting our desire back like facets of a diamond, over and over again until I was strung out, raw and spent. Until I didn’t think I could ever move again. I lay in his arms and sank into the heavy embrace of total exhaustion. My mind finally was still.
I don’t know how long we lay there, worn out by lovemaking, bodies entwined. The rest of the night came to me in pieces. At some point we left the couch. I remembered the warm patter of water droplets from the shower, the thick softness of a towel, and cool, crisp sheets underneath me. I must have slept because when I opened my eyes, I was lying in his bed alone.
All around me was a vast expanse of clean sheets. The room was a solid black, of course, no vampire apartment would be complete without blackout curtains, but when I stumbled over to the windows and pulled the blinds aside, I found I’d slept right through the day. The fading sunset reflected off the mirrored windows of the high-rises around me.
I’d left my clothes somewhere in the other room, so I pushed open the door to Valerian’s walk-in closet and pulled out one of his shirts. The soft fabric slid onto my body with the same smooth glide as his touch last night, my sensitized skin lighting up and his scent curling all around me. I flashed back to last night, to that glorious, faceted orgasm, and my body clenched in an aftershock.
Fuck.
I stepped back into the bedroom. I could feel my vast, shivering grief hovering over me, just waiting for its chance to crush me entirely. If sleeping with Valerian was what I needed to do to keep it at bay, then I would keep doing it until it stopped working. It was just sex. I wasn’t going to let my heart get involved. I wasn’t going to trust him like I had before. A tiny voice in the back of my mind whispered that it was too late, that I was already falling. I ignored the voice, slammed the door on it inside my head and walked out into the main room.
Valerian was sitting at the dining table, a laptop open in front of him. It took me a moment to realize it was mine.
Chapter 32
“Hey,” I said. “That’s my laptop.”
“Your security isn’t for shit,” Valerian said, smirking at me. I felt it go right through my body stealing my breath, and it took me a moment to reply. His eyes had gone dark, and I forced myself not to react, strode over to him and plucked the machine out of his hands.
“What are you even looking at?” I said, staring at the screen instead of his face.
“Case files,” he said after a moment. “In case you’d forgotten, you’re supposed to be sharing everything with me.”
“Your queen hired me,” I said, my eyes flicking to him, then away quickly, he was still staring with that same int
ensity. “You’re just an overpaid bodyguard,” I said flippantly.
He growled, grabbing my hand and turning it over so he could drop a kiss on my palm. I shivered at having his mouth so close to my pulse, he dropped a kiss on my wrist, a quick lick of his tongue on the fluttering pulse there. I swallowed thickly. Heat was rising all over my body, a twisting pulse deep between my legs. Too much, too quick. I tugged my hand back. I needed to keep a clear head. He didn’t say anything, just relaxed his grip and let me pull my hand away. His dark eyes watching me, seeing too much.
“I don’t have anything anyway,” I said, turning back to the laptop and trying to roll the tension from my shoulders. “No new leads—” I broke off at the sight of a flashing email icon and clicked on it. “Wait a minute,” I said, leaning forward. The information from Michelle’s phone had been compiled.
Valerian stood and braced one hand on the chair behind me, the other on the table, bracketing me in. I was hyper-aware of his presence. It was even worse than before. If I’d thought sleeping with him would get the unruly attraction to him out of my system, I was wrong. It had done the opposite, dialed everything up a hundred percent, and it was a struggle to focus on the screen.
“Here.” I pulled up the map. “This was everywhere she went in the last week. That’s her apartment, next to mine. There’s the coven,” I said, pointing at the community center. “University district, that makes sense.” There were a bunch of different spots there. I was guessing they would correspond to lecture halls, her office, the cafeteria. “But this,” I said. “What’s this?” There was another point on the map. Not that far from where we were. Another apartment building perhaps? But Michelle definitely wasn’t earning enough to be able to afford an apartment round here.
I glanced over my shoulder at Valerian. “Do you recognize it?”
“No,” he said, “but we should check it out.” I straightened and took one step to the door before remembering I wasn’t wearing any clothes except for Valerian’s shirt. I glanced around. “Over there,” he said, lazily pointing, an unmistakably smug look in his eyes. I blushed wildly, hating the way my treacherous body warmed at his expression. I tried to hold onto my dignity as I rummaged around the couch for my jeans, pulling them on and tucking his shirt into my waistband. “No bra?” he asked and I shivered at the rough satisfaction in his voice.
I straightened and crossed the ground between us until he was a hair’s breadth away, reaching across the table toward him until I was so close I could see his pupils dilate. Then I grabbed my jacket from the corner chair, tugging it over my shoulders and zipping it up tight to my collar. “Down boy,” I said, feeling like I was balancing on a knife blade. “We’ve got a job to do,” I stepped away from him.
The basement parking lot looked exactly the same as last night. The same strip lighting, the same shiny cars. I slid into the seat, pulling my laptop open in front of me and looking down at the screen to direct Valerian. “Turn right out of here,” I said as we drove past a parked red BMW and a black sedan tucked in the corner next to the ramp.
The address was about six blocks away, heading north. It was a matter of minutes to reach it. The night was fresh and new as Valerian pulled up outside, and we were just wondering how to get in when I suddenly caught sight of a very familiar face stepping into the entranceway. “Shit,” I said, “look, is that—”
Valerian followed my gaze. “Kyran,” he growled. I shoved my door open and crossed the road quickly, sprinting between the cars. “Hey,” I shouted. Kyran turned, his eyes widening, and he made to run off, but Valerian was suddenly behind him, blocking his exit.
“Fuck,” he swore.
I strode up to him. “Fuck is right,” I said. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” he said.
“Not what it looks like?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Because it looks pretty fucking bad to me. You’re standing in the same place that Michelle visited ten times before she died.”
He rocked back as if struck by an invisible blow. “Dead?” he asked and his voice cracked. “Michelle is dead?”
I pulled up short, totally blindsided by his reaction. “Yeah,” I said grimly. “Dead.”
“No,” he said. “No, no, not dead, not Michelle. She can’t be.”
He sounded desperate as hell. He sounded heartbroken. I looked over his shoulder and caught my own confusion reflected back in Valerian’s eyes. Kyran had brought his hands to his face, but now he dropped them, stared at me with empty eyes. “You’re wrong, you have to be wrong,” he growled, and took an angry step toward me. Before he could take another, Valerian was on him. Shoving him into the wall and holding him there, a thick forearm across his throat.
“No, no!” Kyran shouted, but he was uncoordinated, unable to throw Valerian off. His eyes were glassy. I took a step toward them both, glancing around us. Our little stand-off was starting to gather a crowd. This wasn’t how I’d expected this to go down. “So, you did know her?” I asked him when I was close enough.
“Know her?” Kyran said bitterly, finally slumping in Valerian’s grip. “I love her,” he said finally. I stared at him, speechless with shock.
“We should take this inside,” Valerian said, and I finally tore my eyes from Kyran.
“Yeah, okay.” I pushed the door open to the lobby. “Come on,” Valerian gripped Kyran by the elbow implacably and shoved him forward in front of us. “Which floor,” I said when we reached the elevator.
“Seven,” he said in a dull voice.
He looked broken. It was creeping me out. I’d never seen him like this before, like he’s given up. “Dead,” he kept whispering. “She can’t be.” I didn’t like it.
Kyran led us to a classy apartment. If I hadn’t just come from Valerian’s penthouse, I might have been more impressed. “Talk,” I said as Valerian dumped Kyran on the couch.
Kyran dropped his head into his hands. “What’s there to say?” he spat. “She’s dead. None of it matters anymore.”
“What? What doesn’t matter?”
“Our plans,” he said, raising his head, his eyes were shiny with tears. “We were going to escape together,” he said. “Get away from this place, from the court, from Alexandra, from all of it.”
“Wait, slow down.” I raised my hand. “You and Michelle?” I said, unable to believe it. “You and Michelle were together?”
“Yes,” he spat. “What, you think you and Valerian are the only vampire-witch pair to ever exist? I loved her, damn it, but Alexandra wouldn’t let me go near her.”
Valerian jerked as if electrified. I frowned at him, distracted. His expression was blank, almost masklike, a strange glitter in his eyes. “What did Michelle find out?” he asked. I frowned. Find out? What was he talking about? What had made him twitch like that, what had Kyran said that shocked him?
Kyran didn’t seem to understand what he was asking either. “I don’t know. Nothing,” he said. “All I wanted was to get her away from the court. Away from everything. I wanted to protect her.”
“Protect her from what? You’re the only danger here. You’re the one who’s been draining and killing these people.” I was pushing him, but even as I said it I knew I didn’t believe it. His grief was real. He was breaking apart right in front of me. Kyran hadn’t killed anyone.
“No,” he snarled. “I didn’t touch them, all right? I know you think I’m some kind of monster, but you’re wrong. With Michelle it was different. She changed me. We were together, we were forever.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” I snapped. “Forever doesn’t exist. There’s no magical fucking bond of love between vampires. You psychos aren’t even capable of love.” But for the first time I wasn’t so sure. Kyran wasn’t behaving like I expected him to behave. His grief seems genuine, real and raw.
He was openly crying now, tears trailing down his cheeks. “I loved her,” he ground out. “And Alexandra forbid me to go near her. Forbid me to to
uch her, to be with her. I couldn’t take it. We were going to escape together; we were going to run away.”
“She wouldn’t have done that. She wouldn’t have left everything behind,” I said, but I remembered the message she had left on my phone. How frantic she had been to speak to me. Was that what she had wanted to tell me? That she was leaving? Had she been afraid to mention it before because she knew what had happened between me and the vampires? Had she wanted to say goodbye
“Why would Alexandra forbid you to be with her, humans are all over the court, what’s so bad about you and Michelle?”
“You don’t understand,” Kyran growled. “She wants to keep us here, control us. A mundane is one thing, but a withc? Alexandra and magic—” he choked off.
“What about Alexandra and magic?” I asked, fear sliding through my spine. I remembered the strange proposition Alexandra had made me. The strange way she had talked about my magic and my sister’s.
“She would never have let me take her. You don’t realize how powerful she is. Look at what she did to Gloria just for touching you.”
“Gloria?” I frowned. What the hell did Gloria have to do with anything? I looked across at Valerian but his expression was that smooth blank mask, no help at all.
“She was punished,” Kyran said. “Alexandra tortured her in front of the entire court. She barely had enough blood in her body to crawl.”
My breath caught. I hadn’t seen Gloria when I went to court the second time. I hadn’t looked for her. I hadn’t realized I needed to. Could Alexandra really have tortured her almost to the point of death? If you drained a vampire of blood, they would dry up and shrivel into something that was barely even alive, a kind of half death that could linger for years until they were desperate to be released into death or madness.